Dear brothers and sisters, welcome to fall semester. Sister Eyring and I are grateful for your faith and goodness. We have exciting things ahead of us.
I appreciate the opportunity to gather with you in this devotional, which originates from Rexburg but reaches around the world. For the first fall semester in several years, we hope to conduct the activities of the university as in the past. BYU–Idaho is spiritually and intellectually stronger than ever.
But the world is in commotion. Nations are at war, and neighbours have discovered new differences that tax their friendships. Providentially, though, we members and supporters of this prophetically led university can be united in the way that matters most: namely, living a life of consecration.
When hearing the word “consecration,” I think of consecrated olive oil, used to anoint people facing spiritual or physical challenges. This oil is made from choice olives. In ancient times, new kings of Israel were anointed with this sacred oil, a token of divine approval.
We members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints recognize the power of consecration in our lives. We can draw upon it personally. Like the prophets and other faithful Saints of the past, we can connect to divine revelation and power. In addition, we can lift others, becoming what the scriptures call “Saviours on Mount Zion[i].” With time and steady effort, our consecration can change the world for the better.
Pioneer Heritage
In fact, this university continues to steadily improve. I was blessed in coming to Ricks College, the forerunner of BYU-Idaho, more than 50 years ago. Though I was just seven, entering the third grade at Lincoln Elementary and preparing to be baptized in the Rexburg Tabernacle, I felt I was in a special place.
I continue to feel that way today. In hindsight, I can sense our Savior’s loving hand in establishing a tiny pioneer school with just one room and a principal, Jacob Spori, who spent a winter with his family in an unheated granary. It must have been daunting just to survive the snow and ice.
In the first year of the school, there were only 59 students. Some paid tuition in the form of garden produce, such as sugar beets. When families of the students couldn’t contribute even foodstuffs, Principal Spori reduced his meager salary and worked on the railroad, sharing his wages with fellow teachers.
Principal Spori and his family survived as did his successors. He had faith in the future of the school. He boldly declared, “The seeds we are planting today will grow and become mighty oaks, and their branches will run all over the earth[ii].” It was as if he and his colleagues could imagine BYU-Idaho as it is today.
Jacob Spori and his immediate successors would surely marvel at the BYU–Idaho campus and its global reach—through hundreds of well-developed online courses which can increasingly be accessed via the Internet. These courses make possible obtaining a degree while being far from Rexburg. Of course, our faculty and administrative staff work tremendously hard to reach out to our students, wherever they are. In this and many ways, we are blessed.
A Consecrated Family
Recently, while enjoying a family vacation, Sister Eyring, several of our children, and I attended Church meetings away from Rexburg. We were among many visitors. I was impressed by the inspiring sacrament meeting addresses and an engaging Sunday School lesson.
During that lesson, there was mention made of a family who were among the founders of what had been a small branch of the Church there. This family had deep roots in the area, dating back to the 1880s. After the Sunday School lesson, I wanted to know more.
From longtime members of what is now a ward, I learned that this family made a decent living thanks to a lumber and sawmill business. By the turn of the twentieth century, the family had the good fortune to be granted a homestead by then-president Woodrow Wilson. Their 150-acre operation had a log cabin that served as their headquarters. They also grazed cattle on the property.
The father was blessed with two hard-working sons, and their operations expanded. With the profits of the businesses, as well as property acquisition in the growing town, the brothers could have cashed out. In fact, they were tempted, but they wisely let their holdings grow in value.
Then, many years later, when the family sold the business, the surviving brother walked into his bishop’s office. Without explanation, he presented a tithing check to a member of the bishopric. This bishopric member looked at the check and said, “You have too many zeroes.” The assumption was that the last two zeroes on the check should have had a decimal point ahead of them.
But the donor clarified that his donation stood. There were not too many zeroes—only several lifetimes of hard work, thrift, and good financial investment. The beneficiaries would be countless needy Saints.
Called to Serve
This, however, is just half of the story. There was another family who gave their all to the branch, not through financial wealth but through time and teaching. The head of this household was a man in his seventies. He was the faithful shepherd of a small flock of Saints, roughly fifty women, men, teens, and children.
This man was born during World War I. He graduated from college with a university degree, a rare thing in those days. He and his wife raised three children while he operated an insurance agency.
When he retired, the two of them moved to a small town in the mountains. There they found a similarly small ward of the Church with members often coming and going. For the next five years, this faithful bishop was a dedicated spiritual leader, while also acting as the ward’s chief cook and bottle washer. It was the equivalent of a full-time job.
When he was released, the ward became a branch again, likely a disappointment after all that work. But he lived past the 100-year mark, providing selfless service. Though he and his beloved wife enjoyed 60 years of marriage, for the last fifteen of those years, he was a widower, outliving not only her but also their children.
A Consecrated Faculty Member
These stories remind me of the work of our consecrated BYU–Idaho employees. I have invited our dear colleague and Mathematics Professor Richard Pieper to share some personal thoughts on the subject of consecration. Richard will be retiring at the end of this semester after 18 years of service at BYU–Idaho. We have been richly blessed by his many contributions and faith. I have asked him to share important feelings about consecration.
Richard Pieper
I’m grateful to be invited by President Eyring to share a few minutes during his opening devotional this semester. For as long as I have known President Eyring (which includes before he became president), I have sensed a deep love that he has for you, the students of BYU-Idaho. If you haven’t felt it, you either haven’t been paying attention or haven’t spent enough time with him. He may end up firing me for reinserting this remark into my talk after he struck it from the original draft, following his characteristically humble way, but I’ve felt you needed to hear my witness of his love and concern for you.
A story from the life of my great grandfather’s history inspires me and motivates me. See what elements of consecration you can find in this account.
Heinrich Friedrich Christian Pieper (that’s Pieper, if you don’t speak German), Chris as he was known, was one of the first three people baptized in Cologne, Germany, in this dispensation. This picture was taken the day of his baptism, August 4, 1895. Great-grandpa Chris is standing on the far right.
Chris met my great grandmother, Emma Frieda Alber, in the small branch in Frankfurt, and they were married in 1897. In 1900, Chris and Emma immigrated to Salt Lake City with my one-year-old grandfather and shortly thereafter moved to Rexburg, Idaho, where there was a significant group of German immigrants. Chris worked as a stonecutter and helped with the construction of the original Spori Building. He later served for 27 years as caretaker of the Rexburg Tabernacle, where President Eyring was baptized.
The oldest of Chris and Emma’s eight children was my grandfather, Friedrich Wilhelm Pieper, or Bill. Bill was married in August of 1917 and then lost his wife in April of 1918 to the Spanish Flu that swept the world that year. He remarried, this time to my grandmother, Bertha Clara Meyers (show photo of couple).
They had two children and were expecting a third when Bishop Henry Flamm called my grandfather Bill on a mission to Germany. Think about making that sacrifice!
Bill’s father Chris wrote in his life history:
“Times were difficult. I will never forget when we got word of the call. My wife and I were working in the garden. I was preparing the seed bed, and she was planting the seed…. [Bill] brought word to us saying, ‘They want me to go on a mission, but I haven’t any money.’ [Bill] had just in the past month finished paying for a small two-room house which he had built. As I heard Bill, I said, ‘If you can leave your wife and two children behind for the gospel’s sake, I’ll help you with the necessary money.’”
My great-grandfather Chris Continues:
“I said to Emma, ‘It looks as though we won’t be able to send [Bill] on a mission. The $50 a month that I get from the Tabernacle is just enough to keep the family’ [you’ll remember they had seven other children of their own at home.] Suddenly a wonderful feeling came over me. I said, ‘Ma, our boy has been called by the Lord. If He can call him on a mission, He can give me work. I won’t give in to the old Devil, just because he tells me it can’t be done. I’m sure I’ll find enough work to do it.’ Then in June 1921 I saw Bill off to Salt Lake. I went from the depot to the stake office building (near where the Tabernacle now stands), locked the door behind me, pulled the blinds, and got down on my knees to pray to my Father in Heaven. I told Him that I hadn’t given in to the Evil One and that my son was on his way to fulfill a mission. I petitioned Him to open the way that I might get work. I must say that if I ever prayed earnestly before, I did it now, for I was against a stone wall, so to speak. When I had finished, I left the stake office with the full faith that I would receive work. As I was passing the Conoco Service Station just a half block away on Main Street, Steve Skelton, who was working there called to me. He said, ‘You know, I spoke to you this spring about adding two rooms to my house. As I just now saw you passing, I was impressed that I ought to do that now and not wait until fall when the weather gets bad.’ I know that my prayer was answered in getting work. [Steve] said, ‘You know times are bad, do you think you could work for 40 cents an hour instead of 50. I said, ‘I’ll work at any price.’
Brothers and sisters, the consecration of my great grandfather, Chris, and my grandfather, Bill, and their good wives and families brought a power into their lives that can come in no other way. Their blessings and the blessings enjoyed by their posterity are the beautiful fruits of consecration. The Lord always keeps His promises. I don’t have time to tell you more stories about Great Grandpa Chris, but if you are interested, you can read more about him in my brother’s October 2006 General Conference talk.
When it came time for me to serve a mission as a 19-year-old unmarried young man, how could I think I was even sacrificing anything to go? And, considering grandpa’s story, at the end of December this year, it shouldn’t be that difficult for me to walk away from a job that I just thoroughly enjoy and away from my garden and away from 36 (going on 39) wonderful grandchildren to serve a 23-month senior mission (we are awaiting our call as we speak). Why, I even get to take my wife and our daughter Sarah with me when I go!
I want to close by testifying of the consecrated life of the prophet Joseph Smith and of the ultimate example of consecration by our Savior Jesus Christ himself. May all of these examples, and especially those given to each of you individually by the Holy Ghost, inspire and unify us in our consecrated efforts to stay on the covenant path is my humble prayer in the name of Jesus Christ, amen
President Eyring
Thank you, Brother Pieper. We love you.
Serving in Peril
Living past the century mark is rare, though President Nelson is now just two years from that milestone. Already, he has lived longer than any modern-day Church president. He also presides over more Saints than ever before.
Yet history shows that some prophets, especially those of the Old Testament, were consecrated by their loneliness as outcasts and even martyrs. Perhaps the saddest of these prophets was Jeremiah, who was Israel’s prophet for nearly 50 years, serving five kings, from Josiah to Zedekiah.
Jeremiah was inspired and powerfully bold. According to Jewish tradition, he authored the books of Jeremiah, First and Second Kings, and Lamentations. Jeremiah was the son of Hilkiah, a priest from the land of Benjamin. The difficulties he encountered, as described especially in the books of Jeremiah and Lamentations, have prompted Bible scholars to refer to him as “The Weeping Prophet.”
According to Old Testament scholars, Jeremiah was called to prophesy of the impending destruction of Jerusalem due to Israel’s worshipping of idols and making human sacrifices. He was guided by God to proclaim that the nation of Judah would suffer famine, foreign conquest, plunder, and captivity in a land of strangers.
Not surprisingly, Jeremiah’s enemies retaliated. King Zedekiah was merciful, declining popular pressure to put Jeremiah to death. Yet Zedekiah’s compromise was almost as bad. Jeremiah was imprisoned in a cistern, where he sank into mud and seemed fated to starve.
Redemption came, though, from a surprising source. A man named Ebed-Melech, an Ethiopian official in Zedekiah’s court, likely risked his life by pleading for Jeremiah’s release. Jeremiah reciprocated with a promise that Ebed-Melech would not fall by the sword during the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem[iii].
A Courageous, Compassionate Mother
The bravery of Ebed-Melech, who was willing to put his life on the line for Jeremiah, makes me think of my angel mother, Kathleen Johnson Eyring. She was born with a love of life and love of other people.
As a young woman, she embodied an unusual combination of spirituality and spunk. She liked sports, especially tennis, and tended to drive too fast. As a result, she was acquainted with the officials at the local traffic court.
She also loved learning and teaching. Reading and writing were favorite hobbies. As a young boy, I cherished bedtime reading on Mother’s large bed or my narrower one. She was particularly good at bringing to life the voices of the characters in our stories.
Above all else, though, Mother loved our Savior and His gospel. Learning and teaching the principles of the gospel was a lifelong passion. She knew the scriptures and the teachings of the living prophets, as well as those of the leaders of the auxiliary organizations.
She became the mother of four boys, born in just nine years. I am the oldest. When we were young, growing up in Rexburg and then Bountiful, Utah, she was both our mother and “one of the guys.” I don’t recall ever beating her on the tennis court. Even my father had to work hard to match her strokes.
After the birth of my youngest brother, John, in 1972, there was a long period of miscarriages and associated sadness. With the four of us boys away at school during the weekdays, Mother ministered to near neighbors and extended relatives. She also wrote children’s books, one of which won a state-wide literature prize.
But then, after many years, we four boys were joined by two sisters. Mother’s novel-writing and the boys’ Saturday “projects” turned toward bread-making, flower-gardening, and watercolor painting.
A Consecrated Couple
However, as you may have heard me say before, the days of homemade bread, fresh-cut flowers from the garden, and watercolors didn’t last as we had planned. Mother’s health began to fail. It was not a problem of physical strength. Even now, when I take her hand, I’m painfully reminded of the strength she developed through decades of hitting tennis balls hard at Dad on the other side of the net. The usual result was what my brothers liked to say, “Another winner, Mom!”
At the risk of discomforting President Eyring, I must acknowledge how princely he treats my mother. Theirs is a continuing romance that exceeds any of the movies they have watched, time-and-again, over the years. That can be seen and felt in this statement that Mother made at Ricks College in 1976, while introducing my father in a public gathering. She said this:
One of the things that impressed me most about him was that he loved the Lord. And he loved Him enough to show this love by great service at the expense of worldly honors. He didn’t seek the honor of men as he sought the love of the Lord[iv].
That said, President Eyring has always known that he got the better half when marrying mother. There is no one more devoted to our Savior. She has personified consecration throughout her life, and Dad has stayed close, especially during this time in which she might shrink. You may be similarly blessed by a mother, wife, or other woman with such loving consecration. Sister Kelly Eyring is such a woman.
In fact, when I read the parable of The Good Shepherd and study the lives of scriptural heroines such as Mary, the mother of our Lord, there is a desire to be like them. As President Russell M. Nelson declared 33 years ago, during his service in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, “A worthy woman personifies the truly noble and worthwhile attributes of life[v].”
We men can similarly be consecrated good shepherds. The key is to give our all to the giver of eternal life. As we consecrate ourselves, He can lift us heavenward. May we all do our part, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Notes
[i] Doctrine and Covenants 103: 9-10
[ii] Jacob Spori, https://www.byui.edu/president/past-presidents/jacob-spori
[iii] Jeremiah 39:15-18
[iv] Reference Unknown.
[v] Russell M. Nelson, “Woman—Of Infinite Worth.”