If you were here, I'd tell you what I thought at Mormon church today.

I wasn't planning to go, but on Friday I saw I'd missed a call from the missionaries, so I texted them back that I'd be free in an hour. But since I suspected they were calling to see if I was coming to church on Sunday, I thought about my answer to that and added "or I'll just see you on Sunday." They texted back that they'd see me then, and also that there was a ward barbeque Saturday.

Very kind, but no thanks on the barbeque. Whatever it was once, the way I'm engaging with Mormonism now is definitely not social. 

When I got to the church building today, I felt really awkward and out of place as people tried to talk to me and find out where the elders were. My Japanese is good enough now that that wasn't the reason things were awkward, but I couldn't put my finger on what the reason was.  People smiled and shook my hand and introduced themselves, and they even dug up a youngish guy who spoke English really well and had just gotten back from living in Angola for a year. 

The missionaries caught up with us just as I was being herded into one of the Japanese-speaking Sunday school classes, and the American one took me aside with a ward missionary while the Japanese missionary took an investigator into the gospel essentials class. Our lesson was about baptism.

The thing that struck me and that I want to talk about is that as we read scriptures and the little manual, I thought that it made sense. It felt true to me. Not true in the scary, one-true-church style of the Mormon church, but true in a way that was just true. Why get baptized? As a sign you're willing to focus on living a life like Christ. Because that's what we promise when we get baptized. And the things God promises back are the consequences of trying to live like Christ. Makes sense to me.

I chose to ignore the part where the elder talked about authority because as far as I can tell, that's really just a formality that has nothing to do with the ordinance itself, and God can figure all that out later. 

As a result, I took the sacrament for the first time in years. Maybe since before I graduated from BYU, I don't remember. Because even if I don't believe in the authority of the church and it's priesthood (or at least that it isn't all it says it is), I also don't believe in the need for that authority. It's the commitments I make that matter. God looketh upon the heart and all that.

But then I left Sacrament meeting early, because I realized (duh) where the awkwardness came from: the organization sponsoring the service says that one of the desires closest to my heart is Wicked, capital "w." That meant that to interact with anyone there, I had to either pretend to be straight or be the poster child for Gay, and neither one appeals.

So instead of finishing the meeting and sticking around to socialize, I went and bought sushi and a couple of fruit sours.

I don't think I'll go back next week. Maybe when my parents visit next month.