Moments I regret II

As a Mia Maid, we got a new teacher. She was the bishop's sister-in-law, but none of us girls could stand her. She was a bit forceful, and old enough that she had absolutely no way to relate to us.

So, during the monthly combined Young Women lesson, she drew the short stick and had to teach us monsters. The topic for that month was working on going to the temple.

She, right off the bat said, "This is a really hard lesson for me to give, because there are a lot of things about the temple that I don't agree with. Some really weird things go on in there that I'm just really uncomfortable with. But I'm going to do my best to teach you the principles of this lesson."

The lesson itself was dull. Or at least, I don't remember much. But I do remember that none of us were very impressed. Some of the things she said kept hinting at her earlier statements of disagreement.

By the end of the lesson, everyone--adults included--were in varying states of shock, upset, and anger. How dare this woman use lesson time to demean something as sacred as the temple. How dare she try and sway the impressionable youth from their goal of marrying in the temple for time and all eternity. If she, for whatever outlandish reason, had problems with the temple, the least she could do was step down from teaching that month. Or, God forbid, swallow her pride and humbly give the lesson out of the manual, with no personal comment.

We young women were enjoying the opportunity to exploit the division between the adults, and perhaps some of us were sincerely upset by what she had said. I mean, none of us had actually been to the temple, none of us knew the history of the ordinances, so of course we had no idea what she was talking about. In our heads, we had built up the temple to be this grand place of mystery and enlightenment. A place where people saw the Savior, received guidance, and learned about the building blocks of life itself. So, in our minds, what she had said was so far off-base it wasn't even in the same playing field.

Well, to make a long story short, she was called into the bishop's office and severely reprimanded. I've no doubt that some form of disciplinary action was imposed upon her. If I had to guess, it'd be informal probation, because she continued her calling as our teacher for another year or so.

But, she was forced to stand up at the beginning of our next Young Women meeting and apologize for what she had said, and say that she didn't really mean it.

If I could go back in time, I would slap myself silly for not standing up for her. For succumbing to the ridiculous groupthink mentality and not allowing her to have her own opinions. I wish I could have asked her what she was talking about. Maybe I would have actually learned something from that lesson, instead of sitting, eyes glazed over, through another correlated lesson that I had heard numerous times before.

As it is, out of the seven years of Young Women, very, very few lessons stick out in my mind, easy to remember. This is one of them.