Seminary Prayer

Last night I had a little bit of frustration with one of the other seminary teachers in our area. Her daughter is in my class and so she gets a daily review of what our class was on, where we are at in the Old Testament, and so on. For a lot of the year I have been behind the other teachers schedule of lessons but recently I have caught up. She seems to think that I have been skipping certain lessons or something. In addition I tend to have more of a relaxed attitude with the kids than some of the other teachers.

My view on seminary is this. I want to make my class a place that the kids look forward to come to. I am lax on the tardy's. (None of my kids can drive yet and they have to rely on others to get them there) I have worked very hard to develop a relationship with my class so that they would want to be there and they would be open to the spirit. Finding out that this teacher is annoyed at me just ticks me off. So last night I struggled to prepare my lesson thinking that I needed to do it to someone elses standards. But then I decided that I would continue to do things my way. I am moving quickly through some of the books becuase I really want to put an emphasis on the scripture mastery scriptures in the last week so that when the kids leave for the summer the last thing they will remember is those scriptures and how they apply not only to the stories that we talked about all year but to their lives. Nonetheless I was troubled about this as stupid as it was.

This morning the opening prayer was given by one of the boys in my class, Andrew White. In his prayer he said all the standard "teen age" things, and then he paused and thanked Heavenly Father for "such a great seminary teacher". All of my frustrations from the night before went away and I remembered the reason why I was there. I remembered that I was there to serve the Lord and those awesome kids and try to make a difference for them. Andrew's prayer told me that the Lord must be proud of my efforts and that my love for my class has been rewarded in their love back for me.

I am so grateful for the opportunity I have had to teach seminary this year. I have learned so much about the Old Testament and it has strengthened my testimony. Most of all I have learned that you truly love who you serve. Although I am looking forward to summer and a few extra hours of sleep and nights to myself, I am going to miss the choice spirits that Heavenly Father allowed me to teach and learn from.