1. The last P-day of my mission
2. Not some dorkaziod missionaries
3. Even if the church is perfect, the people aren't
4. It's not that simple

• (character chart)

1. Young Women's
2. Youth Conference
3. Saturday's Warrior
4. Brigham Young University
• Gratuitous Love Scene
5. Polygamist
6. Temple Wedding
7. Orem High
8. Bordeaux Mission
9. Exmo Conference

"Funny thing," I replied. "By coincidence, he had a date too."

"Elder Beaverton had a date?"

"No, Beaverton is already with his new comp. They've paired me up with someone else just for today. I'm flying home tomorrow, you know."

"Oh, wow, congrats!" she said.

"Thanks." Then the server came by and I ordered a Perrier. "So maybe we can see each other again when we're both back in Orem."

Her expression changed. "Oh," she said, "I'm not going back to Orem. My parents have moved to Atlanta. They've arranged me a great internship there for the rest of the summer. When my plane lands in Atlanta, I'm getting off and staying -- I'm not continuing on to Salt Lake with Andrea and Kim."

I couldn't think how to respond. I wanted to see her again -- sometime when I wasn't a missionary anymore, and would be allowed to date her without it being against the rules -- but it didn't seem like this was a serious enough relationship yet for me to offer to fly all the way out to Atlanta to see her.

"Well, you'll probably be back to Orem sometime to visit friends, right?"

"Yeah, I might," she said non-committally. Looking around, she said "This place has a lot of atmosphere, with all the stained-glass windows and carvings and such."

"I thought you'd like it. I think it was once a monastery. Now I think it may be run by communists, but I'm not sure. It's been converted into a movie theater, obviously. They show a lot of foreign films here in version originale [subtitled], including American ones."

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Then my Perrier arrived, and I paid for it and started pouring it from the bottle into the glass.

"What are you humming?" she asked. I hadn't really noticed I was humming until she mentioned it.

"It's this song I've had stuck in my head since yesterday. I'm not even sure what song it is. I just have this impression that it's something my sisters used to play."

"How does it go?"

I sang it to her softly: "Something's at the gate and rushing through... All the rusty chains of time can't hold it back..."

She laughed.

"I can only remember little bits of it though," I said, continuing with a different part of the song: "I recall the morning you arose, shining like a star on an endless sea of sand..."

Then she softly sang the reply: "And the tender child in your eyes... As the compass drew us out, I took your hand..." And with that she put her hand on my hand.

"Oh you know it!" I said, holding her hand in mine. "What song is it?"

She laughed. "You don't want to know."

"Well, we have all morning to do whatever we want," I said, "provided that no one sees that I'm with you and not my companion."

She looked me in the eye and calmly said, "Come up to my room with me."

I laughed. "And do what?"

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