Cynus

I agree. I also apparently missed replying to this review months ago. My apologies, James.

“You wouldn’t understand . . .” His words hung in the air and left us with a terrible silence. I knew this was the end of the conversation, and that was what scared me the most. Once again our conflict would go unresolved, unless I found some way to break through the wall he had thrown up between us and entice him to speak again. But I was certain that I would fail again as surely as I had every time before. I was losing my son, and I feared it was only a matter of time before he stopped speaking to me altogether.

That reminds me of this one, which used to hang in the wrestling room(which served as a dojo for me) at the high school where I studied Aikido. "The true test of a man’s character is what he does when no one is watching.” ― John Wooden

Each of these boys is hopefully as complex as I tried to make them. This story is essentially about what you put in your last line: " . . . them struggle to reconcile their faith with who they truly are". I hope to deliver an interesting journey of self-discovery for these boys.

It is going to be an interesting ride for sure. As it's not completely written yet, I'm not even one hundred percent certain what will come of the interactions between them, but I do know that whatever they end up telling each other is going to affect a lot. I hope that your eagerness will not be disappointed.

Oh, we'll find out soon enough, I think.

It can be insane. As I was mentioning below in response to Reader1810's review, almost everyone enters the MTC trying to prove something, and that can make a lot of tensions run high. Especially if you have two alpha-male personalities bump into each other. Physical fighting was incredibly rare, though not unheard of. If those in charge found out that you were physically confrontational, sending you home wasn't beyond their potential consequences. That being said, most physical conflicts were resolved among the missionaries themselves to avoid involvement with "the authorities". Funny you mention "Lord of the Flies" though. I actually entertained an idea several years ago of writing a story centered around a murder at the MTC. Maybe someday I'll actually do it.

While none of the characters are directly based off of people I knew during my own mission, they are all based odd of aspects of what I call "Mission Culture". Each of these boys could have easily been boys that I served with, if they were real. And there always seemed to be a number of groups that form. Oddly, despite it being a religious experience, those who were overly zealous like our dear Jason Hadley, were often the outcasts.

I don't think that this is a true spoiler, but a line I'll use later in the text from Luke's internal monologue is, "Jason Hadley is an asshole". But, suffice to say, you are seeing him the way I intended him to be seen. Unfortunately, this is the stereotype of how the strict, righteous missionary acts, and as such I wanted a character who fit into that stereotype. If you refer to the description of the story, you may notice that the "reasons for serving a mission" each fit one of the boys. The politeness is something that occurred uniquely in the MTC while I was there. There's an expectation for how a missionary should act, and most missionaries I knew when they arrived at the MTC were eager to impress with how polite they were. However, after a few weeks most of them began to loosen up, and the dorm rooms were every bit as chaotic as you'd expect them to be with a group of young men left to their own devices.

Thanks, Rex. I hope I won't let you down.

I try not to be anyway. Thanks for the review, and for the positive energy.

Then they mixed with my own I shed while writing it, surely.

Thank you for commenting. I'm happy to see you here.

Thank you. This was extremely cathartic for me to write, though I can feel myself starting to slip back to my normal state of mourning already. Well, perhaps slightly above my normal state.

Thank you, Sammy. As always.

Definitely not. The only time my thumb is green is if there's some sort of dye involved. Plants wither and die around me. The person below me would do well in Vegas.

Gary wasn't paying much attention to the speaker at the front of the room, though he was sure his parents were. The speaker was an older gentleman preaching of the great sacrifice the missionaries would be making, and how their dedication would bless the families they would be leaving behind. Gary didn't care about all of that, and he felt he was ready to leave his family behind. As long as he wasn't surrounded by everyone who had told him how to think his whole life, he might get a chance t

Have you considered looking those names up?

That can't be the case though. The Souls series has a strong following, and with almost 20,000 members here, there has to be someone else who enjoys it.

I'm apparently out of likes, but I've loved every single thing that's been shared so far, so I'll come back when I have more available and make sure to like everything I haven't already. Here's something that isn't a quote, exactly, but it does inspire me. It helps me remember not to stereotype, and is funny at the same time.

Oak Shadows will always have a special place in my heart. It was the first of my stories that I legitimately fell in love with, and it's the second short story I'd ever written. As for their relationship, it was going to be outside the norm from the beginning, regardless of how it went in the future(Which is described in my story, Ashes of Fate). I didn't even try to normalize it, lol.

I don't know how I missed this review from way back in February! My apologies. These characters actually live on in my story Ashes of Fate that is found at Awesomedude.com.

I have felt loss this deeply, and it has an interesting way of motivating me to do things in my life. Thank you for sharing. I loved it.

crime

etymology