Taylor's Seminary Graduation

Yea!!! Taylor received his four year certificate, graduating from seminary last night. Tay was asked to speak at the graduation- and i have copied his talk here for you to read if you want to.

he received many compliments on his talk- seems taylor speaks to people in a way that he comes across as real and reaches the listener in some way. i was so proud of him! (as dad calls it- 'righteous pride' :)

i was asked to take the official photos- the ones that will be submitted by our areas press representative- so i've included a few for you to see. the PR mentioned that Taylor would be quoted and so she wanted his picture for the paper as well.

FYI... the ceremony was for all the graduating youth in our stake. the pictures only reflect Taylor's high school- three other high schools were a part of it as well.

and a sidenote...: our stake was recently a part of a tri-stake conference that ended up creating a fourth stake. when this happened, Gary R*** became our new stake president. some of you will recall that i was his sister's roomie at BYU and dated Gary a bit back then.

to update you further, Taylor and Julia broke up a few weeks back. I believe that this time it is a keeper. Tay has begun talking with a girl in our stake- her name is Jennifer R***. to be clear, yes, Gary's daughter.

it was Gary that asked Tay to speak at the graduation- and i told him that's only the beginning if he's going to date the stake president's daughter... he he he.

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"Hello my name is Taylor B*** and I am from the F M 3rd ward for those of you who do not know me. I was asked to talk about my experiences with seminary and asked to specifically speak to those of you who have not yet graduated. I would like to discuss what is unique about the educational setting that Seminary uses and why I think these things are crucial to a sound understanding of the gospel and being a prepared missionary.

At the end of this last year of seminary I had to make up something like thirty or forty days to graduate. It was also necessary that I have nearly 100% attendance for about a month and a half. I tried to look at the situation as an opportunity to immerse myself in seminary and see if I could gain something from giving the class an earnest effort. I noticed several things as I put thought and energy into the class and spent time outside the class working on make-up. The first thing that changed was that Seminary ceased to be a burden. I enjoyed my time there. Also I became aware of some things that it has to offer that I had never noticed before.

The first thing I would tell you is that Seminary widens your knowledge base that you can draw upon when opportunities to discuss religion come up. When I have been on splits with the missionaries teaching investigators, they use scripture to teach constantly. This is necessary because the investigators do not yet have a testimony of our church and need something concrete to draw initial faith from. The missionaries use several references, mostly from the Bible, to introduce the gospel. Nearly all of them are scripture masteries. If it were not for seminary, I am sure I would have been overwhelmed with feelings of inadequate knowledge of the Bible. However, I know most of the scriptures they used and feel confident that with the Lord’s help I will be able to increase my knowledge until it is a sufficient base for the mission field. Seminary is very much geared to provide the knowledge and spirit that are crucial to missionary work. I bear testimony that if you put your time into Seminary all four years and learn the scripture masteries and read the works of scripture then you will have an excellent knowledge base for the mission field or for post high school life. I could not believe how the scriptures I learned in senior year were the exact ones that the missionaries invariably use.

It has been my experience that Seminary is one of those critical commitments you can make to the Lord that will keep you strong in testimony. To those who will commit to serving a mission it is a great proving ground for learning part of the daily life of a missionary. If you can consistently commit to an hour of scripture study in the morning now then it follows that you should be able to in the mission field. In my opinion learning to be attentive in early morning study is a skill that has to be practiced like playing the piano or running track. Sacrificing time and energy and working hard are also skills to be practiced. These are all things you can do in Seminary if you desire to. Those who have done it know that it can sometimes take incredible self-mastery to focus and attempt to learn. I imagine it is the same on a mission and if you have already developed these skills then it will be one less thing to adjust to in the field.

Another thing I attribute to Seminary is that it can enhance scriptural knowledge in ways that Sunday school and personal study do not necessarily offer. An entire year is spent in a classroom setting studying a specific work of scripture. This institution of the church gives five times the amount of time available to Sunday school and ten or twenty more insightful people. This is unique because seminary can ably teach the context of the scriptures regardless of how relatively important or exciting the passage is. Instead of only reading the passages that are relevant to a certain lesson you get to know the entire stories. This wider view learning approach enables the students to learn things that only time and effort will teach. Also, the more difficult stretches to understand in the Bible are taught. I think that learning Isaiah was meant to be a group effort. Some passages in scripture are just not easily decipherable and Seminary is the perfect tool to learn context and see the bigger picture.

Four years is a long time. Sometimes it is difficult to see graduation from freshman and sophomore year. The Lord loves those who are long-suffering and I promise there are blessings for those who will take it seriously and seek to take what they can from it. In closing I would like to say thank you to all of my seminary teachers and all of my classmates for making the experience a good one. I know that we will be prepared for what will happen in our lives because of our commitment. "

***at this point taylor shared his testimony and concluded his talk***