FEBRUARY 12, 2017, Sunday
A person should not come home from a 3 hour worship service being depressed. In
Sunday School the teacher was teaching on how we recognize the spirit and spent the
majority of the time talking about how good the devil is. He made some bizarre
statements about the Holy Ghost that were just not true. He used real life examples for
Africans like talking about not having food to eat and cheating your brother in business
and thinking that that is normal and right. Which was good. But, He obviously has no
real concept of the Holy Ghost. The bad thing or good thing, was I did not say a word.
Where would I have started. This man was full of himself, pompous, arrogant and a
know-it-all with the attitude of ' I am the teacher and you will listen to me.' As he said,
"when I was district president. . ." REALLY! How can a district president have such a
bizarre understanding of the Holy Ghost and think the devil does good? The Spirit said
to me "he is teaching from his past". Correcting this self-important man would have
brought contention. And contention is of the devil. Should I have taken over the class
with truth or kept my mouth shut? The Spirit did not encourage me. This is something
the Priesthood needs to deal with. I am a white woman and he is a black man. In this
society women are nothing. As we were leaving the Sunday School room a man told
the teacher it was a very good lesson.
Then, If that wasn't bad enough: In Relief Society they were very unprepared - which
is normal. They never plan a lesson. The R.S. President will hand someone a manual
and say "teach". That means we read paragraph after paragraph and try to have some
kind of discussion. Today the Sister chose the lesson on Charity and the first question
out of her mouth was "Sister" meaning me "what is charity?" Easy enough. Then we
began to read. After every paragraph she asked the sister who read to explain what she
read and then she would ask me to make a contribution. That got old really fast. A few
times I said "she explained it perfectly". Then we came to the story of the Good
Samaritan. The story was read and explained and then I was asked to make a
contribution. I tried to make it realistic to real life and mentioned that in Sierra Leone
there are many opportunities to help others because the needs here are so great. The
R.S. President jumped all over me about they have to be careful who they help because
if you touch someone who is a criminal and you leave your fingerprint on them and
they get captured by the police and they find your fingerprint on them then you have to
go to court. . .blah, blah, blah" She was not soft nor gentle in her chastisement of me. I
responded to her with, "this is exactly why you should not be asking me to make a
contribution after every sister speaks. I obviously don't know everything about your
culture, ask someone else to make a contribution." I had had enough!!! With that
the teacher finished the lesson and we all left.