Bad Mormon

Before leaving to prepare for her mission, Gay was endowed in the Mormon temple for the first time. She notes that she first encountered sacred temple garments at age 8 while digging through her mother’s closet. The sight of the bright green fig-leaf pattern clothing made her inexplicably anxious, and she hid them. Later, she saw protesters wearing the same outfits at a Pioneer Day parade with her family. Her father’s horrified reaction to the clothing and refusal to discuss it confused her.

Gay’s endowment ceremony began with a ceremonial anointing, in which a female temple worker dabbed her naked body, including her chest and groin, with oil. Gay was moved by the ceremony, but later felt uncomfortable when her mother told her she couldn’t wear a black bra under her temple dress. Surrounded by her female friends, she learned sacred phrases, signs, and tokens, and used them to pass through a symbolic veil into a chamber where her family was waiting. Gay was stunned by their nonchalance after the complex, esoteric ritual. She emphasizes the temple ceremony as the moment she decided to fully accept the Mormon faith: if her family could accept and keep these strange and holy secrets, so could she.