Teachers Make All the Difference
S&I Annual Training Broadcast
Tuesday, June 9, 2020
Thank you, my love, for inviting me to share my testimony.
The first time I heard about the Church, I was about nine years old. And for eight years I asked my father permission to be baptized, and he always said no. He said that I was too young to make such an important decision and I needed to prove to him this was what I really wanted.
Even though I wasn’t a member of the Church, I completed four years of daily seminary. Seminary class was taught at the chapel at 6:00 in the morning every day. My father only allowed me to go on the condition that the teacher would pick me up. Fortunately, I had a wonderful teacher who came every day at 5:30 a.m. to give me a ride. My father woke me up every day at 5:00 in the morning, and I got dressed and waited for the teacher. I was always very sleepy and would say to myself, “Please don’t come. Please don’t come,” but he always came. Happily, he always came.
I feel so blessed and grateful for my diligent seminary teacher, who could have easily given up on me. But he didn’t.
Thirty years later, I had the opportunity to teach seminary to my daughter for a period of time at home. She couldn’t attend seminary at the chapel that year because of her school schedule. She was a girl with a lot of energy and wasn’t excited to sit still for 45 minutes, especially with me as her teacher. So I decided to prepare unique classes and treat my daughter as if she were the best seminary student, even though she was the only student. At the end of that year she was happy, she felt the love of our Heavenly Father for her, and I felt it too.
Brothers and sisters, like my daughter, I know the word of God can make all the difference in our mind, in our attitude, and in the way we see ourselves and others.
I’d like to conclude with a beautiful quote from President Henry B. Eyring:
“You wonderful teachers already put great effort and sacrifice into your preparation to teach the word, into your teaching, and into caring for students. … You can now add your faith that more of our students will make the choices that lead to true conversion.”1
I so testify in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.