I didn’t really date in high school, or even college, so I didn’t have to deal with the same temptations my peers did. I was frightened by what my faith community had taught me about sex and romance, so gladly avoided it. I was also in the closet until my 20s.

St. Getrude’s is a Benedictine monastery in rural Idaho that was founded by Swiss nuns in the United States in 1882 and moved to Cottonwood in 1907. Today the property includes the monastery, an inn, a retreat center, a gift shop and a chapel.

Below is a video of the first ever Pullman Coffee Talk, featuring WSU journalism students. The students spoke about their year-long religion reporting experience.

For the past school year FāVS editor Tracy Simmons has been leading a group of journalism students from Washington State University on a religion reporting field trip where they toured houses of worship and learned about faiths and cultures they might report on one day. 

Geshe Dadul Namgyal, an esteemed Buddhist scholar, joined the Abbey as the first male resident teacher. He joins abbess and founder Ven. Thubten Chodron and author Ven. Sangye Khadro as a senior teacher guiding and instructing the monastery’s now 20 monastics.

Last year my partner and I bought a house together and for the past nine months have been crossing DIY improvement projects off our list. Doing these projects together is helping us grow as a couple, and I’m grateful, but there’s one task that puts me in a bad mood without fail — painting. I’d rather get a root canal.