An Evening with a General Authority and Other Friendly People

I'm now a full six months into my calling as an early morning seminary teacher. I'm happy to report that I have only slept in once (and that was because we didn't set the alarm). Most of my evenings are spent preparing lessons that I'll be giving less than eight hours later to a group of four or five youth. I was just thinking the other day that if our families were in our ward, I would have two of our brothers in my class. Now that would be interesting.

Each month the seminary teachers have an inservice meeting where we learn things about how to teach the gospel more effectively. This month the regular inservice meeting was replaced by an event called "An Evening with a General Authority." I was pretty excited when the invitation came in the mail. But then I noticed that President Eyring wouldn't actually be joining us. Instead we were going to congregate at the Liberty Stake Center for dinner and then move to the chapel to watch a broadcast for all seminary and institute teachers.

When we arrived for dinner there were very few places left to sit at the tables spread out in the cultural hall. I dreaded sitting with a group of people we didn't know and wished that we had just skipped the dinner and gone for some Dish pizza instead.

We grabbed our food and sat at a table with four places open and four places taken. The two couples already seated had mostly finished their food and we now engrossed in conversation about pellets, bio-materials, alternative fuels, and residential insulation. I think my only contribution to their dialogue was, "Excuse me—could you pass the salt and pepper please? Thanks."

While we ate, Brookie and I talked about random stuff that we would normally talk about at dinner. As we were just about finishing up, another couple came in carrying a car seat. There were no places left at any of the tables except ours. And the two remaining spots at our table were on either side of us, providing a physical cushion from the pellet talk. Brookie motioned to them that we could scoot over and they could come sit by us, and they did. She is much friendlier than I am, and that's just one of the reasons I'm in love with her (even if it does force me out of my comfort zone from time to time).

And, as it turned out, the couple that came and sat by us was friendlier than me too—and I'm grateful for that. The husband sat next to me and started asking questions; the typical stuff: Where are you from? What do you do for a living? How many kids are in your seminary class? The more he talked with us, the more his personality reminded me of my old concert choir folder-buddy. I started to like him a little bit. I started wondering if maybe we could be friends.

But, as soon as that thought crossed my mind, he told us how he had just been accepted to orthodontics school and they would be moving to Mesa, AZ soon. That's was the tipping point. Sorry Guy. I don't need any more friends that are going to move away. Been there. Done that. Multiple times now. Thanks for being so friendly and saving me from the compost-as-fuel-alternative talk, but no thanks.

We finished eating and moved into the chapel for President Eyring's talk, which was great. And that's what we did this weekend.

Go to the board!