The story explores the crazy rules of homo-vs-hetero public displays of affection among missionaries — and it was written by one of the stars of the last Sunstone Symposium! check it out!
I dont like you My stomach cramps whenever youre around. You think Im clueless, that I dont see you. Wrong. I know what you are. Your kiss is soft, your mouth breathes poison, and as I sit on the loveseat, looking into my mothers eyes, I cringe at what I…
Thirty years ago, long before the CES letter (heck, long before Facebook), I sat beside my brainy boyfriend* as he asked probing questions of two earnest nineteen-year-olds from Utah. He’d been reading the Book of Mormon but not feeling its spirit. How could there be elephants in America, he wanted…
A couple of years ago, I ran across an invitation to the reception for a couple who were to be married in the Provo Temple. In the obligatory picture, the man stood stone-faced, dressed in the usual church attire, while his fiancé was grinning ear-to-ear, kicking up a stiletto heel,…
My guess is that this good sister’s plight was probably exacerbated by the realities of serving (i.e., living) in Asia.
I’m a fairly standard-issue American male and can count the number of times I’ve shed tears on one hand. One was when I returned home from Brazil and realized how cold and uncommunicative the people of my country of birth suddenly seemed to me. The other was after about six months into my first stay in Taiwan. I love my life here, but it is a much less expressive culture than even that of the US. Adapting takes time and, unlike the easy adaptation to the greater warmth of a Latin culture, finding one’s place in a colder society like Taiwan’s can often feel like compromising one’s humanity.
Thank God for my Taiwanese wife, her intellectual curiosity, and her dedication to living a polyglot lifestyle.
Looks like a good book!
The coldness of that relationship where someone who “loved her best” would only allow her to touch his sleeve when he clearly knew she was in real distress is stunning!
Visitor — right, but you have to understand that in that culture, he would see his refusal to comfort her as being a noble sacrifice.
Loved this article, well-written (congrats holly). Thanks for the tip chanson.