Checkmate

"Who's the more foolish; the fool, or the fool who follows him?" - Obi-Wan Kenobi

“You don’t have any kids?” he questioned me with a hint of sarcastic surprise in his voice. Followed closely by “and come to think of it, you don’t even have any grand-kids!” I couldn't suppress the laughter that was bubbling inside of me and it began to slip out as I tried to remain focused and serious.

Then the first match ended almost before it began. I should have seen it coming. The first pawn of mine that was taken resulted in check-mate. So as suddenly as we started it was over. I don’t take losing easily and wasn't going to let that happen again, despite my lack of experience in playing chess, compared to the 72 year old retired English teacher with an Afro that was sitting across from me.

Your Essay Sucks

I had the opportunity to talk with my best friend growing up about my personal essay.  He's not a member of the church, so I figured he would be a good candidate for getting genuine, valuable feedback on my essay.  He told me that he really wanted to talk to me on the phone rather than email me or text me his response to my essay.  I had let him know ahead of time the reason I wrote the personal essay (that I hoped to be able to share my faith well through my personal essay), so he had an idea of what to look for.


He let me know that he thought the essay sucked!  He said he wanted to speak with me on the phone because he didn't want to be offensive due to how impersonal a text or an email can be.  He let me know that he felt like I was just putting in a plug for the Book of Mormon that didn't tie in very well to my personal essay, something that I had been thinking all along.  I'm going to focus on tying in the Book of Mormon better into my personal essay.  He mentioned making the Book of Mormon section more personal by including how it helped me or something like that, rather than just simply relating a story that happened to be somewhat similar to my personal experience.  I felt like that was a very valuable insight that I'll try to incorporate into my revisions of my essay.

Aside from going over the my personal essay, we had a very good conversation and caught up a little bit on our lives.  Even though he's not a member of the church, he knows quite a bit about the church because of me and my family.  He is very willing to let me know how he thinks about things regarding the church, which is very valuable to me because it helps me see the church from an outsider's perspective.  This outsider's perspective helps me know how to share the gospel better with nonmembers.

All things considered, this conversation was very valuable because it a) has helped me to know how to get my personal essay to a point where a nonmember would be more likely to read it or pay any attention to it and b) has helped me have an opportunity to catch up with my friend and share my beliefs without being preachy or being awkwardly direct about my beliefs.

Finally Opening Up

My best friend and I at a beach in
Mexico.

Reading my personal essay to my friend, I was really nervous about what she would think. I don't normally talk about the subject I chose to write about, and she had moved before the scenario happened. She never really knew what I was feeling or what was going on because I had distanced myself from my friends, because in my 15 year old mind, that was being strong.

After running Color Me Rad.

She really enjoyed hearing my personal essay, and because she has been in my house before, she was able to have a better picture of my house. Even though she knew the design of my house, she still had a hard time taking in all the detail. She suggested I improve on the flow of my detail, and maybe change a few words to create a better description.

Finding hideous clothes for each other
and modeling them.

As I was reading out loud, I noted a few places where the flow between paragraphs needed a little fixing up as well. I needed to let loose on this paper, and really get through what I was trying to show. The essay seemed boring, even though there was a lot of detail. In reading it out loud, I even got a little bored. I'm going to see how maybe changing some details may make it, well, less boring.

After I was done reading the essay to her in the parking lot of a movie theater late last night, she asked a few questions about how I felt during that situation, and what was really going on. She had tried to be a good friend to me during that time, checking up on me and making sure I was okay, but I had pushed her out. I was always "okay." So it was nice to finally be able to open up to her, and deepen our relationship.