INTRODUCTION During adolescence, every experience one has contributes to a person's development. Events in such areas as family, school, friendships, and religion have shaped my character and made me into the adult I am today.
FAMILY
My family members were some of my best friends while I was a teenager, and thus we developed a sense of trust and I did not develop as much of an "invisible audience" as other teenagers did. However, because of my mother's excessive worrying and my inability to disobey her, I missed out on opportunities with friends and at school. My best friends growing up were my mom and my siblings. My mother would always take me bike riding on Saturdays, and she took me piano lessons and other activities. We talked a lot, and although we didn't necessarily talk about deep emotional issues, I felt like she was my friend. Similarly, my siblings and I would often play make-believe games together, up into my high school years. Because I felt comfortable and accepted at home, I didn't care as much about what kids at school thought and developed an individualistic, non- conformist attitude. This led me to reject traditional adolescent values of superficial appearance, rebellion against parents, and "anything is better than school." Because I was closer to my family than to friends, I didn't have many conflicts with my parents, and they continued to trust me.
Although I felt like I had a good relationship with my parents, and could talk to them freely, I was often frustrated with my mother's inability to stop worrying about me. I am her oldest child, and therefore she was much more overprotective of me than of my siblings. She almost didn't let me go to the Prom because she was afraid of me driving on the freeway at night. She wouldn't let me drive to stake dances because they were too far away, and it was always a hassle to go over to friends' houses at night. Although I disagreed with her, because she was my friend and I respected her opinions, I really couldn't argue with her too much. Because of this, I didn't develop as close of friendships with my high school friends, and focused on school and family instead. This made me very successful in school and helped me to be close to my family, but I also could not really become socially and physically independent until I left for college and was really on my own. Only then could I develop true friendships and really define my personality for myself.
FRIENDSHIP
My friendships during my teenage years helped me to develop a greater understanding of guys, and later an appreciation the value of friendships with girls as well.
I often spent more time with guys than with girls as a teenager. When I was about 13, I was "going with" a boy named Phillip. Although we never went on dates and kissed only once, we hung out and ate lunch together all the time. I had skipped kindergarten, and therefore was a year younger than everyone else. Because of this, I sought out friendships with less mature individuals – males. Additionally, a love of computers and other "nerdy" activities also made boys more attractive as friends. Unfortunately, because of this, I did not develop deep friendships with many girls my age. In high school, I repeated this same pattern by having a "boyfriend" named Ankur, more for our common interests of non- conformity and computers than for any deep attraction or love. Again I kept myself apart from girl friends, deeming their traditional activities such as window shopping, school spirit demonstrations, and chatting as pointless and frivolous. I therefore did not learn how to really talk to other women in high school. I became cynical and hardened, viewing most girls as overly emotional and superficial. I certainly didn't want to be that kind of girl, so I tried my hardest to become the very opposite – cool, unemotional, unfathomably intelligent, and apathetic. While these attitudes have their strengths in the classroom, I denied myself the opportunity to develop lasting relationships with girls who could have been wonderful friends.
Once I got to college, female roommates and Relief Society forced me to really learn how to be a good friend to another woman. Because I was only seventeen years old when I arrived, I was often seen as "off-limits" for guys (especially returned missionaries) to date, so other girls were often my only choice for companionship. My roommate Sonia and grew to be very close friends as I learned to listen to her problems and talk openly about my own experiences. Before then, I had never been able to fathom why anyone would care about my situation and emotions. But with a deep friendship such as this, I felt I could share my feelings, without being thought weird or being rejected. I came to believe that friendship based on love and understanding was more than idle emotion, but a deep need present in all of us. Once I recognized this need, I could turn outward from myself to be a true friend to others. I even learned to combine this deep friendship with my earlier stage of companionship that is easier to develop with guys. This combination of buddy-like friendship and an ability for intimacy turned out to be a very useful tool, as it allowed me to become friends with and eventually marry my husband at the age of nineteen.
SCHOOL
While a physical deformity made high school life a greater challenge than normal, it also forced me to develop a fierce independence and determination to succeed. In addition, my young age also contributed to a greater scholastic and intellectual maturity.
I was born with a clubfoot, a deformity that makes a foot take on a distorted shape and be smaller. Although I could walk, the doctors determined when I was thirteen years old that I needed to have an operation. Thus, the summer before I entered high school, I was on crutches. While this could have made me a more spoiled, dependent person, because I had to ride buses and the subway to school every day I had to become independent in order to survive. I took it as a personal challenge to do everything I had to as good as or better than a regular person would. I studied hard and lifted weights to keep my strength up, pushing myself to my limits. In addition, I became very competitive, feeling I had to be the smartest, be able to lift more weight than even guys, paint the best pictures, and know the most about computers. This attitude and its resulting efforts led to high grades and success as a member of the badminton team. Because I developed a knowledge of my own ability to succeed, this determination to achieve lasted throughout high school, even after I got my cast off.
I graduated from high school and began attending BYU when I had just barely turned seventeen. Because I hung out with my uncle and his friends who were older (around 25), I adopted a similar standard of maturity. When many freshmen girls were buying the latest fashions and flirting and dating pre- missionary guys, I could never get into that. I could never get into rampant non- committal flirting and dating. Instead, because of my older friends, I became more serious, choosing to make friends of guys first and then maybe date them. The ward I was in, like most BYU wards, heavily emphasized marriage, so although I had not really reached "marriageable age" yet, I thought seriously about marriage. Whereas before college I had set the goals of finishing school, going on a mission, and then getting married, the older perspective changed that to a more marriage- centered view of life. When guys didn't ask me out, I asked them out instead because of this desire. As a result, I was able to let myself get close enough to my husband so that we could get married, despite my young age.
RELIGION
My early experiences with the Book of Mormon led me to have a strong faith in the gospel, and therefore to do what it taught was true. It also helped me overcome difficult discrepancies between my rebellious, selfish ways of thinking and the humility required by the gospel.
When I was 12, my dad said that he would give me twenty-five dollars if I would read the Book of Mormon. At first it seemed like an easy way to earn some money, since I loved reading anyway, but the principles and examples taught therein stayed with me a lot longer than the money did. When I finished, I remember kneeling in my darkened bedroom praying with all the concentration a twelve-year-old could muster to know if what I had read was really true. The calm, joyous feeling in my heart assured me that it, and therefore the gospel, was all true. Because of this belief, and its pervasiveness throughout my adolescence, I could not bring myself to do things that I knew were against its principles. Obviously, I wasn't perfect, but I avoided major temptations through this strength of testimony given to me by the Holy Ghost. In addition to financial considerations, my testimony of the importance of the gospel led me to choose BYU over MIT as the university I would attend. This experience continues to be a strength for me when I feel doubtful or disillusioned.
One of the major hurdles I had to overcome to maintain my testimony of the gospel was my attitude towards femininity. In high school, my competitiveness and desire to be inferior to no one led me to disdain the traditional feminine role of caring for one's family. I wasn't going to be stuck at home with kids all day; I was going to be changing the world, one computer at a time, with my computer genius and indomitable will. What good is being a mother, I thought, if all you do is teach your daughters how to be mothers, who will teach their daughters to be mothers, and so on until the end of time? Fortunately, my faithful Young Women's leaders expressed to me the true importance of motherhood, and how being a woman in the church does not make one inferior, but merely suggests a different role, one of far more lasting value than any corporate or scientific contribution. Their testimonies were not enough, however. I decided to apply the advice Alma gave and "experiment upon the word." After much thought, observation, and prayer, I came to realize that motherhood is the calling on earth that is closest to divinity. This also helped me to be humble enough to marry and to have the desire I have now to focus my life after school on my children and their progress.
CONCLUSION
Through events and situations in my life, I developed certain beliefs. These beliefs caused me to act in ways that either enforced or disproved these beliefs. The character that ensued from these pivotal actions and beliefs has affected my current personality, viewpoints, and situation that are who I am today. 8