Earlier this week, I watched a news segment about the latest excommunication discussions occurring between LDS Church PR and local news organizations. It's been pretty overwhelming and crazy, guys, even for someone who knows what's going on from the inside. I'm sure it's been that way for you, too. But anyway, in this news segment, sitting at a small table with a 2News reporter, was Kate Kelly, Ordain Women founder and the center of what has snowballed into a PR crisis. For the past year, Kate Kelly has fascinated me, angered me, and bewildered me. I've wanted to know who she is and what makes her tick. I noticed that her mouth was drawn in a serious line beneath serious eyes that sat unblinkingly behind thick, transparent glasses, hair drawn back, body bent over, attentive. She was dressed in a cheery floral blouse, letters used as props scattered around the sleeve that rested on the table. Her face flashed between disciplinary letter montages, words like 'excommunication' scrolling across the screen. Then, in what may well be the saddest and most misled resignation I have ever seen, she said, "If I'm guilty of apostasy, any person who has ever had a question and asked that question out loud is guilty of apostasy."

I felt my jaw drop when I heard this.

That one line and the lie it propagates slapped the face of all of the assumptions and all of the doubts I've had to battle with for the past week. That one line has managed to weasel its way into discussions all over the Internet as if it is doctrine, when it is not. You've heard what people are saying -- if there's no room for Kate, there's no room for me; if Kate can't ask questions, then how can I; if they don't want Kate, then they can't want me; the church is just afraid of hard questions, etc. -- and the worst of the matter is that I see it hardening my friends and their testimonies. They feel like their questions are too hard, unwanted, and that, because they have these questions, they don't belong in the church. There is no room for them, essentially. It's been difficult and heartbreaking to hear so many friends express their doubts, cling to their doubts, and then use those doubts as weapons against my testimony and the testimonies of their friends. The hardest battle I have to fight anymore is the battle against my member friends, and it kills me.

Which is why I'm here to say, as kindly but as firmly as I can, that Kate Kelly is not being disciplined for asking questions, her statements are not correct, and don't you dare stop asking questions or leave the church because of the things she is claiming right now. 

How to Make Room for Introverts in an Extroverted Church

Proudly framed in glossy sheet protectors in my closet are two camp certificates from the bygone days of snipe hunting and fireside testimony meetings. One is the "Nature Lover Award," earned for being quick to explore and for chasing a skunk out of a tent of sleeping girls. The other is the "Eager Beaver Award," earned because I was wide awake and dressed by five o' dark in the morning every day, to my leaders' bewilderment. From these awards, you might think that I was super disciplined as a child or that I was one of those granola kids who ate, slept, and breathed pine needles and birdsong. To an extent, that was definitely me. What few people know, however, is that cramming inside a tent with at least five other girls gave me major anxiety. I felt claustrophobic almost every night at Girls Camp, so I would wake up early and escape to the woods whenever I could. In the woods, free of an itinerary, I could breathe and be myself.

I used to think I was broken or weird, and I know some of the other girls thought so. I didn't get my thrills from tentmate Truth or Dare like they did. Making small talk around a campfire made me feel panicky, and the one year we were stuck in a cabin during a downpour, I went completely unhinged. I was quiet and valued my privacy, and I felt like a canned sardine at church activities more often than not.

I was (and am) an introvert, and in a Gospel all about people, it's been quite the adventure to fit in.