Faith in the face of failure

“Belief isn’t simply a thing for fair times and bright days, I think. What is belief—what is faith—if you don’t continue in it after failure? … Anyone can believe in someone, or something, that always succeeds, Mistress. But failure . . . ah, now, that is hard to believe in.”
~ Sazed in Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson
I had no idea what to do as I fled from my parents’s room with my BYU rejection letter in hand. I took it down to my room and read over it carefully through my tears. One year. It said I would not be allowed to apply again for one year, and it recommended I not apply again till I had an associate’s degree. “This wasn’t supposed to happen!” I said angrily. I did not understand what had happened. Had I really been wrong about what God had told me?
The letter also recommended that I participate fully in the LDS Institute program in the meantime. That confused me—could non-members go to Seminary and Institute? I pulled myself together and spoke with some LDS friends that night and the next day. They confirmed that I could go to Institute and Seminary, and that a recommend from such would be helpful even to a non-member. I asked if they thought I could write to BYU and ask them to reconsider. They said that was stupid and it would never happen. I decided to do both of them anyways. If there’s anything I excel at, it’s an ability to make stupid things work.
On Monday morning, at the crack of dawn, I got up and headed over to the 5 AM seminary class. I explained my situation to the teacher, Sister Connor, and she agreed to write a letter to BYU on my behalf, a sort of seminary commitment recommend, which she sent out on February 2, 2000. I agreed to attend Seminary for the rest of the school year, and Institute from the time I graduated until I would go to BYU. This was not a commitment I made lightly; I had never participated in a school program that required me to be up and ready so early in the day. The first few weeks were torture. I also traded my history class for a conditioning class with the new semester, adding to my torture.
I went ahead and wrote a letter to BYU asking them to reconsider, which I sent out on February 9, 2000. I would reproduce it here, but the amount of ass-kissing contained therein would probably break your computer screen.
On Wednesday, February 16, I was at my computer reading an e-mail from a friend when my brother walked into my room and handed me the phone. A BYU admissions counselor was on the phone, Fred Trapnell, who said that he had read my letter and the letter from my seminary teacher and wanted to talk with me about admission to BYU. He told me to forget about Fall Semester 2000, that it wasn’t going to happen, but if I kept my grades up, did well on my AP tests and attended seminary regularly, he would allow me to re-apply for Winter Semester 2001. I probably would not even have to do the entire application again, he said, just submit a seminary recommend, my AP scores, and my final high school transcript. After hanging up the phone, I breathed a sigh of relief. God had not abandoned me. It wasn’t over yet.
The semester wore on and I fell into a pattern of quiet determination. I often found solace in calculus and conditioning, the only classes that really challenged me. My calculus teacher was a Christian, and he became something of a mentor to me, although he never showed much sign of understanding my quest to go to BYU. Whenever I felt frustrated, I would sit down and study for my AP Calculus test. Seminary was… seminary. We were studying the Old Testament in it, and it taught me a lot about how Mormons interpret the Bible, but not very much about the Bible that I did not already know. I remember suppressing a chuckle when one LDS girl in the class expressed discomfort at reading the story of Deborah in Judges 4 for the first time. “But… women can’t do that, can they?” she asked. I don’t remember what the teacher’s explanation was, but I chose not to argue about it. If anything, I was at least grateful for the discipline I learned through my early morning class attendance. At least I was never late for high school.
Having to tell people that I had not gotten into BYU and did not know where I was going for college was a hard pill to swallow. The college guidance counselor had a board in her room showing which colleges students were going to, and there were at least three or four students going to BYU. Everyone else I knew who had applied had been accepted. My name never went onto the board. Eventually I had to tell my youth pastor that I had not gotten in to BYU. “See?! God doesn’t want you to go there!” he said in frustration. We simply weren’t going to see eye to eye on that. We would later.
The AP tests came and went. Graduation came and went. I finished seminary and began attending Institute as per my promise to BYU. The summer Institute class was, of course, full of LDS students who would be heading off to BYU in August, and I wasn’t one of them. I’ll talk more about Institute in my next post.
On Saturday, July 8, 2000, I got a letter from BYU saying they had not yet received my final transcript and were waiting on it to finish reviewing my re-application. That was interesting to me. Were they actually watching me?
On Wednesday, July 12, 2000, I went out to check the mail and saw that my AP test scores were in. I tore them open at the mailbox to find that I had earned a 4 on the English test and a 5 on the calculus. The 5 on calculus made me ecstatic. How had I gone from failing pre-calculus to a 5 on the calculus test? I rushed into the house to call Mr. Beatty at his home, but his wife told me he was at the school, which was a few blocks from my house. So I sprinted down to the school with my test scores in hand to show him.
Beatty was in a meeting with other teachers, so I had someone take my scores into him while I waited. He was so stunned that he spilled coffee all over the report. While I was at the school, I spoke with the transcript secretary and she confirmed that the transcript for my final grades had been sent out on June 30, 2000, so BYU should have them by then.
I ran back home and called BYU. I asked if the admissions office had received my transcript, and she said, “Yes. In fact they’ve just made their decision on your application today.” I could not believe it. They’d made it just that day? I asked if she could tell me their decision, and she said, “You’ve been accepted.”
After I hung up the phone, I sank to the floor on my knees and thanked God. He had kept his promise to me. He always keeps his promises.

Comments

Faith in the face of failure — 6 Comments

  1. I went to Timpview High School in Provo. My grades there were pretty-much C average. Like a lot of kids with ADD, I did well on the classes I wanted to do well in and came darn close to failing the ones I didn’t want to do well in. I frustrated to no-end both my teachers and my parents who all felt I could be doing much better. My ACT scores were really, really good though.
    With those grades, BYU was out of the question. So I spent a wasted semester at UVCC over in Orem (now UVSU I believe). Failed half my classes and then went on a mission to Japan.
    It’s a pretty standard story in Utah. Failure at school goes on a mission and returns “all grown up” and atones. That’s what happened with me.
    I went to “repentance school” (as UVSU was jokingly called) for a couple years and got some pretty darn good grades. Then I sent in my BYU application and was accepted. Since I already had my Associate’s Degree from UVCC, I didn’t have to do any of the GE classes at BYU – so I missed the distinct pleasure of having “American Heritage” taught to me in an auditorium of more than 500 students (it may also be the reason that – to this day – I don’t view the Founding Fathers as quasi General Authorities).
    Since I had Japanese language proficiency, I was able to test out of the lower level language classes and didn’t have to take any math classes at BYU.
    My grades at BYU weren’t as good as at UVCC, and to be honest, I didn’t enjoy it as much as UVCC either. BYU is so large it can feel rather impersonal at times.
    But I did manage to work a summer at Aspen Grove Alumni camp (a couple miles above Sundance ski resort) and met my wife there.
    And the education was as good as you can expect anywhere, so really no complaints overall.
  2. so I missed the distinct pleasure of having “American Heritage” taught to me in an auditorium of more than 500 students (it may also be the reason that – to this day – I don’t view the Founding Fathers as quasi General Authorities).
    Oh, you had to bring THAT up. Speaking of GA’s, my American Heritage teacher was Matthew Holland, Jeffrey Holland’s son, which for some reason everyone else thought was super neat. And my TA for that class was one of the biggest buffoons I have ever known. Let us never speak on it again.
    My friend Aaron went to Timpview High School, though if you went on your mission in ’94 you’d have been out of there long before he graduated in ’99. Funny, I didn’t figure you for a Provo Mormon.
    My husband has ADD too, and has been insisting that our daughter has it, though it’s too early to tell. It would not be a surprise with all her other symptoms though.
  3. My dad converted to the Church in the 1970s while at BYU (he’s originally from stubborn German Lutheran stock in South Dakota). He was pretty hard core (his stake president affectionately dubbed him “the bulldog of the Lord” – which I think fits him pretty well). He was very orthodox during my childhood. Still is. I wish I had even half the scriptural mastery he does. Let’s just say, he may have almost as much of a mastery of scripture as Bruce R. McConkie (one of his heroes) did. Or maybe I’m just a kid idolizing his dad, but anyway…
    My mom, by contrast, grew up in a part member home. Her mother was from a long pioneer Mormon heritage, but her dad was a Baptist (quiet, gentle man – worked as a nuclear physicist on the Manhattan Project). So my mom grew up with more of an outsider’s view of Mormonism and still retains a lot of quiet skepticism about the Church (which I think she passed on to her kids). She left home with a rucksack in the 60s, sort of did the hippie thing and marched in peace protests – all that.
    Interesting marriage that seems to have worked out very well, oddly enough. They passed on a bit of both of themselves to me. Strange combo I guess.
  4. That’s very interesting. Your father was going to BYU as a non-member? Why was that? Was your mom raised Mormon in spite of having parents from different faiths, or did she choose it at some point?
    I’d tell ya about my parents, but “black sheep” doesn’t begin to describe my place in the family. The only ways I’m really like my parents is that I have my mother’s goofy, offbeat sense of humor and my father’s quick temper. I don’t have any LDS relatives by blood.
  5. My mom went to LDS services as a kid, but she reports that her reception was not necessarily all that friendly. The ward in question seems to have been a rather clique-ish one. My aunt was offended about something in Relief Society and never went back. She’s currently a devout Jehovah’s Witness. It didn’t help that the missionaries back then (1960s) tried to baptize her secretly without telling grandpa (he was quite upset when my aunt told him).
    Mom wavered back and forth. But as a teenager attending baptist services, she was sitting in a Sunday School class for youth and they were having each of the kids stand up and recite… something like catechisms I guess. Kind of a confession of faith where you state your belief. One of the parts of it had the confessor state their belief in the Trinity. It got to my mom and she says she just couldn’t stand up and recite it. Almost like she was physically unable to do it.
    After that, she went home and told her dad she wanted to be baptized Mormon, and he said OK. And that was pretty-much that. She almost left the LDS Church over the blacks-and-the-Priesthood issue. But she decided to tough it out and the next year the ban was lifted. She says she was glad to learn that about herself – that she was the kind of person who would stay.
    Dad was converted by a roommate while getting his biology undergrad degree (he’s a doctor in Orem right now). He hasn’t said much about why he winded up at BYU. I imagine it was just chance. He jokes that it was because he heard that all the men leave for two years and leave their women behind.
  6. Your parents have interesting backgrounds, Seth. I know all about being driven away by clique-ish churches for sure.
    “He jokes that it was because he heard that all the men leave for two years and leave their women behind.”
    Ha. That reminds me of Frank Abagnale, Jr. of Catch Me If You Can fame. They didn’t put this in the movie, but in the book he says that he began scoping out college campuses across Utah and marveling at the lovely co-eds. One college had such lovely co-eds that he was tempted to enroll as a student, he said, but decided to become a professor instead. He faked a transcript from Columbia University and got a job teaching sociology 101 there for the summer. He said he just read a chapter ahead of the class and they were never wiser.
    The book didn’t say the name of the college, but in interviews he clarified that it was Brigham Young University and he was just a teaching assistant. I suspect his ghost writer sauced it up to professor for the book. Still, his reasons for targeting BYU always make me chuckle.
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