Do you think we could move Seminary back a little earlier?

By Jennifer Yelle
Fictional High School Student

Let me start this off by saying that I am not one to complain. I love life! I have seven wonderful brothers and sisters and terrific parents! I have great friends! And I have the gospel of Jesus Christ in my life!

But I really have a problem with Seminary. Well, not Seminary itself. I love seminary! Brother McNeil is a magnificent teacher! The problem is the time. We go before our regular school classes, so we start it at 6:30 a.m. Are they crazy? How much can we learn so late in the morning? Especially with school starting at 7:15?

To fix this problem, I propose that we move Seminary back to at least 5:45 a.m. It would still give everyone enough time to pray, shower, eat a full breakfast, walk the dog, and probably still get some personal scripture study in before going. This way, we could also extend the time of Seminary from the 45 minutes it is now to an hour. We’re studying the Old Testament this year, and I really feel like we’re just skipping over some really important parts. Like the Book of Numbers. Isn’t it just fascinating the way Heavenly Father instructed the prophets to write about their family histories? I could study those names all day! Also, according to the schedule, we’re only going to be in Isaiah for two weeks. That’s just not enough. We need more time to study the symbolism, especially from the chapters repeated in the Book of Mormon so that we can do some cross-referencing! I love cross-referencing!

Also, pushing Seminary back would give an extra half hour before classes start to go to the library and do extra schoolwork. The three hours I dedicate per night on school just isn’t enough anymore since I’ve become a sophomore. And then if we happen to get done with all our schoolwork on a particular morning, we can get our scriptures out and ponder on what we just learned the past hour in Seminary.

This is a perfect plan! I hope that our stake leaders take into account the factors I have mentioned. As teenagers, we have reached a point in our lives where mixing gospel study and school study into our mornings has made us truly begin to appreciate all the wonderful things life can teach us!