here's mine: i had a seminary teacher who was always really touchy (patting my shoulders,once my knee, and coming really close to talk to me, it made me really uncomfortable i felt like i had no personal space in his class) so yeah, the worst it got was when i came to class a few minutes so we were alone. he came to shake my hand but then held onto it and stepped really close to me but right then other students came in and i quickly pulled away. yah, im so glad my family moved away soon after that. Creepy...

i mean i came to class a few minutes early, not on purpose! just to clear that up.

I did seminary for one semester. From the story you tell, the one I knew and stories I hear, it seems like seminary teachers try really hard to become charismatic at one-on-one relationships so that the students will worship them and be hypnotized into believing what they're teaching. I think it's intentional to draw you into a relationship where everything they say seems bigger than life.

I had the same seminary teacher for 4 years, & he acted like a Nazi & a weirdo (except for racial stuff; more on that at the end). I can go on & on & on about all of his garbage. Of course, being a NOM made it all that much worse for me. I kept telling my mom about how bad he was & that I hated it & didn't want to go anymore, but she would just say things like, 'I know he's horrible, but you have to go anyway.' So she forced me to go. I had no friends there, & hardly any kids from the 2 wards assigned to that class went. For 1 year though, there were 2 classes, but since I was an upperclassman I was still in the weirdo's class. (Hardly any kids went to that lady's class either.)

The only redeeming thing about this guy was that he was extremely anti-racist, & thought that any racial stuff in TSCC was bs. I'm surprised that he wasn't exed for some of the things he said, even though he was right.

1. The teacher had a student stick his hand over the target on a dart board and said that he was a good aim and promised not to hit him in the hand...well the student had to dart fly and hit him in the hand...then after treating him gave a lesson on trusting the arm of flesh.

2. A couple kids drove into the Jordan River and died. They were sluffing a seminary class (not his) but he then gave a big lesson on 'being where you should be to avoid harm'

fun fun.

I can't even put into words how much I hated hated hated early morning seminary. My sophomore year we had such a weirdass teacher. He was a horrible teacher (even though he was one by profession too), so he'd try to teach a lesson and then take the next two days reaming us out for how awful we were. He even threw a desk one day. It's bad enough to have to get up so early, but worse to do it and have to go through that shit.

I finally refused to go and my parents knew I was serious after still refusing to go after one of my dad's good beatings. So they asked it I could be moved into the class with the Juniors. They had a great teacher and more of the kids I hung out with were in that class so it was great for a year and a half after that. We'd even make fun of Tom Trails and had a teacher who would laugh.

Did someone seriously bring up seminary?! My PTSD from that whole experience just redlined! I get shivers everytime I hear that word! Wow, early morning seminary, not sure where to even start on this one.

Once my seminary teacher was talking about the law of chastity and exclaimed, "Let's face it. When you're in a heavy make-out session, it feels good!" It was hard not to bust up laughing. His name was also funny, Charlie Brown.

My seminary teacher was completely adorable, but not so great at sticking to the official curriculum. The first year of seminary, he made a pilgrimage to Kirtland and did some shopping at the bookstore there-- the bookstore run by the then-RLDS church. He didn't put two and two together, and thought it was a regular old LDS bookstore with approved LDS publications only.

He then supplemented our lessons with all the new things he had learned from these books. Eventually my brother noticed that he was using RLDS material when his D&C commentary mentioned sections that our D&C didn't have.

He also didn't have a weirdness detector, so he freely presented some of the more bizarre issues in Mormonism as if they were completely normal-- including the matter of Zelph, and more misinformation on John Cook Bennett and Nauvoo "spiritual wifery" than is typically covered.

We chalked the weirdness up to him using RLDS sources, since we knew there were some differences in the way the RLDS viewed the history of the church. We didn't realize at the time that he had pretty much given us the straight dope. During those lessons, my friends and I would just look at each other dumbfounded and uncomfortable.

He also liked to show us all the old filmstrips in addition to the current seminary videos. He'd pull out his slide projector and do the whole nine yards. I don't think he realized how outdated the technology was by then (90's).

He also had a well-organized collection of Ensign issues dating from the time he had joined the church-- I think it was like 40 years' worth or so. He also kept every pamphlet and brochure the church put out. One day while waiting for our ride home, I was digging through back issues from the 70's and came across some anti-ERA propaganda. It was disgusting to me even then how the church marginalized women. I was sick to my stomach. After school that day I asked my parents about it (I had never even heard of the ERA before), and they gave me the church's party line on it. I was so disappointed in my parents and in the church. As sheltered as I was, and as conservative and obedient as I was, I knew that the church was operating via fear tactics to subjugate women. I was disgusted. I don't think I ever really got over coming across that church-published drivel.

To this day I'm surprised that I stayed in the church so long afterward considering how much it bothered me at the time. And, I think if we had known then that all the weird stuff we learned about early church history was true, we would have left the church earlier-- four out of the six kids in my seminary class have left officially anyway, and one is inactive-- gotta love those numbers :0).

I had 4 different seminary teachers, and my sophmore and senior year ones would constantly pull me out of class and ask why I didn't try and try to guilt trip me about everything. I remember when we had to do our "joseph smith projects". I didn't have to do anything, because it was possible to drop the whole project and still get an 'A' so my parents would be none the wiser.

OFC I got yelled at for that.

My senior year seminary teacher constantly told me that he believed satan had a hold over me, and that I didn't try because I was being rebellious on purpose. The funny thing, was that I obeyed my parents and whatnot, so they didn't believe him one bit!

I stopped going to Seminary my Junior year. My seminary was in the middle of the school day, 5th period right after lunch. My buddies and I would regularly skip seminary in favor of enjoying an extended lunch period. One day after class my seminary teacher, one Brother Smith no less, pulled me into his office and told me "I know what you and your friends are doing, I know you're skipping class intentionally" I didn't deny it. He said "you either need to come all the time, or not at all. I said "ok, fair enough" I never went back.

The Bishop came buy and gave me some manipulative B.S. about graduating from seminary and not getting into BYU, but I was un-phased and my parents were not overly concerned as I was doing well in school and still went to church every Sunday.

I have a friend whose 2 teenage girls got in a slight argument with the seminary teacher's daughter (who was the same age). They were neighbors and the seminary teacher refused from that point on to drive those 2 girls to seminary when they lived the next house over! Talk about forgive and forget!

I actually enjoyed seminary myself but I did have female teachers except for some brief moments we needed a substitute. But the men were never creepy. Perhaps slightly weird in a funny way. I really liked the women that taught us.

Early morning seminary SUCKED. My father was the Bishop so I had to go every morning. I think I missed three times in four years. I hated every second of it. I was so tired during school that I would sleep through my classes after eating lunch. I'd just walk into my school classroom, put my head on the desk, and fall asleep. I'm sure my teachers thought I was getting stoned every day during lunch.

I had a seminary teacher who used to like to tell tall "faith promoting" tales. One morning he was telling us that as a youth, he once literally, physically, wrestled with a demon the entire night one evening. I asked "When you woke up in the morning, who won...you or the pillow?" He said, "No, I wasn't wrestling with my pillow. It was a devil, all night long, until I became so exhausted that I raised my arm to the square and commanded him to depart by the power of the priesthood". I followed up with, "If you could have gotten rid of the "demon" by raising your arm to the square, why didn't you just do that right off the bat and save yourself a whole night of getting your ass kicked?" Haaaa haaaa, he kicked me out of class after that one.

We too were subjected to the great Tom Trails filmstrip series. Mainly we voiced over the filmstrip with our own comments like it was Mystery Science Theatre. The whole class though did engage in LOUD LAUGHTER when Tom's girlfriend was killed in a car wreck. The sight of her hand hanging out of the window of the car sent us all over the edge. We played it over and over again. Here, check it out for yourself - http://www.tomtrails.com/chapter15.htm

Such a waste of four years worth of early mornings.

That was the most beautiful filmstrip I've ever seen, just like Lily was the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen.

Mr. Happy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
"If you could have gotten rid of
> the "demon" by raising your arm to the square, why
> didn't you just do that right off the bat and save
> yourself a whole night of getting your ass
> kicked?" Haaaa haaaa, he kicked me out of class
> after that one.

Too Funny! I love that!

That filmstrip... OMG... words cannot describe it.

Living in a rural town, my Dad was asked to teach seminary to the only 2 students; me and a very strong-willed girl. After the first day, the girl promptly ran away from home, got pregnant, and I never saw her again. So ... that was my one day of seminary. Probably one day too many....: )

My old testament year we got taught by a member of the bishopric at his home. He never prepared lessons, so we would show up early in the morning open the O.T. to where we had left off and then read in turns. It was incredibly boring. Most everyone was passed out and had to be jostled when it was their turn to read. Even the guys own daughters wouldn't show up. You could here them showering in the other room. It was funny because the lights would dim when they turned on their blow dryers. The dude would just shrug it off and then we would keep reading.

My final year was N.T. and we had a good teacher. She would give us "Mormon Bucks" for participation and we would have auctions for some good swag occasionally. I always thought the money was funny and called it "Mormon Mammon." A non-mo friend of mine enjoyed it so much that he would come with me and rack up the mammon.

All 4 years we never could keep a teacher. We went through them quickly. I always had wrestling practice early so I could use that as an excuse to leave early. We often would storm into the other classrooms at the end and take their donuts laughing as we ran out.

After class we had at least 30 minute before school started. We would play "Sock wars" running through the church hurling balled up socks as we hid behind the couches outside the chapel. We also would play basket ball or race the long chair storage carts in the cultural hall. We did all kinds of crazy stuff and never could keep a teacher for a full year. One day I received my seminary diploma....lol that was a big surprise.

Upland Ward. So Cal 1977-81

My sophmore year, a former bishop's wife was the teacher- Sister W. told us a personal story about how she looked at a Playboy during a recycling drive and how awful and evil she felt afterward. SHe tearfully implored us to never look at pornography because she will never be able to get those images from her head and we wouldn't either. She also emphatically told us that if you watch something 3 times, your brain will think you lived that experience. She also introduced the idea that dark matter is the spirits cast out of heaven.

My senior year, a friend's dad was the teacher. Brother R. was a nice man, but really into the Dead Sea Scrolls and some odd ideas. He introduced the "cosmic soup" theory to us. According to Bro R., when we were intelligences, we floated around in the universe in the cosmic soup. Those who end up in Outer Darkness will get another chance to be intelligences and be reborn.

That Rocky Mountain air really affects people's brains. :)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/26/2011 10:20AM by itzpapalotl.

itzpapalotl Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> She also emphatically told us that if you watch
> something 3 times, your brain will think you lived
> that experience.

Now I get why I keep thinking I'm Jason Bourne...

itzpapalotl Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>> SHe tearfully implored us to never look at
> pornography because she will never be able to get
> those images from her head and we wouldn't either.
> She also emphatically told us that if you watch
> something 3 times, your brain will think you lived
> that experience.

I know right? So how come that never works when you are taking a test? Seared in your brain if you see a booby but can't remember a chemistry equation? Damn that Satan. Wait maybe thats a good thing...

I didn't have any legitimately weird seminary experiences, but I think it was weird for the TBMs who had to put up with me. For one thing, I had to do some kind of religious studies to graduate high school (rules of that particular school) and my mother insisted that meant I needed to go. For another, I was already mentally out and spent most of my time looking very bored/doodling on my hand.

Though once, they did have this bit where you were supposed to write down questions that you wanted answered on index cards. I wrote down things like "Why didn't the Holy Ghost also have a body at some point?" and something along the lines of "If the Prophet can be wrong, why doesn't he get called on the more ridiculous teachings, like the ban on (more than two) earrings and facial hair?"
To her credit, the teacher read them out loud along with the others, but there was always an awkward pause when she got to mine. And then a very quick, "Well, uh, I want you all to read and pray about these. See you next time." The looks on the other students' faces was a bit on the priceless side.

I never did graduate seminary, though--simply because I hated it. So after what amounted to a semester, one day my mother pounded on my (locked) door and yelled that it was time to go; to which I replied, "God no" and went back to sleep.
End of seminary.

I had early morning seminary with half a dozen other kids, and our teacher was there as a calling. Hence she was as interested in making it fun as we were. I didn't miss a day in 4 years (augmented by the fact that I gave rides to it for the other kids), but I did end up sleeping through most of it.

The things I remember most are doing scripture chases (we won the seminary bowl every year) and making up games to play in the cultural hall for the 20-minutes between seminary and school. One game was totally awesome and involved pelting eachother with bouncy balls (but they had to bounce off a wall first, or you'd go to the mosh pit). We called it cultural-ball. I often went to school with welts all over. Good times.

but somehow this morning just thinking about seminary and how weird it really was is so DISGUSTING that I could not bring myself to be more specific. Sorry. I see that others had similar sentiment.

Lets not forget the weirdest seminary teacher..

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700036659/Ex-seminary-principal-Michael-Pratt-pleads-guilty-in-sex-case.html

Ok so you all will hate me but..I had released time seminary and I liked school. I had all the right answers and graduated all four years with A's. Very TBM! I liked all my teachers and didn't see or know of anything weird. I did ask some hard questions of the trained paid CES teacher, but only because I was confused over something. One teacher told me I could ask Jesus in the afterlife because he didn't know. At least he was honest. That became his answer to everything he wasn't sure of. He taught me questioning is ok, but you won't always have an answer. It was easy for me to accept that and move on.

The best lesson I ever had was when he recreated the last supper and all the background for it--down to the food we ate and it's significance at the time. He put A LOT into this. I've always loved the NT and Christ's return because of that lesson.