When I joined the LDS Church, one of my treasured guides was Tania Rands (now Lyon), who loved me through my many questions. She remains one of my dearest friends. Her guest post today is adapted from a talk she gave this fall in sacrament meeting in Pittsburgh, which she insists is a far more interesting city than people give it credit for. I believe it, if only because Tania makes every place she lives more vibrant. –JKR

I live in Pittsburgh, one of the cities currently bathed in a high quality publicity campaign for the LDS church. A few weeks ago I stumbled across a couple of the TV and radio spots for the first time, which finally led me to go to the mormon.org/people website so I could watch more. Each interview introduces us to a different person who tells us about their work, their family, their passions, and ultimately reveals: “…and I’m a Mormon.” I am generally extremely cynical about public relations of any kind, but the morning I sat watching these interviews, one after another, I became ridiculously emotional. I wanted to hug every one of those amazing, shining, beautiful, different people. My heart swelled with pride at how truly interesting and diverse we Mormons are. It reminded me of the hundreds of Mormons I have known personally over the years each with their own individual stories, their own reasons for being LDS.

At its best, the message of this publicity campaign is that the stakes of Zion pitch a wide tent indeed. The restored Gospel of Jesus Christ has room for all of us with all of our flaws, all of our individuality, all of our life history, and all of our simple desire to live better lives and be better people.

For a long time now, I’ve thought of the Kingdom of God, in the form of Mormonism, as a big house. Although I grew up in a comfortable and nicely decorated “nursery” of the Lord’s mansion, as a teenager, I started beating on the walls of some of the rooms that felt small and confining to me. At some point, I discovered the attic rooms of the church’s mansion and leafed through old family albums and dusty photos and felt dismayed by what I found there–polygamy? Blacks and the Priesthood? I would march back down to the front entryway and demand an explanation: if your house is so great, how come you have all that creepy stuff in your attic?! And how come the people in the breakfast nook are saying one thing about evolution and the people in the family room are saying something else? Why do I have to go to my boring Sunday School class? Why is that priest blessing the sacrament on Sunday when I heard he was drinking beer last night? Why isn’t this house perfect and why don’t the people in it have their act together? I did a lot of slamming the front door as I went storming out to “get some air” in the wider world during college.

God eventually sent me someone–a recently returned missionary–who had spent a lot more time in a lot more rooms of the house than I had and who gently suggested that I might like to take a more extensive tour. Because he was very smart and very Christ-like, I listened for a long time, then wiped the mud off my shoes and ventured back inside. The greatest spiritual turning point of my life came when I stopped asking God “why isn’t your house perfect?” and started asking “OK, what do you want me to do in your house? Do you need any help with the cooking or dusting? Washing windows?”

That’s when God gently took me by the elbow, said “I thought you’d never ask,” and sent me on a mission. I went to Ukraine in 1991–a country just emerging from 70 years of religious drought–where most houses of God had been destroyed and it was hard to even find remnants of their foundations either physically or metaphorically. I lived with a people who didn’t know what safe, nursery walls felt like to grow up in. Who didn’t see the walls of God’s house as a prison but as welcome, needed shelter and support. That was the great heart-softener for me on organized religion.

Since then, I’ve spent my time wandering through much more of the house, occasionally opening a door I had never noticed before and discovering some great new veranda of the Gospel. Sometimes I go and sit in the attic and read through those dusty history books and wrestle with that stuff for a while. I interview the new members who move into our ward or read one of the dozens of publications by and for Mormons and think–wow! It is fabulous that such fascinating, gifted, soul-beautiful people live in this house too! And when someone comes storming down the stairs and tells me–have you seen what is in the attic of this place!!?? I sigh, and say yes–it’s not easy learning that stuff, is it? But I have had such light and beauty and peace and wisdom poured into me as I have worked in so many other rooms in the house that I just can’t get as riled up as I used to about the darker, more mysterious corners.

Don’t get me wrong; I am no great tour guide of the house. There are wings and whole floors of the restored Gospel I have yet to even discover. There are doors with really tricky latches that I have been too lazy to figure out yet. There are really comfy couches I’ve found where I will park myself for weeks or months at a time and not lift a spiritual finger. There are plenty of days when I sit around and complain about the lousy decorating in certain rooms–even days when I question the soundness of a few weight bearing beams. But I am getting better at living with the flaws while appreciating the roof over my head. I can choose to sit in dark and crumbling broom closets, or in soaring sun-filled atriums. I sincerely believe that this particular house of the Lord’s restored Gospel is worth living in, worth working on and worth exploring more deeply every day.

After all, the Lord isn’t running a Bed & Breakfast here. When we take on the baptismal covenant, we’re not signing a rental agreement, we’re co-signing the mortgage for the place. When something breaks, we don’t get to throw up our hands and call the landlord to come fix it. It’s our house, our mess, our responsibility. We yoke ourselves to our co-signer and get to work.