The Time I Received a Second Mission Call and Ended Up Working as an Exotic Dancer

Last night I dreamt that I decided to go on a second mission during a very warm and very spiritual session of stake conference in this open warehouse place. It was August, and the yellow late-summer sun streamed into the concrete building. I was wearing the wrinkle-free black dress with small white pin-dots that served me so well in mission pictures. I stood up and declared my intentions. But what about getting terribly sick last time? Was I just going to serve those last five months or another eighteen? I didn't know why I'd stood up. I didn't know why I had turned in my papers the first time.
Elder R. Gomez—who was my zone leader for nearly all of my actual mission—turned around in his seat in the row in front of me. He had on a missionary tag that just said "Elder" without his last name. It also had a little line like the service missionary tags have, but I don't remember what it said.
"Elder Gomez!" I said, my eyes wide. "I mean, R-h-radhames!" (My tongue was dry in my dream, and I couldn't roll my rs.) "It's so weird to call you by your first name."
"Good job," said Elder G. Gomez, who was sitting next to him. It was an Elder Gomez kind of a dream.
"So you're going on another mission," Elder R. Gomez said. "Do you think you can handle it?"
"Um . . ."
The stake president announced that I was going to Nebraska.
The scene changed. Elder R. Gomez and I were outside in the grass in the shade of a tree, and he was shaking his head at me. "You can't handle Nebraska," he said.
"No, it won't be that bad. I'll get used to the cold—maybe."
He shook his head again. "I wish I could go on another mission. Real life is hard. Women have it so easy."
I thought about tracting during a Nebraskan blizzard and felt very, very afraid.
I flew down an orange-lighted road tunnel, the breeze cutting through my trusty mission dress.
I was working as an exotic dancer. I was trying to pick out a costume for my next dance, but since I was lower on the totem pole, none of the pretty red-and-gold Indian-themed things were left. All I could pick from was powder pink and covered in feathers. I just wandered around and around the racks of stuff looking for something more flattering.
The top-billing dancers were wearing knock-offs of a famous designer's wear in order to "subvert perceptions of contemporary American culture," as one of the good dancers told me. I stole one of the nice outfits and dressed myself. When I went out on the stage I saw a guy I recognized near the door. (He wasn't someone I actually know.) I ran off the stage, and he followed me. He was there to rescue me. I just couldn't take real life.