Urban Poly Princess

I made an appointment to see bishop Sunday at 5:30. I asked for 45 minutes. I need to plan and pray for the guidance I need to do this the right way. I've never been in this situation before. I want bishop to get to know me better. I've always known my bishop well in the past. For the first time in a long time he isn't Polynesian. I haven't bothered to get to know him. I feel like people abuse his time in our ward and I haven't wanted to do that BUT I'm pretty sure that backfired. His impression of me does matter to me and I want him to understand completely how I felt after my mother called him. While I was deep in financial hell I asked my mother to help me when I was in Salt Lake City. She told me she prayed about it and was told not to do that. I was sooo angry with her because I seriously didn't know how I was going to turn it around. I was making payday loans just to pay other payday loans. If they all cashed their checks I would go negative AND NOT pay any of my basic bills like rent, food, utilities. I left Salt Lake angry and wouldn't answer ANY of her phone calls. I'm sure that's what made her call my Bishop. Bishop's advice and turning me over to Jared was NOT helpful, needed OR what or how I expected my bishop to help me. I was given surface advice my situation was too severe to accommodate. It was insulting when he asked Jared to call the loan companies and negotiate for me. Because I'm a stupid brown girl???!!! It's hard for me not to go there when people have gone there so much with me already. Simple budgeting was NOT going to help me where I was. I need to apologize to my bishop for being extra-sensitive to that. I'm going to share some of my experiences with this.

When I lived in Salt Lake City I had to pay $3800 for YES, CAR REPAIRS-I had a Suzuki Vitara I MISS. This idiot girl drove into my car and totaled it. Instead of being grateful nothing happened to me, I just wanted to kill her. My insurance had just lapsed so when her agent said I was 25% responsible, AFTER MUCH stress and HELL I finally accepted their settlement that was less than the $3800 I paid in repairs. My Vitara was a 2001 but it was beautiful with 4-wheel-drive AND a killer stereo system. Now I have a cassette player, no 4-wheel-drive and my radio. Who the hell still has cassettes???!!! I am grateful for my 2003 Taurus I was able to purchase outright for less than $3000 BUT if anyone ever told me I'd be driving one 3 years ago I would have told them to stop sniffing the gasoline. Payday loans helped me pay the 3 different companies I used for car repairs B4 my Vitara was totalled. I make more money now than I did then so I wasn't afraid of doing this. It didn't work this time. I didn't understand. I paid my tithing. Usually that is enough to keep things under control. It wasn't this time. I'm still not sure why this happened to me.

After reading some financial debt forum comments online I decided to close my bank account, open another one with another bank and find a credit counselor. Many of the companies I contacted refused to work with someone with payday loans. Credit card debt is what most of them work with. I learned my credit card lesson years ago. I don't own one now. Before my mission I had Visa, Mastercard, The Limited, Limited Express, Liberty House and JC Penny. The Y have all these stores at orientation. I signed up for everything as a freshman to get the stupid cheap free stuff I thought I wanted. My dad paid off all my cards before my mission.

TANGENT-Reeling it back!!! Bishop offended me by his Jared move. He further offended me by telling Sarah to ask me to attend the basic skills class. I was very clear with him about how I felt about attending the basic skills class. Writing about my talk with him made me realize I'm still angry and I want to get it out of my system. I don't like feeling this way about my bishop. He could do this to someone else. I need humility, a plan to share my feelings with him succinctly but completely and the spirit to help me say what I need to say without getting upset or being confrontational or accusatory.

Planning and praying now AND sleeping later than my goal!!! Hard to sleep when I get riled up.