Singles Ward: real life is way better than the movie

My life in the singles ward scene was quite fantastic. It was all spent in the same ward. Technically. (almost)

The BYU 22nd Ward with Bishop Desmond
My first ward experience was fantastic. I was living just off campus in Queens Arms, so I was thrust into a non-freshman ward, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I was just about the only freshman in the ward (I think there may have been one or two others) and I loved that because I didn't like being labeled as a freshman. My ward seemed so old and mature, and it felt like they kept getting younger as the years went on and people moved in and out. False. I got older. Weird.

In this ward I remember distinctly my Relief Society President Tricia Saylor. She is still one of my role models for life. She was always happy, the real kind not the fake-bubbly-you-can't-really-be-that-happy kind of happy. And she always knew how to help you find your way, and she did it lovingly. I remember distinctly a Visiting Teaching checkup I had with her (she was the only RS Pres who ever did that with me) and it was in the midst of a very challenging freshman year. I had recently found out my mom had breast cancer and I wasn't sure who I could/should tell and who I shouldn't. But I'm very glad I told her in that moment. I really was just telling her to let her know, I believe that ward leadership should have an understanding of what you're going through. I don't even remember how she reacted or what she said, but I always remember feeling grateful that I told her.

After my sister moved in with me after he mission I made a lot more friends in the ward and began to be really involved. I loved being able to just visit the apartments across the parking lot at Elite (or even the boys apartments *gasp*!) and I knew everyone well enough that this was legit. This was a time of many nice notes, lots of socializing (especially on Sundays, day of rest? Pah), and many intra-ward crushes. I made a lot of friends at this time that I am still friends with. Interestingly in the later years in the ward when I was less social in the ward (all blamed on folk dance, it's like a ward in and of itself) I always still had friends in the ward in forms of what I term "wardies" aka those who had been in the ward as long as I had been and so I was acquainted with them before my folk dance life. Yes. It's true. There was a life before folk dance for me.

The BYU 22nd Ward (which became the Provo YSA 18th Ward) with Bishop Gould
I can't pretend I wasn't wary of Bishop Gould at first. He came in during a summer when I was quite busy. I think I was working 20 hours a week and taking the maximum 6 or 7 credits and I just didn't have much time to socialize. I also was getting more of a social life out of my job while I worked with the dears at Freshman Academy so I wasn't as starved for friends, social attention, etc. And when I'm not starving, the ward isn't my first choice apparently. Bishop Gould, however, seemed like a dang party animal when he first came in.

He came in with party guns blazing. We had ward prayer on Sundays (which I had never had with Bishop Desmond because the Stake President had previously asked us not to have them, which of course Bishop Gould was unaware of, but I apparently decided to be super self-righteous and still feel moral oppositions to ward prayer) and dessert nights on Tuesdays and other ward activities at least once a week. It was kind of intense and I felt morally obligated to go to everything for some reason and therefore felt in a state of perpetual guilt and anger at being forced to go to such meaningless foo-fa. Yeah. I probably should have socialized more.

But I do remember that summer/next year having great friends in the ward who I also worked with. For some reason we had a high concentration of peer mentors in the ward, and it was awesome! My RS President Mindy Fletcher was even one. We had infiltrated. Although the next year when I was on PAC there were also two others on the team in the ward, which is a pretty high incidence of touring folk dancers when there are only 27 people on the team.

Once I calmed down about the parties I began to love Bishop Gould a whole lot. He helped me through a super tough semester and was the one who told me I was suffering from SAD which made me feel a lot less crazy and also bonded us together. Nothing like a disorder to really get the friendship going. That semester I'm pretty sure I was at the Bishop's office like every other week, I got real tight with the Bishopbric.

I was also particularly close to Brother Hatch, one of his counselors. Mostly because he teased me every time he saw me. I secretly like being teased. Just don't abuse it.

As I got more and more into folk dance I got less and less involved in the ward. Which I really did feel bad about and still do because that ward is full of dears. I had some great friendships begin in that ward that still exist today. I had amazing home teachers (special shout-out to my year-long home teachers Tristram and Devin, one full calendar year which is like half a lifetime in a family ward). I was visit taught by some awesome girls and I visit taught others that I still love. I would name all these people here but sadly I don't remember them all, and if I forgot someone I would feel like a jerk-face.

A homage to my FHE groups. My first calling was as an FHE mom and I gained a testimony of FHE. You may not know that to look at me now, I struggled with it in later years. But that first year my group stayed together, once again for a full calendar year even though I had two "husbands" throughout. We named ourselves the Marshyncanjags/jays (when we lost a girl due to marriage). We made a movie. We made up games. We had an epic picnic. We supported each other in musical endeavors (one of the members is still in Fictionist, so I'm basically famous right?). And we just all around loved each other. Other FHE were also awesome, I learned a totally weird game about chickens? (Jason Loong taught us that one) I converted one of my summer FHE groups to Jump, which if you don't know about, is the best game in all of existence that mostly just exists in the Fremont High School choirs. And one time, I had an FHE group not realize my apartment was in their group for half the semester. Thanks guys.

See. We totally made a movie. Ooh and a music video! 

To wrap up. My single's ward experience has been awesome. Sometimes frighteningly similar to the movie (every ward has their Mr. Collins. Or an apartment of them...) and sometimes completely different. I was in this ward for nearly 5 years straight*, so obviously it was a good time.


*one time I lived in University Villa during SPAC but I literally don't remember a soul from that ward except that there was someone we called "Toga guy" and then one time I was in the Plain City singles ward for a summer. The end.