Good afternoon, brothers and sisters. I am so excited to spend some time with you here in the Hart Auditorium. I have various members of my family on the stand with me today and I was sitting next to my wife, and my ten year old daughter looked over at me and I knew she wanted to say something. And so I leaned over and I thought, perhaps she would share a word of encouragement and she leaned real close and said, "Dad, Aunt Katie has her chickens and I'm dying to see them!" Which gave me, strangely enough a bit of peace and comfort.
Also among my family members today, on the stand is my grandmother Leola Helvin. She has deep roots in this area and I am glad that she could join us today. My life's been blessed by the example of her faith in Jesus Christ, her sense of humor, and the example that she has been to me. My grandma was a student at this institution during the years of 1938 to 1939 when it was Ricks College. She received her associate's degree in business in June of 1939. As you can imagine there have been some changes here since she was a student. For example, when she was a student, there were only two buildings on campus. My grandmother and the friends that she went to college with experienced also different rules than you might experience while you are here. In the residence hall there were certain rules about notifying the resident proctors that you were leaving. When a student would leave, they were required to sign a checkout sheet on which the student's name, the person who was with them, and the nature of their outing was recorded.
This picture shows one of these checkout sheets. On this sheet, my grandma's name is listed along with a young man name Ted Parkinson, who apparently had taken her to 'a show.' The checkmarks by the names were placed there by the proctor, indicating the student had returned. It looks like Ted successfully returned my grandma to the dorm by the 10 p.m. curfew. My grandma has kept several mementos of her time at this place. It's a time she describes as 'wonderful.' Since she graduated from Rick's college, this institution has experienced many powerful changes. Guided by divine hands, and molded by the efforts of many humble, dedicated employees and students over the decades, it has developed, it has expanded and improved steadily. It has become a place of innovation. You can see these blessings in our beautiful and expanding campus. More students pass through our classrooms than ever before. New and powerful ways of teaching and learning are being developed.
This place is still changing. Still improving, and it never will cease to do so. It is, as Elder David A. Bednar described, set apart as a temple of learning in which if students take advantage of their time here, they will enter in one condition and leave in a better one. BYU-Idaho, I believe, is a symbol of the kind of change Heavenly Father desires for each of us. You are at a time in your lives that many of you might also describe as wonderful. You have felt transformations within yourselves that have brought excitement, energy and optimism. You feel the desire to develop talents and skills that will help you confidently go forth and find happiness, success and goodness in your lives.
Perhaps some of you have been frustrated by the seeming lack of transformation, and wonder if the changes you seek for yourself are possible. It can be both exciting and also frustrating to ask yourself the question: "If I could change anything about myself, what would it be?" In your quiet moments, when you examine what you most desperately want for yourself, what do you find? My wife was a student here, not many years ago and she described to me the excitement she felt when she considered that her experience here could be a starting point for her. Here she could decide how she would turn out, and become something better than she felt she was before. She wanted to become a better, new version of herself. Would the prospect of becoming new excite you?
The apostle Paul described how the most important change that can happen to us is brought about through the atonement of Christ. In fact, he called this change becoming "a new creature". Becoming this new creature is a change each of us must make to find "peace in this life" and to qualify for eternal life in the world to come.
To become 'new' suggests a transformation from an existing state. This transformation includes experiences that have different names in the scriptures such as being born again, having a mighty change of heart and being converted.
Perhaps many of you in this audience have experienced significant transformation already in your lives when you joined the church. You have felt the powerful blessing of the atonement of Jesus Christ and made significant changes in order to know the Savior. This may have begun when you were introduced to the gospel by a friend, colleague or family member. You felt faith in Christ which created in you a new, strong and real desire to repent. You were baptized by water and by the Spirit as you participated in the sacred ordinances by proper authority. Taking these steps has allowed you to "walk in the newness of life."
And perhaps some of you hadn't fully started to feel a personal transformation until powerful spiritual experiences, trials, or other circumstances were placed in your lives by the Lord. Maybe these experiences helped you become a convert, even though you were already a member of the church. This may be happening to some of you as students here.
Some of you have always been members of the church and may not remember a time when you didn't feel the beauty and power of the gospel in daily living. Yet, you feel a longing to improve your efforts, your actions and your thoughts.
Finally, there may be some in this room who have a hope for conversion, but aren't sure if they have experienced it yet.
We may all indeed ask ourselves am I converted? And how will I know?
Many of us may have received a spiritual witness that the gospel is true. This is one step toward full conversion. However, knowing even deeply that Christ lives, is only part of this conversion that must take place in each of us. Elder Dallin H. Oaks said of the process of becoming what Heavenly Father needs us to become:
"This process requires far more than acquiring knowledge. It is not even enough for us to be convinced of the gospel; we must act and think so that we are converted by it. In contrast to the institutions of the world, which teach us to know something, the gospel of Jesus Christ challenges us to become something."
Elder Oaks goes on to teach the difference between knowing and being converted using Simon Peter as a reference point. Peter was a powerful teacher of the gospel with a strong testimony. There was no question that Peter knew the truth of, and was committed to the gospel. Yet, at the Last Supper the Savior told Simon Peter: "I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren". Elder Oaks explains: "If any of us relies solely upon our knowledge and testimony of the gospel, we are in the same position as the blessed but still unfinished Apostles whom Jesus challenged to be 'converted.'" We must understand that conversion includes, but is more than just knowing.
Perhaps in the past we have confused obedience with conversion. While obedience is indeed important and even critical in becoming a new creature, it is a means to an end, and not the end itself. Elder Oaks goes on to explain:
"The Final Judgment is not just an evaluation of a sum total of good and evil acts--what we have done. It is an acknowledgment of the final effect of our acts and thoughts--what we have become. It is not enough for anyone just to go through the motions. The commandments, ordinances, and covenants of the gospel are not a list of deposits required to be made in some heavenly account. The gospel of Jesus Christ is a plan that shows us how to become what our heavenly Father desires us to become."
Brothers and sisters the Lord loves and is pleased by His children who consistently do as they are asked, but certainly conversion implies even more than this. We learn from the Lord's counsel to the prophet Samuel that "man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart." When we are converted, we see the reason for our obedience clearly, and we offer it willingly. Do we fulfill our callings or other responsibilities in the gospel because it helps us avoid inconvenience in a culture where that is the acceptable standard? Because we are mortal, we sometimes find discrepancies between our actions, even when they are well-intentioned, and the inner feelings of our hearts.
When I was a young boy, I learned about this discrepancy that can occur between our outward actions and our true feelings. Like some of you I was blessed to grow up learning gospel principles in what I felt was a 'large' family. I was the second of six children, and the only boy. Because boys sometimes feel the need to distinguish themselves from little girls, I became skilled at antagonizing my sisters. One evening, my older sister Heather and I were engaged in a running battle. I would harass her, and she would reciprocate. Our teasing and tussling escalated until we became very upset at each other. We were soon both in tears, and our fighting continued until our exasperated mother knew that she had to intervene.
Taking each of us by the arm she escorted us into her bedroom and described how she would put an end to our discord. Letting go of us, she told my sister and I to face each other. I knew this couldn't be good. My mom then explained, in a stern voice that we would each be required to hug each other for one full minute in order to show that we love each other! With tears still flowing, we hesitated until she explained the longer we waited, the longer we would be stuck in the room together. We approached each other holding our arms out, and tried our hardest to create the appearance of an embrace without actually having the skin of our arms touch.
I remember holding my arms in a perfect circle providing enough room for my sister to fit within my hug without actually any physical contact. She did the same thing, and we stood this way for a full minute, tears running down our faces. This resolved our conflict, but only because the idea of another full minute of hugging was threat enough to end our fight. I have since learned to love and cherish my sisters. I learned from this experience that being obedient was not necessarily being converted. My outward actions manifested obedience, and the appearance of 'loving' my sister, but my inward feelings were in conflict. Now this is a playful example and it's one that suggests this conflict that happens between us, but there are other instances in our lives when we may examine ourselves and say, and what I'm doing, is what I'm doing matching what I'm feeling inside?
We must understand that conversion includes, but is more than just being obedient.
So what is it to be converted?
President Marion G. Romney described conversion in the following way:
"Conversion means to turn from one belief or course of action to another. Conversion is a spiritual and moral change. In one who is really wholly converted, desire for things contrary to the gospel of Jesus Christ has actually died. Membership in the Church and conversion are not necessarily synonymous. Being converted and having a testimony are not necessarily the same thing either ... Conversion is the fruit or the reward for repentance and obedience."
Again, in our quiet moments when we really examine what we want for ourselves, do we find that our desire for things contrary to the gospel has died? Or do we keep that desire for some things on life support because some temptations are particularly entertaining, exciting or intriguing to us.
I suggest we can measure our conversion not by what we know, believe or even do sometimes, but how closely our thoughts, feelings and desires compare to those of the Savior. This can be sobering when we realize that while we may have strong testimonies and consistently fulfill our church and family responsibilities--we may have work to do in aligning our motivations, desires and feelings. However, if our personal inventory causes us to become discouraged, I suggest it is because we have lost track of two important principles. One, that conversion is more a process than an event. And two, we cannot experience conversion without the power of the atonement.
This process happens on different timelines for each of us. In describing the miraculous conversions that are recorded in the Book of Mormon Elder D. Todd Cristofferson explained:
"You may ask, why doesn't this mighty change happen more quickly with me? You should remember that the remarkable examples of King Benjamin's people, Alma, and some others in scripture are just that-remarkable and not typical. For most of us, the changes are more gradual and occur over time. Being born again, unlike our physical birth, is more a process than an event, and engaging in that process is the central purpose of mortality."
A few weeks ago in a family council setting my wife and I were discussing with our small children the struggle that we sometimes feel in reconciling our feelings to our actions in ways that enable us to move toward Heavenly Father and not away from him. We talked about the times we feel jealousy, anger, annoyance, and pride and frustration and how yielding to those influences takes us down a path of action that is out of line with our divine potential. My ten-year old daughter Celeste, who is very bright, pondered this. She furrowed her brow and asked, 'Yeah, but isn't it natural to feel these things?" I told her yes, it was and then we read together Mosiah 3:19 which teaches about these 'natural' tendencies. If you will join me, let's turn to Mosiah 3:19. The scripture says:
For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.
I was touched by my daughter's question, because I knew she was starting to discover the challenge that will be hers, mine and yours for the rest of our lives: to develop feelings, thoughts and actions that are compatible with our knowledge of what is right. To become a new creature requires putting off the natural man. I had the feeling that as my daughter considered her natural tendencies, she was starting to think, "Wow this will be a lot of work." And it is. I wanted my daughter to also know that we don't have to do this on our own. When we look further into this scripture we find hope and optimism in two very small words: yields and through.
"The word 'yields' in Mosiah 3:19 shows the encouragement of our loving Heavenly Father. The scripture says:
"The natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticing of the Holy Spirit."
One definition of the word yield is to 'give up and to cease resistance or contention'. Another is 'to give way to pressure or influence'. By both definitions, the scripture suggests there are influences already being applied to us. Perhaps the only obstacle in letting the Spirit have full sway in our hearts, is our own either stubborn or even unconscious resistance. At times perhaps our inability to perceive the enticings of the Spirit isn't because they are absent, but because our desire to them to yield to them, has not been fully developed.
I learned another lesson about yielding to the Spirit a few years ago. I had served in the young men's organization of a ward where my young family and I lived before we moved here. I became friends with the other advisors and scout leaders. We went on many campouts together, fended off affectionate group attacks from our deacons together and taught together on Sundays. This kind of experience can form a solidarity among young men's leaders that many of you men in this audience will experience, if you haven't done so. A short time after my wife and I moved from the ward, I received news that one of the advisors I had served with had died. I was confused because he was a young, strong and healthy man. One afternoon his young wife had come home, and discovered him lying unconscious upon their bed, and attempts to revive him were unsuccessful. Investigation revealed that the circumstances surrounding his death were suspicious. It was later discovered that somebody had entered his home and taken his life. Little else was known. My wife and I were shocked and saddened, and we had never experienced anything like this before and were uneasy as we prepared to attend the funeral. Before the services, I was looking at pictures arranged by this young man's family in the lobby of the church building. It seemed such a senseless tragedy that he was gone, and soon I had allowed feelings of sadness and even anger to overcome me. I even carried these feelings with me into the memorial service.
As the funeral progressed, this young man's father spoke. He had been our Bishop and my wife and I had great admiration and affection for him. As he taught the plan of salvation, and the truths about a loving Heavenly Father the Spirit filled the chapel. This good man, speaking at his own son's funeral, taught us that regardless of the circumstances in which each of us leave this life, the most important thing is the condition we are in when we are called home to our Father in Heaven. As he spoke, I began to sense new and brighter thoughts and feelings begin to stir within me. As the Spirit ministered to us, I realized that I could actually feel peace. And for a very brief moment I realized I had a choice to make. It was a very pointed and powerful experience I had never been conscious before of making a choice on how to feel. I could either yield to the enticing of the Spirit or continue on a path of sadness and bitterness. At that moment, it was a conscious relaxation of resistance happening within me. As I yielded to the Spirit, my thoughts turned to the plan of Salvation, the grace of the Atonement and my own need to strive to become better during the time that I have left in my own life. I knew that Heavenly Father had all things before him.
There will be times when we become conscious of our choice to yield to the enticings of the Spirit or to the natural man. These will come in moments of temptation, decision or even opportunity. If we yield correctly, we will begin to develop the spiritual reflexes rather than rely on our 'natural' ones. A few years ago Elder Richard G. Scott visited our campus and spoke to the employees. He counseled us, and suggested we would do well to understand, and then help our students understand, the need to develop these spiritual reflexes. I believe spiritual reflexes are the inclinations we have to act in holy ways when faced with decisions, trials, perceived injustices, temptations or opportunities to serve. Spiritual reflexes come as a result of patterns we have set for ourselves in the way we use our minds, spirits and bodies. They are not easy to develop but they are strong, or weak to the degree that they have been developed or neglected. I'd like to share a story that may help us consider the nature of reflexes.
During my freshman year at BYU in Provo, my roommate and I decided to take a martial arts class together as an elective one semester. We were impressed with our teacher, who was a very skilled martial artist, and he described to us how an expert will practice punches, kicks and forms until they become deeply ingrained in his or her mind and body. Such 'muscle memory' would be useful when called upon in defensive situations where reflexes would need to take over. Our teacher told us of an experience in which he and some other students once gave an exhibition with their instructor, he was a multi-level black belt, and this was to be done during the half-time of a basketball game. The exhibition was choreographed to showcase the various techniques, and defensive moves in a simulated multi-person attack. Our teacher recounted that during the exhibition he found himself slightly out of step with the planned choreography, and consequently found himself in a different position than practiced. As he approached his instructor from behind, the instructor turned and instinctively and reflexively altered his moves and struck our teacher with some force in the nose. Our teacher was stunned, but did his best to continue with the rest of the exhibition. Afterwards he was talking with his instructor about the incident, and the instructor explained to him that he had been out of position, and it was a position that was unplanned and unanticipated. So his instructor naturally reacted based on training and reflexes he had developed over the years. He seemed, almost to react at the exact time a perceived threat was detected.
Learning to yield to spiritual reflexes will help us in our journey to become a new creature. As with anything that is practiced, the more we do this, the more we will find our spiritual reflexes becoming stronger than our natural tendencies. We will yield to being charitable when we naturally feel angry or feel like gossiping. We will yield to being forgiving when bitterness may seem justified. We will yield to serving others, when meeting our own needs seems important. We will yield to purity when inappropriate media or pornography is readily available. We will yield to honesty when a perceived advantage could be gained by bending the truth. And we will ultimately yield to Christ when the glittering but hollow enticements of the adversary inevitably present themselves to us and to our families.
As I mentioned earlier the other word of hope in Mosiah 3:19 us the word through. The scripture describes how putting off the natural man and becoming a saint will happen through the atonement. It is true that our own consistent and diligent effort to make and keep sacred covenants will influence our becoming a new creature but it will not be enough.
Elder Cristofferson described the relationship between the Savior's role and our role in bringing this change about:
"It was Jesus who stated that entry into the kingdom of God requires that one be born again of water and of the Spirit. His teaching about a physical and a spiritual baptism helps us understand that both our own action and the intervention of divine power are needed for this transformative rebirth-for the change from natural man to saint."
Our 'own action' initially means acting on our faith in Christ to repent and being baptized, and be baptized and receive the Holy Ghost. It also necessarily includes continuing to make choices that strengthen our testimony, and qualify us for the continued cleansing and strengthening influence of the atonement. One of the things that is required of us in this combination of acting and receiving help from a divine influence, is to give up all of our sins.
When Aaron, the brother of Ammon spoke to King Lamoni's father, he discussed with him what would be required to know Heavenly Father. King Lamoni's father described how he wanted to understand this relationship that could happen. He said he would give up all of his sins for this to take place.
When we reflect and we do an inventory of our sins we realize that even our favorite ones must be given up to know Heavenly Father.
When I was a freshman at BYU, again I learned a lot of things that year and subsequent years. I had understood the need to be in a position where I was willing to give up things that would keep me from understanding my Heavenly Father. My roommate and I would drink soda pop by the can and pretty soon we had an entire soda pop pyramid built in our dorm room. It stretched nearly to the ceiling. After a few weeks, I began to observe that it grew taller and taller, but I also observed something else about myself. I observed that my grades were not what they should be. I looked at my soda pop can mountain and realized they were probably a symbol of where my attention was when it shouldn't have been there.
One night I came home after having failed a math test, never having failed a test in my academic life before, and I looked upon my soda pop mountain. It was, it was late and my roommate was asleep but I decided then and there that I needed to give up what was keeping me from becoming what I needed to become. I grabbed a trash bag and I began to fill the soda can mountain. I filled it completely to the top. I spent an hour that night late in the dark, cleaning my room, and then putting my homework on my desk. Then said to my Father in Heaven, "I know I have not done what has been required of me. I know I need to give up certain things that are standing between me and what I need to be." And I prayed for His help. I prayed for His guidance and I prayed for the desire to be what I needed to be and for the strength to do it. That was a turning point for me as a young man. A very powerful experience that helped me understand even the small things, things from distractions to sins, will be required to be given up to know Heavenly Father in this path and become a new creature.
As I said before, however, with divine intervention it will not be possible. It will not be by sheer force of will that we are changed into a state suitable for the presence of God.
Elder David A Bednar said of the mighty change of heart that is key to our conversion, "This mighty change is not simply the result of working harder or developing greater individual discipline, rather it is the consequence of the fundamental change in our desires, in our motives, and our natures, made possible through the atonement of Christ the Lord."
Our spiritual purpose is to overcome both sin and the desire to sin. Both the "taint" and the "tyranny" of sin. The process of conversion itself is a blessing because through it our very nature, disposition, desires, thoughts, and hearts are changed allowing us to return to the Father "in his own time, in his own way, and according to his own will". Only such a process could allow the Atonement to transform our spirits and bodies into an acceptable state for entry into Heavenly Father's presence. Becoming a new creature takes time, and it takes effort. But it can ultimately only happen 'through' the Atonement.
Brothers and sisters, of all the changes that each of us desires for ourselves, the most important change that each of us must experience is to become a new creature.
I want to bear testimony to you that I know Heavenly Father knows you. In closing I'll share one more personal experience. When I was a young boy, my father took me fishing. I think I wasn't much older than my ten year old daughter, Celeste, but we went up to a place called Oddgers Creek where he had described to me, he had gone fishing with his father as a young man. And so we had planned for this day, and we packed our gear, and we got everything aligned. And we went to this place and it was everything that I had imagined. We spent most of the morning fishing, enjoying our time together, drinking root beer, and just doing everything a little boy would think is the best thing to do.
Later in the afternoon my father told me he wanted to explore the creek and go up further. He said, "Now I'll be back and don't you worry, I'm just going to be really close." As he left, I watched him walk up the creek and depart into the brush. And pretty soon in little boy time, I felt like a long period of time had passed. I began to be concerned. I wondered where my father was. I was wondering what he was doing, and if he had indeed made it to where he was going, and if he would return shortly. Pretty soon my mind started to reflect upon this and I believe I was making myself more anxious that I needed to be. But my parents had taught me in situations like this that you kneel and you pray, and so I opened up the truck door, got down on the floorboards and kneeled and said a prayer. In my prayer I asked Heavenly Father to please protect my father that he could return home, return back to me and be safe and that we could be joined together again and enjoy the rest of our day. I continued this way for what seemed like hours, but in reality was probably only five or six minutes. And soon, I looked up and out of the aspen trees came my father with his fishing pole. He hadn't caught anything, by the way. But he had explored the creek a little bit and had come back and in this period of time, I was worried that something had happened to him. As I watched him come out of the trees, I was so excited and so pleased and so anxious to go and greet him and to be with him and to have this anxiety relieved. And I threw my arms around him around his waist and told him I loved him and then we went and got the root beer out of the creek and we went on with our day.
At that moment I knew and experienced maybe a fraction of what it would be like for us to be reunited with our Father in Heaven. He knows us. He knows our weaknesses. He knows our strengths. And His desire for us to return to Him is very powerful and eternal. It is only 'through' the Atonement and as we 'yield' to the enticings in our spiritual reflexes that we can become this new creature. And it is a desire that is His and that He wants each of us to experience.
I bear testimony of the Atonement of Jesus Christ of its power to heal; of its power to make you what you need to be; and to become the best version of yourself. I love the Savior and I thank Him for what He has helped me to understand about my relationship with our Heavenly Father. I pray that we may all understand this and know of His love for us as we travel in our journey to become a new creature. And I leave these things with you in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.