Steve and I have spent the last 9 months teaching seminary to the high school students of our ward. There was four kids. They showed up at our house Monday-Friday at 6 o’clock in the morning with all the energy in the world. Steve and I would alternate days teaching every other day. This gave of each of us enough time to prepare a lesson as well as an opportunity to get some much needed rest. However, it all came to a crashing halt on Friday.
We completed our last day. We’re done. I have mixed feelings.
Teaching seminary was a good opportunity which doesn’t come to many. In fact, this is perhaps the only time we’ll have this opportunity. So we soaked in every minute.
However, I have a love/hate relationship with teaching seminary. I love teaching. I love the students. I love the spirit. I hate getting up early. I hate not getting sleep the night before. I hate being tired. Unfortunately, I couldn’t have one without the other. I keep trying to convince Steve that 10 o’clock at night would be a much better time to teach. He didn’t buy it.
We’ve had a really good time with the students this year. I know without a doubt that it was just as much of a learning experience for me as it was for them, if not more for me. It strengthened my testimony. I loved that part of it.
I loved helping them memorize scriptures and prepare for the scripture bowl. We spent every Friday playing scripture games to prepare them for an end of the year competition. I worked them really hard. I expected a lot of them, because we all know I hate losing! And it paid off. We competed against 10 teams and we came out victorious. They knew the scriptures. It was rewarding. And they were pretty stoked about winning as well.
We had just 5 days of seminary after their victorious weekend. And it was a pretty nostalgic 5 days. We recapped the year. We bore testimony. We finished the Book of Mormon. And as they walked out our door for the last time Friday morning a rush of emotion came over us. All the sudden we started to question how we did over the year.
Did we do every thing we could to help them? Did we strengthen their testimony? Did we influence them to do good? Would they remember the things we taught? I hope so. I really do. I hope they remember this year. I hope it affected them the same way it affected us.
One of our students came up to us yesterday in church. I was reminding her that she got to sleep in on Monday. She said she didn’t want to be reminded. She’d rather be at seminary than sleeping. She was bummed we were done. I ran into two other students who said the same thing. It made me smile.
