Just Stay Away From The Bishop's Office

Venturing to the general region of the bishop's/clerk's office at church typically proves to be a dangerous proposition for any member of the ward. You receive callings for which you're not qualified, get assignments to give talks on commandments you don't obey, and of course, confess sins that you'd much prefer to keep quiet. For some of us, namely myself, well, we cross into that danger zone in yet more creative ways.

There was the time about 3 months ago when I innocently walked down with a friend and the bishop, upon seeing me, yells inside to the ward clerk who we will call "X", "Okay X, let's get this over with." He turns to me without warning and asks, "Will you take X out on a date?" I had heard of bishops pulling these kind of shenaningans before, but heretofore had never been a witness, muchless an involved party in anything of the sort.

My big mouth has told our bishop just how it's going to be a few times (even to the point that I told him once that I was going to walk right past him on the way to the celestial kingdom---all in front of the ward council) but that was when he was just the stake high council guy. Now that he's the bishop and I'm his Relief Society President, I'm more of a lap dog to do his every bidding. Right there, he set up this date with this guy for Saturday (luckily for me this was a cool guy who supposedly should have asked me out a few weeks earlier but I guess was too chicken to) in front of the entire bishopric and the small crowd that was gathering outside. Because I had been on a "date" with the bishop and his wife (yes, only us three) a few weeks previous to this current embarrassment, the bishop went into awkward and mostly false detail about what a picky and expensive date I was and how I demanded steak (yes, I did eat steak when I went out with the bishop, but now at what cost?!). Naturally I was pretty much horrified, but truthfully I was feeling more sorry for this poor boy who had become a pawn in the bishop's devious game and who now had to take me out (but to my relief, one of the counselors told me that X was pretty excited; it's actually still unclear if this whole charade was actually staged and scripted by all parties involved excluding myself.)

The Saturday that I was to go out with X, I got very sick. The bishop even happened to call that day and when he heard how sick and disgusting my voice sounded, he said, "Don't even think about cancelling on that boy. I won't let you inside the church tomorrow." And I knew that he wasn't joking. I went on the date and despite being sick it was fun. The next day, the bishopric hauled me out of my presidency meeting to get a report. And of course X called in sick and didn't even show up to church. The nerve. You can guess how bad I caught it from the bishopric.

Weeks later, to further taint my soiled reputation, my friend Heidi and I were down in front of the clerk's office and she was showing around this picture that had been taken of us at the Polynesian Cultural Center with these massive bare-chested guys during our recent trip to Hawaii. The bishopric had gathered around Heidi and pointed to one of the guys asking, "So that's the one you kissed?" to which Heidi answered, "Oh no, but Camille kissed him." Then I completely turned red, which they all thought was an admission of guilt, despite my emphatic denials.

Even before I left for Hawaii, I was sitting down outside, yes, you know the spot, the bishop's office and was casually making small talk with a new member of the ward. You know the drill: where you're from, what do you do, etc. I made some reference to "westside" because I grew up on the west side of Las Vegas. And he was down with that of course, because he grew up on the west side of Orem and we westsiders gotsa represent together, especially in Utah where west equals ghetto. I then asked him if he had gone to Orem Junior High to which he replied in the affirmative. I told him that I was the choir teacher there. To continue our small talk, I found out he too was a teacher---6th grade at the school 30 seconds away from my house, but he had taught at one of the elementaries that fed into Orem Junior just recently.

I think we had moved on to something else when all of a sudden he asked, "Wait, you teach all of the choir classes there?" And I said yes. And he clarified, "Even 8th grade boys?" And again I said yes. And then he sat back and laughed, "I just got an email from one of my former students saying that he wanted to set me up with his choir teacher." Sure enough, it was indeed one of my students. Hilarious. And an amazing coincidence. At this, the counselors in the bishopric lept up from the money that they were counting and were like, "So. . . when are you guys going out? What are you waiting for? It's like an angel has appeared saying that you have to date!"

Again, I felt totally bad for this guy who was having all this pressure put on him to date me when I wasn't very convinced that I was even his type. I shrunk from that situation by turning in my tithing and getting the eff outta there. Even though my 8th grade student (and shockingly not the bishop and his little minions) was to blame for this dating debaucle, just the fact that it happened in the vicinity of the bishop's office and that it had to do with my dating life makes me suspicious. I suppose if you are married you might feel bold enough to wander to that part of the church building, but if you're single I'd advise you to just steer clear.