Posted by:
Elder Berry
(
)
Date: July 18, 2017 08:16AM
When I was a teenager in Seminary on 'release time' I was put into a special class they made for problem children. I was in the class with Mormon kids who wanted nothing to do with Mormonism but were there because they had to be. And it was a class of all boys.
I wondered at the time why I had been put in this class. Probably inspiration for The Lord God Almighty I'm sure.
Now, I wasn't a troublemaker. I wasn't shy either. When the teacher, whom I liked, asserted something I asked questions. The irony was I really liked the guy and he probably put me in the troublemaker class.
This was in the mid 80s. I wonder if they would do that today? I was a 9th grader and trying to find myself in the big wide world. I'm exceptionally curious and I wanted good reason to hang a burgeoning testimony upon for my future adult years. This as a pivotal time in my life.
So, when I realized I was in the rowdy class and I wasn't a rowdy I justifiably felt slighted. To this day I can't say definitively if my questioning landed me in that class but it is all I have to go on. And at the time I felt and I still feel that assertion is true. I was annoying a teacher with my questions and so I was singled out with the other boys who were causing the other teachers headaches.
It wasn't going to be an isolated incident for me. I continued to question Mormonism looking for good reasons for the things to be the way they were. And in my later years of high school before dropping out completely I had the Seminary Principle call me an anti-Christ - merely for asking questions. And they weren't like Zeezrom offering money to have people deny Jesus Christ. They were like, "Why were the temples in The Book of Mormon meeting places for large groups of people but not today?" They were simple questions that I thought a believe needed answered to bolster my faith. I mean look at the "Ask Gramps" website and you can find lots of questions like the ones I was asking.
But in Orem, Utah in the 80s asking questions was punished. It was looked down upon but never quite admitted as sinful though it was treated as such. Like I was a "sign seeker." And I guess I was. I was looking for one.
But now with The Internet I wonder if this kind of poor Mormon behavior is so rampant as it was back then?