asked during a break in their conversation.
Her father tore his eyes away from the schedule her mother had worked out to explain, “We’ll be providing some comfort to the brothers and sisters who are in need of spiritual guidance during this tough time. That temple was the first that Joseph Smith had built and it was where he and the first members of the church had worshiped. Some people are taking it very hard. We’ll also be helping to get the temple rebuilt as quickly as possible.”
It made her feel better that something was being done so quickly. She took comfort in the fact that her church was more like a close knit family than a large corporation like some other churches had become.
She sat and listened in on her parents’ planning while thinking, once again, over the last few weeks.
She had yelled at her grandmother, had an out of body experience, been tortured by nightmares and she had become the slightly confused owner of a dog. All the stories she had heard about people’s lives making a one-eighty were put to shame by the last few weeks. The experience had left her shaken and unsure of herself for the first time in her life.
It had taken her a long time to come to terms with the fact that she had actually traveled outside of her body. It simply wasn’t something that she believed could happen. Especially not to her. Unfortunately, it was the only explanation that she could come up with. If it had been a dream, the hair that she had ripped out of his head as he reached out for her would have stayed there. In dream land. Where it belonged.
She had lost faith in her assertion that it was all a nightmare and she would wake up any moment and the world would be back to normal. She had tried to convince herself that that was what was going on. She didn’t want to believe that her life had changed into a twisted, sick joke.
After slamming the door to those thoughts closed she excused herself from the conversation in favor of a shower.
As the hot water teased the stress out of her knotted muscles she envisioned all of her issues being carried down the drain along with the soap suds. As her head began to clear, she started to feel her old attitude rise to the surface. A decent outlook for the day bloomed inside of her. By the time that she stepped out of the shower and toweled off, she had decided to call Piper up and ask her to go snowboarding. Dinner afterwards was beginning to look probable as she got dressed.
She placed a quick call to Piper’s cell phone to set her plan in motion and came out of her room into the silence that had become all too familiar since New Years. She made a quick pass through the house and her heart fell a little bit when she realized that her parents had left without saying goodbye.
It was one of the few times in her life that her parents had gone on vacation without her and it was the one and only time they had ever left for longer than nine hours without saying goodbye. She told herself that she was plenty old enough for them to go out of town without her. She also assured herself that they had just left with more important things on their minds. After shaking off the unwelcome feeling of abandonment, she grabbed her purse and a jacket, chained the dog up in the back yard and headed out to meet her best friend.
The excitement of hitting the slopes soon replaced the gloom that had crept inside of her. There was nothing quite like getting a good point on her board and letting gravity do the rest.
She picked Piper up in front of the old house that her sorority leased and headed for the freeway. A quick drive south on Interstate 15 and twenty minutes up Fort Union Boulevard into Big Cottonwood Canyon, she was parking her car in the parking lot of Brighton Ski Resort.
Both of them had season passes, so they bypassed the long line where people stood buying lift tickets. They had decided to start big and work their way down during the drive. Mt. Millicent was the first run on
Her father tore his eyes away from the schedule her mother had worked out to explain, “We’ll be providing some comfort to the brothers and sisters who are in need of spiritual guidance during this tough time. That temple was the first that Joseph Smith had built and it was where he and the first members of the church had worshiped. Some people are taking it very hard. We’ll also be helping to get the temple rebuilt as quickly as possible.”
It made her feel better that something was being done so quickly. She took comfort in the fact that her church was more like a close knit family than a large corporation like some other churches had become.
She sat and listened in on her parents’ planning while thinking, once again, over the last few weeks.
She had yelled at her grandmother, had an out of body experience, been tortured by nightmares and she had become the slightly confused owner of a dog. All the stories she had heard about people’s lives making a one-eighty were put to shame by the last few weeks. The experience had left her shaken and unsure of herself for the first time in her life.
It had taken her a long time to come to terms with the fact that she had actually traveled outside of her body. It simply wasn’t something that she believed could happen. Especially not to her. Unfortunately, it was the only explanation that she could come up with. If it had been a dream, the hair that she had ripped out of his head as he reached out for her would have stayed there. In dream land. Where it belonged.
She had lost faith in her assertion that it was all a nightmare and she would wake up any moment and the world would be back to normal. She had tried to convince herself that that was what was going on. She didn’t want to believe that her life had changed into a twisted, sick joke.
After slamming the door to those thoughts closed she excused herself from the conversation in favor of a shower.
As the hot water teased the stress out of her knotted muscles she envisioned all of her issues being carried down the drain along with the soap suds. As her head began to clear, she started to feel her old attitude rise to the surface. A decent outlook for the day bloomed inside of her. By the time that she stepped out of the shower and toweled off, she had decided to call Piper up and ask her to go snowboarding. Dinner afterwards was beginning to look probable as she got dressed.
She placed a quick call to Piper’s cell phone to set her plan in motion and came out of her room into the silence that had become all too familiar since New Years. She made a quick pass through the house and her heart fell a little bit when she realized that her parents had left without saying goodbye.
It was one of the few times in her life that her parents had gone on vacation without her and it was the one and only time they had ever left for longer than nine hours without saying goodbye. She told herself that she was plenty old enough for them to go out of town without her. She also assured herself that they had just left with more important things on their minds. After shaking off the unwelcome feeling of abandonment, she grabbed her purse and a jacket, chained the dog up in the back yard and headed out to meet her best friend.
The excitement of hitting the slopes soon replaced the gloom that had crept inside of her. There was nothing quite like getting a good point on her board and letting gravity do the rest.
She picked Piper up in front of the old house that her sorority leased and headed for the freeway. A quick drive south on Interstate 15 and twenty minutes up Fort Union Boulevard into Big Cottonwood Canyon, she was parking her car in the parking lot of Brighton Ski Resort.
Both of them had season passes, so they bypassed the long line where people stood buying lift tickets. They had decided to start big and work their way down during the drive. Mt. Millicent was the first run on
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