Miriam J's Response to "What I Now Believe"

     It was in high school that I first began to enjoy learning. I realized, what I was learning was actually kind of interesting. That was one thing that I loved about A.P. classes; the students actually cared about what they were learning. They cared overly much about their grades, too, but at least they weren’t too cool to discuss what they were learning about. However, I still cared more about my grades than anything else, and I didn’t bother to remember anything I had learned after the A.P. test was over. I suppose laziness won out over sounding smart.

    

   Now that I’m in college, I’m still having a hard time caring more about what I’m learning than about my grades. But reading what A. LeGrand Richards had to say about education helped to put things into perspective for me. He talks about how a lot of students view school as a game, as something to get through with as little effort possible. But school isn’t about getting good grades; it’s about learning. And not just learning for a career, but learning so that we can fulfill our mission in this life, whatever that may be. The more learning we have, the more we will be able to serve the Lord wherever we are. Any type of learning can be helpful – music, languages, business, even car repair. We should be excited and eager to learn. 

      

 There really is a lot to learn in this world; no matter how hard we try, we’ll never be able to learn it all in this life. We all know how important serving is; that alone should be incentive to learn more. Anything we learn can be used to serve others, even if we can’t see how right now. For example, if I have never stuck with piano for 13 years, I wouldn’t be able to serve as the sacrament meeting accompanist right now. If we just have a good attitude about learning and are actually interested in what our professors – and anyone else, for that matter – has to teach us, it will make our lives so much more fulfilling.