Preface

Recently, I read in the policies for fanfiction that you're not supposed to have a chapter post entirely devoted to an author's note. All I can say is…oops, I promise I won't do it again.

Anyway, I've had some requests to explain some of the "Mormon jargon" I use, so here it goes…

Brigham Young University is a private college run by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (aka. the Mormons or LDS Church). It's in Provo, Utah, which is forty-five minutes south of Salt Lake City and 5 ½ hours north/northeast of Las Vegas, Nevada.

BYU has an Honor Code that people sign while applying to the school. Besides committing that you'll never cheat, you sign that you'll obey…

The dress code (no shorts above the knee, shirts must have sleeves and cover your middle, guys can't have piercings or have their hair touch their collar or go over the ears or something like that, etc.)

The curfew (no one of the opposite sex in the apartment after midnight, the curfew is later on Friday nights, no one of the opposite sex in your bedroom at all except in the dorms at a certain time with the door open)

The drinking/drug rules (stay stone cold sober and no drugs and smoking even, no coffee or tea, there is only caffeine-free soda on campus, but I don't think Coca-Cola is against the honor code)

And…it goes on.

Note: These rules apply on and off campus.

The rules might seem harsh for a college, but it's the reason why a lot of people go to BYU in the first place. The Honor Code follows the guidelines of the LDS church.

About 93% of the school is LDS. If you're not LDS, you're usually an athlete or foreign (but as always there are exceptions). BYU is a wonderful school.

Growing up you attended church with your family. The congregation that your family meets with on Sunday is called your ward. At BYU, your ward consists of just an apartment complex or an apartment complex or two and some houses and condos in the area. So…instead of going to church with your family and families in your neighborhood or city at home, you go to a ward consisting of 100+ single girls and guys between the ages of 18 and 25 (give or take a few years).

Note: Church is 3 hours long. The first hour or so is sacrament meeting (where you take the sacrament of bread and water and hear people give prepared "talks" (speeches) on an assigned topic). The second hour is Sunday School (taught out of the scriptures in a classroom setting). During the third hour the men go to Priesthood, and the women go to Relief Society.

The leaders, teachers, and speakers in the ward are all volunteers. At BYU, the leaders, teachers, and speakers are your roommates and peers except for the Bishop (the head of the ward) and his first and second counselor who are asked to leave their family wards in the area to serve in that capacity.

A group of wards make up a stake.

Every Monday night your family at home has had Family Home Evening where they meet, sing, read scriptures together, have a spiritual lesson, have some sort of activity or game and have treats. Because you don't have your family at BYU, the ward divides the apartments, condos, and houses up in to small groups that form your FHE group. A girl and a guy are asked to be the leaders of the group. They are jokingly called "Mom" and "Dad."

After they turn 19 (usually after their freshman year), guys leave for two years on a mission. There is an exceptionally low percentage of 20-year-old boys at BYU. Once they come home from their missions, it's time to get married, finish college, and get a job. A lot of guys put pressure on themselves to do it in that order, and quiet a few of them succeed.

Girls can go on an 18 month mission when they're 21 if they want to and aren't married.

Family is the fundamental unit of the LDS Church. A world wide leader in the LDS church said that, eternally speaking, success in the business world "does not make up for failure in the home." Marriage between a man and a woman is extremely important to LDS members. At BYU, where there are over 30,000 guys and girls of which there's an extremely high percentage of virgins with the same standards and religion who hold marriage in high priority, you have a twenty-first century "marriage market."

Therefore…

It is a truth universally acknowledged at BYU that a single man who has returned home from his mission must be in want of a wife.

What I've said are generalizations and probably has caused more questions than they have answered, so I recommend checking out www(dot)mormon(dot)org or www(dot)lds(dot)org.