Here at Two Harvests on the Mount Monastery, we strive to start doing here 
 on Earth what we will do for all eternity: praise, adore, and offer 
 thanksgiving to our God. Ours is a double monastery community of 
 cloistered nuns and monks who spend their time in solemn worship and 
 adoration of Our Lord Jesus Christ. We follow the Rule of St. Clare here, 
 meaning that each of our professed members have taken vows of poverty,
 chastity, obediance, and enclosure. 

 The abbot of this monastery is named Father Able and he has been with us
 for 7 years now. Today, he will be performing the novitiate ceremony to 
 welcome our new brothers and sisters to the monastery as they continue
 their spiritual journey. Here they will be given a new name and a mentor
 to help teach them not only the ways and beliefs of the monastery, but to
 also help guide them on their spiritual path with God.

 We hope you'll enjoy your visit to our little virtual monastery. You won't 
 find the music player here as we go about our daily life serving Our Lord 
 Jesus Christ in solemn silence. We also do our best to maintain the space
 better than the rest of the site seems to be. Below you can find a brief 
 description of some of the key members of Two Harvests and further below 
 that, you can find photos of the monastery, life here, and grounds.

 [Please note that this is an AU where I have changed some things about commonly held Catholic 
  beliefs [Mostly relating to anti-LGBT because I am gay and ordained]. If this makes you 
  uncomfortable, this probably isn't a project you'll want to pay attention to.]
 
 
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 Secular Name: Sacha
 Vowed Name: Sister Thomas
 Age: 28
 Gender: Trans man
 Pronouns: He/It
 Sexuality: Biromantic Asexual
 Height: 5'10" (179cm)
   
 Sacha was raised in a traditionally Catholic home. He never
 stood out much in his younger years, often choosing to
 simply keep his head down and his mouth shut so that he
 could avoid the strict punishment that was sure to be doled
 out for stepping a mere inch out of the perceived line.
 Around his final year of high school, Sacha ended up coming
 out as transgender to his family and community. His family
 wasn't actively supportive but at the very least agreed to
 use his chosen name, pronouns, and not interfere with his
 medical transition. His grades were good, not spectacular,
 but enough to get him into a relatively nice college a few
 states away from the parents and community he ended up
 feeling so suffocated by as he rapidly approached adulthood
 and completed his general education courses at the local
 community college. Just before moving for school, Sacha got
 and recovered from his top surgery at home with his parents.
 
 Entering college was like entering a whole new world for
 Sacha. He no longer had anyone constantly looking over his
 shoulder, dictating how he could and could not behave, so he
 let loose. He fell into harmful habits and addictions he'd
 told himself as a child he would never get into. He started
 drinking heavily and regularly, chasing the alcohol with
 empty, pointless sex with people he felt no draw to. He
 followed failed relationship after failed relationship with
 benders on a grand scale, dragging his two best friends at
 the time [Lewis and Pippa] along for every step of the ride.
 They were inseparable and those around them often said they
 would come into rooms like a Tasmanian devil, causing mayhem
 and having the time of their lives, before leaving everyone
 in a cloud of dust wondering what had just happened.

 At 26, toward the latter years of the trio's college
 education, Sacha went through a breakup that left him
 shattered. His grades tanked, he stopped showing up to
 classes, and he started isolating himself from everyone 
 until Lewis and Pippa stepped in. They managed to pull Sacha
 out of his funk but he did a 180 and delved straight into a
 two week long deluge of alcohol and partying to numb any 
 feeling that drifted through his mind. It probably would've
 gone on longer if it hadn't been for Sacha's decision to get
 in the taxi home on the last night. The crash and events 
 leading up to it were largely all a convoluted jumble of 
 brief glimpses of lucidity and the alcoholic haze of color 
 that clouded the moments between. The one thing Sacha did 
 remember clearly was waking up in the unfamiliar bad of the
 hospital only to receive the news that he was the sole 
 survivor and that he had been in critical condition for 
 several days.

 His road to recovery had been rough and lonely. He ended up
 turning to the only people he still had and the only
 community he felt at home in: his family and church. Sacha
 eventually moved out of the hospital and back in with his
 parents before starting to attend church services again.
 Shortly after returning to services, his pastor took him
 aside and told him about Two Harvests on the Mount. He
 explained that they were accepting of those with "rough"
 pasts such as his, and that maybe a deeper relationship
 with Christ would help Sacha heal. Sacha decided to look
 into it, reaching out to the abbot of the monastery to
 request information on the steps to becoming a nun, and
 after some correspondence made the jump to moving into the
 monastery to begin his monastic life.


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 Secular Name: Kuro
 Vowed Name: Father Able
 Age: 35
 Gender: Cis man
 Pronouns: He/Him
 Sexuality: Bisexual
 Height: 6'10" (208cm)
      
 Kuro was raised in a secular family. His parents believed in
 allowing him to find his own way in the world, so they
 allowed him to explore religion as he wished. At young age,
 shortly after entering the school system, Kuro found out
 from other kids naturally about religion. Various children
 in the class would speak about not liking the clothes they
 had to wear to church on Sundays or other would talk about
 their family visits to synagogues and mosques. Eventually,
 in middle school, his interest was piqued by a girl he was
 interested in at the time who would talk very openly about
 how much she enjoyed church.

 His interest in this girl would fade, but his enjoyment of
 the church did not. He continued to attend as frequently as
 he could manage as a young kid, begging his parents to wake
 up early on Sundays to drive him. Of course they were happy
 to oblige but pulling themselves out of bed in the mornings
 was never easy on your day off. As Kuro aged, he got more
 involved in his church community, balancing both his studies
 and his church activities with ease. Once it came time for
 him to graduate high school, he chose to go into seminary
 school.

 Kuro breezed through seminary as easily he did the rest of
 his academic career, graduating with his Master of Ministry
 [MMin] at the young age of 22 and immediately moving to
 begin his own monastic life at a separate, men only
 monastery. He stayed there studying as a monk for six years,
 building a life and familiarity with monastic cloistered
 living before searching for openings as an abbot. He wanted
 to do more for a community, he wanted to lead a community
 with what he had learned throughout the years, and help
 build them to be better. Two Harvests on the Mount ended up
 being that very community.

 Adjusting to life in a double monastery was certainly more
 unusual than Kuro had initially anticipated, but he was able
 to ingratiate himself rather quickly and build a home among
 the nuns and monks that now looked up to him. He found
 himself enjoying his time there even more than he enjoyed
 his time at his previous monastery. He helped raise funding
 for a few of the buildings they had been needing to build,
 and in general everyone seemed to enjoy his way of running
 the monastery and services. They'd even had a larger trickle
 of new members in the 7 years since he had taken over. 

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 Secular Name: R'Ihve
 Vowed Name: Sister Magdalene
 Age: 33
 Gender: Non-Binary
 Pronouns: They/Them
 Sexuality: Demiromantic Asexual
 Height: 4'10" (149cm)

 R'Ihve was born into a traditionally Catholic family. They 
 spent their childhood thoroughly involved in their local 
 church, practically being raised by their pastor in Sunday 
 school in lieu of their actual parents. R'Ihve's mother
 worked a demanding job, staying away from home for long 
 periods of time and forcing R'Ihve to learn to take care 
 of themselves, while R'Ihve's father had passed away while 
 their mother was pregnant. When their mother was around, 
 she frequently pushed R'Ihve to get more involved in the 
 church. Eventually, R'Ihve found themselves running a 
 Sunday school class and participating in choir before 
 they finished middle school.

 R'Ihve's mother became very ill once they entered high 
 school, causing R'Ihve to pick up a job as a stocker at 
 the local grocery store. Between the new job, new found
 responsibilities, church activities, and school work, 
 R'Ihve ended up making the decision to drop out of high 
 school entirely to focus on supporting their mother and 
 participating in their church. They lived like that for 
 a few years, slowly gaining promotions and more
 responsibility within the church, until a few months 
 after R'Ihve's 19th birthday their mother passed away. 

 After taking care of funeral arrangements for their 
 mother, using the rest of their inheritence for top 
 surgery, and talking with their pastor about what their 
 next steps should be from there, R'Ihve reached out to 
 Two Harvests on the Mount and began corresponding with 
 the abbess at the time. Just after their 20th birthday, 
 R'Ihve took their first steps with the monastery and 
 entered their postulancy. They enjoyed the members of 
 the monastery and how fulfilled life there made them 
 feel after dedicating the last 6 years of their life 
 to caring for their mother.

 Slowly yet surely, R'Ihve climbed through the steps to 
 final profession. Upon reaching final profession and 
 becoming fully incorporated into the community, R'Ihve 
 [now Sister Magdalene] was approached by Father Able 
 to be a mentor to the newest member of the community 
 entering novitiate soon, a responsibility which R'Ihve
 reluctantly agreed to. They had seen Sacha around and 
 interacted with him a few times but they worried for 
 him as he seemed to really be struggling giving up 
 his secular life. They worried for themselves too and 
 if agreeing to mentor Sacha was once again taking on 
 more responsibility than they wanted.

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 Birth Name: Nami'a
 Vowed Name: Brother Joshua
 Age: 35
 Gender: Cis man
 Pronouns: He/Him
 Sexuality: ???
 Height: 5'5" (166cm)
      
 Nami'a was raised in a secular family. His parents were
 uninvolved in religion of any sort and just didn't talk
 about it within the home. Like Kuro, Nami'a's introduction
 to religion was through his classmates once he joined
 school. Unlike Kuro, however, Nami'a would remain
 uninterested in religion as a whole for the duration of
 his school life. He continued through life with relatively
 normal hobbies until he reached high school.

 Upon entering high school, Nami'a was thrust into a world of
 options with regards to his extracurricular activities. He
 began to explore different clubs, jumping from art club
 [which he wasn't great at], soccer club [decidedly not
 active enough], to various others before settling on the
 A/V club which was a relic from times past but kept alive
 mostly by students who had transformed it into a club built
 around computers and programming with a grandfathered name.
 Through this club he discovered a video log hosted online by
 a local monastery.

 His interest in these small video logs he had dug up on this
 reclusive corner of the internet began small but snowballed.
 He watched every video, he read every blog post, he
 researched everything he could on the Order's rule, charism,
 and life. Eventually though, it came time for him to move on
 to college and his fascination with the monastery ended up
 falling to the wayside in favor of his computer science
 degree. Getting his bachelor's went buy pretty smoothly and
 he even managed to land himself a pretty decent job right 
 out of school.

 He worked for this company for two years, slowly digging
 that little sliver of the internet back up with the
 monastery video logs. He had so much to catch up on, he'd
 been away for 4 years now. Nami'a started binging the
 videos, ravenously tearing through the blog posts and new
 shorter snippet posts. He found himself yearning for the
 simplistic monastic life, the power the nuns and monks in
 the videos seemed to carry with them, and honestly most
 importantly, the cassock and clerical collar. So he
 reached out to the abbot at the time and began his steps
 toward connecting with and finding God.

Photos of life at Two Harvests on the Mount coming soon!