Not Just Your Typical Mormon Story

Chapter 1 Lea

How much do they pay me to haul my extra curvy (according to the sticker on the last pair of jeans I bought) butt out of bed every single morning at the crack of dawn and actually make it on time to Seminary every morning; only to be forced to sit through an hour long punishment of listening to the non-stop snoring of eight other people and the never ending lectures that Sister Andrews insists are for the "better good of our humanity", even though 99% of the kids in her class are merely sleeping with their eyes open but bless her heart the old woman's as deaf and blind as a bat and heaven forbid she manage to make it through a whole class period without giving us a lecture on why children these days need more spankings. To put it mildly, the entire amount of the countries deficit magically appearing in my pocket wouldn't be enough to make up for this inhumane torture they put us youth through every weekday. Especially when the only noticeable compensation for our lack of sleep is the weekly all you can eat doughnut and sausage bread breakfasts that come around every Friday. I guess the ones that have gone before us successfully realized we would need some kind of motivation to keep coming back, especially when the snores seem to be getting louder and the lectures longer as time progresses.

Only a few more months of school, I thought to myself as I pulled my legs up over my bed as the alarm clock buzzed precisely at 5 AM on the dot, and only a few more dreadful months of this miserable church class in the mornings. Those darned Utah Mormons get to pick when they go to Seminary. Ha! I thought to myself. "Bunch of wimps." I muttered out loud as I grabbed whatever clothes I could find and made my way to the shower.

The hot water felt inviting as it ran over my body and I felt myself being pulled from my drowsy sleep and ready to face the day...after my shower, and some doughnuts, and maybe some hot chocolate and another nap, and... Well let's face it; Saturday is the only awesome day that exists in my life.

After I finally got dressed, brushed my teeth, and combed my unruly brown hair I headed out to the kitchen for some breakfast. The house was already bustling with six kids getting dressed and ready for the day, so I quickly grabbed one of the chocolate chip cookies mom had baked last night. True, they were for Family Home Evening tonight, but who's going to notice one little cookie?

"I hope you enjoyed that 'cause you just lost your treat in FHE tonight." My mom said behind me.

"Crap!" I huffed and finished stuffing the cookie into my mouth as I stomped out the door with my bag.

My younger brother Jon was already seated in the passenger seat next to Seth, so I followed my two sisters and climbed into Clifford; the massive bright red van that we paraded around town in, and slammed the door shut behind me as we took off to Seminary.

My brother drove us to the church so we arrived right at 5:40 in the morning. Seth was never late, for anything. If we had to sit outside in the freezing cold for half an hour then so be it, but we wouldn't be late and that was final. And heaven forbid we leave the car running to waste gas! Where was that hot chocolate when I needed it?.....

As we waited in the parking lot in front of the church, I counted the red bricks along the side of the building as more and more cars started to pull in. Finally, 6:00 rolled around and our teacher showed up to unlock the doors to the building and let us all inside.

We all piled out of our cars making our way inside when my best friend Marissa came up beside me looking like she had probably been sleeping in her car and just woke up. Her perfectly blonde hair was thrown up in a bun on top of her head and she had a big red blanket wrapped around her from head to toe.

"Why do we have to get up this early again?" She grumbled walking beside me as we passed through the big glass doors that led into the foyer of the church.