Hani Almadhoun cautiously walked into the Missionary Training Center and asked where to go. Strange looks followed him as he found a seat and waited to be trained. No one told him he was supposed to wear a tie.

He went to the MTC to complete 10 hours of service in the call center for his sharing the gospel class. After a quick training session, Almadhoun sat down at a blinking computer against the wall, put on the headphones and waited for the phone to ring. At the end of each call, he was asked to share his testimony with the person on the other end of the line.

Sharing a testimony of the Book of Mormon was confusing and difficult for Almadhoun because it conflicted with his Muslim beliefs.

After four hours, Almadhoun decided to quietly leave the MTC and ask his teacher for a different assignment.

All undergraduate BYU students must complete at least 14 credit hours of religion to graduate. This can be difficult for some students whose fundamental beliefs differ from those of nearly 98 percent of the student population at BYU.

“When your God that you adore as he is, or as you understand that he is, is portrayed in another manner, it can be very disconcerting,” said Eula Monroe, Baptist Student Union adviser and BYU teacher education professor.

Almadhoun found ways to incorporate his own beliefs into the religion classes he took. When asked to give the spiritual thought at the beginning of his Doctrine and Covenants class, Almadhoun read from his own book of scripture the Quran.

“I wasn’t nervous to give the presentation,” Almadhoun said. “I was nervous for the content and what people would think.”

After his spiritual thought, students told him they enjoyed hearing his ideas and the professor thanked him for sharing his beliefs with the class, Almadhoun said.

Religion classes can be hard because everyone else speaks the same language, “mormonese” as he calls it, and can relate to what is being taught more than he can, Almadhoun said.

“I do have a disadvantage, but it’s not working against me,” Almadhoun said.

To counteract this disadvantage, the university offers a class called Introduction to Mormonism. This religion class is for non-LDS students in their first or second semester at BYU. It can replace either the Doctrine and Covenants or the New Testament religion requirement.

Lawrence Flake is one of the professors of this class. Flake has two objectives when teaching his Introduction to Mormonism class. First is to help students adjust to, enjoy and appreciate their experience at BYU. His second objective is to equip students with the tools necessary to succeed in future religion classes.

“They can overcome almost anything, if they get the right perspective,” Flake said.



Copyright Brigham Young University 30 Nov 2005