A year ago, I was ready to leave West Virginia and start over. I had been accepted to college in Utah. I had friends there. I knew that going there would allow me to put my past behind me and immerse myself in my religion, surrounded by people who shared my beliefs and values.
Obviously, that didn’t happen. As always, or so it felt, I ended up in the place I least wanted to be. Many of the most painful days of my life were spent in this city. People I never wanted to see again lived here. It was a party school, and I wanted nothing to do with it. The “new me” didn’t belong here.
In Morgantown, I’m not surrounded by the gospel. There are fifty members of my religion attending my school, instead of thousands. There are bottles of liquor in my kitchen, cigarette butts on the floor outside my door, and a bloodstain in the hallway. The people I attend class with, work with, and see every day don’t believe the same things I do. There’s nobody here who cares if I say my prayers or read my scriptures. If I stopped going church, two or three people might call me, but the vast majority of the people I interact with day-to-day would neither know nor care.
Every day — every moment — I have to make a decision. The decision isn’t made for me, by social pressure or a church-run school or a cultural assumption that everyone believes what I believe. Here, I have the opportunity to exercise my agency at all times. I could get up in the morning, put on a mini skirt and tank top, and go to class, and nobody would think anything of it. (Okay, that’s probably not true today.) I could stop by the campus bookstore in between my classes and buy a coffee, like everyone else. I could buy cigarettes, drink alcohol, do drugs, or have sex, and I wouldn’t stand out. I could put away my scriptures, pierce just about anything I was brave enough to put a needle through, and never worry about going to the temple or taking sacrament, and for all but a handful of people, it would be no big deal.
Would I have made as many bad decisions as I have in the past six months if I’d been in Utah? Probably not. Doing the right thing might not be easy there, but it wouldn’t take as much effort. There wouldn’t be as much of a daily, conscious choice between living the gospel according to my beliefs or living like everyone else, because at least half of the people there would be living at least partially according to my beliefs. I wouldn’t have made as many bad decisions, but I wouldn’t have made as many decisions at all. Reading the scriptures daily, going to institute classes three days a week, and living the commandments as well as I can wouldn't have been something I had to work to make myself do, and by working for it, I've come to appreciate it in a way I otherwise wouldn't have.
When I’m asked about WVU and I say I love it here, I’m not just saying that to be positive about where I ended up. I love it here! It isn’t perfect. It’s hard and it’s lonely, but it’s exactly where I belong. I would have grown in Utah, but somehow, in the midst of all the darkness, I grew even stronger here.
That's really cool. I had the opposite experience. I'm in Rexburg right now, and I haven't regretted it for a moment. The lessons I'm getting are such strong spiritual fortification. I guess this is proof that God really does know what is best for each of us.
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