Why I Decided to Become a Mormon - Part Six: 9th Grade Seminary

For members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the religious education of youth is a topic which taken very seriously. For those of high school age, typically consisting of grades 9-12 in the United States, a program called “Seminary” exists.

In most places in the world, seminary classes take place in the wee hours of the morning before school begins, or as part of an after school program. Typically, classes are held daily, though in cases where distance makes daily gatherings excessively burdensome, they are held only once or twice per week.

In Utah and other communities with large Mormon populations, school districts offer what is known as “release time,” in which students are permitted to leave their campus in order to attend these religious education courses during the school day, instead of waking up early or clogging their after-school schedules. Seminary buildings are often built adjacent to high schools in order to preserve the separation of church and state.

Growing up in a Mormon community, seminary was taken by most of my peers. However, as high school approached, I had no inclination to enroll myself. As I sat down with a counselor to register for my 9th grade classes, he, assuming I would be taking seminary like most of my Mormon classmates, asked: “I suppose you will want to take seminary as well?”

“No,” I said curtly, throwing him off guard. I offered no explanation, and he appeared on the verge of asking why. But suddenly, he seemed to realize that he was representing the school and not the Church at the time, and that so asking would be inappropriate.

I began my 9th grade school year with a variety of classes. However, a few weeks into my first term, I decided that I no longer wished to participate in the school band. I don’t really remember the precise reasons behind my decision to quit. Likely, my adolescent cravings for popularity and acceptance, coupled with the reputation band members held of being “dorks,” pushed me to make the change.

Leaving the band left holes in my schedule that needed to be filled. In our school district, 9th grade was separate from the rest of the high school, and in terms of curriculum, our choices were extremely limited. The only way to fill my schedule was to opt for “release time” during this hour, joining seminary for two consecutive terms.

And so I began my adolescent religious education, despite my current disassociation from the Church. My parents were not opposed to my taking seminary, though I remember on several occasions telling them what I had learned. This often led to discussions of whether the content fed to us was true or not. Though unbelievers, my parents had a sound understanding of Mormon doctrine, often surpassing that of most active church members.

These discussions taught me the art of skepticism, in which nothing should be taken literally for face value. As I considered these things more and more, my already active thought process regarding religion greatly expanded, at times leaving me to believe that it would be impossible to actually define and identify “truth.”

As the year went on, seminary involved reading the scriptures, watching videos, and listening to the lectures prepared by the instructors. Some lessons felt profound, while others did not, leaving me with a decidedly neutral opinion as to the value of seminary. But still, my spiritual pondering did not cease. Many a night I would lay in bed, unable to sleep, mind alert, wondering if perhaps there was something that I was missing.

I even made attempts to pray. Sometimes I asked God to show me a sign or send me a vision to know if it was all real, assuring Him that if it was, I would change my life to comply with His laws. I didn’t really believe I would receive an answer, but a few times I actually remember frightening myself, fearing that I actually would receive a response. My lack of belief was coupled with a sincere hope that I was actually right, and that no God heard my prayers.

But, another part of me did want to discover something new, as was demonstrated by my attempts at prayer in the first place. I hadn’t the faintest idea what I was actually looking for, but I carried a deep desire for wisdom, or perhaps, to be seen and numbered among the wise. So I sought for truth, assuming it was somewhere, out there, to be found.

At the time, I received no answers to my prayers. I came to the conclusion that I was searching in the wrong place for wisdom. I made the decision that I would not repeat seminary in the following year, and that my brief foray with religious education would come to an end.

The end of the term came, and I sat in what I had predetermined to be my last day of seminary. The teacher announced that for our final class, we would be hold a “testimony meeting,” that is, all participants were encouraged to stand before their peers and express their belief in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I was curious to see how my classmates dealt with this exercise. Since I had no testimony, I had no intention of sharing my own. The hour was mine to sit and observe ninth graders nervously deal with their public speaking fears. As I sat in the back and listened to other students give fairly standard testimonies, my attention waned. However, at one point, a young acquaintance of mine stood up to bear his testimony.

He was a nice guy, a kind of country type, not incredibly articulate or outspoken. I respected him for his kindness and modesty. To say the least, he was pretty much your average Cache Valley cowboy. He stood up, and at once I noticed that his testimony was very different than those of the others.

He did not give the impression of standing up out of habit or out of some desire to follow the crowd. I could tell at once that he had an unmistakable sincerity about him. There was something that he truly wanted to share. I watched his eyes dart back and forth, perhaps as he searched his mind for the vocabulary necessary to share his feelings.

Suddenly, as soon as he spoke, he began to weep. It wasn’t something completely abnormal. After all, I had witnessed others crying in church meetings when I was a child. But here was a kid my age, at an age where the pressures of ego and popularity were swarming around us, and he could not withhold his own emotion as he expressed his simple feelings concerning his religion.

Ironically I don’t remember anything he said. What I do remember unmistakably, however, was something that concurrently happened to me. During the midst of his simple testimony, I felt something changing within me, like an intrinsic pressure that was stronger than anything I had ever felt before.

It wasn’t a physical sensation. It felt as if I had suddenly and seamlessly become an inhabitant of some unseen spiritual dimension. I felt sensations around me, strong and precise. The world seemed to slow down, and my rapid thoughts cleared away, leaving a pure and clear mental canvas. As the boy continued to speak, I could no longer hear him. At peace, I felt nothing aside from this strong emotional blanket which continued to wrap around me tighter.

It felt good – in fact, it felt wonderful. It was at this moment when I recall very distinctly in my head hearing my own voice repeat this question over and over again: “How can this not be true?” Though in my own voice, it didn’t feel as if it were coming from me. Rather, I distinctly felt as if it were emanating from some external source. For what seemed like several minutes, all I could hear was the echo of these words, repeating again and again.

Suddenly, I was shocked back to reality. The feeling was gone, and it was quickly replaced by a surge of utter panic. I knew that I had touched the wisdom I had long sought, in some unknown and incomprehensible way. And that is precisely what I feared. After all, it seemed to be in direct opposition to the decisions that I had already made.

Within my own mind, I began to argue, right then and there. One side boldly declared that I had indeed discovered a real pearl of wisdom, while the other side insisted that it was nothing more than some strange psychological reaction within me. As the argument raged on, a wave of questions began to inundate my consciousness. Did this mean I had to start going to church again? Did it mean that the gospel of Jesus Christ was true? Did it mean I was just a pubescent kid with my pituitary gland squirting all sorts of crazy ideas in the form of religious chemicals on various parts of my brain?

I truly feared that there was more to these feelings than pious hormones. Such a discovery would mean completely restructuring my entire way of thinking. I didn’t want to do this, since after all, I felt had been perfectly sane and normal up until this point. But I couldn’t stop those words from repeating in my head. I knew that something had occurred, and that something significant had changed within me.

For the remainder of the class, I sat and tried to reason with these feelings. The teacher stood up after all the students who had desired to express their feeling had done so. He then proceeded to share his own testimony, though not of the Church specifically. He shared his feelings concerning us as students, going through each class member one-by-one and saying what he felt he had seen in us as individuals.

My emotional battle still raged as he went through every class member. In the back corner, I was one of the final students to be spiritually analyzed. He looked at me squarely, and feelings of both excitement and dread crushed me in anticipation for what he would say. Inside of me, I could feel what I knew he would say, I just did not know what the words were that could express that feeling.

What he said seemed to confirm exactly what I felt. He claimed that he had personally witnessed my conversion to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I felt myself smiling stupidly, despite the confusion within me. Was his statement just a cliché, or was he referring to something that had truly just happened to me? Could he have possible seen the feelings I had felt? The answers remain unknown to this day.

I believe this to be the first time I recognizably received a witness of truth directly through the Holy Ghost. In the intervening years, this event stands out as one of the key turning points that contributed to my eventual decision to become a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.