Anne Woodland

Recently, I've been working on a personal essay for my English course. I'm only on the second draft, so it's still pretty rough in places, but I felt like I should share it.  The Price of Self–Knowledge While serving a proselyting mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter–day Saints I learned a lot about God and Christ, which makes sense. I was expecting to learn, but definitely not the lessons they had in store for me.   It was supposed to be one of the most satisfying times of my life.   At least, that’s what I’d been told.   Ironically, it was one of the most terrifying I have known.   I knew it would be hard, nothing good comes without honest work, but the satisfaction of a job well done would eclipse that.   I love God; I love Christ.   I love the scriptures.   I love The Book of Mormon and know its truthfulness, and I have never been a quitter.   I believed that surely, those things would carry me through the hardships that ...

Recently, while I was visiting home I was in a bookstore with my older sister, and unable to resist the pull of the printed word ended up purchasing more than I had intended.   One of the books that I succumbed to buying was “Tarzan of the Apes” by Edgar Rice Burroughs.   I have always enjoyed the Disney film version, and since I was unfamiliar with the literary version of Burroughs’ character decided to acquaint myself with him.   On the first leg of my return trip, I opened the book.   It is an excellent read, for those who may wonder, however, I was shocked to discover how Disney-fied my own expectations of the story were!   First, I was disconcerted to discover that Miss Jane Porter is an American, not a Brit.   She’s from Baltimore, in fact.   I was chagrined by this.   I had been annoyed by the recent film “The Legend of Tarzan” where Jane’s character is an American since I ignorantly believed the writers to have taken much artistic lic...