Elder and Sister Pingree, President and Sister Meredith, parents, family, friends, and especially you graduates, you beautiful graduates, you’re an inspiring sight! Congratulations! We are all thrilled for you today!
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland gave you some homework for days like today. You didn’t think you’d get out of here on your last day without some homework, did you? “Every now and then … school is supposed to just be fun. Now most days you won’t think that, but today is one of those, so I command all of you to be happy. You are to have fun today.” [1] You’ll never forget today. So, remember, it’s supposed to be a fun day!
Your alma mater (don’t you like the sound of that!) has grown from Ricks College, a relatively small two-year junior college in southeast Idaho into BYU-Idaho, a thriving, innovative, appealing university with an inspiring president and first lady; talented and inspired administration seated here on the stand; your consecrated faculty that sits right here with you; and you, and each of you successful graduates, who will continue serving, leading, and blessing your families, your communities, and the entire Church.
The Living Prophets as Your Guide
Somehow, this university, and each of you, have taken a deep pioneer legacy of humility and hard work, along with faith and frugality, added a bit of pickleball, and somehow, somehow, you’ve become an exemplary university of innovation, academic excellence, and perhaps most importantly, discipleship.
President Henry B. Eyring said, “Let me tell you how that has happened…”
Many of you know President Eyring’s address, which is treasured for his description of your steady, upward course. He highlights the miraculous way you manage “great and rapid change,” the way you think about education with a laser focus on students, and the way you prize frugality and lead in innovation, both of which are directly connected to inviting inspiration.
And then President Eyring highlights another key—perhaps the key—for how you have done all that you have done as a university and as students: “They took the words of living prophets as their guide.” [2]
Graduates, you lift every one of us who know you. You are full of light and enthusiasm and potential, having chosen to take the words of His living prophets as your guide.
Prophetic Governance
Elder Ronald A. Rasband taught that as a university we operate “under the guidance of a unique and distinctive Board of Trustees … [which] is led by the First Presidency, with President Russell M. Nelson serving as Chairman.” (In fact, we were with the First Presidency and your Board of Trustees this week. They love you, they think about you, and they pray for you.) “[This university’s] governance structure creates a tremendous advantage for BYU-Idaho, its president, the work of its faculty and staff, and the spiritual development of its students.” [3]
It is my incredible privilege to represent your Board of Trustees today. BYU-Idaho is led and has chosen over the years to be shaped by these prophets, seers, and revelators who are not bound by mortal or academic learning, but rather who speak on behalf of the Savior Himself.
You step away from this university tomorrow into a world filled with the flattery of prominent men and false ideas that are enticingly and persuasively promulgated as truth. But if you and I commit ourselves to following the First Presidency and the Savior’s Apostles, who are a completely trustworthy source of the Savior’s own words, they will lead us and prepare us for His return.
An Easter Testimony
Graduates, we love you. You are graduating from a university where you have learned to follow, where you have learned to allow yourselves to be led by prophets, seers, and revelators who speak for the Savior.
As my concluding testimony, and as we consider the First Presidency’s invitations surrounding Easter, may I borrow from one of the Savior’s living witnesses: “If the resurrection of Jesus Christ is a literal fact, all that is said and written about Him as being nothing more than a gifted and charismatic mortal is so much hot air and wasted paper; the arguments of atheists and humanists become meaningless; the search for purpose and meaning in life is at an end. The resurrection of Christ changes everything.” [4]
My young friends, I testify of Jesus Christ’s anointed witnesses and of the glorious and infinitely merciful Savior Himself; in Paul’s own words, “the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus.” [5] Following Him and them without flinching or distraction leads to happiness here and forever. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Notes
[1] Jeffrey R. Holland, “A Historic and Special Day,” BYU-Hawaii Speeches, Oct. 19, 2021.
[2] Henry B. Eyring, “A Steady Upward Course” BYU-Idaho Speeches, Sept. 18, 2001.
[3] Ronald A. Rasband, “2023 Inauguration Address,” BYU-Idaho Speeches, Oct. 10, 2023,
[4] D. Todd Christofferson, “The Prophet Joseph Smith” BYU-Idaho Speeches, Sept. 23, 2013.
[5] Hebrews 3:1