Thursday, December 29, 2005

I feel good that we got the religion discussion out of the way.
Bill's mom has made a few assumptive comments about Logan being baptized through out the pregnancy. Last night I asked him if he's told her that we're not doing it. "No, I'm not going to say anything until it comes up". Ok, whatever works.

Religion has been a touchy subject with me ever since Bill & I have been together. My parents were not religious by any means. My mom was protestant, but not practicing. My dad was mormon, but had his name removed from church records. When I was 8 & my parents divorced, my Grandma Nancy (my dads mom) helped to take care of us & took us to church. That's when I began to follow the LDS faith. I wanted to be baptized right away but my mom had said no & that I had to wait until I was 18 to join any church. I hated her for that. In my adulthood, I understand where she was comming from, but she could've done a better job of teaching instead of controlling.

So I kept going to church & stayed involved with activites & friends until I moved out when I was 15 (that's a whole other story). I moved to Las Vegas to live with my dads cousin & her family, whom I had never met. They were very involved with the church as well & told me that I could be baptized because I wasn't living with my mom anymore. I was extatic. I got baptized & became a youth leader in the church. I had weekend parties at the house where all of the high school kids would come & help make cookies for the missionaries or we would hang out & play board games. I think about it now & want to gag, but it was good for me at the time. I had good friends & stayed out of trouble.

When I met Bill (I was 17) everything changed. He & his family are lutheran & Bill was not the best influence either. He smoked, drank, swore, pretty much all of the things a mormon wasn't supposed to do. I liked him though. I thought he was sweet & it was cool to talk to someone who liked music as much as I did. Me, being the mormon brat that I was, told him that if we were going to hang out he would have to quit all of the things that I didn't approve of. He quit everything right there. My family said that he would have to come to church with us & go to seminary with me as well. He did with no complaints. Then it came down to conversion. As LDS, it is a responsibility to preach the gosple & convert as many people as you can. Everyone is a missionary. So, I told Bill that he would have to take the missionary lessons & be baptized. He never said no to anything. He did whatever he needed to do to be with me. That's when the lightbulb burst over my head. I realized that he wasn't doing this for religion, he was doing it for me. It was really evil to do what the church & I were doing.

I started skipping seminary & hanging out at Bills house instead. It was a lot more fun kissing than reading scriptures anyway. We knew we loved eachother pretty quick. This had all happened in the course of 2-3 months. By easter, I had to meet with the bishop (to repent) & he told me to choose the church or choose Bill. I could not have both. My heart dropped. I went home & called Bill to tell him that we had to meet somewhere. The whole church was at our house for a choir easter celebration. We met at a park close by & I told him what had happened. I told him that I was going to leave the church to be with him because he had sacrificed so much to be with me & the church did nothing. After crying on his shoulder for a while he walked me back to my car. He opened the door & paused. Then he got down on his knee & said "I know you're still in school, we have no money & I don't have a ring.." he proposed right there. It was one of the most special experiences of my life. We kept it quite from our families until I was close to graduation a couple months later. After I graduated, my family & the church pretty much disowned me & I moved in with Bill & his family. From there on, I decided that I didn't like the idea of organized religion.

When Bill & I started talking about having a family, he mentioned baptizing the baby. I reminded him of what we went through & that I was totally against it. Then when we found out that I was pregnant, he brought it up again & with a little more fight. Again, I reminded him. Since this christmas with Bills moms remarks of baptisim outfits, I looked into it. Not with the intention of becoming religious again, but with the intent of being informed. I wanted to know what I was saying no to. So I read up on lutheran beliefs & infant baptisim. I knew I was against it for many reasons. For one, we don't belong to any congregation & how strange to baptize a child into something I don't believe. It's ridiculous to think that parents are responsible for a childs salvation, I'm not God. It's something that Logan has no opinion on yet. I don't want to label him something & make religion more confusing than it already is. If there ever is a day that he wants to go to church or learn something about a certain faith, I will be more than happy to go with him. I won't be like my mom & just say no. Religion is personal & if it's something he wants to be involved in, I'll be there to support that. So last night I explain this & the theology concerns that I have about lutheranism. Bill agreed, was surprised & mentioned how I knew more about it than he did. He appreciated that I even looked into it. I just hope the rest of his family is as understanding about it.

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