Teens study Mormon church scriptures at early-morning seminary in Frisco
Janene NielsenBy CHARLES SCUDDER [email protected]
Photo by ANJA SCHLEIN/special contributor
Frisco—Early on a Friday morning, sleepy-eyed teenagers filed into the chapel on Coit Road in Frisco.
They gather in one of four rooms at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. There, they learn scripture and work on memorizing
specific passages each weekday morning from 6 to 7 a.m.
“What is Genesis 2?” asked Angela Belnap, Frisco State Seminary Supervisor with the church.
“Marriage?” one of the students muttered.
“Marriage,” she said. “Why would that be important today?”
The students were quiet for a moment, then one answered quietly. “The family is under attack?”
“The family is under attack,” Belnap said. “The prophet wants to make sure you understand that.”
Nearly 400,000 high school students around the world gather to study the scriptures of the Mormon church each year. In the Collin
County area, 1,100 students are enrolled in seminary, which leaders say prepare students spiritually for the two-year mission work most
will undertake after graduation.
They take regular assessments of their coursework to make sure students are able to apply the lessons of the Bible, the Book of Mormon and
the Doctrine of Covenants.
“You’re in the scriptures constantly,” said Gavin Sorenson, a 17-year-old who is in his first year at Collin College. “It’s like brushing your teeth:
You don’t do it on Sunday and forget about it the rest of the week.”
Belnap teaches the students hand signs to remember specific passages. For example, “Thy word” is represented by opening their hands like
a book. “Enlightenment,” is shown when a student points to her forehead.
The goal is to get students to find a verse quickly, understand what it means and eventually, memorize it.
After running through 25 Old Testament verses, Landon Shumway, a senior at Liberty High School, got up for a scripture reading.
“The scripture I chose for today is, like, really simple, but it’s really comforting,” he said, opening his book of scripture to John 14:27.
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you … Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
“That’s why we are here, to partake in that spirit,” he said. “I promise you’ll get that from being here.”
Like many of his peers, Shumway wants to attend Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. Completing seminary helps on
applications to Mormon universities like BYU, as well as prepare students for mission work.
It also helps at school, Shumway said, when other students have questions about the Mormon faith. When his peers have questions,
Shumway can carry on a dialogue with them — chapter and verse.
“I’ll tell them, ‘Oh, guess what I heard in seminary today?’ ” Shumway said. “I can even just say ‘seminary’ and they’ll know what I’m talking about.”
Sometimes, however, getting up early can mean sacrificing study time from school. If it gets too late, Shumway said he will
sometimes put homework on hold for a good night’s sleep before morning seminary.
But by the time school starts, when others are tired, Shumway said he’s fully awake and active.
“Life is all about balancing priorities,” Shumway said. “For me, you start your day in an uplifting atmosphere with uplifting people studying
an uplifting message.”
The group at the chapel on Coit Road is going through the Old Testament now. Each year, the classes work their way chronologically through a
different section of the Mormon holy texts.
This early in the year they’re still on Genesis, talking about Abraham and Lot. In Genesis 13, Lot moves his family toward the city of Sodom while
Abraham moves away. That decision by Lot leads to problems for him in the next chapter, instructor Cheree Sorensen, Gavin’s mother, told the class.
“Let’s take this into our lives,” she said. “In your lives, every single day you are faced with choices. You just have to consider, what are
the consequences of the choices you make?”
The students looked up at her, ready to take the message into the rest of their day. After she dismissed the class, the teenagers gathered their things
and walked out to their cars behind the chapel.
The first rays of pink sunlight were just starting to peek over the horizon, giving the sky a light blue-gray tint.
For Sydney Wilson, a 17-year-old senior at Centennial High School, leaving seminary is like listening to a good song when you
wake up to put you in a good mood.
“What better way to start your day than on a spiritual note?” Wilson asked. “I don’t know, it’s like you have that spirit in you. It’s not
necessarily something you can put into words.”
Allen-Frisco-McKinney editor Charles Scudder can be reached at 214-977-8778. Follow him on Twitter at @cscudder.
