Aloha! Marcia and I feel so blessed to be on campus again at BYU-Hawaii. We first came here in 1987 on our way back from a trip to Japan, Korea and Hong Kong. We have returned on two other occasions and we fell in love with the people here and developed a deep appreciation for the people of both Asia and the Pacific Islands. We were doubly blessed when in 2009, just after my call as a General Authority; we were assigned to serve in the Pacific Area Presidency with headquarters in New Zealand.
We have spent the past two years living among the people of the Pacific. We have been deeply enlightened and humbly taught as we have met the Saints in French Polynesia, Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, Vanuatu, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, New Zealand, Australia and Papua New Guinea. You have become our friends, our family and our heroes. Your love and kindness has melted our hearts and strengthened our testimonies.
Marcia and I have now been assigned to serve in the Philippines. We are excited about our new calling. Our youngest son, David, is currently serving a full-time mission in Japan. We have a great affinity for the people of Asia and feel like you are family as well. It is with those tender feelings of love and friendship that I share with you some thoughts today.
Two years ago, Marcia and I arrived in New Zealand. We had only been there a few hours when we were given keys to a car. They told us we needed to be in Hamilton, NZ to speak at the closing ceremonies of the Church College of New Zealand. Hamilton is a two hour drive from our home in Auckland. This didn't sound like a difficult task until we got in the car and started to drive. In New Zealand, they drive on the opposite side of the car and on the opposite side of the road than we do in the United States. It required an immediate brain shift on my part and total focus. To make matters even more difficult, in New Zealand, almost every intersection is a roundabout. We don't have many of those in the western United States. So Marcia and I started to make our way to Hamilton driving on, what for us, was the wrong side of the car, and the wrong side of the road. We were spending a lot of our time in roundabouts. We noticed that you can stay in a roundabout as long as you like. There is no requirement to get out. So, as we were trying to determine directions, we found ourselves stuck in the roundabout, going in circles on many occasions. I would like to talk to you today about not getting stuck in roundabouts.
Marcia and I have six children. Our oldest is 32 and our youngest is 21. We are currently in the process of helping our children make the transition to adulthood; the same transition you are all making right now. We have watched our children and their spouses and friends and many other young adults go through the process of education, missions, marriage, occupations, church membership and testimony. We have noticed that occasionally they will get stuck in a roundabout. Instead of moving forward to their destination, they will spend time going around and around and they have trouble getting out of the roundabout. Their progress is stalled.
The biggest challenge seems to be fear. Fear of the future, fear of failure, fear of not knowing who they are or what they can become. I have learned a very important lesson. In the Gospel of Jesus Christ, fear is the opposite of faith. If you have fear, faith disappears, but if you have faith, fear disappears. In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints we have no fear. We don't fear death, because we have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and his gift of the resurrection. We don't fear what man can do to us, because we know that if God is with us, we can accomplish whatsoever thing is expedient to His work. (Moroni 7:33) We don't fear the future because we know as we keep the commandments, the Lord will bless us. In Paul's writings to Timothy he teaches this, in 2 Timothy 1:7, "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." We move forward with faith, no fear: faith in God the Father and in His son Jesus Christ.
I would like to talk with you about, eliminating fear and getting out of the roundabouts that stop our progress and keep us from reaching our divine potential.
The first roundabout where we can get stalled, and actually my biggest concern for you, is that you will forget who you really are. The first place that gets most people stuck and unable to move forward is their failure to understand their divine identity. We meet many young single adults and young married members who struggle with their identity and wonder why they are here on this earth. If you are stuck in this roundabout, let me share some thoughts that might assist you to get out and move forward with faith.
Your future is extremely bright. Never before on the face of the earth has knowledge and information been so readily available. You live in a day when we talk in terms of terabytes, petabytes and yottabytes of information. Anything that you want or imagine can be created in virtual reality before your very eyes. This is not your parents 1980s anymore. This small device that I carry with me gives me access to the World Wide Web, voice and video communication with anyone in the world at any time as well as news of the world almost instantaneously as it happens. The world in which you live is incredible. In order to succeed in this world you will need the very best education possible. You will want to understand how technology works and how it can benefit you and your children.
In all of your learning, understand that the most brilliant minds of our day are only discovering and inventing what God already knows and has created. God's ability to communicate without any device; to transport himself and others from one sphere to another; his knowledge about physics, mathematics, chemistry, physiology, geology and botany so exceeds mans' understanding that we cannot even begin to comprehend all that God knows and understands about His universe and this earth that He has created. The more we learn; the more we understand how little we know about God and His creations.
This much I do know, however, that you above all that He has created are His most prized and divine creation. Just as Moses learned when he spoke with God face to face, you are God's son or his daughter. (Moses 1:4) Imagine your ability as you live righteously, receive sacred ordinances, and follow God's commandments to inherit, "all that the Father hath." (D&C 84:38) Does that begin to expand your understanding and your imagination of who you really are and what is possible for you to achieve? Do you begin to see that if you take your education and couple that with enlightenment from the Holy Ghost you will begin to understand things as they really are and as they really will be? (Jacob 4:13) Do you understand, by just getting a glimpse of what man has created, that with God all things are possible; and here is the fascinating part, you are His divine heir. (Matthew 19:26) Paul teaches us in 1 Corinthians 2:9, "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him."
And now, here is a warning for you. During the Savior's earthly ministry he taught that in our day there would be such great signs and wonders "that if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect." (Matthew 24:24) You see, because of all that man has achieved and because of the magnificence of the inventions you see all around you today, you might begin to think that we don't really need God. You might entertain a thought that somehow the idea of God is old fashioned or that our society has progressed beyond commandments and ordinances, temples and covenants. If for some reason you began to think that, you would be greatly deceived. Paul's letter to Timothy may describe this condition of deceit best when seeing our day he described us by writing, "Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth." (2 Timothy 3:7)
We must constantly be reminded that everything around us testifies that there is a God. The fact that I can tell you exactly when the sun will come up 10 years from now on this very day in Laie, Hawaii, testifies that there is a God. If the earth is moved a few miles closer to the sun, we burn up. If it is moved a few miles further away from the sun, we freeze. Coincidence? I don't think so.
Your very existence testifies that there is a God. The intricacy of your eyes and your heart and the chemistry of your body are so sophisticated that even our brightest medical minds stand in awe of how a human body works. God lives. He is our Father. You are His and He is ours. In order to move forward with faith, you must get out of this roundabout and understand that God is truly your Father and you are His divine creation. We move forward with faith, no fear.
Let me turn our attention to the next roundabout where we find many young adults stuck and unable to get out and move forward with faith. This is the roundabout of sin.
Because of our Father's infinite love for us, He provided a plan whereby we may return to Him. In order to become like our Father and inherit all that He has, it was necessary for us to obtain a physical body. These bodies, as functional as they are, have desires, appetites and passions that are sometimes difficult to control. We spend a life time understanding how to overcome our physical desires and learning how our spirits can become the master of our souls. Because our Father knew this would be difficult to achieve, he knew we would sin. He also knew that no unclean thing could return to His presence. (3 Nephi 27:19) Justice, or the law of God, required that someone pay for these sins. Our Father provided a Savior for us, His only begotten Son, even Jesus Christ. (John 3:16) The Savior agreed to come and pay the price for each of us, when in the pre-existence as you and I sustained the Father's plan, and the need for a Savior was presented, Jesus Christ stepped forward and said, "Here am I, send me." (Abraham 3:27)
We overcome sin and move forward with faith in Jesus Christ as we take upon ourselves His name and understand His infinite Atonement for all of us. We might gain some insight into His experience by reading His words in the Garden of Gethsemane. I am not aware of any more tender words ever being recorded than the very intimate discussion between the Father and the Son just prior to the Atonement and the Crucifixion. In Matthew 26:39 we read the Savior's plea, "O my Father if it be possible, let this cup pass from me." What is the Savior saying? He knows what he agreed to in the beginning; he knows that he now needs to pay the ultimate price. He understands that he will bleed from every pore and be crucified and he is asking His Father from the depths of his soul if there is any other way. Is there any other way this can be accomplished without me having to go through this experience? He then utters perhaps the most significant words found in scripture, "nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt." (Matthew 26:39) As Abinidi teaches us in Mosiah 15:7, the Savior then allowed his "will to be swallowed up in the will of the Father."
As we move forward with faith and overcome sin in our lives, we must ultimately do the things that we have seen the Savior do. (3 Nephi 27:21) Certainly that doesn't mean that we need to perform the atonement or be crucified, but it does mean that as we follow His divine example we must eventually allow our will to be swallowed up in the will of the Father. We must submit our will to him.
King Benjamin describes this process in very distinct steps as he teaches us in Mosiah 3:19, "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 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."
If you find yourself stuck in the roundabout of sin, unable to get out, go see your Bishop, confess your sins to him, and allow the atonement to work for you. Most important of all: move forward with faith in Jesus Christ. The Savior does not want us to sit trapped by our sins. When we do that we miss the indescribable joy and happiness that the atonement can bring to us.
The next roundabout is the decision to serve a full-time mission. In order to not get stuck here, you will need to exercise both faith and courage. The Prophets and Apostles have made it clear that every able, worthy young man should serve an honorable, full-time mission. President Monson has also welcomed young women age twenty-one and older to serve a mission if they choose. The Savior's call is clear, "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the son, and of the Holy Ghost." (Matt 28:19)
My mission in Finland changed my life. If there is a place on the earth diametrically opposite to Hawaii in every discernable way, it is Finland. Because Finland is literally on the top of the world, it is dark most of the time. It is extremely cold and the snow melts in May and comes again in September. The language is very difficult for English speaking people to learn. My first winter there I spent in Rovaniemi which is a few miles south of the Arctic Circle. When the sun went down the first part of December, we didn't see it again until February. It was below zero for many of the days I was there. We were asked to go out and find people to teach. I would wear two pair of socks, two pair of gloves, a shirt, a sweater, my suit, a heavy coat, a hat a scarf and as I left our apartment, my eyes were the only part of my body not covered. After walking just 100 yards from our apartment, I would be freezing cold. We would be out in the work from 9 in the morning until 9 at night. We had very little success. As you can imagine, the people thought we were crazy to be outside in these weather conditions. Because of the weather, I wondered the same thing. All I could do was ask the Lord if this was really true, because I couldn't imagine that we would do this if it was not. He answered me in no uncertain terms. It was in the icy winter of Finland that the fire of the spirit bore witness to me of the truthfulness of the gospel. If I had not gone there and been pushed to those extremes and been caused to truly find out for myself, I may have never received the confirming witness that came. The kind that goes deep down inside and never leaves you. The lesson that I learned and that you will learn is the lesson the Savior taught his Apostles in Matthew 19:29; "And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life."
During my time in Finland I was able to teach and baptize three people. Up to that time I had never experienced such great joy as I experienced as I watched someone accept the gospel of Jesus Christ. But if the truth is really known, there was a fourth convert; it was me. If I had labored all my days, and only converted myself, the experience would have been worth it for me.
The Lord needs you on a mission, but perhaps even more important you need a mission for yourself. It is there that you will feel and understand the sweet whisperings of the spirit and learn the lessons you need to know to be a good husband or wife, a good parent and an outstanding member of the Church. The Lord will send you to a place that is specially chosen just for you. A place where you can learn and grow and develop.
If you are stuck in this roundabout today, follow the Savior's call, come listen to a Prophet's voice and apply to serve. It will be one of the most important decisions you make in your life. Move forward with faith.
The next roundabout where we see many stalled is marriage. Your decision to marry the right person in the right place and by the right authority is critical to your eternal happiness. The right place of course is the Temple and the right authority is by the wonderful sealing power that has been restored to the earth that allows you to be sealed together for time and for all eternity. You should not take this decision lightly. This will require you to seek the confirming spirit of the Holy Ghost and feel safe and comfortable with your decision. This is one of those situations where you do not want to feel pressured or pushed. If you have received those comforting feelings then move forward with faith. In many cultures, you are taught that you can't marry until your education is complete or you have established yourself in your occupation. That culture is not God's culture. Marriage is ordained of God. It is in marriage that true happiness is found. (The Family A Proclamation to the World) You must not let education or other worldly pursuits come before this important step.
Marcia and I were married when she had two years left to complete her Bachelors degree and I was just beginning three years of law school. During those three years we both completed our degrees and had our first two children in the process. As I share this memory with you, the biggest question I have now is how did Marcia do that? I would go to school during the day while Marcia was with the children. She went to school at night while I was with the children. At the same time we managed a 10 story condominium. Each day we had to vacuum every floor. At the end of our experience there, we each had a child on our back in a back pack as we vacuumed. I would start on the tenth floor and she on the first and we would meet on the fifth. These are some of our very best memories. We were working together to build our family and obtain our education. We would not trade those wonderful first years of our marriage for anything. If you are stuck in this roundabout, move forward with faith. Marry the right person in the right place with the right authority. You will be forever grateful that you did.
The last roundabout I would like to mention is your education and future occupation. When I was a little boy people would always ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up. When I was 6 and 7 years old the answer was easy. The occupations that seemed most fun were football player, cowboy or fireman. As I returned from my mission, this question actually became very difficult. How can you know at age 21 what you should do with the rest of your life? The answer is you don't need to know now. At this stage of your life you simply pick something that interests you and that allows you to be constructive in your life and serve others. You confirm that decision with the Lord and then you move forward with faith. As you continue to move forward, new doors will open, opportunities will present themselves. Most of the people sitting on the stand today had no idea that they would be at BYU Hawaii at this stage of their lives. You just do your best and move forward. Don't sit idly by because you can't see the next 70 years mapped out perfectly before you. Choose something and move forward. We learn in 2 Nephi 2:26 that the most important aspect of our agency is that you and I must ACT and not be acted upon. You choose and then you act on your choices. You move forward in faith and the Lord will bless you.
Our son Chris taught us this lesson very well. He came home from his mission from Poland in 2006, thinking he wanted to be a psychologist. He began studying Psychology at BYU but as he did so he realized he really didn't want to be a psychologist, but he was interested in the behavior of people. Why they do the things they do. He then looked towards a business where this was the study. He began to focus on market research and became interested in why people buy what they buy and make consumer choices the way they do. He ended up graduating in Psychology and business. It was not where his education started, but he was moving forward. He was out of the roundabout and moving forward with faith.
Unfortunately, when he graduated two years ago, the job market was not open, especially in market research. The economy was not in good condition. No one was hiring. Chris could have sat at home, stuck in the roundabout, watching TV or playing video games feeling sorry for himself, because the economy was bad; but instead, he moved forward with faith. He found a company that did market research and made an appointment to meet with the owner. He told the owner that he was interested in the company and wondered if he could just come and work as an intern for free. The owner thought free was good so within a few days Chris was working at the company where he wanted to work, but was doing it for free. Chris figured he could either sit at home and learn nothing or at least work in the job he hoped for some day and see how it all works. Within a few weeks, the owner called him in and told him that they really liked his work ethic and asked if he would like to be hired. Chris got the job at the company where he had hoped to work all along. He is now working in a field and in a job that he loves. He moved forward with faith, no fear, and as he acted, the Lord blessed him. He got out of the roundabout and moved forward with faith.
As you choose your major or your occupation, find something you enjoy and then just do it. As you keep the commandments and do those things that the Lord has instructed, you will be guided and directed throughout your life. If you sit and worry all the time about whether or not you are making the right choice, you will miss the opportunities that will present themselves along the way. Move forward with faith, not fear.
Finally, as you move forward with faith, may I share with you a very simple, but meaningful scripture in D&C 82:10. The Lord teaches us this: "I the Lord am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise." Interpreted into our modern day vernacular, the lesson is this: the Lord is bound if you keep his commandments, if you don't; good luck, you are on your own, I hope things work out for you. When you keep the commandments, the Lord is bound to help you. If you don't, there is no promise. Certainly you want the Lord's help. If you do, simply keep his commandments, that is all that he asks.
You are wonderful. You have a promising future ahead of you. May you stay out of the roundabouts and move forward with Faith in God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ is my humble prayer in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.