You are not meant to be like everybody else as you come here. You're just not meant to be like every other student at every other university around the world. This is meant to be special. It is meant to be higher. It is meant to be holier.
And goodness knows it's meant to be much more joyful. I love that. And I... I love those thoughts and I'm so happy to be here with Jen today and with all of you and with family members and loved ones.
To say that I'm surprised to be here is an understatement, as you heard earlier. And I'm constantly apologizing for the fact that you haven't got, as I would say, a real apostle here with you today. There was.
There was, in fact, a seasoned one lined up, but he'll be here in a few months, and he'll explain why he's not here today and why we are. I love the idea of surprising God because, goodness knows, he's really surprised me lately. And I'm going to think about that and practice it.
Let's say this, it really is a joy to be here with you. I have a particular sensitivity to the freshmen amongst you, as I am one, and feeling at least as raw and somehow homesick as you might be, and really welcome you to this beautiful place, this extraordinary setting. this glorious institution where you can grow in light and knowledge, in love, in kindness, and certainly in joy and in an understanding of who you really are. For those of you who were here or perhaps not here last week, when President and Sister Reese were speaking, I went back and looked at the Reese's ...remarks and, um... Oh, thank you.
Oh, is this the list? This is the list of those of you who weren't here. LAUGHTER The Reese's are still smarting over your absence.
But you can imagine over the weekend how... How we thought about what we might talk about today with you. These talks are normally highly prepared and highly polished, and that's what you just had from Jennifer Kieran. What you have from Patrick Kieran will be something less polished. But what they addressed was being positive and to look for the good.
That was Sister Reese. And it was beautiful, and I can't think of a better way for you to start your academic year than with that invitation, that admonition. And from President Rees, it was to have your own vision and then apply yourselves and the effort that you need to bring that to pass and to make and keep covenants with God.
And what a winning combination it was to have that invitation. Those were for you and for me, for all of us. And I'm grateful that most of you were here last week and that you've reflected on those thoughts.
And if you haven't, you can either read them or go back and review them. As I listened to them, I thought about my first experience with BYU. I actually came here in my mid-20s before as a visitor to the campus. before I was a member of the church, and it really struck me.
It was part of my journey, part of my preparation in my conversion process. My conversion took place with stops and starts over about two years. And I came here to the campus, and I was stunned in the most wonderful way. First...
with the physical setting. of the campus with the mountain backdrop and the valley where this university was planted. It was literally breathtaking to me and I loved it and I hope you never become immune to the backdrop, to the setting. Today with the first dusting of snow on Timpanogos and its neighbors It is beautiful. I think the sun will be out a little later on, hopefully, and that will all be cast in bright sunlight, I hope.
I hope that that can be a symbol of the stretching that you were invited to do by President Rees last week. And you're reaching for the higher and the holier, even as you fight through to discern what your vision should be. and what kind of effort you will apply as you reach for it. So the physical setting was the first thing that I noticed.
The second thing I was struck with was the students themselves. Unlike anything I'd seen anywhere before, they were extraordinary. They were happy.
They were positive. They were, as we say in church language, ...unfamiliar to me then. They were anxiously engaged.
I'm afraid that anxiously has become too much of the equation in recent times. We're all working on ways to try and reduce the wrong kind of anxious. But they were eagerly engaged.
They were positively engaged as they moved around the campus. And it just dawned on me that I came actually to a Beach Boys concert. And I sat probably somewhere way up there in the nosebleed section. And there were these massive beach balls, inflatable beach balls, being bounced around. And here were the Beach Boys.
That was one of my first experiences here. But the extraordinary thing was the students. And dear friends, you still are.
You still are extraordinary. For many of you, it's been quite a reach to get here, and now you are here, and you're in the midst of this beautiful, stretching, glorious experience that you will have for a few years in this beautiful place. And to those, again, who have just arrived, welcome, and a reminder. You are not meant to be like everybody else as you come here. You're just not meant to be like every other student at every other university around the world.
This is meant to be special. It is meant to be higher. It is meant to be holier. And goodness knows it's meant to be much more joyful.
And I pray that it will be that for you. I pray that it will be that for you. And this institution is not meant to be like any other institution around the world. It has been blessed, it has been consecrated, so that you can come here and become ambassadors to take what you learn.
in terms of your studies, but also in terms of the development of your character, the development of your nature around the world. As I think about those surprises, and as I think about your journey, I wanted to turn to 1 Peter in the New Testament. 1 Peter chapter 4, the 12th and 13th verses.
It reads like this, and think of those surprises, and think of the shocks we're dealt. Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you. As though some strange thing happened unto you.
But rejoice. What a word in that context. But rejoice.
Inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings, that when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy. This wonderful idea that Sister Kieran shared, that we can have these shocks, we can have these surprises, we may receive rocks, but we can turn them to our good. And you can. And I'm certainly a second witness of that. Grueling, even excruciating as they may be, in the moment for all of us sometimes.
I want to share this with you from President Henry B. Eyring in relation to the nature of mortality. And President Eyring said, The Lord doesn't put us through the test just to give us a grade. He does it because the process will change us.
It's very interesting, particularly in your setting, where you are dependent upon grades. You're aiming for grades. You must achieve certain grades to have particular outcomes.
But this is a wonderful balance in terms of the The plan of salvation, the plan of happiness, and our purpose here in our mortal moment from President Liring, the Lord doesn't put us to the test, through the test, just to give us a grade. He does it because the process will change us. We're all involved in that. We're all being changed, and it takes the rough and the smooth to achieve that. I'm going to share with you a clip.
in a moment from President Ballard, Who We Miss. He talks about a young man who sold everything to go and be a gold prospector in California. And we just, in a couple of minutes, follow the journey of this young man as he goes in his search for gold. And he doesn't instantly find what he's looking for. That's part of the message for you, and I'm going to develop this message just a little bit as we talk together today.
But just let's have a look at that clip now. Oftentimes we are like the young merchant who in 1849, as the story goes, was caught up in the fervor of the California gold rush. He sold all of his possessions to seek his fortune in the California rivers, which he was told were filled with gold nuggets so big that one could hardly carry them.
Day after endless day, the young man dipped his pan into the river and came up empty. Discouraged and broke, he was ready to quit. There's no gold here! Oh, there's gold, alright.
You just have to know where to find it. It's hardly worth my time. I'm looking for nuggets, like the ones in your pouch, not just tiny flecks.
Son. It seems to me you are so busy looking for Lord's Nuggets, you're missing filling your pouch with these precious flecks of gold. He was stunned to see that the pouch was filled with thousands of flecks of gold.
The old prospector said, the patient accumulation of these little flecks has brought me great wealth. This story illustrates the spiritual truth that Alma taught his son Helaman. By small and simple things are great blessings brought to pass. Our small and simple acts of kindness and service will accumulate into a life filled with love for Heavenly Father, devotion to the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, and a sense of peace and joy. I love this.
I love this. And on the screen now, you can see, you can read the clinching paragraph just packed with goodness from President Ballard as he defined what those flecks mean for you and for me. And I'm going to read it, but I'd like you to take it in because Because the truth of this can quickly pass us by if we're not careful.
He says, like the small flecks of gold that accumulate over time into a large treasure, our small and simple acts, and this is it, this is the action for us, acts of kindness and service. Our small and simple acts of kindness and service will accumulate into a life filled with love for Heavenly Father, devotion to the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, and a sense of peace and joy each time we reach out to one another. Think about that for a minute.
For me, what this amounts to is an invitation to look outward and to look upward. And it's a condensation, in a way, of what happens to those who serve missions, because they're put in this extraordinary setting where they are forced, really, to look outward and to look upward. And one of the things, and they come to love their missions largely because they are, for the first time in their lives, to any real extent, looking outward and looking upward.
And it's a beautiful thing. And it's one of the things that causes a trial for many returning missionaries when they return home. Because what happens is they look inward again, as they had been before.
And to some extent... Downward by some degree as well. I heard President Ballard, and I've heard the Brethren, teach this many times, many ways. But these small and simple acts of kindness and service do accumulate into a life filled with love for Heavenly Father.
Devotion to the work of the Lord Jesus Christ and a sense of peace and joy. And goodness knows that's what we're all looking for. So please think about this. Please pray about this and how you can apply this simple invitation every day to bless you as you bless others and as you turn upwards to our Father in heaven and our Savior Jesus Christ.
Now, I want to turn to the foundational truth that I hope, as I remind you of it, will bless you in this quest. And it's so obvious, but so easily overlooked. First of all, you are children of God. your spirit, daughters, and sons of our Father in heaven.
And I realized as a convert in my mid-twenties that you had all been raised, those of you who were raised in the church, most of you had been raised singing songs that remind you of this, taught this every day, almost day in, day out, any time you came to church. And that's a beautiful strength. But does there ever come a time where there's a risk if we become complacent in our relationship to that knowledge when it's been heard so often, sung so frequently, when we've said it so much that it risks being devalued in our heads and in our hearts? And I think the answer to that is at least a small yes. Because to someone who comes into the church, in my case, again, in their 20s, this is a glorious revelation.
It's such a powerful, beautiful, fundamental truth. I want to share this 30 seconds, just a very short clip with you from President Nelson with a little video attached to it. My dear friends, you are literally spirit children of God.
You have sung this truth since you learned the words to, I am a child of God. If everybody knew that there was a child of God, I think everybody would look at the world differently. We would all understand that we don't have to put up this fight on our own. The language from someone just beginning to understand, I think.
We don't have to put up this fight on our own. If the world understood this, and before the world can understand it, we have to come to a deeper understanding of this beautiful truth. We have to come to a deeper, not meaning more complex, actually meaning more simple understanding of the plan of happiness, the plan of redemption, the plan of mercy. We have to understand that the design is one of a gift for us eternally. and that we truly are children of our Father in heaven.
I just want to play that one more time so that you get a chance to look at the girl's face at the end, having heard the words of the prophet relayed to her. My dear friends, you are literally spirit children of God. You have sung this truth since you learned the words to, I am a child of God. If everybody knew that there was a child of God, I think everybody would look at the world differently. We would all understand that we don't have to put up this fight on our own.
I just love her smile. I just love her smile. It's as if, I don't know the story there, but it's as if this is dawning on her for the first time.
And I know how it felt when it dawned on me for the first time. I want you to remember, here's a wonderful quotation from President Holland, where he reminds us that we're all being cheered on. It reads, I testify that no one of us, think about yourself today if you're having a hard day, if this day, if this week has started hard for you, think about this. President Holland said, I testify that no one of us is less treasured or cherished of God than another.
I testify that he loves each of us. Insecurities, anxieties, self-image, and all. He doesn't measure our talents or our looks.
He doesn't measure our professions or our possessions. He cheers on every runner. Every runner, meaning you. Particularly you, if this is a hard day for you.
Particularly if this is a hard day for you. I want you to think about, again, this setting, this opportunity you have, even as you feel stretched. And as you look at those mountains this afternoon and every day, think about the beauty that you've been planted in as you come to learn and know of these eternal truths to a deeper, again, I would say, more simple level of the truth that we have been given. Talking of the landscape, there's this wonderful quotation from President Oaks who says, our creator wants us to be happy in this life. The things of the earth were created for our happiness, for your happiness, for mine.
Well done for getting here. Well done for getting here. Thank you for the goodness of your life. And if you need to make some changes, the beauty that we've been taught in the last few years about the gift of daily repentance, the joy of it.
is the gift that is there for you and for me and for all of us. From your hard-won and, yes, privileged vantage point, I have an invitation for you. It's this, that as you come to a deeper understanding, of where those flecks of gold come from as you look out, as you look up, it's that you become flecks of gold to an often troubled world.
that you rejoice in becoming flecks of gold, that you take Huh, that's good, isn't it? Thank you. Oh my goodness, there are clever people around here. That you rejoice in being flecks of gold, that you build yourselves while you're here, that you practice. Practice these simple principles of reaching out in kindness and love each day in your apartment, in your classes, in your ward, in your branch, at home, and then as you go out into the world that you become, and this already works, you know, it just will never be enough.
The world sees you differently. as you rejoice in the truth that you've received, as you come to a deeper understanding of who you truly are, and as you practice these principles, that you're learning ever more keenly. And I would say, as you move beyond here, ever more energetically, but keeping it simple and remembering that you are, that you might have joy. I pray that you will enjoy this process. that you'll receive this invitation and that you'll act upon it, starting today with small acts of kindness, blessing those around you and realizing that as you look out and as you look up, that you will be blessed and millions will be blessed as you go forth into the world.
I leave you these thoughts in love and in gratitude for you. and in all that you might do, and in all that you are already doing, as I testify of our loving Father in heaven, his Son Jesus Christ, and of a living prophet to guide us, and of the glorious fact that we will have prophets to guide us until our beloved Saviour returns to the earth. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.