It's Locked

Over the past several months, I've had several conversations where I've mentioned Nancy Drew computer games, and the people I'm talking to are like, "What?"

Apparently, there are a lot of people who don't know about these wonderful PC games. My parents didn't have a gaming system when I was growing up. So while my peers were playing Nintendo games where a plumber and his brother drive race cars with a dinosaur and a princess, I was solving mysteries and fighting crime with Nancy Drew, girl detective. And when I say, "me," I mean, "me and my little sisters who were watching me play."

So, lest you be unfamiliar with the ways of Nancy Drew, here are a few things you should know about these amazing games:
1. Nancy's always in danger.
Which you already know if you know anything about Nancy Drew. Girl's a danger magnet. Just look at these Nancy Drew game titles:

#2: Stay Tuned for Danger
#9: Danger on Deception Island
#14: Danger by Design

I'm just waiting for the game titled Danger. Or more descriptive, Dangerous Danger.

2. There's always unexpected entertainment.
Nancy says weird stuff. Like, really weird stuff. And she talks to herself a lot. And to inanimate objects. And every time she finds a locked door, there's this jiggling-lock noise. And then Nancy says, in this dreary monotone voice, "It's locked."

She does that every. Single. Time. She finds a locked door. Which is a lot of times. And as far as I can tell, they use the exact same sound clip in all 30+ games, so she says it with the exact same inflection every time.

Also, in one game, whenever you sent Nancy into the bathroom to wash her hands, she would quote another game. Or sing a song about a guy named Mystico.

3. You will be challenged.
When you're Nancy "Danger" Drew, you have to do all sorts of challenging stuff. Some of the challenges are things that the game provides resources to help you with, like organizing ancient Mayan artifacts or translating French words using a tourist dictionary. But some challenges come with zero instructions, like that time in Stay Tuned for Danger where you have to defuse a bomb. You have to figure out what tools to use to defuse the bomb, and how to defuse the bomb without blowing it up, and you have to do those things before the bomb explodes in your (well, Nancy's) face.

Also, sometimes the clues you need are extremely well-hidden. Once, we couldn't find a clue to help Nancy open an electric panel, so I decided to write out all the possible combinations that could be entered in the lock. We then tried each one of them until we found the one that opened the panel. The process was an exquisite mixture of agony and accomplishment.

4. You will feel smart.
The structure of the game allows you to try ridiculous things. Like putting poisoned jellyfish on other people's sandwiches. Or untying a chandelier and watching it break into a bazillion pieces. Sometimes, Little Sister and I will try something unbelievably ridiculous, only to discover that it actually is a good move. Once we clicked on a pair of chattering teeth like a hundred times. Imagine our surprise when we heard a clucking sound and found an Easter egg in our inventory! And yes, in Nancy Drew, Easter eggs are literally Easter eggs.

Also, at the end of every game, you confront and defeat the villain. Little Sister and I are quite fond of predicting how Nancy will beat the villain. We've gotten very good at it. Last time we predicted that a marshmallow-eating alligator, which was correct, but did not predict that said alligator would swallow the very valuable crystal skull, which happened. Well, you can't win 'em all.

5. But you will become even smarter.
Because Nancy Drew games are set in the real world, they contain all sorts of interesting information that actually isn't as useless as you might think. In the Nancy Drew games, I've learned information about world history, regions, and cultures that has helped me in school classes and in my travels. Which further emphasizes the truth that learning can be fun. And/or you can force people to learn stuff as long as you put it in computer games.

6. You will get creeped out.
The first several Nancy Drew games share most of the same soundtrack. The theme song, which plays in the background of several scenes in those games, goes something like this: "Doo-doo-doo-doo doo-doo-doo-doo. Doo-doo-doo-doo doo-doo-doo-doo. DOO doo, Doo doo, DOO doo doo doo-oo-oo."

And now that you perfectly understand my lyrical rendition of said theme song, you can agree that it's a bit creepy. It always made me and my sisters feel a little...uneasy. But we knew that Nancy was really in danger when the music would get really fast and wild with a lot of percussion and crescendo!

The summer that Baby Brother was born, Bessie stayed with us for two weeks while her parents were in South America. She watched us play Secret of the Haunted Mansion.

"There's a ghost that sometimes appears in that mirror," Little Sister and I told Bessie, "and it's really scary."

Older Sister was skeptical. "These games aren't that scary."

Then the ghost appeared in the mirror. Everyone, including Older Sister, screamed.

Well, there you have it. I hope I've convinced you of the wonderfulness of Nancy Drew computer games. Because they truly are wonderful. In fact, they are so wonderful that I feel about ready to do some sleuthing in real life.

Earlier this week, Little Sister and I had this conversation:

If we ever end up doing it, the first thing I'm going to do is test the lock and then announce drearily, "It's locked."

After Two and a Half Years

Well, as of today the blog and I have been together for two and a half years. So there's that.

Also, I started my Christmas shopping today. Please don't kill me.

The Post That Took Me Two Years to Write

I started writing this post in the summer of 2013. The idea of sharing something so personal is frightening, but I believe that others can learn and benefit from my experience. So, now that the time feels right, here it is.

There are some phrases in this post that you may not be familiar with if you aren't LDS. I've provided links to some web pages that may help you understand.

As a child, I took it for granted that God existed. I made a decision to be baptized at age eight, and I can honestly say that I understood what I was doing. I knew that being baptized meant that my name would be added to the records of the Church. I understood that I would be making promises to Jesus Christ, that I would be taking His name upon me and become a representative of Him and of His church. I understood that while baptism would give me an initial remission of my sins, I would continue to make mistakes and each time would have to use repentance and the sacrament to begin anew. I understood that I would receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. I understood that I would be held accountable for my own actions. I understood that this was a commitment not to be taken lightly. I understood that it was important.

I truly made the decision to officially join the Church myself. It was my decision, not the decision of my parents or anyone else.

When I was about eleven, I stopped taking the existence of God for granted. Instead of thinking, "Of course God exists!" I thought, "Does God exist?" One day, my Primary teacher gave each of her students a piece of paper to write our testimonies on. I discovered that I didn't have a testimony, at least to my conscious knowledge. I didn't know what was true or even if anything was.

I want to stress that this whole thought process was very self-contained. In some ways, I can be extremely unaware of other people. In this instance, I didn't notice or feel any expectations of family or other Church members. This all took place very much in my own head, without me ever taking into consideration what my family wanted or didn't want for me. Nobody else ever knew what I was thinking, and I took no counsel. All the conclusions that I reached were my own.

One of these conclusions that I arrived at was that I had chosen to become a member of the Church. I believed then, but now I wasn't so sure. So I decided I'd better make sure I believed in it, or else I'd have to leave it, that's all. I decided i'd better start by reading the Bible cover to cover. I was twelve.

I started off reading three chapters a night, then whittled it down to one. I liked the Bible because it reminded me of The Silmarillion, but the first few months I was reading it I didn't get much out of it spiritually.

I should also mention that my Bible was in a big book of scriptures that had the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price in it. I was starting with the Bible, but I had this notion that I'd read straight through all the scriptures in this big quad.

After a few months of my Bible reading, the bishop of our ward offered a challenge to read the Book of Mormon straight through. It was a challenge that echoed a similar challenge given by President Hinckley. I decided to accept the challenge as part of my studies, and so for a few months I read both the Bible and the Book of Mormon side-by-side.

I highly recommend the Book of Mormon to you if you haven't already read it. As I read, I received a lot of insight, although I still wasn't sure what I believed.

When I reached the last book of the Book of Mormon, I found a promise given by Moroni, which I knew by heart because my mom had once had us all memorize it: "And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost. And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things."

I knew that this promise was waiting at the end of the book. I knew what it meant. So when I arrived there, I decided to try it out.

I have to say that I was scared at both the thoughts of receiving an answer and not receiving an answer. I wasn't setting out to prove or disprove anything, I just wanted to know the truth. But the truth is almost always terrifying.

I knelt. I prayed in Christ's name. I waited.

I felt something then. Something outside of myself, a power that told me that this book was true. I can't fully describe it. Before I prayed, I had doubts, but afterwards I didn't. Before I prayed, I didn't know, but afterwards I did. Something miraculous had happened not only in my brain, but in my heart. I knew that the book was true, and that therefore Joseph Smith was a prophet of God who had helped bring about His work. Because God had heard my prayer, and He had send the Holy Ghost with an answer as Moroni had promised. And therefore, God did exist. And I was in the church that He had founded when He had brought forth this true book, and it was His true church, and therefore, leaving was not an option.

That experience changed everything. The knowledge which I had received became a foundation on which I built more knowledge as I got older. The knowledge helped me build my very own testimony, though for a long time it was only a few lines: "I know that God exists. I know the Church is true. I know the Book of Mormon is true. I now that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God." Small, but a start.

I didn't become a perfect person after that. I still needed to grow, and to learn. And there was still so much, so many things that I knew but which I still needed to learn to apply in my life. There are still many things I'm continuing to learn.

But I knew enough to change my life. Everything I do now, I do because of that experience as an eleven-and-twelve-year-old. I learned the truth then, and I know it, and I can't help but stand by it.

My Best Friend's Wedding

A few years ago, one of Viola's other friends got married. Following the wedding, Viola and I had a conversation that went something like this:

VIOLA: So Lilac invited me and a few other friends to wait outside the temple and attend the wedding luncheon. But it was weird because her best friend wasn't there.

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Really?

VIOLA: Yeah, I thought it was really weird. But then she was at the reception last night, and I asked her about it, and she said that she'd been planning to be there but she'd had a Red Eye flight the night before and this morning she decided that she was too tired.

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Too tired to go to her best friend's wedding festivities???

VIOLA: I guess. (pause for emphasis) Don't do that when I get married.

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Of course not! I would never miss any part of your wedding for any reason! Even the thought of missing it is preposterous! P to the R to the E to the P O S T E R etcetera!

Fast forward to this year, when the blessed day finally came. My best friend was getting married! I was soooo excited. More excited than a piece of parsley would be if parsley could get excited.

The wedding was at two. Viola had asked me to do a reading during the ceremony, so I thought it would be good for me to leave by one so I could arrive at the venue by one-thirty so that I could have plenty of time to silently practice/soak in the experience of Viola getting married/be a good best friend.

That was the plan. But then everything went wrong.

First, I was running the tiniest fraction behind in getting ready. So I ended up leaving the house at 1:05 instead of 1:00.

Then I discovered that the card for my parents' gift to Viola and her fiance was not in the bag. Belatedly I remembered my mom saying something like, "Blah blah the gift is on the hutch but the card is on the couch blah." So I took a five-or-so-minute detour to grab the card.

Now, the wedding was taking place in Work City. I know Work City well enough that I had a vague idea of the location of the venue's street, but I wasn't 100% sure. Since this was my best friend's wedding and I was taking no chances, I decided to let my recently acquired smart phone give me directions instead of relying on my own sketchy know-how.

Beautified and with the card now reunited with the gift, I zoomed towards Work City in my trusty Honda.

When I arrived in Work City, I listened carefully to my phone's directions.

PHONE: Go this way!

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: This way? It's a good thing I'm using my phone, because that is not where I thought this building was at all!

A FEW MINUTES LATER
AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: This is kind of a sketch part of town.

A FEW MINUTES LATER
AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Why is this road closed?

A FEW MINUTES LATER
AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: HELP HELP THERE AREN'T EVEN ANY BUILDINGS HERE.

By this point, it was 1:30.

I began to do everything I could think of. I reentered the address on my phone in hopes that it would give me new directions. I pulled up maps of the city and tried to find the street by zooming in. I even called Viola. She didn't answer because she was too busy getting ready to get married and having no idea that I was not going to be there to support her.

At this point, I legitimately began to be afraid that I would not make it to the wedding. Which was bad. First of all, I would miss my best friend's wedding, which as established earlier would be preposterous. But not only would I miss it, I was actually part of the ceremony! Which made things doubly bad!

I began to have a miniature panic attack. Shortness of breath! Dizziness! My hands were alternately numb and tingling! I was about three seconds away from bursting into tears, so I did what anybody would do and called on my fathers. First I prayed. Then I pulled up my Dad's number, tapped it, and hoped he would answer immediately.

DAD: Hello?

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: DAD! DAD, VIOLA'S WEDDING IS IN FIFTEEN MINUTES AND MY PHONE IS CRAZY AND I CAN'T FIND THIS STREET WHERE IS IT PLEASE TELL ME YOU ALWAYS KNOW THESE THINGS!

He told me where it was. Which was exactly where I'd thought it was before I decided to let my phone guide me.

Mind dizzy, fingers tingling, I sped off as quickly as I could without breaking any laws. On the way, I scolded myself. I was a grown adult and there was no excuse for me to not know where a street in a city I drive in every day was and I should have left even earlier or at least physically gone to the building earlier that week to make sure i knew where it was and if I was late Viola would probably forgive me but I never would forgive myself.

I made excellent time to the street, but had to circle around the block to find a place to park. Finally I found a pay-to-park open air lot.

I pulled in and jumped out of the car. I skimmed the instructions on how to pay and saw that it would take me several minutes to process the payment. But the wedding was in four minutes! If I didn't pay, I could come back from the wedding only to see that my car had been fined/ticketed/towed.

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: TOO BAD. DON'T EVEN CARE!

And in the most rebel act of my life, I left my car without paying and dashed to the sidewalk!

But oh no! There were two buildings that fit what I knew about the wedding venue, and I couldn't find the street address displayed on either! And they were on opposite sides of the street, so choosing the wrong one would make me multiple minutes even later! I gambled, chose the building on the other side of the street, and rushed to the crosswalk! (I luckily was not wearing high heels.)

It was two o'clock! The wedding was about to start. It might even be starting!!!

I crossed the street like a speeding bullet! Hurtled over the venue's grounds! Ran through the doors! Up the stairs!

Ring ring. I fumbled in my purse for my phone. It was Viola.

VIOLA: ...are you coming?

I sped to her side! They hadn't started yet! I was out of breath, disheveled, and possibly about to faint of anxiety, but I was there!!!

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: I AM SORRY SO SORRY SO SORRY!

VIOLA: Don't worry! Mr. Viola's dad isn't even here yet, so it might be a while before we get started.

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Ah. All right. I'll...subdue myself...and sit down, shall I?

After that, the wedding went off without a hitch. And I made sure that when I went to the reception that evening, I was extra early.

Awkward Conversations

I have a coworker who often says things that I don't know how to respond to. This morning, for example, we met in the hallway and discussed a few words about work business.

"Anything else I should know?" he asked me when the work business had been thoroughly discussed. This is a question he often asks me, and one I sometimes have a hard time coming up with an answer to. I am sometimes unsure if he wants me to tell him more about what I've been working on or to mention something fascinating that is going on in my own life.

So this time... "I'm wearing a purple dress!" I blurted out, for I was indeed wearing a new Stitch Fix dress.

"Yes, I can see that," he said.

"It's a really bright purple," I said.

He said something like, "Good choice," and started walking away.

"It's so bright, you should probably wear sunglasses to look at me!" I called after him.

He didn't acknowledge this helpful advice.

I'm fairly certain I don't actually know how to human.

The Care and Keeping of Cuckoo Birds

It's been far too long since the last Ask Awkward Mormon Girl post! So, without further ado, I will answer your questions.

• Does reaching for the stars ever leave battle wounds?

(I have open blisters from where the rocks pulled off skin rock climbing. Totally worth it, but reminder that I didn't always make a reach. Would reaching for stars be similar?

In all honesty, most stars don't like to be reached for. Miley Cyrus is probably okay with it, but George Clooney hates it. But as long as you're not paparazzi, you'll probably leave un-wounded.

• If the guardians of the galaxy have a bake off width the avatar team... what would everyone make, and who would win?

Peter Quill would make brownies. Aang would make egg custard pie. Gamora would refuse to create her own entry, but would help Katara make baklava after Katara asked her nicely. Sokka and Toph would make a rhubarb cactus tart, but Toph would spend like only five percent of the time helping and ninety-five percent of the time using her earth bending seeing skills to spy on Rocket and Groot making vegan bran muffins. Drax would accidentally insult Zuko, who in his stiff and humorless fashion would fly into a rage and burn both Drax's cupcakes and his own sugar cookies. Uncle Iroh would judge Momo's peach macarons to be the winning entry, and Appa would eat all the leftovers.

(Someone turn this into a fanfiction please.)

And now, Little Sister's questions.

Dear Awkward Mormon Bird,

• How is anyone expected to keep their pet cuckoo bird alive when they hardly ever come out of their clock?!?!? PLEASE REALLY TELL ME ITS A LIFE OR DEATH SITUATION'

First of all, for the record, I object to being called a bird unless you are trying to say that I am a penguin. In that case, it would be a compliment.

Second of all, generally speaking, living creatures need only a few things to survive: shelter, air, food, and water.

Your cuckoo bird has a clock to live in, therefore it has shelter. You hear it pop out and cry, "Cuckoo!" on the hour. Crying "Cuckoo!" is not possible without air, therefore your cuckoo bird has air. Clocks are full of gears and springs which your cuckoo can eat if it gets hungry, so I wouldn't worry too much about the food part.

What your cuckoo bird lacks is water. Pour a generous cupful of water into your cuckoo clock so that the poor thing doesn't die of dehydration.

• What came first, the rain or the cloud? And if the cloud came first, how did the chicken survive without any water. Because ya know...no rain.

I'm pretty sure that the cloud did, in fact, come first.

As we previously discussed, living things generally do need water to survive. But good news--clouds are made of water. Also good news--the first chicken lived alongside dinosaurs. So whenever the chicken was thirsty, its brontosaurus friend would let it climb its neck. And then from there the chicken would climb onto the back of an equally friendly pterodactyl. And they would fly into the clouds and drink their fill.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to call Pixar. I think I've found a premise for a sequel to The Good Dinosaur.

But before I go, two notes.

NOTE #1: Speaking of chickens, I recently lent my apartment and my Stitch Fix box to the making of this YouTube video. I am quite pleased with how it turned out.

NOTE #2: Please leave questions in the comments! I'd love to do Ask Awkward Mormon Girl posts more often, but I need your questions! K thx bye.

Labor Day

Approximation of Obnoxious family Sunday dinner discussion:

MOM: What are we doing for the holiday tomorrow?

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: I thought we were going to get breakfast.

MOM: Well, IHOP is always crowded. Can't we get bagels and go eat them up the canyon?

THE MAJORITY: Boo! No bagels!

MOM: Then we would have to go to IHOP early.

LITTLE SISTER: Yeah, we could get up early and before breakfast we could go on a hike to watch the sunrise!

EVERYBODY: (confused silence because Little Sister is zero athletic)

BABY SISTER: Couldn't we have breakfast in the canyon but eat something that's not bagels?

MOM: Like what?

BABY SISTER: ...squirrels?

We had breakfast at IHOP.

You Might Belong in Gryffindor

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past fifteen or so years, you probably know that September 1st is the beginning of the Hogwarts school year.

Well, this September 1st was Harry Potter's oldest son's first year at Hogwarts. Later that day, J. K. Rowling made an announcement:

As someone who, according to the official Pottermore sorting quiz, is also a Gryffindor, I feel obligated to welcome James Sirius Potter into my fair house.

So, welcome, James! Welcome to Godric Gryffindor's quarter of Hogwarts! Because the hat sorted you into Gryffindor, I am guessing that you possess one or more of the following:

-A tendency to do things you hate or are afraid of
-In fact, you're more likely to do things if you hate them or are afraid of them
-A personal moral code and a trumped-up sense of honor
-A tendency to be rash
-A tendency to show off
-Sudden, noble impulses concerning the well-being of others, even people you don’t know or don’t like
-Especially people you don’t know or don’t like
-A tendency to be a martyr
-A determination to do the right thing despite what others may think of you

Favorite pastimes of Gryffindors include:
-Taking risks
-Saving children from speeding locomotives
-Fainting at the sight of injustice
-Recovering from fainting and proceeding to lead a revolution against said injustice
-Saving the elderly from speeding locomotives
-Never taking the easy way out
-Doing the thing that no one else will do
-Riding a roller coaster and making stupid clever plans to save the person next to you if their safety bar somehow breaks
-Doing something you feel strongly about even when it doesn’t seem “smart”
-Saving beloved pets from speeding locomotives
-Saying “I’m fine” when mortally wounded and/or dying
-Volunteering to do things you may not actually have the capacity to accomplish
-Standing up for people
-Exhibiting a lack of self-preservation skillz
-Saving family heirlooms from speeding locomotives
-Saving speeding locomotives from other speeding locomotives

Here are some appropriate ways to celebrate your new House:
-Drink butterbeer in the common room with friends
-Wear your house colors
-Single-handedly capture and ride a wild griffin
-Remember belatedly that your house mascot is actually a lion, not a griffin
-Search in vain for a lion
-Find a sphinx
-Decide riding sphinx is acceptable substitute for riding lion
-Pics or it didn't happen