Page 19 of His Elder

"Every email, every phone call on Christmas and Mother's Day—it's the same questions. How many discussions did you teach this week? How many investigators are progressing? When's your next baptism? Like I'm a…" I struggled for the word. "Like I'm a regional sales manager reporting quarterly earnings."

"But you're good at it," Vance said quietly. "The golden boy, remember? Kempton practically canonized you in district meeting."

"I'm terrified every single day that I'm not good enough. I’m scared of…”

The confession escaped before I could stop it. I'd never said it out loud before. Had barely allowed myself tothinkit during personal prayer, when I was supposed to be pouring out my heart to God.

Vance rolled over. In the dim light, his eyes were red-rimmed and swollen, his face blotchy. But he was looking at me now, really looking, and I felt exposed in a way that had nothing to do with the darkness or the late hour.

"Of what?" he asked.

"Everything." The word came out barely above a whisper. "Of failing my mission. Of disappointing my parents. Of proving that I'm not who they think I am."

The words hung in the air between us. I should have stopped there. Should have pulled back, retreated into the safe platitudes about magnifying my calling and trusting in the Lord.

But the darkness made me reckless. Or maybe it was Vance's own raw honesty, the way he'd stripped himself bare with his confession about his father. Maybe it was just exhaustion—two years of carrying this weight alone, of perfect performance and desperate prayer and the constant,grinding fear that I was fundamentally, irredeemablywrong.

"Of being..." I tried to form the words. Tried to give voice to the thing I couldn't even name in my most private prayers, the sick certainty that had been growing in my chest since I was fourteen years old and realized that other boys didn't feel the way I did when Elder Brother Kimball walked past in the hallway at church.

My throat closed.

Say it. Just say it. He already knows. You can see it in his eyes—he knows.

But I couldn't. Because saying it out loud would make it real. Would make it something I'd have to confront rather than something I could keep burying under scripture study and obedience and the desperate hope that if I just served faithfully enough, loved God hard enough, sacrificed everything at the altar of righteousness, He would fix me.

"Of not being..." My voice cracked.

The handbook said it so clearly.Same-sex attraction is not a sin, but acting on it is.As if the attraction itself wasn't a daily crucifixion. As if every time I looked at a companion and felt that flutter of something unwanted in my chest, I wasn't already drowning in shame.

President Kempton had talked about it once, in a zone conference. Used clinical language, scriptural warnings. Talked about the importance of bringing these feelings to priesthood leaders, of not being alone with them, of recognizing them as a test of faith.The Lord will never give you a trial you cannot overcome through obedience and faith.

But what if obedience wasn't enough? What if nineteen years of perfect church attendance and scripture reading and white-knuckled righteousness hadn't changed anything?What if I'd begged God every single night to take these feelings away, and He'd just... stayed silent?

What if the only thing my mission was proving was that I couldn't be fixed?

I couldn't say it. Couldn't put words to the fear that maybe the golden boy was just gold plating over rot. That maybe President Dalton and Kempton and my father had placed all their faith in a missionary who was fundamentally unworthy of the priesthood he bore.

"Of not being who they need me to be," I finished weakly.

Vance was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was careful. Gentle in a way I'd never heard from him before.

"Price... are you—" He stopped. Started again. "Is there something you're trying to tell me?"

My heart hammered against my ribs.Yes. No. I don't know. Please don't make me say it.

"I just want to be good enough," I whispered. "I want to be worthy. I want to feel what I'm supposed to feel and not feel what I..."

I couldn't finish.

But something in Vance's expression shifted. Softened. A recognition flickered in his eyes—not judgment, not pity. Something else. Something that looked almost like understanding.

"Yeah," he said quietly. "I know."

And somehow, I believed he did.

The relief was almost painful. I hadn't said it—hadn't confessed the thing that was supposed to stay locked away until I could take it to my bishop or stake president, until I could approach it through proper priesthood channels with fasting and prayer and the spiritual guidance of someone worthier than me.

But Vance knew anyway.