Chapter Three - The Exchange: School Part 2

Second period I started out doing drama, but it ended up not being that great. Instead, I dropped the class to do the make up Seminary work. That, as I mentioned earlier, turned out to be an excellent choice. I would go to the cafeteria where I pulled out the Seminary manual and my notebook and I worked my way through the first half of the New Testament. I often would get through a couple of lessons at a time, and would bring the work to my Seminary teacher later that day.

Third period I had American History. I had my junior friend from P.E. in this class with me. I’ve always enjoyed history, and American History wasn’t something I had ever been terribly exposed to, so it came fresh and intriguing. I learned about the presidents from the early 1900s and I was fascinated by how the managed things like the post WWI period, prohibition, the depression, and going into WWII. Learning about WWII from an American perspective was interesting as well. They seem to think the war only started after the Pearl Harbor attack. I was perplexed by this because I remember clearly Hitler starting a thing before that in Europe, and the Pearl Harbor attack was a ripple affect that extended the war and brought it into the Pacific. But, you know, I could be wrong…

Anyway, I do recall making a board game with my friend in this class. I was a real stinker and made super hard questions like, “Who was the Australian Prime Minister during WWII?” and “What were the major battle which the ANZAC forces were involved?” and “How many British soldiers were evacuated from Dunkirk?” All things that didn’t involve American troops, so they had people completely stumped! I can be a real brat sometimes.

I really enjoyed this class, though. My teacher was fun and made it interesting and, considering she had a German and an Australian foreign exchange student in the room, she handled avoiding bias fairly well. In the end, I found myself in the top ten students in the classroom with an almost perfect grade. I thought that was ironic since it was American history and I wasn’t American, plus, I’d basically been told I was stupid back in my Australian high school so often that I had begun to believe it. My grades in my American school helped me turn that belief around.

Fourth period I had American Literature. This class I had mixed feelings for. I had to read Grapes of Wrath and To Kill A Mockingbird during this class. Grapes of Wrath didn’t appeal to me, but I loved To Kill A Mockingbird. I have a copy now in my personal collection as well as the sequel… which I haven’t read yet. I love to read, and we followed up with assignments and we even watched old movies of the books. I did enjoy those elements, as well as the short stories and poetry we read during class time. However, my teacher was, for want of a better word, a douchebag. I would be sitting there, wearing an Aussie flag across my chest, reading in an Australian accent, and he’d go on an America is supreme rant. He’d go on and on about how no other country had the freedoms of the U.S. and no one was as advanced or as liberated and how England sucked and so forth, and I was like… ahh, I have English family and Australia is still a sovereign nation, and yes, Australia is also free and advanced so, you suck. I always came out of those classes when he’d go on a rant kind of irritated and flustered because, to be honest, I lack the guts to be confrontational, especially to authority figures. So I would leave thinking, “You suck” but I would never say it to him or anyone.

Thankfully, I had lunch after this class. Lunch! Oh, so much fun! We played games like Spoons or Uno if someone brought cards. I sometimes flittered around to different groups, but usually I stayed with my friend from P.E. who was always so fun and hilarious. I thoroughly enjoyed spending time with her, and lunch was one of those times. Occasionally, near the end of the semester, I would head to the choir room. I had quite a few friends who would spend their lunch hour in the room before choir started. I also had a friend who would hide out in the library, so every now and then I would go to see what she was up to.

After lunch was choir. As I mentioned earlier, I loved choir! I am a soprano, so reaching the heavens on pitch was always a fun challenge. However, I had a pretty high range as a teen, so most songs didn’t push my limit very often.

Choir took me to Disneyland for the first time. I was so insanely excited. We had to sell cookie dough to raise money, and boy, did I sell cookie dough! I made more than enough to cover myself, so I donated the extra to a friend who came up short. Those cookies were amazing by the way.

We rode on a bus to Disneyland. Being choir kids, there was much singing almost the entire way. When we arrived at the hotel, we rushed to our rooms and prepared ourselves for the fun ahead of us.

We had passes to move between Disneyland and California Adventure. Since it was during the school year, hardly anyone was within both parks, so the lines were relatively quick, especially in California Adventure. One ride we could get off and jump right back on again!

I spent my time in California Adventure with one of the other sopranos and two of the boys. As we moved around the park and were chatting, it came out that I am A member of the church. The girl literally stopped me in my tracks and said, “Wait, you’re Mormon? But you’re so normal!” The guys agreed and, after establishing that being Aussie and Mormon was weird, they explained that I didn’t come across as high and mighty, or overly peppy and obnoxiously happy like the other LDS kids they knew. I liked that they didn’t judge me for being a member of the church. They were surprised, but it didn’t change how they saw me or treated me. I was still just me, their friendly neighborhood Australian exchange student. That meant more to me than I think they will ever know. After all I had been through back in my previous high school, to have my non-member friends not let my faith change the way they saw me and treated me helped my confidence enormously. I wasn’t a freak anymore, and I wasn’t ostracized by non-members for being a member of the church. Suddenly, for the first time in a long time, my religion wasn’t a deciding factor on who could be my friends. This was huge! But more on that later.

My final class at school was Seminary. I’d always done early morning Seminary, so having it at the end of my day was a real treat. I loved ending my day with it. After choir, a group of us would walk over to the seminary building together, just chatting and such. I had several interesting and enlightening conversations during these brief walks.

However, as I have already mentioned, my class time stood out in my memory. It was the place I first learned the term, “Jack Mormon.” It was the place I learned about American football through scriptural analogies. I laughed so hard I had stitches with everyone else as one of the guys did a skit on Paul. The teacher was funny and quirky, yet, he was the reason I learned so much and was able to graduate seminary with honors. My classmates kept me grounded and taught me what it felt like to be loved and supported. I delved deeper into the scriptures than ever before. I learned that everyone, no matter how much they struggled, wanted to find that spark of faith.

It was in seminary I developed the burning desire to serve a mission. Wednesday, April 20^th, I explained, “In Seminary I decided for certain that I want to serve a mission when I’m twenty-one…. I have decided through much personal debate to begin preparing for a mission and once I get back to Aus, I’ll start saving my money again…

“This decision came about as I stood up front with (a friend) and we had to teach the seminary class about the apostasy and restoration. I felt really good as I did it and I really felt like I could handle such situations with the help of the Spirit, and as I went to sit down I was asked if I was planning on being a missionary and I really sincerely said, “yes.”’

After that day my journal entries are littered with comments about serving a mission. Even after I returned home, I continue to keep it in my plans when the time came. I would serve a mission!

A major milestone occurred through doing Seminary as an exchange student. On Wednesday, May 18^th, I wrote: “We also had Seminary graduation tonight and I was able to finally graduate! I was so happy! I got a little emotional but I was able to hold it back (I didn’t want my eye makeup to run!)”

Graduating Seminary came as a real high for me. After losing my ninth-grade year, I didn’t think it was possible, but there I was, walking with the other kids from the stake. I would go on to graduate Institute in 2008, and I honestly believe it’s because of the work and faith that my seminary teacher and peers gave me during this time. Their faith gave me faith in myself and the drive to seek out education in scriptures and religion.

My time at school in the U.S.A. changed so many things for me. It helped me see that I could have friends and people who cared about me. It taught me that I wasn’t stupid at all. My time taught me to laugh and be happy again, and it brought me closer to the Lord. My time at school was my second chance, and I lived that second chance to the fullest.