Enjoying the Journey
By C.S. Bezas

Editor’s note: Due to the new school year that has arrived for many of us, a variety of faithful members now are receiving the request to serve in a new assignment — that of seminary teacher. If you are one of these newly called individuals, we thank you for your willingness to serve the Lord’s youth throughout the world. In that light, C.S. Bezas shares her thoughts and suggestions for all seminary teachers, both veteran and new. Each faces unique challenges. We hope you enjoy the support the Seminary Class Notes series offers you in your service to your seminary youth.

I remember when the request came from my bishop to teach seminary. I was a bit shocked. Even though I had long desired to teach for the Lord in this manner, I don’t think I had ever believed I would have the opportunity. Instead, I served in many other auxiliaries in the Church and additionally sought my degree in human resource development. I found great joy in helping others accomplish what they came to earth to achieve; I wanted to help others prepare the best they could to return in triumph to God’s presence.

Although I enjoyed my studies and my church service, I still watched wistfully for years as a variety of friends became the “privileged ones” — those asked to serve as seminary teachers. And for as much as I wanted to serve in that capacity, I never truly thought I would. I had to work not to be envious, for who wouldn’t consider seminary teaching a thing of great enjoyment — serving as the Lord’s mouthpiece five days a week for His youth?

The Request Comes

When the request one day came for me to serve as a seminary teacher, I felt shock and quite an amount of excitement. Joy filled me as I contemplated exciting young people about the gospel and all that the Lord has waiting for them. I could scarcely contain my enthusiasm as I received the lesson materials and many spiritual “goodies” that seminary teachers use to augment their studies and classroom moments. I was an eager tool for the Lord, ready to teach my students gospel truths such as those described in 2 Nephi 9:14:

Yet in spite of my enthusiasm, I felt trepidation as I pondered the Lord’s perspective of this responsibility. I immediately went to work, writing down thoughts, deepening scripture study, and making plans on how I would enrapture the youth about the gospel. Life was about to get really, really good.

Oh, my naiveté!

The Challenge Follows

Each teacher hits a few speed bumps along the path. I was no exception. I sure hit mine. I had suspected as an early morning seminary teacher there would be a few moments of fatigue and perhaps even discouragement in the coming journey, but I figured any speed impediments could be easily surmounted.  I was completely forgetting the large pothole placed previously in my life — that of my physical health. For years I had enjoyed easy health, but not so any more. I now battled chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, and Crohn’s disease.

Guess what. Life was about to get very, very hard.  Lack of sleep triggers each of these health conditions, and lack of sleep is what most early morning seminary teachers deal with all school year long.

And as I prepared for teaching seminary I also had not taken into account the challenge of teaching sleepy-eyed teenagers, kids trying to function with only four to six hours of sleep each night. Many of these kids had to wake at 4:15 a.m., or thereabouts, to be ready to arrive on time for seminary. They were running an incredibly tight race, with hours of homework due each night in addition to after-school jobs. My own experience as a youth in seminary had been with day-time/released-time seminary classes. Nothing had prepared me for what I was about to experience with seminary classes held during the dying blackness of nighttime hours. These kids deserved my best and I suddenly panicked that I wouldn’t be able to give it to them.

Thus, my beautiful expectation of serving as a seminary teacher slipped all too quickly from my grasp. I soon discovered why early morning seminary graduates talked about their graduation from four years of “a.m.” seminary being equal to conquering heroes! I began to understand that all too well. Day after day of rising before even the roosters takes its toll on a person, and it does so quickly.

A Mountain to Climb

The truth of the situation now stared me in the face. Four days into the experience was all it took — I knew I was looking up a very tall mountain and I wasn’t quite sure how to traverse it for another week, let alone for an entire year. I quickly worried my body would give out, thereby preventing my ability to receive the blessings mentioned in the scriptures for the Lord’s faithful. And more than anything, I knew these kids deserved spiritual uplift every day they came to my classroom. I had to succeed.

As all of this coalesced in my mind, I began to seek ways to cope with the beauty, and now understood challenge, of being an early morning seminary teacher. I worked to ensure I didn’t give in to the weight of what I was carrying as I worked to climb the mountain of the Lord — for I wanted to bring the gospel in a way that would meet the needs of my youth. I’m so grateful to report that as I made that effort, the Lord helped me to endure. And yes, the initial enthusiasm revived!

Our Most Powerful Weapon against Discouragement

Because of the entire process, I realized this struggle of mine parallels in so many ways the general challenges we face in this life. Of course, we as teachers will encounter difficulties along the way with our students. We even will face them in our personal lives. For example, my health challenges continue even today and the teens in my early morning seminary class still “drip” with sleep at times, due to a heavy homework schedule the night before. Yet I have learned a valuable lesson from these so-called “speed bumps” to joy. The lesson is very similar to what Lehi experienced.

At one point during Lehi’s “Tree of Life” dream, he traveled on his own for what he described as hours. He reports, “And it came to pass that…I beheld myself that I was in a dark and dreary waste. And after I had traveled for the space of many hours in darkness, I began to pray unto the Lord that he would have mercy on me, according to the multitude of his tender mercies” (1 Ne. 8:7-8).

It seemed it was after Lehi opened himself up to the Lord and prayed for an escape from the darkness, that he then could travel to where he needed to be — a place of delicious fruit, learning, advancement, and yes, joy with those he loved.

Thus, through my challenges, I learned that when I encountered difficult places during my tenure as a gospel teacher that I needed to follow Lehi’s example. I learned that as I opened myself up to the Lord in prayer, He would open up places of learning, advancement, and yes, fruitful moments. But if I forgot to pray, I often was left alone to experience the dreary challenge without that extra spiritual boost or insight from the Lord.

I quickly learned that if a “speed bump” or impediment of some sort caused me to lose enjoyment in my efforts in the classroom, I could (and should) pray. If I lost my sense of purpose, I could (and should) pray. If I felt I could go no farther (due to fatigue or other difficulty), the Lord awaited my heart-felt pleadings and was more than willing to lift me from them or at least aid me in them.

Why consign myself to remain in dreary places of discouragement, fatigue, or despair? Why linger in darkness, when the fruits of joy and love rest in front of me in my journey?

How long do we as a people choose to wander in such places of discouragement? Sometimes we might perfectly remember to ask for assistance from God when we experience difficulty. But perhaps sometimes we forget to petition aid and, like Lehi, we linger in dreary darkness, perhaps forgetting or unaware there actually is an escape.

Think of what we accomplish in the process of asking for help! Through prayer, we can ask for mercy and aid so that for us, like Lehi, the darkness dissipates and we can see fruits waiting — fruits of great learning and even joy.

What is the Lord’s Perspective?

Nephi said, “Wherefore, we shall have a perfect knowledge of all our guilt, and our uncleanness, and our nakedness; and the righteous shall have a perfect knowledge of their enjoyment, and their righteousness, being clothed with purity, yea, even with the robe of righteousness” (2 Nephi 9:14).

Some may travel throughout life, always bright and uplifted, never reaching moments of burnout or difficulty. Newer teachers might be fresher and thus less prone to fatigue in their service. And others might claim there is absolutely no requirement to experience joy in service — that “enjoyment” is ancillary to the real purpose that seminary teachers have.

I’m not sure there is a definitive answer listed anywhere within the standard works as to whether feeling joy while serving is an expectation. But in putting two and two together, I ask: Should we feel enjoyment in our service? Is it ok to show up each day to teach, with a numb or tired heart? Which way is drearier? Which is healthier? Which is right? Is there a right? And does the Lord have a perspective on this?

The reason I ask is because most of us now are beginning another year of teaching seminary (some around the world are actually halfway through). For those who are new to seminary teaching, the journey has just begun and the energy may be high. But for those who have been teaching a while, fatigue may have grown and urgency may have increased to find a renewing of the initial enthusiasm or enjoyment felt.

It would seem to me that a God of goodness and joy would have us walk in his same paths of joy and goodness. After all, weren’t Adam and Eve (amongst others) told that the essence of life is to feel joy (2 Ne. 2:25; Moses 5:10; D&C 128:23)?  Should enjoyment cease, simply because we’ve entered into an agreement of service — especially if that service proves difficult? Is it not true that when we render meaningful service that we potentially can feel some of the deepest senses of satisfaction known to mankind?

There may not always be other rewards in this life for an obedient soul, but we are told that the righteous will have a perfect knowledge or sense of enjoyment. Is this level of enjoyment meant solely for after this life?

I don’t think so.

Joy Can Be Found Today

Enjoyment can be attained even while in this life, even while struggling past the briars of fatigue or despair on our journey’s way, even if our engine sputters and is barely alive. But a lonely voice comes, “What if our enjoyment ‘tank’ does run dry and we have no fuel left to push past the ‘spiritual speed bumps’ that show up in our path? What about the promised enjoyment then?” (Some call this experience “burnout” and it is all too real.)

Burnout does happen, after all — as many teachers can attest. And it would be good to know the solution, before the school year is fully underway. Preparation can prevent so many difficulties.

I believe the answer lies in prayer, scripture study, and in one surprising teacher’s tool — a teacher’s journal. In addition to the endless fuel of prayer, we can revive ourselves with memories of those first sparks of energy that are usually felt when starting a calling — but only if we’ve recorded those experiences in the moment.

Thus we see the wisdom in church leaders’ recommendations for keeping a journal. And in our case, it would do us good to review throughout the year our initial excitement, that enthusiasm, and yes, even the nervousness we might have felt at the beginning of our service. Could this ability to renew by reviewing our original thoughts be one perk for keeping a journal?

Could it be that second only to prayer comes record-keeping as a renewable resource of energy and faith? Could it be that when our well of enthusiasm or even hope has run dry, we can refuel with yesterday’s memories of joy and excitement?

When analyzing the lives of great men and women, one of the most common themes amongst them seems to be a penchant for daily review through journal keeping. When a person is willing to sit down and actually record his spiritual moments, thoughts, and perspectives, not only does he bless his posterity, but scientists now report the cathartic process the mind receives by participating in quiet moments of reflection and meditation.

At any point of burnout, how helpful it can be to read back on our early goals and intentions for our service with our students. That is why it becomes almost essential for us as teachers to record our classroom activities, our hopes, our inspirations, and our experiences with our students in a personalized teacher’s journal. Not only does this clarify our purposes in the classroom, but these very records hold the power to refill our wells of inspiration when they run dry. These records, coupled with prayer, can actually bring back joy.

Journaling Frontlets

“Frontlets” served as remembrance tools for ancient Israelites. Frontlets (or phylacteries, as they were called) served to help each individual remember the Lord in their lives. Our personalized teacher’s journal can do the same. When we record our goals, our lesson plans, our inspirations, and our efforts and successes in the classroom, we later are rewarded with renewable fuel for the journey. Our written words become virtual frontlets of enthusiasm and hope, if we use them as such.

It is an interesting thing to serve in the official capacity of teacher in the church. There are very few callings that require more dedication or effort, if done well. And at the end of each year, we seem to have things we’re grateful we did and things we wish we did differently. How helpful to record these thoughts! How important! Because even if we do not serve in the same capacity the next year, the next time we are asked to serve as a teacher, whether seminary or otherwise, we can pull out our teacher’s journal and inspire our current efforts with inspiration and guidance from our previous words.

By taking just a few minutes each week to write in your teacher’s journal, you will give yourself a highly personalized and powerful wellspring of inspiration. Then during the year, if you’ve come upon a speed bump that seems to drive you to the ground, you can come back to read and re-read your own words, finding inspiration therein. If you run dry of hope or even ideas (as many if not all teachers experience at some point), your journaling “frontlet” will have the power to revive the wellspring of enthusiasm you once felt.

Final Summation

The Lord promises in 2 Nephi 9:14 that the individuals who faithfully hang on to what they have committed to do are the same individuals who eventually will receive a perfect enjoyment, “clothed with purity, yea, even with the robe of righteousness.” Could the Lord give a better gift for any teacher?

If we serve with as much as we are able to summon, we eventually will receive that perfect knowledge of our efforts and that those efforts have been received by the Lord, even in the face of fatigue or dreary waste places. The Lord will dissipate the darkness as we turn to him during our empty-tanked moments, whether those moments come from poor health, challenging students, or disappointing results.

So here we are — at the start of a new school year, with a new group of seminary students. Some of us are new teachers, some are not. Some have experienced the rigors of seminary teaching for some time; others have the maiden journey still ahead of them. The beautiful thing about what we’ve been asked to do is that the Lord never asks that we run faster than we are able (Mosiah 4:27), but He does expect us to be consistent and diligent.

And as a result of our diligence, the prophet Jacob promises us in 2 Nephi 9:14 that we will be given the comforting robe of pure enjoyment from the Spirit. As we seek the Lord, the Lord will lead us from any potential “dark and dreary waste” places into places of great joy and beauty for both our students and ourselves. Now there’s a promise a seminary teacher can rely on — whether brand new or tried and true. Welcome to the fold!

Portions excerpted from C.S. Bezas’ new book, Powerful Tips for Powerful Teachers: Helping Youth Find Their Spiritual Wings. Look for it in LDS bookstores September 2006.