Mormon Kids At THS

At our  high school, most of the LDS kids hung out together at every break. We hung out before school, and then we had a 15 minute break mid-morning called “Brunch,” (a great chance for kids to go and spend all their money on junk food at the student store), and then at lunch. There was first lunch and second lunch, so usually we just hung out with whoever had the same lunch we had. (Senior year I was always with my AFS group—Stefan, Richard, Maggie, Lauri, etc). Here are some pictures of us Mormon kids on campus.

Front: I think that's me on the far left, half cut off. Then Matt Mollard, Allison Bowers, Ronny Bjarnason, Matt Day, Paul Mollard

Middle: Devon Thompson, I think? Rachel Smith in the white shirt, Amy Coughran in red, Susan Day, Janae Lewis. Derek Payne is right behind Janae. 

Brian Gleason

Mormon kids could be found here during any lunch or brunch.

Paul Mollard

Paul Jensen, with Susan Day in blue.

Devan Thompson and Ryan Wheeler in front. Matt Day, Travis Liston, Derek Payne and Matt Mollard in the back.

Kim Jones and Laurie Spencer

Guys, just hanging out like they always did.

Rachel Smith, Amy Coughran, Amy Peterson

Heather Gleason and Kim Jones

Janae Lewis

Janae Lewis

I Will Not Talk In Class

I made the biggest mistake of my high school life when I dropped Mr. Hinds' Honors History class. Man, I was a whiner. It was a lot of work, and it took a lot out of me, there is no doubt about that. But I should have stuck with it. I was equal to it--I just didn't want to put in the effort. I wasn't used to having to try for good grades, and I had no desire to start trying. I look back on that and just wish so much someone had told me to suck it up and not let me drop the class. Mr. Hinds made us think. He taught us some really solid stuff. I wrote a paper that was probably the best paper of my life, and he gave me a B. I believed it was an A paper, and did not know how to handle giving the best I felt I had in me only to receive a B grade. Oh, how my grown up self wishes I could go back and tell my high school self that I would regret dropping that class for the rest of my life.

I opted to take "regular" 11th grade history. Which meant I was not eligible for AP History as a senior. But that's not what bothers me. What bothers me is that, honoring my request, I was removed from Mr. Hinds' class and put into regular history with Mr. Biever. And oh. This man. It was awful. He spent every class period lecturing, but not really teaching. He walked around as though he was in a daze and had no control whatsoever. I don't think I learned a single thing that year. His class was a complete joke, and everyone treated it that way. He was probably the least respected teacher on campus, and it was like he just didn't know it.

Mr. Biever's favorite form of punishment was making students write sentences. I will admit, I wasn't the best student in his class. It was impossible to take him seriously, and it was impossible to take the class seriously. There was really no content. It was such a waste of time. I spent my time in that class talking to my friends, and honestly--that's about it. (This was not my typical behavior, by any stretch of the imagination). But anyway, people were ALWAYS talking about being assigned to write sentences. He assigned so many sentences he was probably drowning in them.

One day he gave me 100 sentences for talking to my friend Ozzy. I was pretty upset, because I was absolutely not talking that day. I'll admit, I did talk in class. But the day he assigned me sentences I had not beet. I was really upset, and I decided it was time to make Mr. Biever's life a little more interesting. I thought about finding a refrigerator box and writing the sentences on that. But it wasn't practical, because I really had no way of getting a huge box like that to school. My next best option was to write the sentences out on toilet paper, and then roll them back up. So that's what I did. I wrote, 100 times on toilet paper, "I will not talk in class." And then I wrote, "101. I was not talking in class, and it was not fair that Mr. Biever assigned me these sentences." Or something like that.

He accepted my sentences, and I never heard another word about it. I don't even think he smiled at the fact that they were on toilet paper. Other kids got a kick out of it though.

Girls Camp

My first two years of Girls Camp was in Corcoran. Well, it was with the Corcoran Young Women, anyway. I’m not sure where our camp was, but it was called Mirimichi.

The second year I had already moved to Turlock, but the Turlock girls had already had camp, so my parents arranged for me to go back down and go to camp with our old branch. (My parents were always great about getting us to all our meetings, activities, programs, etc., and this is one example of that. Some people would consider that too much of a hassle, but not my parents). The way this stake did Girls Camp was they camped by ward, so I was with all my friends.

These are the only pictures I have of Girls Camp with Corcoran. It was kicked around in my room for so many years, and it has spots on it from who knows what, but I’m sure glad it survived!

That’s me standing outside the cabin. Heather Adamson is hanging out the window. Inside, from left to right, are Alana Burbank, Darlene Hampton and Tricia Adamson.

I’m pretty sure this picture of me standing on the rock is also from Mirimichi. I’m wearing a t-shirt from my dad’s radio station in Ogden.

Girls Camp in Turlock Stake was completely different. Instead of camping out with our ward, we were divided by year (first years, second years, etc.) The girls for each year were divided into groups of ten or so girls each. Each group had a junior counselor and a counselor. We had a mess hall and camp cooks, (who we called Cookies), and we only cooked over the fire for certification. We slept in A frame tents, 2 girls per tent.

I don’t have a lot of pictures of Girls Camp with Turlock Stake, but here is the handful I do have, all from different random years.

In this picture, Janae Lewis (Cox) and Amanda Liston (Day) are in the back, and I am in the front. This is from one of our hikes.

Here is a pretty bad picture of an A frame tent. It was basically a wood floor with a green canvas tent over the top of it.

This picture was taken in the Dining Hall. It was the centerpiece for my mom’s group one of the years she was a counselor. Every group had a table, and we all had to come up with a centerpiece that went along with what we named our group.

This is me on a hike somewhere.

Here is a group of us doing the Shinehah Ceremony (Shinehah means sun—look, I was the Sun!) From front to back are me, Rhonda Potter, Serena Clark, ?, Melanie Reed

One year when I was a youth leader, my group of girls dressed me up like this for a camp activity. I can’t for the life of me remember why, but there I am in all my glory!

And just because it’s here, here is a picture of our Young Women in Turlock, probably about my senior year. This is our Young Women room. 

Front Row: Judy Payne, my sister Celeste, Lindsey Williams

Middle Row: Me, Annette Coder, ?, ?, Jaime Davis, Beverly Coder, Heather Davis, Elizabeth Bjarnason, ?, Sarah Bjarnason, Becky Nees, Emily Doman

Back Row: Susan Day, ?, Sabrina Jones

Seminary Days

Is there a better Seminary program anywhere than the one I went to in Turlock? I really don't know how there could be. I am so thankful for the opportunity I had to be in Seminary there, and for the teachers who worked so hard to make it epic. I memorized all 25 mastery scriptures every year. We were master scripture chasers, and at the end of the year we had "Seminary Day," which involved three, sometimes four, stakes. We would compete in scripture chasing, and other things, and I'm sure there was dinner and a dance. It was superb! We also had a Seminary Sacrament Meeting at the end of the year, where we would visit each Turlock Ward and put on the whole meeting. The Seminary students from the ward we were visiting were the speakers, and we also prepared choir numbers. I will never forget it. It was my goal to achieve 100% attendance all four years, so I went to Seminary every. single. day. The only day I did miss was when we were taking Sam to the airport to leave for his mission. There really was no getting out of it. So I missed out on the 100% attendance award, but I was still there every single day all four years but that one.

What follows are some of the great moments in Seminary...

Brother Liston with the whole armor of God.

Travis Liston

Devan Thompson, Travis Liston, Darrin Wheeler

Looks like donut day!

Derek Payne

Pictures from the Seminary Bowl.

Chasing Scriptures

Watching the proceedings.

We got medals for winning at scripture chase, and I got the purple ribbon for memorizing all the mastery scriptures.

And of course, there was always a dance afterwards!

The "Gold" Plates

Brother Liston made these metal plates, and spray painted them gold. We got to engrave our names in the front if we wanted to pledge to read the whole Book of Mormon that year. After we put our names in, we opened it up to the members of the wards to do the same. At the end of the year, anyone who completed the challenge got to put their names in the back of the book. We buried the plates in a stone box at the stake center, along with time capsule type notes we wrote, to be opened in 10 years. We did indeed go back ten years later and open it up. It was a fun reunion! We wrote new letters and planned to go back in another ten years, but we never did.

Engraving

Burying

Here we are after we buried the plates. On the left are Aaron Bjarnason and Stephanie Bjarnason. Julie Neilson is in front of them with someone else. On the right I'm in the back, and Travis and Janae are in front. I'm not sure who that is in the middle.

Seminary Sacrament Meeting

The Seminary Teachers: Stephanie Bjarnason, Roger Liston, Sue Spencer

The Seminary kids from our three wards.

Church Journal

One night at EFY—and I don’t remember if it was the first time I went to EFY or the second,--we were all in a big auditorium type room getting ready to hear John Bytheway. I had never heard him before. Actually, I had never even heard of him before. Can you imagine that? I’m sure my life had been extremely flat up to that point, not having heard John Bytheway speak.

I was in the front row. No idea how that happened, we must have been early, I guess. I was sitting there with my fancy little book. It was hard back, had a nice cover on it, and it was full of blank pages. A journal, really. It was a journal I lovingly referred to as “The Small Plates.” My small plates, the journal I took to church, and to places like really awesome EFY talks by really awesome speakers like John Bytheway. I had it ready to go, open to the next blank page.

Some older guy came up and sat on the edge of the stage right in front of me, and started talking to us. I really, really, really wish I had known at the time that it was John Bytheway, and I really, really, REALLY wish I had known what I know now, because if I had I would have had him put his John Hancock right there on the inside cover of my small plates. Because honestly—that would have been so cool. As it was, I had no idea, so I sat there like the socially awkward, strange teenager that I was. He took a look at my book and asked me what it was, and I told him it was my church journal. Just a book where I took my spiritual notes. Not really a big deal.

A minute or two later, the lights dimmed and we all got ready for the show. Ok, it was a talk, but with John Bytheway I think it’s safe to say it was a show. I mean, I don’t really even remember what he talked about that night, but I can guarantee there was a lot of laughter.

Fast forward 25 years or so. I’m in the car, on a road trip, listening to talks on tape with my family, and we’re listening to John Bytheway. All the sudden, he tells this story about how one time he was giving a talk, and he saw a girl with a book and asked her what it was, and she responded, “It’s my church journal.” He kind of used a valley girl teenager voice when he said that, which was silly, but my eyes got big and I remembered that night that I had never thought of since…well, that night. But there it was. Right there on his tape, he was talking about me! So funny!

Sometimes it’s these odd, unexpected things in life that just make it fun. My kids really get a kick out of knowing that it was me. The rest of the world may never know, but my kids love it.