Elder Dylan Gray enters the Missionary Training Center with one goal: to become the kind of young man God, his family, and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints expect him to be.
He has already lied once — in his final worthiness interview, about a kiss with another boy — but the mission is supposed to fix that. Two years of obedience. Two years of service. Two years to bury whatever part of himself still longs for the love he should not want.
What Dylan does not expect is Elder Jacobsen, the companion assigned to share his room, his schedule, his prayers, and the strange intimacy of missionary life. Nor is Dylan prepared for Elder Bromley, whose irreverence and dangerous honesty threaten to pull Dylan toward the very truth he came to the MTC to escape.
As the days unfold, Dylan's faith begins to buckle beneath the pressure of temptation, secrecy, and the growing fear that what he feels may not be something God intends to take away.
Written in journal form and inspired by real experiences, Missionary is a queer coming-of-age novel about religious devotion, forbidden intimacy, and the painful distance between being forgiven and being known.
Elder Dylan Gray enters the Missionary Training Center with one goal: to become the kind of young man God, his family, and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints expect him to be.
He has already lied once — in his final worthiness interview, about a kiss with another boy — but the mission is supposed to fix that. Two years of obedience. Two years of service. Two years to bury whatever part of himself still longs for the love he should not want.
What Dylan does not expect is Elder Jacobsen, the companion assigned to share his room, his schedule, his prayers, and the strange intimacy of missionary life. Nor is Dylan prepared for Elder Bromley, whose irreverence and dangerous honesty threaten to pull Dylan toward the very truth he came to the MTC to escape.
As the days unfold, Dylan's faith begins to buckle beneath the pressure of temptation, secrecy, and the growing fear that what he feels may not be something God intends to take away.
Written in journal form and inspired by real experiences, Missionary is a queer coming-of-age novel about religious devotion, forbidden intimacy, and the painful distance between being forgiven and being known.
Day 1
Provo, UT
Wednesday, May 9th, 2018
The Missionary Training Center (MTC)
Start of Week 1
Passing through the automatic doors and into the Lord’s training ground felt like death.
Well, a kind of death. Behind me was my old life. In front of me was a journey that would take two years to complete. And on that final day, when the old me had fully melted into irrelevance, then, and only then, would I finally be ready to return home and forge an eternal bond with a precious daughter of God.
What a miracle that would be!
Early in the morning, my parents and little sister, Ella, joined me for the final breakfast in their custody. The Marriott’s lobby was a chorus of creaky suitcase wheels and cracking voices as missionaries and families finished up their own series of lasts. It was comforting to know I wasn’t alone, and that I was taking it slightly better than some others.
A boy in a suit identical to mine clung to his mother like he was being sent to war (a spiritual war, we’d all been told). She pressed her lips to his forehead and whispered what I assumed were words of love and comfort. I envied this missionary’s ability to fall limp into the arms of his old life, but I knew that wasn’t my way. I’d decided before I threw back the covers that morning that if I was barreling toward the point of no return, I’d do it with my eyes dry and tie straight.
“Where you from, Elder?”
I turned and saw our waitress smiling at me with a tray balanced in her hand. She had apparently given everyone water without me noticing.
“Vermont,” I said. “We drove all the way here.”
The waitress smiled. “Aw, your family must love you.”
Ella grunted, I ignored her.
“So where you headed then?”
“South Africa,” I replied. My mouth felt dry and cottony, so I grabbed the nearest water—Ella’s, unfortunately for her—and took a couple of gulps. “Johannesburg.”
I wondered how many times she’d asked that question this morning alone. I was sure it was obvious this whole ordeal was new to my family and me, but to her it was just another day in the Land of Saints.
“I don’t hear that one often,” she said. “You must be pretty special.”
My mom leaned into my shoulder and giggled, brimming with joy over her special son. Ella rolled her eyes and snatched her water back.
In the end, I didn’t eat much. I was running on pure adrenaline and knew if I kept trying to force food it would find its way back up again. I stabbed a square piece of pancake and skated it along the pond of syrup, trying not to think about how my last act as a normal person had been to lie to my bishop1 and stake president2 during the worthiness interview. I’d told them everything was fine, that I was free of any serious past or present transgression, and “ready to serve,” which in Mormon means ready to suppress all evidence of worldliness for the next two years.
And I actually believed it!
For the most part, anyway.
* * *
As a teenager, I’d learned through experience it was best to never spend more than a week away from home. That was my safe space, a place where it was easier to avoid anything that could derail my worthiness to serve a mission.
My elementary school years were a relative breeze, even though I had numerous strikes against me: skinny, awkward, glasses, terrible at sports. However, I was also funny, sociable, and excellent at video games. At twelve, that was more than good enough for me. I was finally getting the attention of several boys I was interested in—as friends, of course.
Strictly friendship.
I was happy to have girls as friends, too, but something felt different about making a boy laugh until he cried or impressing a boy with how good I was at first-person shooters.
Things changed when I entered middle school. Not in the expected ways, like the sudden hairiness and drop in my voice. I was staring more, my imagination was getting a little bolder, and I started developing feelings neither my school nor my Church had easy explanations for.
That was when the experimental behavior began. It was innocent at first, and with another boy from my ward3: Evan. I figured the risk would be low if I navigated these new feelings with someone else who shared my faith.
It was far more complicated than that, though. It didn’t take long for of us to enjoy both the secrecy and each other’s company, and things gradually escalated from there.
The first serious infraction occurred at Scout Camp. Evan and I made an excellent team when we put our minds to earning merit badges, but by the end of that week we combined our brainpower and hormones to earn a badge of a different sort.
At 2 a.m.
Among the ferns.
Two weeks later, the guilt had eaten away at the lining of my stomach, and I needed to confess to the bishop. It was humiliating to sit across from a grown man who was also a family friend and reveal so many personal details that not even my parents knew, all behind closed doors. But I understood it was required for full repentance.
Fortunately, what Evan and I did was primarily a show-and-tell situation, so my bishop considered it a serious but workable dilemma.
Even so, the damage was done. Evan and I had gone far enough as scouts to know that what we did was wrong, but also worth seeking out again.
The second, more damning infraction happened during the summer of our sophomore year when we signed up for—or, more accurately, our parents signed us up for—a favorite LDS tradition: Trek4.
Maybe it was the cowboy hat, or it could’ve been the scarf and checkered shirt. Whatever started it ended with a scene that would’ve snatched the souls of the real pioneers faster than anything contaminating the Platte River.
The after-guilt was the most surprising thing. We may as well have murdered someone and hidden their body. We vowed never to speak of it, nor confess to the bishop—because the bishop by that point was my dad.
The only way I could stop myself from mentally spiraling was to accept that I was in a phase. I knew interests changed when someone matured from childhood to adulthood. Why wouldn’t attraction fall into that same category? No one had explicitly taught me that I would gradually find girls attractive, but I figured it would happen when God was ready for it to happen.
Therefore, it was for the best that Evan and I grew apart over the next two years. We both acknowledged it was time to start putting in some effort to be who the Church needed us to be.
He got a girlfriend. I wasn’t up for it myself, but the most important thing was that we stayed clean.
With weeks to go before reporting to the Provo Missionary Training Center, however, I got a text from him:
Hey man, I’d really like to talk before you leave. That alright with you?
Absolutely not.
I had been doing so well, and for so long, that the last thing I needed was to entertain a past temptation I’d never confessed to. Unfortunately, the text alone was enough to stir up some of those old, exhilarating feelings.
Seconds after receiving it, I stared at the ceiling and tried to convince myself not to raise the white flag. I couldn’t afford to fall off the wagon—not in this way, not again. I closed my eyes, started counting from one, and, bafflingly, found myself more turned on the higher I went. In an act of desperation, I reached for a copy of The Book of Mormon on my nightstand and flipped through the pages.
I knew it was over when I got to the picture titled “Two Thousand Young Warriors,”5 which displayed several dark-skinned men with muscled, nearly bare bodies ready to go to war with what I imagined were other sculpted men with gorgeous complexions. Most damningly, it looked like both sides of the conflict would soon penetrate each other with their spears.
I hardly gave the Holy Spirit time to protest. Before long, my imagination ran rampant, and my shorts were clear across my bed.
The deed was done in less than a minute. And what was waiting for me at the end of my little detour? Only the same Spirit I had willingly ignored, this time with a blanket of Mormon Guilt: Tried to warn ya, bud. You know what to do.
So, three weeks away from bearing the Lord’s name on my black badge, I had to go through the repentance process all over again: prayer, fasting, skipping the weekly sacrament6, etc.
The only part I ignored again was confessing to my Bishop-Dad.
I also never did find out what Evan wanted to talk about before I left.
I hoped he understood it was better that way.
* * *
I took a break from playing with my food and glanced around the room. There were gobs of innocent missionaries at every table, reassuring their worried mothers while their fathers looked on with pride.
“You okay, Dilly?”
I turned to my mom and shot eye darts into her soul. “Really? Here? I told you I don’t like that.”
I regretted snapping once I saw tears well up.
“You’re a jerk,” Ella said, and took a revenge-swig of my cranberry juice before wincing. “This is gross.”
I smiled. “You are what you drink.”
She was winding up for a retort, but my dad cut her off. “Stop it.” He didn’t even look up from his bowl of fruit. “You’re scaring away the Spirit.”
“He would need to have it in the first place,” Ella muttered.
The butthead was probably right. Had I really done a commendable job keeping my true identity a secret? Mom probably knew, if I was being honest. Maybe Ella did, too. Who was to say everyone’s gaydar wasn’t calibrated well enough to pick up on it? Then again, it didn’t matter. I needed to be so good at blending in that not even God Himself would consider me unworthy to represent His Church.
When we finally reached the MTC, it was, as Ella put it, like pulling up to “the world’s happiest prison.” The place was massive, with its sprawling lawns, red brick buildings, and flagpoles at the entrance representing the many nations in which missionaries served. I spotted the one that represented my mission: a green horizontal “Y” surrounded by stripes of red, white, blue, yellow, and black. I felt my stomach do a few somersaults as I thought about leaving the States to explore something new.
That is, if my visa ever got approved.
The driveway was lined with smiling volunteers in their Sunday best, and the lot was already packed with Subarus and minivans holding other newbies like me. It took us five minutes just to circle around and find a parking spot, and another ten to fight our way through the crowd to the main entrance.
Once we got there, I had exactly sixty seconds to say goodbye. That was how they did it: quickly, like ripping off a Band-Aid, before anyone could change their mind.
My mom licked her thumb and pressed it onto the back of my head, intent on taming a rebellious strand of hair within my cowlick. “I think I got it,” she said, her voice catching. “Your part looks nice. You sure his hair isn’t too long, honey?”
My dad gave her a reassuring shake of the head. “He’s not going to boot camp, love.”
“And you have plenty of sunscreen?” she asked nervously. “You burn easily.”
“I tan easily,” I corrected.
“He has some of your Italian blood, dear,” my dad said, gently placing his hand on her shoulder. “We gotta let him go.”
She hesitated, then wrapped her arms around me, locking my arms at my sides and squeezing the air out of my lungs. She pulled back, cupped my face in her hands, and looked at me with worried eyes. “Your other pair,” she said in a growing panic. “You have your other pair of glasses?”
I readjusted the pair on my face that had slipped during the hug and nodded. “I promise. I have everything.”
She swiped at a runaway tear and took a step back.
I could feel my own eyes burning, and I almost gave in. But I didn’t want to cry in front of my dad. He was already doing that thing where he stared at the ground and blinked a lot, like he was willing himself to absorb every last feeling before any could slip out. Instead, he stepped forward, enveloped me in a gentle but stiff embrace, and kissed the top of my head.
“Go and serve with honor, son,” he said in a scratchy whisper. I felt that familiar trace of doubt poke through the surface again: Is this honorable?
Then it was Ella’s turn. She didn’t go for the hug. She just stuck out her hand. “You know missionaries aren’t allowed to hug girls, right?”
Her face mutated into horror as I pulled her into a side-hug. “I hugged Mom, weirdo. I can break the rules for you, too.” She squirmed but didn’t fight too hard. That little booger was going to miss me.
As I gathered my luggage, I made the mistake of pulling a Fox and the Hound by turning to look back at my family. Mom was dabbing at her face, Dad was breathing heavily through his nose while biting his lip, and Ella was already back on her phone.
I tried to wave, but my mouth started to tremble, so I just hoisted my bags and turned away. The doors to the Missionary Training Center slid open, then closed.
Just like that, the world I’d known my whole life vanished behind me.
Time of death: 8:54 a.m.
I was officially walking into the light.
FOOTNOTES
1. A lay leader of a local congregation, not a clergy figure in the traditional sense.
2. A regional Church leader who oversees several local congregations and conducts pre-mission worthiness interviews. These interviews are private and are where missionaries must affirm their commitment to Church standards before being allowed to serve.
3. A local LDS congregation.
4. An LDS youth tradition in which teenagers dress in pioneer clothing and spend several days pulling wooden handcarts across open terrain, reenacting the 1850s handcart migrations. Youth are sorted into “families” under adult “Ma and Pa” leaders and are encouraged to feel, through blisters and heat, some fraction of what the pioneers sacrificed.
5. A famous Book of Mormon story about two thousand young male warriors often depicted in LDS artwork as handsome, courageous, and physically fit. Scripture References: Alma 56, Alma 57.
6. The LDS equivalent of communion, taken weekly during Sunday services.
There are some books that get a five because they’re objectively great books, but you care little about the author—maybe there is not enough info in the bio to figure out the kind of public persona they present, for example. Other fives, however, aren’t just great books; the author’s personality shines through.
Now, does that change the rating or my opinion on the story? No. Is it a far more enjoyable experience overall? Yes.
Missionary, the first of a series, falls into this category.
Now, I am not a religious person—agnostic would be an accurate definition—and therefore my approach to other people’s religious journeys is of a “good for you” detached flavor. To each their own and all that. However, (Elder) Dylan Gray’s journey is captivating, heartbreaking, and hopeful at the same time, even to someone with no horses in that race. He knows from the start that his sexual orientation is a big no-no in the Mormon community, and he tries to suppress his feelings without falling apart. Does he manage? The notes and dedication will solve that dilemma; suffice to say, I'm real happy for him and his significant other :D
There are funny moments interspersed with more somber ones, while the lives of elders and sisters preparing for their missions go on. Through it all, Gray wrestles with himself, as I said, and the use of a first person point of view makes it more poignant. The dialogues help with the flow, even if the writing style is pleasurable to read per se. I have found no grammar mistakes nor misspelled words—and no editor credited! Hat tip to Gray (the author) for that, too.
If anything, I think the story might have been tightened up a little, turned into something more concise. 60k is not a doorstopper; I just feel that here and there, Gray walked a little close to redundancy.