Oh, the joys of seminary

Well, most of you have heard this story by now, but because it is such a good story, I have to tell it anyway.

Seminary started off normal on this particular day. We started with a hymn, then a prayer, a scripture, and then...the quote (Dun Dun Dun). The quote is usually just a glue-in that someone has in their scriptures or the like. On this particular day however (dun dun dun) Wyatt got up and began reading the quote. Many of you have probably already heard it, it's the one that says that when we get up to heaven people will ask us who the prophet of our time was and we'll say "President Hinckley" and "a hush will go over the crowd" and "people will bow in our presence" yada yada yada, completely not in line with doctrine. It's attributed to Boyd K. Packer at the moment, but as I understand it, it was previously attributed to other general authorities.

So after Wyatt shared that enlightening piece of false-doctrine with us he then proceeded to talk about how even thought we aren't fighting real wars today (umm, does the word Iraq come to anyone's mind?) we are fighting a spiritual war today (against the media, all that jazz). Although that statement wasn't completely true either, he did kinda bring it around in the end.

After Wyatt sat down, my seminary teacher, Bro. Schro. (Schroader) got up and explained how we don't really believe that people will bow to us, the only people that we will worship will be Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. The discussion got going about that quote and a couple people raised their hands to share experiences that they have had with that quote. One girl even wanted us to read it over again because she hadn't heard it (we didn't of course). Another kid, Kaz (I don't know if that's really his name, but that's what he goes by), talked about how his testimony had basically formed from that quote and how crushed he was when he found out that we didn't believe it to be true. Then he told us how he didn't come to seminary for a few weeks after he found out that it wasn't in line with doctrine (brilliant, right after Wyatt had shared it with us).

Then Bro Schro stated that he was glad that Wyatt had said what he did after he read the quote (about spiritual wars).

"I mean, did anyone NOT feel the spirit when Wyatt was up here?" Brother Schroader RHETORICALLY asked.

As if straight out of a stupid movie, Kaz raised his hand.

Seriously.

Kaz later went on to explain that after his experience with the quote (already mentioned), he was "prevented" from feeling the spirit as soon as Wyatt started reading it.

Umm...ok.

Eventually we got talking about the spiritual war that Wyatt had been talking about and the discussion finally moved past the "false quote." Then Nessa (the girl who had insisted on us reading the quote again [sorry but she is an airhead]) raised her hand and started talking about how wars are worse today than they were in revolutionary times because of new technology. Yeah, she started talking about physical wars...again. Brother Schroader kindly acknowledged the comment and then moved back to what we had been talking about before. After a few minutes, Kaz gave Brother Schroader a funny look.

"Is there something you want to say Kaz?" he asked

"No...I'm just trying to bite my tongue."

As soon as he said that, we knew that he was going to say whatever he was "biting his tongue" about.

"Well if there's something you want to say, go ahead, as long as it's appropriate.

"I'm just really bugged about what Nessa said about how wars are worse now because I think that having a 10 pound lead ball go through your chest and dying slowly and painfully is much worse than dying in an instant from a nuclear bomb."

Seriously.

Somehow Brother Schroader got us off the subject (again) and moved on. But little did we know, it would soon be his turn to say something stupid...

Brief interjection for backround info:
At Viewmont High the majority of the seminary teachers are fairly new to Viewmont, but one has been there for a while, Brother McConkie (yes, related to the apostle). He is notorious (contrary to the stereotype that may come with the name McConkie) for rarely teaching lessons and simply telling his MANY stories during class (everyone loves him, I guess "notorious" was the wrong word). Often "McConkie Stories" come up during lessons. Brother Schroader was going to tell us this story which I'm guessing fit in with his lesson: One night when Brother McConkie was a young boy he was laying on the family trampoline thinking about the universe. He was quickly overcome by the overwhelming vastness and incomprehensibility of it all. Eventually he decided that once you go far enough, you must just hit cement. This was enough to calm his mind for one night, however the next night he thought, "How thick is the cement?" On this particular day in seminary, Brother Schroader began,

"One night when Brother McConkie was young he was laying on his tramp...trampoline that is-

Seriously, he clarified between "tramp" and "trampoline." If you don't understand the homonym that Brother Schroader was clarifying, bless you. After a couple seconds however, me and my seminary class president (of all people) caught on. We busted up laughing and eventually Logan (our class president) excused himself for a few minutes because he felt the was being a distraction.

Within about ten minutes of this fun experience the bell rang.

And that is the story of my most enlightening seminary period to date.