It is amazing to me how fast time passes. This is especially true when I think that the majority of you students were not even born when Barbara and I were first invited to come to Ricks College. On one occasion, I was guiding a visiting dignitary on a tour of the campus. We entered a chemistry lecture hall that had a huge periodic chart of all the elements on the front wall. I commented, "There are surely more elements on that chart than there were when I took chemistry in high school."
The faculty member who was accompanying us responded, "Well, President, when you took chemistry there were probably only four elements: earth, fire, water, and air."
So it goes.
Some of the choice years of our lives were spent here at what was then Ricks College. We learned to love the students, faculty, administrators, and community. We came to know that there is a special spirit that pervades the Upper Snake River Valley. Some of the finest people we have ever known are products of this area. Now, in this revolutionary time of development at BYU-Idaho, we are impressed with the inspired leadership of President Clark and those who serve with him and who are providing this favored environment for you.
And to think that with all the rest of the developments here, you are now blessed to have a magnificent temple of the Lord adjacent to the campus. There is no other institution of higher education that is so blessed.
Over the years, Barbara and I have had many opportunities to come in contact with tens of thousands of university students and tens of thousands of missionaries. In all that time, we have never met even one person who did not want to be happy and successful.
For the remainder of our time together, I would like to make you a promise. If you really analyze yourself honestly about where you are in your life, what you are doing, and follow the suggestions we'll discuss in the next few minutes, I am convinced that you will be happier and more successful in your lives. On the other hand, if you don't, you could bring a lot of misery and failure to yourselves and immense pain to those who love you the most. It is that simple.
As parents, we worried about the challenges our six children faced in the environment in which they were growing up, but, frankly, we are even more concerned about our grandchildren--people your age.
You have all heard of the "normal curve." I suppose many of you have been in classes where the teachers graded on a curve. Some few would get As, a few more would get Bs, more would get Cs, some would get Ds, and a few would fail.
In prior times, young people themselves could have been distributed along such a "normal curve"--a few outstanding, most somewhere in the middle, and a few off the track. Today, and over the past few years, the situation has dramatically changed, even within the Church. Rather than the "normal curve," it seems to me that there is a bimodal distribution, like a camel's humps, of young people, in which we see righteousness, on the one hand, or evil on the other, developing in their lives.
Those who are on track, I think, have never been better, and those who are off the track have never been in more trouble or farther away from where they should be.
Remember the parable of the tares and wheat. Speaking to angels who were "ready and waiting to be sent forth to reap down the fields," the Lord gave this instruction: "Let the wheat and the tares grow together until the harvest is fully ripe; then ye shall first gather out the wheat from among the tares, and after the gathering of the wheat, behold and lo, the tares are bound in bundles, and the field remaineth to be burned."
In a devotional such as this many years ago, Dr. Truman Madsen said: "You live in a generation where the tares are...getting 'tarier' and the wheat getting 'wheatier.' And the contest is real."
President Boyd K. Packer, speaking to a group of lawyers and judges, put our current challenging situation into perspective when he said:
These are days of great spiritual danger for this people. The world is spiraling downward at an ever-quickening pace. I am sorry to tell you that it will not get better.
I know of nothing in the history of the Church or in the history of the world to compare with our present circumstances. Nothing happened in Sodom and Gomorrah which exceeds the wickedness and depravity which surrounds us now.
Two massive nationwide studies of teenagers and college-age young adults have been recently reported. The first was a groundbreaking study of American teenagers and religion, conducted by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The study indicated that of all the religious groups surveyed, Mormons fared best at avoiding risky behaviors, doing well in school, and having a positive attitude about the future.
The other study came from the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA. This study, mentioned that young people from our Church were having the fewest problems as a group. It also revealed that Latter-day Saint young people pray more, are more moral, and, in general, rank number 1 when it comes to the effect of religion on their lives.
From a Church standpoint, these are tremendous compliments, but the reality is that as an individual today, you likely are among the group of the "wheatiest," or the very best, in the Church--but if you make a few poor choices, you could easily find yourself among the "tariest," the worst. The contest is very real.
It is very easy to get off the track. You need all the spiritual help you can get. At this time, all you young adults have your biggest and most important decisions of your lives ahead of you. They are:
· What standards and ideals will I choose to govern my life?
· How will I make a living? What will I do to prepare myself with skills and training to be able to support my family?
· For the single adults: Who will become my eternal companion in marriage?
Here are some suggestions that will help you make the right decisions in your life and will assist you to be happier and more successful:
First: Take advantage of every opportunity you have to learn the gospel.
What do the Lord and His prophets have to say about this? Let's read a scripture together found in Doctrine and Covenants 88:77-78:
And I give unto you a commandment [not a suggestion] that you shall teach one another the doctrine of the kingdom.
Teach ye diligently and my grace shall attend you, that you may be instructed more perfectly in theory, in principle, in doctrine, in the law of the gospel, in all things that pertain unto the kingdom of God, that are expedient for you to understand.
Listen to the following quotations from prophets, seers, and revelators about the importance of studying the gospel.
A member of the First Presidency way back in 1838 was speaking to a group of relatively new members of the Church (I suppose everyone at that time was a relatively new member of the Church) who apparently thought that all they had to do was be baptized, receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, and then sit back and wait to be ushered into the celestial glory. He said:
Vain are the hopes of those who embrace the gospel, and then suppose . . . they have nothing more to do but hold on to what they have. . . . The great God . . . never thought of... raising up a society of ignoramuses, but of men and women of intelligence; of first intelligence. Of intelligence as high as human nature was susceptible.
President Brigham Young, speaking to a group of elders, said:
There are a great many branches of education: some go to college to learn languages, some to study law, some to study physic[s], and some to study astronomy, and various other branches of science. . . . But our favorite study is that branch which particularly belongs to the Elders of Israel--namely, theology. Every Elder should become a profound theologian--should understand this branch better than all the world.
President Young mentioned "Elders," but if he were here today speaking to you sisters, he would say that it is just as important for every woman in the Church to study academic subjects and to become a "profound theologian." In fact, President Gordon B. Hinckley said that President Young was once asked "what he would do if he had to choose between providing education for his sons or for his daughters. He replied that he would educate his daughters because they would become the mothers of his grandchildren."
That indicates how important it is for you young sisters to become gospel scholars, profound theologians, and well-educated. And it takes real effort to become profound at anything.
President Spencer W. Kimball expressed his opinion this way:
Every girl, and I say every girl, should prepare herself for marriage and for domestic responsibilities. . . She should become skilled in things that are useful and enriching to her family life. . . . We want our women to be well educated, for children may not recover from the ignorance of their mothers.
I used to think and hope that as a father I would have some positive influence with our children. I soon learned that, far more than their father, generally, it is the mother who has the greatest influence on them.
For example, during the early 1970s I had the privilege of serving as an associate commissioner to Elder Neal A. Maxwell in the Commissioner of Education's office. My responsibility was to administer the seminaries and institutes of religion. The Church Board of Education--then consisting of the First Presidency, the Twelve, and others--had made the decision that the seminaries and institutes of religion should be available for members of the Church throughout the world. Until that time, seminaries and institutes had been in English-speaking areas only.
Our six children were young at the time, and there were several occasions when I was on international assignments and had to be away from home for three weeks at a time. It was then that I especially appreciated my wife Barbara's homemaking skills, her good judgment, her college education, her mission, and, particularly, her knowledge and testimony of the gospel. I knew that our children were in very good hands.
My hope is that all you future husbands and fathers can have that same assurance.
President J. Reuben Clark Jr. said:
There is spiritual learning just as there is material learning, and the one without the other is not complete; yet, speaking for myself, if I could have only one sort of learning, that which I would take would be the learning of the spirit, because in the hereafter I shall have opportunity in the eternities which are to come to get the other, and without spiritual learning here my handicaps in the hereafter would be all but overwhelming.
Elder John A. Widtsoe, who was a nationally known specialist in science and who served as president of both what is now Utah State University and the University of Utah before he was called to be a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, said:
It is a paradox that men will gladly devote time every day for many years to learn a science or art; yet will expect to win a knowledge of the gospel, which comprehends all sciences and arts, through perfunctory glances at books or occasional listening to sermons. The gospel should be studied more intensively than any school or college subject. They who pass opinion on the gospel without having given it intimate and careful study are not lovers of the truth, and their opinions are worthless.
So there you are. Here at BYU-Idaho, you are in the right place. Remember that your opportunities to study courses in religion and to participate in the student wards and stakes are some of the great benefits of your being at BYU-Idaho.
I must add that the one life's experience that will be most helpful in learning the Gospel and preparing you for future Church service, is to serve an honorable full-time mission. That is true for all you brethren who fulfill that priesthood responsibility and for any of you sisters who receive the opportunity.
Second: Success in your university courses is also very important. Learn all you can, and get the best grades you can honestly get.
After all these quotations about the importance of studying the gospel on your own and with your family, that doesn't mean that your university subjects are not important. In this information age, they are extremely important. Apply every effort to become the best scholar you can possibly become in your area of specialty.
Following the verses we read earlier from section 88, the Lord lets us know the areas in which members of the Church should become knowledgeable. We should learn "of things both in heaven and in the earth, and under the earth; things which have been, things which are, things which must shortly come to pass; things which are at home, things which are abroad; the wars and the perplexities of the nations, and the judgments which are on the land; and a knowledge also of countries and of kingdoms--that [we] may be prepared in all things."
That one verse suggests areas of study that include astronomy, biology, botany, geology, history, current events, domestic issues, futurity, wars and the perplexities of nations, natural disasters, and geography, to name a few. As mentioned, the Lord "never intended to raise up a society of ignoramuses."
Take every advantage to learn all you can and get the best grades you can honestly get. Notice that I emphasized the word honestly. Avoid cheating in all its forms.
- A national survey by Rutgers' Management Education Center of 4,500 high school students, found that 75 percent of them engage in serious cheating.
- More than half have plagiarized work they found on the Internet.
- Perhaps most disturbing, many of them don't see anything wrong with cheating: Some 50 percent of those responding to the survey said they don't think copying questions and answers from a test is cheating.
Sister Janette C. Hales shared this experience when she was serving as the general president of the Young Women of the Church:
Her husband practiced medicine, and she told of this experience:
"As you know, it isn't easy to get into medical school, and as you would guess, freshman students are not only enthusiastic but are committed to very hard work. My husband said he still remembers going to his first examination at the University of Utah. The honor system was in place. As the professor passed out the examination and left the room, he said some classmates started to pull out little cheat papers from pockets and from under their books. He said, "My heart began to pound, and I realized how difficult it is to compete with cheaters." It appeared that this was a practice that must have been common in some settings in the past. About then a tall, thin student stood up in the back of the room and said, "I left my hometown and put my wife and three little children in an upstairs apartment to go to medical school, and I'll turn in the first one of you who cheats and YOU BETTER BELIEVE IT!" They believed it. My husband said he looked like Abraham Lincoln. There were many sheepish expressions, and those cheat papers started to disappear as fast as they had appeared. It's interesting that that class graduated the largest graduating class in the history of the school. That young man set a standard of hard work and cooperation instead of dishonesty. That man cared more about character than popularity. . ."
That young medical student was J Ballard Washburn, who achieved significant recognition in his practice of medicine and was later called to the Second Quorum of the Seventy and served as one of the General Authorities of the Church.
Decide today that you will not cheat. Just because there are others doing it doesn't make it right. Ease your conscience. Set the example for all the other students. Others will learn to follow and develop the integrity our whole society needs so desperately.
You are now participating in a learning experience that will make a big difference in your being able to be not just good, but good for something. You will have the satisfaction of knowing that the world is somehow better because you are in it. Commit yourself now to receive as much training and education as you possibly can, and you will become skilled at producing goods or services for which people will be willing to pay you. With good educational preparation, you brethren will be more able to support your future families effectively.
Achieving success in your university education will pay significant dividends. A study conducted in 2004 indicated that the median annual income for men with a high school diploma was $36,000. The holder of a bachelor's degree earned, on median, $57,000. Finally, the holder of a master's degree, a doctorate, or a professional degree typically bumped up the annual earnings to between $72,000 and $100,000.
Success in your educational endeavors can help you achieve greater success and happiness.
Third: Live up to the Lord's commandment to love one another.
Just before the Savior went to Gethsemane and on to Calvary, He gave His disciples a lot of instructions in the Upper Room. Within the instructions, He gave them a new commandment--not a suggestion. We read in John 13:34-35 the following:
A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; ...
By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
If you are really serious about being happy and successful in your life, learn to love people and treat them as you would like to be treated. Along with whatever skills you learn from your education, develop the skills to relate well with others. In addition to obeying the Lord's commandment to love one another, read Dale Carnegie's practical and readable book How to Win Friends and Influence People and apply its principles in your associations with others wherever life takes you--on your missions, in your work, in your marriage and family.The word love is difficult to understand in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and probably a number of other languages with which I am not familiar. For example, I could say to all of you, "I love you" and mean it sincerely. I use those identical three words speaking to my wife, Barbara, "I love you," and I mean something very different because, obviously, there are different kinds of love. We need to know who is speaking to whom and in what context to know what we mean by the word love.The Greeks don't have this problem because in their language they have three words and each expresses a different kind of love. The first Greek word is eros, or romantic love--the kind of love that attracts a person to a member of the opposite sex.
The second kind of love is philia. This is the horizontal kind of love--the kind that ought to exist among us as friends, classmates, neighbors, brothers and sisters in the gospel. If I could speak Greek and sincerely say to all of you, "I love you," philia or one of its derivatives is the word I would use. It is brotherly love--in fact, Philadelphia, the "city of brotherly love," gets its name from this Greek root.
Finally, the third type of love is agape. This kind of love could be defined as godlike. It is exemplified by the capacity of our Father in Heaven and our Savior to love us even though there isn't one of us who is perfect. They love us anyway. Generally, I think mothers are blessed with this capacity. Maybe some of you have met someone you think only a mother could love. I have been told that this is the word used in the Greek text of the New Testament each time the Lord commands us to love even our enemies. It is a very different and more difficult kind of love. It is the type of love that allows us to overlook the perceived faults or shortcomings of others and work to strengthen our relationships.
Here is the point: Philia and agape are universals. We should love everyone in one or another of these kinds of love. Eros, or romantic love, is not a universal. We are not commanded to love everyone romantically. To be happy and successful in your life, you will always remember this important point. Keep yourself morally clean.
The expression of romantic, physical affection is not a game. Consider this graph: Suppose this baseline represents a person's life from birth to 90+ years of age. Chart how attraction toward members of the opposite sex develops. The line goes from zero at birth and rises to the age when the attraction will be as strong as it likely will ever be in your life--at about ages 19 to 21. Isn't it interesting what the Lord chooses to do at about that time in people's lives? He calls them on missions, and for two years (or eighteen months for the sisters), physical contact with members of the opposite sex is limited to shaking hands--briefly.
We often, as a Church, underestimate the powerful influence that guideline has on creating more stable and faithful marriages and families because such individuals have learned self-control. They are not driven by, or succumb to, every romantic feeling that may come into their system.
Always remember that the sharing of romantic, physical affection is not a game and that sexual intimacy is meant by the Lord to be between a man and a woman inside the bonds of marriage.
Fourth: Decide now that you will not get involved in any form of pornography.
In the First Epistle of John, we read, "For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, . . . is not of the Father, but is of the world." Pornography involves the "lust of the eyes" and often leads to "the lust of the flesh."
When we first came to Ricks College, those many years ago, there were only about six computers available in the library for personal use. Now they tell me there are more than 1,500 personal computers available for student use; in addition, most of you likely have one of your own.
Pornography is all around us, and every one of you knows that. At the click of a computer mouse, you can be flooded with the vilest of immoral images, and watching such trash can become addictive. Your spirituality, your activity in the Church, and even your future marriage can be destroyed by it.
There was good reason why President Hinckley, in the October 2004 priesthood session of general conference, devoted his whole address to this serious problem. I have never heard him speak more seriously or more directly. In the following April general conference, Elder Oaks gave a powerful address on the same subject. I suggest that we all reread both messages and follow the counsel in them.
Fifth: Decide now that you will always remain active in the Church.
Remember the words of the Lord: "And whoso taketh upon him my name, and endureth to the end, the same shall be saved at the last day" (3 Nephi 27: 6; see also 16-17).
That is a conscious decision you can make right now. You will not let anything sway you from remaining committed to the covenants you have made to be a solid and faithful member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
When one person chooses to leave activity in the Church, the effects can be spiritually catastrophic for generations to come. Let me tell you about William Weeks, who was selected by the Prophet Joseph Smith to be the architect for the Nauvoo Temple. He considered that project to be his life's greatest accomplishment. When the Saints were driven from Nauvoo and came west, he brought the plans with him. Not many years after they arrived in the Salt Lake Valley, he was bent out of shape by some kind of conflict, and he chose to leave the Church and took his family and the architectural plans to California. As a result of his defection, his entire posterity for generations grew up outside the Church and its blessings. There would have been hundreds of them--maybe even more than 1,000. There is a message there for all of us about the importance of remaining faithful to our covenants and what can happen to us and those who follow us if we do not.
On the positive side, President Hinckley told of what can happen when just one person chooses to remain active in the Church. He shared this story:
Years ago, President Charles A. Callis, then a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, but who previously was president of the Southern States Mission for twenty-five years, told me this story. He said that he had a missionary in the southern states who came in to get his release at the conclusion of his mission. His mission president said to him, 'Have you had a good mission?'
He said, "No."
"How is that?"
"Well, I haven't had any results from my work. I have wasted my time and my father's money. It's been a waste of time."
Brother Callis said, "Haven't you baptized anyone?"
He said, "I baptized only one person during the two years that I have been here. That was a twelve-year-old boy up in the back hollows of Tennessee."
He went home with a sense of failure. Brother Callis said, "I decided to follow that boy who had been baptized. I wanted to know what became of him. The next time I went up into that area I looked him up. He had put on shoes (he'd never worn shoes before), he'd put on a shirt (he'd never had a shirt before), he was the clerk of the little branch Sunday School."
Brother Callis said, "I followed him through the years. He became the Sunday School Superintendent, and he eventually became the branch president. He married. He moved off the little tenant farm on which he and his parents before him had lived and got a piece of ground of his own and made it fruitful. He became the district president. He sold that piece of ground in Tennessee and moved to Idaho and bought a farm along the Snake River and prospered there. His children grew. They went on missions. They came home. They had children of their own who went on missions."
Brother Callis continued, "I've just spent a week up in Idaho looking up every member of that family that I could find and talking to them about their missionary service. I discovered that, as the result of the baptism of that one little boy in the back hollows of Tennessee by a missionary who thought he had failed, more than 1,100 people have come into the Church."
Your decision to remain active in the Church will have consequences for good for generations to come.
Sixth: Always live your life so you can have a current temple recommend in your possession and use it as frequently as your circumstances allow.
You know the questions your bishop and stake president ask. The questions deal with almost every major area of our physical and spiritual lives. We are asked to analyze ourselves in terms of honesty (that includes not cheating), obeying the Word of Wisdom, activity in the Church, morality, commitment to tithing, sustaining our leaders, and so on.
Each time I have shared the following experience, it has been helpful to me, and hopefully it will be of value to you. My sister, just older than I, set this very powerful example for me.
For many years, she had been the main caregiver for her husband, who had multiple sclerosis and whose body had come to the point that he required almost around-the-clock care.
One day, my sister was not feeling well, so she went for an appointment with her doctor. Stomach cancer was diagnosed. It had spread from her stomach to her liver and other abdominal organs. It was inoperable, and she was told that she likely had a very short time to live. She never returned home again. During the weeks she was in the hospital, her temple recommend expired.
When it appeared that she had just a few days left to live, while visiting with her Latter-day Saint cancer specialist she said, "I would like to be buried with a current temple recommend."
He replied, "I don't think they need to use them over there."
"Nevertheless," she answered, "I want to be buried with a current temple recommend."
Her bishop and stake president came and interviewed her. She passed away a few days later, and she was buried with a current temple recommend.
With that example, I hope and intend to do the same. I always want to live in such a way that I will be able to look my bishop and stake president in the eye and answer their questions honestly and appropriately. I always want to have in my possession a current temple recommend, and, as we are counseled by our leaders, to use it "as frequently as circumstances allow."
In Summary:
First: Take advantage of every opportunity you have to learn the gospel.
Second: Success in your university courses is also very important. Learn all you can, and get the best grades you can honestly get.
Third: Live up to the Lord's commandment to love one another and keep yourself morally clean.
Fourth: Decide now that you will not get involved in any form of pornography.
Fifth: Decide now that you will always remain active in the Church.
Sixth: Always live your life so you can have a current temple recommend in your possession and use it as frequently as your circumstances permit.
Well, there they are. Six suggestions. If you follow them, you will be happier and more successful in your lives. Ignore them and you will bring misery, failure, and pain to yourselves and sadness to those who love you the most. That really is a promise.
Testimony.
Notes
[1] Doctrine and Covenants 86:5
[2] Doctrine and Covenants 86:7
[3] "Patriarchal Blessings" (devotional delivered at Ricks College, Feb. 29, 2000), available at www.byui.edu/Presentations/Transcripts/Devotionals/2000_02_29_Madsen.htm
[4] "On Shoulders of Giants" (address to the J. Reuben Clark Law Society, Feb. 28, 2004), 7
[5] The study, a four-year effort, included telephone interviews with 3,370 randomly selected U.S. teenagers including Protestant, Roman Catholic, Jewish and religiously unaffiliated teenagers. U.S. teenagers ages 13 to 17, followed by face-to-face interviews with a subset of 267. The National Study of Youth and Religion is a research project directed by Christian Smith, Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Notre Dame and Lisa Pearce, Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This project, generously supported [$4 million] by Lilly Endowment Inc., began in August 2001 and is currently funded through December 2010.) The result, called the National Study of Youth and Religion, is a massive compilation of data on Protestant, Roman Catholic, Jewish and religiously unaffiliated teenagers. The study was led by UNC sociologist Christian Smith and financed with $4 million from the Lilly Endowment.
[6] Sidney Rigdon, "To the Saints Abroad," Elders' Journal, Aug. 1838, 53; spelling modernized
[7] In Journal of Discourses, 6:317
[8] "Our Responsibility to Our Young Women," Ensign, Sept. 1988, 10
[9] Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Spencer W. Kimball (2006), 220; emphasis added
[10] In Conference Report, Oct. 1934, 94
[11] John A. Widtsoe, Improvement Era, 1969; emphasis added
[12] Doctrine and Covenants 8:79-80
[13] "Survey: Many students say cheating's OK," Apr. 5, 2002; available at archives.cnn.com/2002/fyi/teachers.ednews/04/05/highschool.cheating/
[14] "Lessons That Have helped Me," Brigham Young University 1992-93 Devotional and Fireside Speeches(1993), 86-87
[15] U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports, Series P-60, "Money Income of Households, Families, and Persons in the United States," "Income, Poverty, and Valuation of Noncash Benefits," various years; and Series P-60, "Money Income in the United States," various years. From Digest of Education Statistics 2005
[16] 1 John 2:16
[17] Teachings of Gordon B. Hinckley (1997), 360-61
[18] Howard W. Hunter, "Follow the Son of God," Ensign, Nov. 1994, 88