Maygan the Mis-Fit

So honestly, I've always felt like I just didn't quite fit into my surroundings. I always stood out- and not in the good kind of way. I am Australian- born and bred and damn proud of it. I am also LDS. Mormon. Doorknocker. Brainwasher.

I've heard them all.

 Australia is known for its beauty and friendly occupants. It is not, however, known for its open acceptability of religion. The culture down there is beer, swear, drink more beer and swear a little more. Trust me, people notice when you don't join in. Sometimes people would be accepting and ask genuine questions as to why I was always the sober designated driver, why I wore such conservative clothes or why I wasn't allowed to have a boyfriend before I was 16. Other times I would be criticized, insulted or just flat out dismissed as a mis-fit. It hurt. I grew a backbone. Then accidentally became desensitized to everything going on around me in hopes of blending in for once. I stopped being open about my religion and started laughing at their jokes about my lifestyle, apologizing for it and slowly adapting their lifestyle in an attempt to divert their attention away from my beliefs. 

It still didn't work. Living in a small country town you tend to make some sort of name for yourself and because I was famous for my goody-two-shoes ways people seemed to always be watching waiting for me to slip up so they could call me out. 

Now I made a lot of shameful decisions back then in my desperate attempts to change my image to impress those around me. It sounds so high-school but its crazy the kind of tricks your mind plays on you when youre trying to make decisions.
You can justify just about anything if you want it bad enough.
 I left the church for a while and I am not proud of the things I accomplished in that period of my life.

I hung out at all the wrong places




I dressed just that little bit more revealing than my dad would have liked..


 This was my scene.


Although I wasn't doing anything 'Wrong', I wasn't doing anything Right either...
I didn't go to church. I never touched my scriptures. I rarely prayed. My testimony was a dim spark where a raging fire had once been. I was hardly ever home with my family and caused my mother to grow a million gray hairs while she waited up until 5am to hear my car pull into the driveway after a night out with my friends.
I didn't see this life as being bad. I had so much fun with my friends, watching them do crazy drunk things then watching them blush from head to toe when I told them all about it the next day as they were nursing a hangover. I felt like I belonged. And I liked that feeling. I stayed in this empty hole of temporary happiness so long that I forgot what it felt like to have true joy. The meaningful, lasting kind. At one stage I was in such a bad place spiritually that I lost all my feeling. I didnt feel happy. I didnt feel sad. I didnt feel guilty and I didn't feel proud. I just didn't feel.


I had officially lost the spirit and I had no idea where to go. Then one day the happiness and thrill I once felt from hanging out with the 'wrong crowd' as the church always called it had gone.
One day a friend from my ward invited me over. I went, mainly because I had run out of excuses not to. She didn't judge me, she never even talked about the life I was living. Instead, she told me about her life experiences before the church and really opened up. It hit me hard. I felt something I hadn't felt in a long time. I felt ashamed. She told me she was mainly telling me this because she couldn't stand seeing my parents the way they were anymore.
I had broken my parents hearts and I could see that. I love my family and it hurt soooo much to be disappointing them with my choices. She told me I needed to come back to church. Pretty firmly actually. She told me to "fake it till you make it". It turned out to be one of the best pieces of advice anyone could ever give me.

I went back that Sunday. I could feel peoples eyes on me, secretly judging me, but I stayed anyway. I continued to go. But what really changed my perspective was my best friends wedding. She had been struggling with the church at the same time I was. I should have been there to support her, but instead I went my own selfish way.
She ended up back at church before me. Started dating a guy, fell in love and got married in the Melbourne temple.




The look in her eye that day was one I had never seen. She was radiating pure joy, and the look her husband was giving her was one of pure love. It was then that I set in my heart the desire of my own to kneel across the alter from my husband and be married for time and all eternity.




I have never been prouder of anyone in my whole life.

Since that moment, life has still thrown me insane curveballs that make me question and doubt the strength of my own testimony way too often.

But I did it.

I married this amazing young man, with the biggest heart of gold in the Salt Lake Temple just 10 months ago.




And he looks at me the way I had always dreamed.


I know now more than ever that all the quenching and tempering I have gone through I have become stronger than I could have ever imagined. I'm not afraid of what I believe anymore. I'm not afraid of the tormenting questions that come from people who are just trying to cut deep inside. I'm not ashamed of being LDS. I am happier than I could have ever though possible, and I know that its all through the atonement. It's the real kind of happiness, not the temporary kind. I don't care if all my Australian friends think I'm talking Mormon brainwashing rubbish. I know for myself that what I believe is true, and I'm never going to be afraid to admit that again. I still have so much to learn, I don't think I'll ever have the answers to every question and I don't expect to. I have started an eternal family, and I don't ever want to let anything get in the way of that. Bring on the trials, heartbreaks and tough decisions. I have an amazing man to walk through this with and together nothing will beat us.

That is exactly why we will always Cope Side-By-Side






http://mormon.org/what-do-mormons-believe