It was raining hard outside at about 4:45am as I sat in my living room waiting for my ride to come and take me to early-morning seminary at a nearby church, a church I didn't know the name of but which housed a religion I was about to learn. A friend named Courtney picked me up in her parent's car and we were off.
The building was nice, new, and very clean. The instructor for the small class was named Brother Rand (everyone is referred to as Brother or Sister in the church, usually until you knew them well enough to call them by their first name). I was introduced to the class and then later on during the course of the lesson Brother Rand asked me a question: "Eric, what is a prophet?". I answered, "It's the money you make when you sell something". I didn't mean for it to be comical but it did elicit a few chuckles from a few other students. The first thing I learned about the LDS church: A prophet is a man who receives direct inspiration from God and teaches/leads people to live righteously.
I continued to attend early-morning seminary for the remainder of the school year, which was only a few more weeks. I also started to spend time outside of school with some of the people in the seminary class, which included going to an activity night at the church where we went on a service scavenger hunt (you go to church members homes at random and help them with any task or chore they need accomplished- it was a lot of fun). Shortly before leaving the church that evening I was confronted by a missionary for the church, Sister Sampson, who asked if her and her missionary companion could come by my home and talk to me more about the church and the teaching of Jesus Christ. I really wanted to say 'No' for several reasons but primarily because this would be moving my relationship with the church to a new level- actually having someone in my home with no other objective than to discuss churchy stuff was a big deal. I prepared my 'No' answer, threw a little sugar on it so it wouldn't sound so harsh to the lady (little did I know that missionaries face rejection every day so it probably wouldn't have scathed her), then I let my heart-felt 'No' work it's way out of my gut and past my mouth but to my astonishment it seemed to come out sounding like the word, "Okay".
Over the course of a few weeks I was instructed by these Sister missionaries regarding the basic principles and doctrines of the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It was during this time that I took a large step forward by showing my faith in God, actually acting upon what I was learning. Have faith, I'll explain in Part 3.
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4 comments:
Was I in Bro. Rand's class? I don't remember having him as a teacher. Did you know he passed away a year or two ago of cancer? My mom and sister were able to go to the funeral in CA.
I didn't know that about Bro. Rand, how unfortunate. I know the classes were split up in part due to an apparent comment Chris made that pushed Sis. Rhinehart over the edge. Something about KFC if I remember correctly. You may have been in the other class for Freshman and Sophmores at the time.
whoa, whoa, whoa, what was the comment that chris made to sis rhinehart? I remembering hearing mom chew her out one time on our front porch. what was that all about? she wouldn't tell me then.
I came onboard right after the event, but as I recall Chris said something about Jesus going to KFC after he came to Jerusalem and it set Sister Rhinehart off into a fenzy...He may be able to clarify.
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