I secured more lucrative employment at the food services in the Crimson Commons a fast food lounge at the University Building. I knew I would be able to get food to eat there. I was given the task of washing walls.
One afternoon I was washing the walls in the kitchen area. It was there I met my future wife and future mother of my children. She was washing a load of pots and pans. I was to learn her nickname was " bubbles " and it wasn't because she was an exotic dancer. Over time, we found we had similar interests.
We began to do nice things for each other. Mary would give me wonderful egg salad sandwiches from her lunch time meal. I showed her some of my paintings at the barracks classrooms. She liked one filled with lots of colors. It was an abstract painting of multicolored waterfalls. Around May 1970, she bought it for fifteen dollars. She paid me twelve and the remaining dollars became a joke I used throughout our marriage.
One of the first dates we had took place at the Promised Valley Playhouse when it used to be directly in front of the Salt Lake Temple on a stage platform with surrounding amphitheater.
On the second date we drove to the Great Salt Lake and I told her very cautiously that I was gay. She told me later that she didn't think she understood what that meant at the time. I wasn't sure myself how to express that part of me to her. All I knew it was very special having a friend. We spent more time together having numerous drives in the canyon and many picnics.
Apostle Kimball counseled me not to tell any prospective marriage partner about my homosexuality. It didn't feel right to with hold that type of information from her so I did not. I thought at first it might lessen her interest, but the caring had begun on both sides. It seemed an exploration of a part of my personality which was unknown to me with the serious concerns about marriage, fatherhood, children, and a distancing from the uncertainty of homosexuality.
Brother Kimball had told me without a family I would always be alone. I would be a leaf blowing in the wind aimlessly. I believed him and I wanted better for myself. If I knew the pain we would experience, I would have stopped everything with her then. As far as I could understand marriage was a way to please God, family, society but I was very naive to think that it would cure homosexuality.
Both of us were not actively attending church. Slowly such principles of reading scriptures, attending church, and prayer became a part of our lives.
March 4, 1971- .." I don't understand how I can ever feel any different inside ( because of homosexuality ) but I am patiently trying with Dr. Bruce Goates therapist, friends and Apostle Kimball. I did ask the Lord to allow me free agency so I could have someone to love. I have Bubbles ( Mary ) and my friend Rick and feel I have failed them by being so divided but I'm still giving..to both..which has been the greatest feeling I have ever experienced ....I felt so wonderful today when Rick passed me in his car on Fifth South and drove me home. Then there was this horrible alone feeling when he went home at 10:30 p.m..."
Rick was a bisexual friend of mine from work. He would talk about his girlfriends but give me simple affection and company. Rick also tried out his gay feelings sexually with me as well. We would relate to each other before and after my marriage.
March 21,1971- ..Alone most of the day because my dear friends were not near me ( Mary and Rick ).. Feel that I should write a book about all these strange occurrences in my life. "
( It would be twenty five years before I would take these journal entries and compile them into a book to explain the perplexing events in my life. )
As my future wife and I became better friends we decided to drive back to New York State primarily to get slide photos of the Hill Cumorah Pageant ( Mormon outdoor dramatization ). We could see New York States historic Mormons sights and visit my family. Maybe I was also showing my family, who knew about my homosexuality another part of me I was working on.
November 18,1971 " Now, please Father....I'm tired of the world, it drags me down into misery. I want to end the gay life and live the commandments. Walk one step at a time. Oh please Father NOW! ..."
This was one of many times of the continuous effort on my part for a desired repentance. It seemed an endless desire for me to force my behavior to please everyone except myself.
November 29,1971 " Weak, but still want to keep my covenants.( promises one makes to God in the Temple ) Called Brother Kimball. He continues to tell me to guard myself from any form of stimulation by covering my genital area when standing in front of a mirror, not observing my genitals when urinating, and staying out of shower rooms. "
To further advise me on this point he a gave me an example. Brother Kimball said that he told a fellow apostle, Brother Howard W. Hunter to cover his genitals with a towel in the shower room. He had to keep reminding him to do so. This was in the Deseret Gymnasium where the Brethren took exercise. Brother Kimball made me to understand that this type of behavior was not appropriate. It made me think of the passages in the scripture where one of Noah's son saw his father exposed.
I constantly wanted to know why I was gay. I wondered why God allowed it to happen to me. I was particularly troubled after Elder Kimball said that " perhaps it ( homosexuality ) was a partial judgement upon me at coming to the earth before I was born."
I did not doubt his word. I pondered those ideas renumerating over them until I gave up thinking about them out of respect for my sanity.
December 11, 1971- " Visit with Brother Kimball in his home on Laird Drive. Mary was in an automobile accident. She was not physically harmed. Prayer together before we visited Brother Kimball."
As we entered his house, I noticed his Christmas tree was decorated with a Noah's ark ornament which had animals in twos all over the tree. He spoke with me for a long period of time.
" Brother Kimball told me he was pleased with me, instructing me that Satan was only off for a season." I told him that my future wife knew that I was homosexual. He said " she is not the right person to marry if she accepts you while she knows you are homosexual. " I told him that I wanted to be honest with her and that I had told her. I told him that for me, telling a future partner I was not homosexual, would be lying. "
I asked him to give me a blessing. He blessed me with good health, and success in my studies and social relations. He counseled me to be close to my Bishop. He seemed to be very demonstrative as he pressed his hands on my head very frantically. I thought he was going to pull my scalp apart. I also felt very uncomfortable about how he was leaning into me.
But perhaps that wasn't the only strange thing in my life, since Mary and I " shared lunch with Rick, went to Temple Square, and saw the movie Scrooge together " that day. My last comment in my diary for that day was " It was so good to realize repentance. Thank Thee Heavenly Father. "
It was during this time that I became active in the Church again. I had a wonderful Bishop, Dean Jarman. I showed my Hill Cumorah Pageant ( outdoor drama production located near Palmyra New York ) slides to many groups in the Church. It had become a spiritual experience for me and my future wife. We showed the presentation to members of the Church sharing our visit to New York State and the historic sites of the Church together as a family in infancy.
I constantly had to reprogram myself each day not to think feel or act gay. It was an act of suppression when it came to trying to avoid having gay friends, in my artistic expression or desiring human affection.
December 15, 1971- " Only thoughts, but must not allow them. Such images are the first step backwards."
December 21,1971- " Spoke with Elder Kimball. I told him how difficult it was not to have anyone to love, to touch, to kiss. He warned me that I would die alone as a homosexual and that no one would come to my funeral. He said he had a friend who had chosen that way of life and no one came to his funeral."
I have only attended two funerals in my life, my grandmothers and my mothers, both against my will. I don't find gathering relatives chattering over a corpse of someone beloved very respectful. I am sure when they took Christ from the cross they did so with civility ushering the body quickly into the tomb. I do not believe the number at ones funeral to be relevant. However, Everyone is invited to mine.
It was during this visit that I confronted him about an experience which was reported to me while on my mission. It was an incident that occurred on Elder Kimball's mission.
I was traveling with my missionary companion in Driggs, Idaho. We were invited to a members home. The senior member of the house bragged about being Elder Kimball's missionary companion. He showed pictures of them both. He said that Brother Kimball had kissed him on the lips. I told Brother Kimball I thought his behavior was unusual for someone counseling gays. Not that I thought he was homosexual but that this affection was what I seemed to be lacking in my life at that time.
This former companion boasted that Brother Kimball kissed him explaining it like this: When Brother Kimball received word of the death of one of his relatives he (Brother Kimblall ) asked the companion to hug him, then kiss him on the cheek and finally asked his missionary companion to kiss him on the lips.
I told him that it must be appropriate to kiss a man on the lips if I could not have intimacy or sexual activity with one. He said a familial kiss would be appropriate.
I thought Brother Kimball's experience strange because he had always used the analogy of homosexual sin as a camel in a dust storm needing to come in from the storm of the desert. The tent's occupant or owner would be asked by the camel to let the camel's head into the tent so the camel could get out of the storm. Then the camel would ask that his neck might also be sheltered, then his body and then the tent collapsed blowing away in the storm and there was no shelter for anyone. He compared this camel's behavior to the behavior of the homosexual trying to trick people into joining them in their behavior.
I thought it strange that he would give such a parable. Elder Kimball further counseled " don't give up until your knuckles are bloody," This referred to knocking at Christ's door of repentance. Christ is the Good shepherd. The homosexual is the one who needs to knock at his door.
Many of the other things he asked me to do during this period included giving up all my homosexual friends and staying away from the fine arts area because there were so many gays there.
Many of those things were a part of who I was. I could give up friends who were not adding to my happiness but there were many true friends who were gay. How could I give up drawing, painting, writing poetry, singing music, and writing lyrics? I would be even less involved in life if I avoided myself. Still I made every effort to do so.
This suppression seemed to delineate a dichotomy to my mental heatlh. It caused in me an inability for me to think clearly about interrelations with people I came in contact. Every employment situation and every meaningful part of my life had to be scrutinized. I was becoming increasingly " paranoid ".
December 24,1971 - " Everyone makes mistakes; it's human nature. But true repentance forsakes the old for the true gospel of Jesus. "
I had broken my fast of homosexual behavior once again. This constant denial and declare behavior was affecting my mental health. Looking over twenty years of behavior I can see how I moved from going forward to going backwards in much of my dealings with life's situations such as employment, activity in the Church, and everyday challenges.
I can remember that I faltered often from having self-control and avoiding homosexual feelings and expressing them. The attendant guilt upon my delicate psyche was overwhelming.
January 10,1972- " I was offered $5.50 per hour to teach oil painting classes in Uintah Elementary Community School. Classes start Wednesday evenings 7:00-9:00 p.m. A letter from Brother Kimball arrived today from Laguna Beach."
Brother Kimball sent me a letter from Laguna Beach where he was vacationing and recuperating from what I believe was open heart surgery. He confided in me that he was sad because his doctors gave him only 8 years to live after his heart surgery and this would not allow him time to be the prophet of the Church.
March 9, 1972 - " And again, a bloody knuckles fast." I had fasted to ask some very important
questions and I was always doing all I could to keep myself in control of my homosexuality.