LDS Family.net

Several years ago I volunteered to be a Mormon Seminary Teacher for the 9th graders at the local Junior High. It was early morning seminary so for me, it has a huge undertaking since I hate getting up early in the morning. After about 2 weeks of teaching, I had completely run out of mission stories and personal experiences as it relates to the Gospel. I began spending about 2 hours per night preparing for the next day of seminary. I learned a ton about how teachers work and why they do that they do. For example, I wanted to be one of those nice teachers so I let the 9th graders sit where they wanted. A few weeks later I found my classroom getting louder and louder. I asked some of my teacher friends and they suggested implementing a seating chart and to organize the chairs into rows. I didn’t like the sound of that, however, I knew it would help with the noise and the visiting with each other during my classes. Needless to say, I was not prepared to be a teacher and had to learn by trial and error, mostly error. At the end of the year, I totally felt like a failure. My only hope and prayer was that all of my students would sign up for seminary in 10th grade so that they could be taught by a “real” seminary teacher.

I tell you this story so that I can tell you this other story. I was walking out of the YMCA last week and a young adult stopped my and called me Brother Carter. He looked at me intently and asked, “do you remember me?”. I looked really hard but could not place the face. He told me that he was in my seminary class in 9th grade. He said he had served a mission for the LDS Church and was now married. Wow, that was cool. I asked him if he remembered anything from his days in my class. He said that he did and mentioned a “magic square” that we used to memorized the Doctrine and Covenants scriptures. It was just nice to know that he remembered me and remembered some of the scriptures we worked on.