When I’d dabbed at my lips with a napkin, Gwen was sent off with another attractive, heavily made up woman behind a door that was identical to the one Serena Matthews herself took me through.
“What a wonderful stage of life you’re in, a grandmother still active enough to enjoy her family. And this festive time of year must be so full of joy for you,” said Selena. “I’m envious. You’ve put all that work into your family, and now the investment is paying off!”
I didn’t like to think of my family as that kind of investment, but it was still flattering to hear.
Selena gestured to a tan and beige floral couch for me to sit on. The room around it was big enough to comfortably fit my entire extended family. It sounded like there was white noise being pumped in, too, so no sounds from outside would impinge on the quiet, peaceful experience.
I felt a tingling sensation as I looked up at the elaborate chandeliers, then the white upholstered chair next to me, and the pale wooden desk Serena sat behind. Her black pencil skirt was the only thing out of place here; otherwise, this was very much a replica of the celestial room in the temple, the room meant to embody the peace and serenity that we would feel on entering the highest level of heaven within Mormonism.
The celestial room was also the central room of the temple that every endowment room led to. Two hours of scriptural explanations, as well as lessons on the signs and symbols necessary to be admitted to heaven, all led to the passage into the celestial room, which was the place families who had been separated by gender before were able to reconnect.
When Serena spoke again, it was in a hushed tone that couldn’t possibly be unintentional. She sounded just like a matron at the temple, though I wondered if other people consciously noticed these parallels. “Are you ready for me to introduce you to the most important financial commitment of your life?” she asked.
This again reminded me of the temple questions, asking if anyone wanted to leave before they made the commitments to the Mormon church and to God that happened inside the temple.
“Yes,” I said, feeling my stomach clench. The consequences of disobeying temple covenants had once been mimicked in graphic detail by all the participants, including cutting your own throat and disemboweling yourself. That had since been taken out and replaced with a simple promise to keep things secret. No matter how much I was willing to play along in general to get the information I wanted, there was no way I was going to swear an oath like that here.
I’d always thought that the secrecy of temple ordinances was a little overdone, that young Mormons who went to the temple for the first time should be given more of an explanation of what would happen and the specific covenants they’d have to make. But this imitation of temple trappings and ambience to sell a product and make money for Bishop Hope made me furious.
Why hadn’t someone who’d been here already told church authorities about the temple trappings? I knew that if Kurt saw this, he would blow his top about how inappropriate it was. Though once I thought about it, it seemed that someone had walked a careful line to avoid doing anything that was excommunicable. There were no all-seeing eyes, no moonstones and sunstones, no hand signs or direct cribbing from the words of the temple ceremony.
“We’re honored that you’ve come to us for help in your next stage of life. We want to give you what we have learned works best for most of our family members on the path to success. We’re sharing that with you now.” Serena pushed a button and a screen came down—very much like the film screen in the temple, hidden behind a curtain.
There was a short five-minute feature about the security system itself, though it didn’t seem particularly special to me. Of course, the film showed each window of the house being surrounded by an angelic light, and the garage and front doors suffused in a golden glow as soon as the electronic monitoring device was activated. Someone had done a lovely animation of the power streaming from the device to each point of entry, and the music was a nice Bach concerto that I recognized from the orchestra in my college days, when I played cello.
When the film was over, the screen was retracted and the lights came back on. I found myself blinking a little at the sudden change, a feeling that was not unlike what happened when I stepped out of the temple and back into the real world on a hot summer’s day.
“And now you’re back with me,” said Serena.
“Yes,” I said.
She leaned over the desk and handed me a tablet. “You’re ready for stage two now,” she said.
I stared down at the tablet, but the images looked like nothing so much as a digital flipchart. I thought about when Bishop Hope had gone on a mission. Late 70s, when flipcharts had been in fashion. No wonder he thought they were the best way to convert people to his business.
Serena said soothingly, “Now, you’ll be inviting other people to join our wonderful family here, so you want to start by making sure that the client knows you’re on their side. If possible, you’ll want to meet with both the husband and the wife so that both feel fully included in the decision-making process, and so you can answer any questions they may have.
“Be sure to keep them positive about the prospect of our family benefits. We want what they want for their family. We want their health, happiness, and peace of mind. We want them to know that their family is one-hundred-percent safe when they are with us, because their family is our family, and families are forever.”
She had the Mormon code down pat. It disturbed me a bit to realize how often we as Mormons were told to do certain things to keep our families protected. Pay tithing. Fulfill our callings. Follow the prophets of the church, no matter what. When the same language was used for a business, it made me expect the worst. I felt like I was at a used car dealership inside of a temple. It was very strange.
“Now, Linda, you start in our suggested presentation here, with something that no one can disagree with.” Serena leaned forward and swiped to the next screen for me, which showed a family standing in front of a home—a far nicer one than Kurt and I owned.
Every family deserves the gift of Celestial Security, the banner across the top of the photo declared.
Serena looked up at me.
I was trying to remember how this was all supposed to make me feel. Committed, convinced, calm. Ready to put money down. “Of course. How could anyone not want the best for their family?” I asked.
“And make sure to always use the names of both clients as often as you can. It makes them feel like you see them as individuals, and further makes them feel part of our tight-knit family. Can you see why I would do that, Linda?” said Serena.
“Sure,” I said. Then I added, “Serena.”
She nodded at me, not noticing my sarcasm. “Good.” She swiped to the next image on the tablet. “What price can you put on the safety of your family?” she asked, reading verbatim from the line at the top. This time, the graphic was black and white, showing a house both on fire and flooded at the same time.
She swiped again. “What price can you put on peace of mind?” she read from the next screen, which depicted a man and woman in bed together—fully clothed, of course.
“What price indeed,” I murmured.
She read another screen, “Your family’s kingdom is worth all the money and time you can put into it, to keep it safe.” The image this time was of a castle in the clouds, the family all in white clothing with green accents. Everyone wore a gold crown.
I shifted in my seat, uncomfortable with the subversion here of the temple promise to commit all our time and money to God’s kingdom.
Then there were the mathematical graphics to prove how “easy” this was to afford compared to a car or student loans.
When you could buy a car for the price of your home security system, something was wrong. I didn’t have a security system in my home at all, and if I did, I would never have paid this much for it. But the truth was, S
erena made it very difficult to say “no.” It was like a missionary discussion, where the only answers were affirmative, so of course you’d join.
“Well, Linda now we’re ready for the big question.” She swiped the tablet again.
Are you ready to invest in your eternity? it asked.
I shivered involuntarily at a couple’s wedding picture, clearly taken in front of the Salt Lake Temple. There was no attempt to hide the holiness to the lord sign or the spires at the top. Moroni with his trumpet was on the highest spire, and the temple grounds were clearly visible.
“Our average sales consultants make up to ten thousand dollars a month,” Serena went on in the same Muzak tone. “But I think you’ll be surprised to hear that the only investment we’re asking from you today is three thousand dollars.”
I suppressed a choke at this, but Serena didn’t seem to notice.
“For that small investment, you’ll be joining our family, and you’ll get all of the perks that come with that. Of course, we’ll start you with your own security system and monthly payments. Then, as a salesperson, you’ll be invited to our quarterly lunch, a chance to talk to everyone who is involved in this great endeavor. And if you sell extra, you will of course be invited to other special events, with special guests you will be very pleased to meet.”
“Like who?” I asked.
“Oh, I couldn’t tell you the names directly, but I assure you, they are very important people. National figures you’d be happy to have your photo taken next to.” She made a gesture, drawing my attention to a photo behind her head I hadn’t seen before. It had Greg Hope in the front with Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, and in the back were about a hundred other people. I strained to find Gabriela Suarez in the group, but it didn’t look to me like there were any Hispanic people in it, not even Hope’s own wife. All white faces, white shirts on the men, pastel dresses on the women.
“We treat our family very well. We want them all to know how much we value them and all they do to help us continue to grow and move forward in the industry,” Serena said with her perpetual smile. “With your first investment, you will begin to build your own clientele and if they also join the family, you’ll receive additional advantages because they’re working for you, as well as for the rest of us. It’s such a small amount of money when you consider all the possibilities, don’t you think?”
Serena went on, caught up in her own spiel.
“There will be a small yearly commitment fee after that, and of course, occasional fees to help pay for new sales materials as they come out, and for the training meetings you’ll come to in order to help you achieve your goals,” said Serena, playing the part of a Stepford wife perfectly.
She paused and I knew I had to say something, but I wasn’t about to tell her I’d write her a check. “That sounds very promising,” I tried.
She seemed to only hear encouragement. “Wonderful, Linda. All you need to do is sign here,” she said, pushing over a multi-page document to me. Had that been next to her the whole time? She’d already opened it to the final page with a line for my signature.
I wished I could go through the whole contract for informational purposes and take photos of it with my cell phone, but I suspected Serena wouldn’t allow that.
“I’ll have to think about it,” I said.
“What is there to think about? This is the way to a new, more celestial life for your family. How can you say no to that, Linda?” Her tone was pure saccharine, as if she wasn’t pushing me to transfer thousands of dollars in one stroke of the pen—not to mention whatever else was in the small print that I hadn’t had time to pick through.
I wanted to get out of here, and badly. I felt like I’d stepped through a mirror into a world where everything good was bad and everything bad was good. They said that the way Satan worked was to counterfeit the good, and that seemed to be exactly what was going on here.
I said, “I’m sorry. I can’t make this financial commitment on my own. My husband and I have committed to always consulting each other before we sign a contract.” It was true that we had agreed upon this, mostly so that we could say it to pushy salespeople.
Serena seemed to beam at me as if this was exactly what she had most wanted me to say. “Oh, your husband. Of course, you don’t want to do anything without consulting him. Why don’t we make an appointment for some time later in the day when he can come back in with you? I’d love to do the presentation again with him involved. He sounds like a wonderful man.”
I had said absolutely nothing about Kurt, but wondered if him being an accountant would turn her off. I smiled faintly. “I’ll talk to him about it at home tonight,” I said, making no promises.
“Good, good. I can call you in the morning. But just for my information, is your husband still employed full-time? Or has he retired?” she asked.
I was slightly offended at her assumption about our ages. We weren’t so close to retirement age, were we?
“He’s not retired yet,” I said tightly.
“Well, let’s go ahead and schedule that next meeting for the weekend, then,” she said, pulling out the tablet again.
“I’m not sure what his schedule looks like, but I’ll call you.” I had no intention of doing that. Kurt would be furious if he found out that I’d come here and pretended I was interested, just to get more information about Gabriela Suarez. And Bishop Hope.
Serena leaned forward, holding eye contact in an uncomfortable way. “Oh, no need for that. We’ll make sure to call you, Linda. We keep track of everyone who’s in our family, and you’re already one of us now.” After that, she led me back out to the front room and offered me a box of fancy chocolates. I took two, and savored the mint truffle and raspberry crème. I was deciding whether to head back to the car and wondered if Gwen had already finished her presentation when I heard a raised voice from the room next door.
Gwen came out a moment later, her tone angry and demanding. “I wanted to know about Gabriela Suarez, that’s all. She told me about your company in the first place, and I thought she deserved credit for bringing me here.”
The woman who’d been Gwen’s own Serena came out after her, followed by what looked like a security guard, a man dressed in plain clothes who was about six-four, three hundred pounds, and Samoan. A former BYU football player that Greg Hope hired using his connections to the sports programs there?
“Oh,” said my Serena, and yanked the box of chocolates from my hands. “You need to leave immediately,” she said.
So much for being part of the family already.
Gwen and I were escorted off the premises and had to drive away before they stopped following us.
Chapter 20
I stopped the car after I’d driven about half a mile from the parking area of Celestial Security and let myself catch my breath.
“Well,” Gwen said from the passenger seat. “That was telling.”
“It was disturbing,” I said. I rubbed my free hand up and down my other shoulder to reassure myself that I was in the real world, in my own body.
“Yeah, I wish I could take a shower,” Gwen said. “There’s something very wrong with that place.”
It was true. “Why do you think people sign up for that package? All that money, and you just keep paying.”
“I don’t know,” Gwen said. “It doesn’t make any sense to me. I mean, I can see how Celestial Security is making money off selling the sales kits to their consultants, but I don’t understand why people would pay so much extra for what seems like an ordinary security system.”
“Maybe because it feels so Mormon?” I said.
Gwen shook her head. “And that makes their product worth ten times as much?”
Maybe. In my experience, Mormons could be manipulated by anyone who pretended to have a connection to the church, and the trappings of the temple would have made it that m
uch easier.
“Are their customers just stupid?” Gwen suggested. “And don’t understand how real companies work?”
“More like people who are used to believing what they’re told and assuming that anyone in authority is looking out for their best interests,” I said tartly.
Gwen blinked at that. I guess she hadn’t heard me vent enough about my own problems with Mormonism yet.
“I’ve seen a lot of multi-level marketing stuff go through the ward. Amway, Mary Kay, Nu Skin,” I said, shaking my head. There was always a new product being sold, but the method was the same. Mormons have big circles of friends in their wards and are used to “bearing testimony.” They invite people over under the guise of throwing a dinner party, then ambush everyone about the latest product.
I’d never gotten into selling, but I’d bought a lot of things at parties from friends in the ward out of obligation or guilt.
“You missed doTerra and Nature’s Sunshine,” Gwen said. Those must have been newer ones I hadn’t heard of yet. “And Noni Juice, Jamberry, XanGo.”
“I hate the idea that con men come to Utah just to make money, but it works. We’re easy pickings,” I said. Mormons could be so gullible. I’d heard non-Mormons say that if you believed an angel came and delivered gold plates to a fourteen-year-old boy, you’d believe anything.
It wasn’t always fake miracle products, either. There were a ton of fake investment schemes that Kurt had heard of through ward members. Some complained about being robbed, and others tried to convince him to buy in.
Because he was an accountant, Kurt had training in discerning good investments from bad ones and was never taken in. But he spent hours in Sunday meetings at the church trying to explain to people why they shouldn’t invest in one cockamamie scheme or another. And he was sometimes blamed for it when they did it anyway, against his express recommendations, because he hadn’t explained his reasons well enough for them to understand.
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