Tonight may each of you recognize the investment of those who came before you and the expectations and hopes of those who will, in turn, follow you. In making this charge, I reflect on the heritage of our early Mormon pioneers. On April 5, 1847, Brigham Young led a vanguard group of pioneers west from Winter Quarters. While there were many non-religious groups who made the trek west during this critical era in American history, the Mormon pioneers were unique in at least two key ways. First, they moved as a group, largely en masse. While Brigham Young’s vanguard company was small, nearly 70,000[1] would travel west by the end of the migration. By organizing into companies of hundreds, fifties, and tens, the Mormon pioneers represented a highly structured, self-governing group of travelers. Second, because the Mormon migration was so large, and because those early pioneers had a shared commitment to their fellow Saints, vanguard companies built camp sites along the way and planted crops for those who would come behind them on the trail.
I want you to imagine for a moment that you are in one of those pioneer companies that was following behind the vanguard groups. You are tired, hungry, and perhaps a little worried whether you were on the right path. Then suddenly you come into a field or valley or river bank where your fellow pioneers had previously prepared. You see the trail sites they had left ready for your company. And, better yet, you rejoice as you harvest crops that someone before you had planted–vanguard pioneers you had never seen.
Like those pioneers before you, you are harvesting crops you did not plant. There were others who came before you and built-up this university and this Church in ways that have blessed your lives. They helped lay the foundations that created this university; its faculty; our student-centered culture; the spirit of frugality that allows an affordable, yet high quality education; a teaching-focused university; and so much more of what is special about this place. You did not see them and you may not have known them, but you have felt their sacrifice and sensed their presence in the gifts you have received at this university. And, like those early pioneers who harvested the crops of those who came before them, you must now decide whether you will reseed those fields for those who will, in turn, come after you. For some of you that will be in your pending service across the Church as you leave this university.
Somewhere there is a bishop, a parent, or fellow ward member who has no idea that a recent BYU-Idaho graduate is about to enter his or her life. Will you reseed the fields you harvested by serving in the Church with all of your might, mind, and strength?
Somewhere there is an employer who hired one of our graduates and will base his or her future decision to hire others from BYU-Idaho based on the leadership, commitment, and integrity you will demonstrate.
Somewhere there is a recent graduate of BYU-Idaho who has become a new parent. As a new parent, how you will invest in the life and future of your new child?
Each of us has harvested crops we did not plant. Now, the question is: are we willing to reseed those same fields for those who will follow behind us?
President Eyring taught those of us who work and study at the university the following:
"The university is, like the temple, a place where success can come only if we help others succeed. [The] places God would have us go are never for us alone."[2]
To the graduates of BYU-Idaho, may each of you pause to recognize the crops you have harvested from others people’s labor. May you and each of us make the commitment to reseed those fields so that we can, in turn, bless the lives of others. It is my testimony that God expects us to re-invest in the lives of our fellow man and in growing and building the kingdom. I so testify in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
Notes
[1] Elder M. Russell Ballard, “Faith in Every Footstep,” Ensign, July 1997.
[2] President Henry B. Eyring, “The Temple and the College on the Hill,” Brigham Young University-Idaho Devotional, June 9, 2009