Cream Cheese Pizza.
Sister Harris took a deep breath and then said, “I had an angel visit me in a moment of prayer and he revealed to me that I am a prophetess.”
Every week at our local congregation, we would pass around an 8.5x11 sheet of copy paper with a hand-drawn monthly calendar, boxed into individual weeks. At the top of the paper, written in ballpoint pen, was “Missionary Meal Calendar.” As the congregation passed the tattered page around, they would claim a day by writing their last name and a time. This meant we had a meal appointment for that evening. Success.
These meal appointments, at their worst, were a baked Stouffer’s lasagna or room temperature pasta with off-brand Ragu. At their best, they were backyard BBQ’d ribs with fresh corn on the cob and macaroni and cheese.
Each dinner appointment was typically formal, with us sitting politely around the table, making the usual small talk with the family on the calendar. My go-to lines around the table were, “How did you two meet?” and “Where are you from originally?” The dinners would always end with us, the missionaries, sharing some form of spiritual message and encouraging the families to help us find people to teach. After some time, you realize that these appointments become hour-long performances where you try to make as much of an impression as possible on the family, hoping they will trust you enough to refer people for you to teach.
As I brought our meal calendar back to our basement apartment for the month, I mentally noted a family that had signed up but that I knew nothing about and had never formally met.
Something told me this one might be a little different.
As I stood outside our apartment that scheduled evening, a red compact two-door sedan pulled up into the driveway right on time. My companion walked up to the car, opened the front door, and quickly slipped into the back seat, leaving me up front to make small talk on the long drive. I looked over in the passenger seat and saw a man in his 40s wearing camouflage United States Air Force fatigues. I noticed his military-tight haircut and one of those standard issue bushy mustaches with its perimeter surrounded by a freshly shaven face.
He stuck out his hand and introduced himself as “Brother Harris.” Then we began our long 45 minute drive out to his house as the sun began to set over the Rocky Mountains.
As we made the back-country road stretch from Strasburg, Colorado, to the eastern plains past Byers, Colorado, the last shards of the daily sun faded away amidst all the small talk. As we continued to drive depper into the countryside, I felt that familiar bump in the road where it switches from asphalt to dirt. The sound of dirt and rocks grinding beneath our tires filled the silent pauses in the car between talking points.
Finally, we pulled into a long dark driveway and neatly pulled into vacant spot underneath an outdoor car port. I could barely make out the house from the small area illuminated by the car’s headlights. From the limited vantage point provided by the headlights, it seemed to be a well-manicured manufactured home sitting in a secluded field. As I exited the car and attempted to peer into the horizon of darkness, I couldn’t identify the glow of any other homes within view. We were alone. I knew we were out in the country but had no concrete sense of just how far we had traveled.
As we entered the threshold of the home, we were quickly greeted by Sister Harris, a late-30s housewife draped in an apron. The way she was positioned by the door was as if she had been waiting for us there all day. As soon as we entered the home, she met our gaze with a warm, motherly-like energy that can only be described as piercing. The moment she looked at me, I felt as if I were the only person in her orbit. Then, as she greeted her husband and my companion, I saw that this intense presence and focus wasn’t just reserved for me but for all of us who entered the home.
Shortly after her introduction, her two children ran into the room—a 7-year-old son and a 9-year-old daughter. They both ran into the room with a 1950’s type of energy that was more proper than I had encountered from anyone their age before. After we made our polite introductions, the husband and the children quickly led us into the living room as Sister Harris headed back into the kitchen to finish cooking dinner.
The children, from a stack of VHS tapes, pulled out a copy of VeggieTales Bible Stories and placed it into their TV. My companion and I quickly plopped onto the couch as the husband jumped into his tattered La-Z-Boy recliner with the kind of fluidity that can only be earned through routine. The children sat on the ground in front of the couch as the flashing colors from the TV screen began to tell the story of Moses in a way that only talking cucumbers and broccoli can muster.
Quickly, we were snapped out of our VeggieTales induced trance by Sister Harris walking into the room with a wide smile, telling us that dinner was ready. As she led us across the carpeted floor into the dining room, we were met with a formal attempt at a dining setup. Underneath the faux chandelier sat a dinner plate, salad plate, two sets of forks, two sets of spoons, and a knife, all with a napkin draped across our plates. The attention to detail immediately earned my respect.
As I sat in my chair, I pushed myself in and draped the napkin across my lap, excited to see what meal had been prepared for us tonight. Then, from inside the archway leading to the kitchen, Sister Harris entered with a wooden pizza peel, placing it onto the table. She then said, “I’m trying out a new recipe tonight. It’s called Cream Cheese Pizza.”
I looked down at this pizza and saw flavor combinations I believed mankind had yet to conceive. As she began to explain the dish, I became even more perplexed by what lay before us. First, there was a classic pizza dough—no real surprises there. But instead of a red sauce, there was a thick layer of freshly baked cream cheese. Next, a thin layer of melted mozzarella cheese, sprinkled with mushrooms, sliced tomatoes, olives, and kale. As someone who likes a classic pepperoni pizza, I knew this was a recipe for disaster for my taste buds. I wasn’t a fan of these ingredients separately, and I knew they would be even worse together.
I took a mental pause and reminded myself that my first duty here was to eat and be polite. I knew I would have to suffer through at least two slices of the pizza to create the illusion that I even remotely enjoyed the dish.
As I lifted the first slice off the wooden pizza peel, I could sense my taste buds quivering at what was to come.
I tried chewing without breathing. Maybe that would help negate my taste buds, I thought. The warm, bland cream cheese on a pizza can only be described as repulsive.
From this point, I knew my only way out was to get these two slices down as quickly as possible and move to the salad portion of the meal to cleanse my palate.
As I struggled through the first slice, trying to block the signal from my taste receptors, I heard the dreaded question come from Sister Harris: “How’s the pizza?” I thought to myself, “I have to lie.”
“It’s great,” I said. But as I looked at her, I could quickly tell she wasn’t buying my lie. Her perceptive nature saw right through my attempts at deception. She quickly responded, “ You really don’t have to finish it. I can make something else.” I looked around the table at the other dinner guests. I quickly saw that I was the only one having this issue. The husband seemed to have no trouble with the pizza, nor did my companion or her children.
After registering this, I reassured her that I really did enjoy it and that I missed my mother’s homemade pizza and this reminded me of that. She then reached across the table with a smile on her face and slid another piece onto my plate. I looked at it with a level of repulsiveness I could feel deep in my bones.
As I struggled through these slices of pizza, the small talk resumed, centering around the usual conversation points, leading nowhere in particular. After a general dip in the room’s energy, Sister Harris looked at me and my companion and asked, “Do you believe that God can give each of you personal revelations?” My companion and I looked at each other, a little perplexed by the question. We both answered simultaneously, “Sure.”
Sister Harris took a deep breath and then said, “I had an angel visit me in a moment of prayer. And he revealed to me that I am a prophetess.”
This statement was like a bombshell going off inside my brain. It was spoken with such unshaken confidence that I knew she was being completely serious. The sincerity made me do a conscious double-take, not knowing where to take the conversation next. Should I be polite and allow her to delve more deeply into her story, or should I question and investigate this seemingly divine claim?
I looked around the room and saw her husband silently nodding in agreement, as if he had heard this story many times prior. I glanced at the children to find them looking up at their mother with smiles of adoration glued to their faces. Then, I looked over at my companion, who I quickly realized wasn’t paying attention as he was still gazing down at his shoes. With that, I knew my only way out was through.
“What did the angel say?” I asked.
“I was in my bedroom one night, praying and praying for God to give me direction in life. I just felt as if I had a higher purpose. Then I was reminded by the still small voice that were many prophetesses in the Bible who bore sons and had the same heavenly powers as men. Then, the angel came down and told me all these things were true, that I was indeed a prophetess, and he gave me the same heavenly powers that my husband has from the Church.”
By this point, my brain was in overdrive. I was connecting dots to Mormon beliefs in my head, trying to determine if what she said had any validity. Just like with the pizza, she could sense the hesitation occurring in my head. Then, in an attempt to resolve my internal dissonance, she said, “If an angel could visit Joseph Smith and tell him he’s a prophet, then why can’t the same be done for me?”
Admittedly, her logic carried some weight. Who was I to judge who was entitled to receive divine intervention? Wasn’t I here as a missionary because someone else essentially had the same claim that an angel visited them, just 150 years ago? What was the difference, I thought to myself. Is there even a difference?
Then, from across the table, Sister Harris leaned in even closer to me. “You know, Elder Shinnick, there’s something special about you. The spirit has whispered to me that you will be a great missionary who will one day become an incredible leader in the church.”
Even though her attempts at stroking my young Mormon ego were hitting a note, they weren’t striking a chord. For the next 30 minutes, we sat around the dinner table as she preached the messages revealed to her, while I struggled to appear attentive, although not to listen to anything she said. All I could muster were occasional nods or “yes” while I thought to myself, this woman might be a prophetess, or she might be a lunatic. I wasn’t sure.
Not soon enough, dinner finally wrapped up, and we said our goodbyes. As we were about to walk out the door and back into Brother Harris’s red compact car, Sister Harris grabbed my arms right at the elbows. A strange sensation washed over me as I was touched by a woman for the first time in months, one whom I wasn’t even sure how I felt about. She looked me in the eyes with that same intense presence she greeted us with at the door. Through her thin-rimmed glasses, I could see her eyes were wide, bright, and glossy. She looked up at me and said, “Remember, Elder Shinnick, you will do great things on your mission. You are a spiritual rock. Now go and harvest the field.” We then left.
Later that night, my companion and I arrived back at the dark confines of our basement apartment. I took off my scarf and jacket, hung them by the door, and plopped onto the center crevice of our navy blue thrift store couch, letting out a big sigh. I looked over at my companion and said, “So, what did you think of that? Could she actually be a prophetess?”
He responded, “It’s possible. People receive revelations all the time.”
I still wasn’t buying it.
Later that night, as I lay in bed, I kept coming back to the thought, “Well, our whole religion began because one person had a similar revelation—why can’t another? An angel supposedly visited her just like one visited Joseph Smith with a similar level of divine guidance.”
Maybe she was a prophetess. Maybe she wasn’t.
Either way, my hope was if they ever invite us back, that she doesn’t make cream cheese pizza.