Beloved members of the BYU–Hawaii ‘ohana, Aloha!
I appreciate that choir number and that introduction. Maraming salamat sweetheart, mahal na mahal kita. What an amazing sight you are! Whenever I have the privilege to speak before the younger generation, I am humbled and grateful. I am keenly aware that many of you, if not all, are here because you desire a spiritual boost, to feel God’s love, and to learn what He would have you do. I pray fervently that our time together will be beneficial to you.
As Sister Shumway explained, she and I met here on campus and participated in many of the events that you now participate in. We married in the Laie Temple and lived in TVA. We worked on campus and at the Polynesian Cultural Center. We attended plays and cheered at sporting events, helped with food fest, danced in culture night, watched campus movies and played intramurals, and spent a lot of time in the computer labs and library. I know it sounds cliché to say, “we were right where you are,” but it’s true. To give you visual evidence that administrators and faculty indeed were once where you are in life, I’ve asked several members of our BYUH ‘ohana to share photos of themselves at your age.
I have to leave this slide up a little longer. Here is the future researcher and scientist, future university president Keoni Kauwe, doing what I know many of you spend perhaps too much time doing – video games in a cluttered dorm room.
What’s the point of showing those pictures to you, besides making you smile and roll your eyes? We may not look much now like we did back then, but that doesn’t mean we don’t remember what life is like for you. More importantly, just as surely as we can say “we’ve been where you are,” so, too, can we say “you someday will be where we are.” Each of you has a vital mission to perform, and God is mindful of you and your potential. Our main responsibility at this university is to help prepare you to get where God wants you to be. So I hope you’ll pay attention to your professors, our administrators, and your Church leaders. We have your best interests at heart.
In that spirit, today, I’d like to share a lesson from the scriptures that has been extremely helpful to me in navigating challenges to testimony and trials of faith. The scriptures are filled with words and phrases that are designed to catch our attention and say, “there’s something important here.” Phrases such as “and thus we see” or “now behold” often signal pearls of wisdom waiting for us to find. Over the years, one word has helped me recognize stories and events that teach powerful lessons about faith in Jesus Christ. That word is “nevertheless.”
The Cambridge Dictionary defines “nevertheless” as “despite what has just been said or referred to.” The word is used to signal a change in attitude or behavior from what the phrase before the “nevertheless” would suggest. To illustrate, let’s use a student’s decision whether or not to attend today’s devotional. The student might say, “I have some assignments due this afternoon that I haven’t completed.”
What would be the logical, expected continuation of that line of thought? “I have some assignments due this afternoon that I haven’t completed. Therefore, I’ll just miss today’s devotional.” Or the student might think, “I don’t really get much out of devotionals.” What would be the logical, expected continuation of that line of thought? “I don’t really get much out of devotionals, so I’m off to the beach instead.”
But, if the student decided to attend the devotional anyway, despite the many reasons not to, we could signal that shift using the word “nevertheless.” “I have some assignments due this afternoon that I haven’t completed, nevertheless I’m going anyway because devotionals are important,” or, “I don’t really get much out of devotionals; nevertheless, I am willing to try and listen with an open mind and heart and trust that something good will happen.”
Not all instances of “nevertheless” in life or in the scriptures are of eternal significance. If we’re standing in line at Taco Bell and thinking, “I’m really craving a bean burrito right now, nevertheless I’m going to order a taco,” that decision will not mean much in the grand scheme of things.
But other times, when opportunities arise to exercise faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, or to repent, or to make and keep covenants through obedience, or to follow the promptings of the Holy Ghost, or to follow the counsel of living prophets, the “nevertheless” can make a big difference, not just for us but for future generations. Because there is “opposition in all things,” I have found that when facing those kinds of growth opportunities, either the adversary and his minions, or the natural man in me, often both, come up with a host of reasons why I should not believe, or obey, or act in faith, or repent, or follow the promptings of the Holy Ghost, or trust in living prophets.
“I’m too tired, so Church is a no-go for me today.” “This bad habit is too hard to break, therefore why bother fighting it? ” “Talking to the bishop is too embarrassing, so I’ll just work this sin out between God and me.” “That standard is too restrictive, I want more freedom,” “If God really loved me, then He’d accept me for who I am and let me live my life how I want,” and so forth.
But if we are willing to set all those reasons aside and try to do what is right, to exercise what the scriptures call “a particle of faith,” amazing things happen. When we are willing to say “notwithstanding all the reasons why [that makes no sense, or I shouldn’t obey, or I don’t need to repent, or whatever], I’m going to give it a try anyway,” miracles occur. That’s what saying “nevertheless” can do for us. “Nevertheless” is that pivotal moment in which we exert our will, our moral agency, and our faith against the enticements of logic and human passion to be obedient and faithful.
Let’s examine together the experiences of several individuals, in scripture and in modern times, who exercised faith despite understandable reasons not to. I invite you to say a silent prayer right now and ask God to send the Holy Ghost to impress important truths upon your soul that will help you. We’ll start in the Book of Mormon with Nephi.
Nephi Obtaining the Brass Plates
We are familiar with Nephi and his brothers’ efforts to obtain the brass plates from Laban. After two unsuccessful attempts, an angel commands them all to “go up to Jerusalem again, and the Lord will deliver Laban into your hands.” 1 As is often the case with instructions from the Lord, however, the angel does not tell the brothers how or when or where Laban would be delivered into their hands. That night Nephi “crept into the city and went forth towards the house of Laban. And I was led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do. Nevertheless, I went forth[.]” 2
At the moment Nephi is creeping into the city, he likely has no idea how things are going to turn out; he just trusts in the Spirit’s prompting and goes. We know how the story ends; as Nephi nears Laban’s house, he must be surprised to find an unconscious Laban on the ground. After additional tests of faith, Nephi obtains the brass plates. His willingness to act despite not knowing how things would play out, to say “nevertheless” even though he did not know “beforehand the things which [he] should do,” allowed him to accomplish what previously had seemed impossible.
How often are we given spiritual promptings about things we should do but have no idea how to get there? Do you desire to make friends but are super shy? Say “nevertheless” and start talking to people. Worried about accepting a calling in Church when you have little or no experience in that area, say “nevertheless” and give it a try. If we sit and wait for God to show us how to do things, we will miss out on opportunities to grow our faith and see miracles happen.
Permit me to share with you a more modern illustration of this principle. Sister Shumway’s parents, Josefina and Rufino Villanueva joined the Church as a young married couple in 1964 while teaching at a university in Manila, Philippines. Shortly after their baptism, they decided to move to the island of Negros in the central Philippines, where Rufino’s parents lived. The Church had no congregations on Negros at the time. The American missionary who taught the Villanueva's wrote in his journal that he had little hope that the Villanueva's would stay active in the Church when there was no organized Church there to be active in.
Josefina and Rufino had a choice. They could have said, “With no ward or branch here, we’ll just go back to our previous church.” Or “Once the Church comes to Negros, we’ll be active again.” Or “no one here even knows we joined the Church, so we can just pretend like we’re not members.” With little knowledge of Church organization and structure, but with firm albeit fledgling testimonies of the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith’s First Vision, they courageously shouted “nevertheless” at all those reasons and moved forward with faith.
They wrote to the mission home in Manila for Church manuals and held Church in their home. They kept their tithing in a jar, and whenever a missionary visited them on his way to Manila, they gave him their tithing. They remained true to their covenants, and several years later, when a group was organized on Negros, the Villanueva's became stalwarts of the Church. Thousands of people have been blessed by their service. The impact of that “nevertheless” moment is multigenerational, and their children and grandchildren are the beneficiaries of that legacy of faith and devotion. I owe them more than I could ever say for raising such a glorious daughter.
Elder Richard G. Scott taught: “Every time you try your faith—that is, act in worthiness on an impression—you will receive the confirming evidence of the Spirit. As you walk to the boundary of your understanding into the twilight of uncertainty, exercising faith, you will be led to find solutions you would not obtain otherwise.” 3 That’s what Nephi found to be true. That’s what the Villanuevas found to be true. I have also found that to be true.
The Wife of King Lamoni and the Five Nephite Runners
Two additional examples from the Book of Mormon illustrate a slightly different experience - exercising faith and trust in the Lord’s servants when everyone else thinks that’s crazy. First, the wife of King Lamoni. She is one of my heroes! As a Lamanite, she was taught to distrust and even hate the Nephites from birth. So imagine how upset and confused she must have been when a Nephite missionary, Ammon, comes into their land and is immediately taken in as a servant to her husband, King Lamoni.
Through a series of miraculous events and in response to Ammon’s teachings, King Lamoni prays to know God and falls unconscious. Many think he is dead, and after two days and two nights, they insist that the king be buried. The queen sends for Ammon and asks him to look at her husband and determine whether or not he is dead. Ammon sees that King Lamoni is sleeping in God and tells her that the king will arise the next day.
Then comes the moment of truth. “And Ammon said unto her: Believest thou this? And she said unto him: I have had no witness save thy word, and the word of our servants; nevertheless I believe that it shall be according to as thou hast said.” 4 A stunned Ammon praises her, saying “there has not been such great faith among all the people of the Nephites.” (v.10) Her willingness to believe in the word of an enemy missionary, to say “nevertheless” when most would say “no way,” resulted in a miraculous conversion for her and the whole household.
Our second example of a willingness to put a prophet’s words to the test is a group of men I’ll call the “Five Nephite Runners.” In Helaman chapter 8, Nephi, the son of Helaman, exposes the “secret works of darkness” of the people of Zarahemla and prophesies that unless they repent, they will be destroyed. They challenge him, claiming that they are powerful and it would be impossible to destroy them. To show that God had given him power to know of their evil doings, Nephi prophesies the murder of their chief judge in real-time. Here’s what happens next.
Please pay attention to their “nevertheless” moment. At the beginning of chapter 9, we read: “Behold, now it came to pass that when Nephi had spoken these words, certain men who were among them ran to the judgment-seat; yea, even there were five who went, and they said among themselves, as they went: Behold, now we will know of a surety whether this man be a prophet and God hath commanded him to prophesy such marvelous things unto us. Behold, we do not believe that he hath; yea, we do not believe that he is a prophet; nevertheless, if this thing which he has said concerning the chief judge be true, that he be dead, then we will believe that the other words which he has spoken are true.” 5
After running “in their might,” (v.3), the five arrive at the judgment seat to find the chief judge lying on the ground, murdered. In shock, they fall to the ground and are mistakenly arrested as the assassins. True to their word, the five believe and are converted while in prison and later defend Nephi against attacks that he had orchestrated the whole thing.
I love these guys! Even though they didn’t at first believe Nephi was a prophet and didn’t expect to find the chief judge murdered, they were willing to put Nephi’s words to the test. They were humble enough to acknowledge that if what he said was correct in that one thing, they would believe the others things he had said. They were willing to act, they took off running while everyone else who heard the prophesy either didn’t care or didn’t believe, and their faith was rewarded with conversion to the gospel.
Are any of us here unsure of whether our living prophets speak for God? Are there some things church leaders have taught that you can’t quite reconcile or don’t believe? If so, are you willing to try out one thing the prophet has asked and see what happens? Perhaps to “let God prevail in your life,” or “pray to identify debris in your life that you can remove,” or to “go to the temple more often, not less, or "make time for the Lord every day.” Gaining a testimony of that one thing will help you have the patience and faith needed to wait on answers to other questions that bother you. 6
Sister Shumway experienced a similar “nevertheless” moment before coming to BYU–Hawaii. Her life dream was to open a music studio in the Philippines, and so she had no desire to come to school in America. Church leaders, seminary teachers, and especially her parents strongly encouraged her to apply, but she still refused. You can imagine her surprise one day when she received a letter from the school saying “congratulations, you’ve been accepted!” It turns out her father had submitted the application without her knowing!
The next and more difficult stage of the process was obtaining a visa to come to the United States. Her parents traveled with her to the U.S. consulate in Cebu, and after a short interview, the staff member stamped her application “DENIED.” She looked at her parents and said, “See, I told you, I’m not supposed to go.” “Let’s try again at a different consulate,” they said. So they traveled to Manila and waited in a long line to see the embassy worker. The man looked over her application and picked up his stamp. “DENIED.” “See, I told you, this is a sign; I’m not supposed to go,” she insisted. In her mind, she was thinking, “Why do you want to send me away? Did I do something wrong?”
That night her father pulled her aside and said, “May, you have to want this. You have to pray about this and accept what the Lord wants for you.” Up to that point, she had not prayed about coming here because she didn’t want the answer to be yes. So she humbled herself, fasted, and prayed, “Father, I don’t want to go to BYU–Hawaii; nevertheless, if it’s your will that I go, I will go.” This time she went by herself to the Cebu consulate. As she was waiting in line, she saw the same guy who had rejected her application just a few days earlier in Manila. She prayed that she wouldn’t be sent to his window. Luckily, she wasn’t.
Her interview was shorter than the two previous ones, so she thought “another denial.” The worker reached for his stamp. “APPROVED”! She could hardly believe it. Her small act of faith and her willingness to follow the counsel of Church leaders and her parents had eternal consequences for her, me, and our entire family.
In last April’s General Conference, President Russell M. Nelson taught: “The Lord does not require perfect faith for us to have access to His perfect power. . . . Through your faith, Jesus Christ will increase your ability to move the mountains in your life, even though your personal challenges may loom as large as Mount Everest. Your mountains may be loneliness, doubt, illness, or other personal problems. Your mountains will vary, yet the answer to each of your challenges is increasing your faith. That takes work. Lazy learners and lax disciples will always struggle to muster even a particle of faith.” 7
Like the wife of King Lamoni, like the five who ran “in their might,” and like Sister Shumway, let us purposefully and diligently act in faith, humbly acknowledging that we don’t know everything, and trusting the servants and leaders Jesus Christ has called in our day.
Peter and the Great Haul of Fish
Moving now to the New Testament, let’s use Peter as our next example. In Luke 5, we find Peter, a fisherman by profession, who has been out fishing all night on the Sea of Galilee and has caught nothing. I’m not sure how often that happened to Peter, but probably often enough that he knew that fishing could be unpredictable.
He’s in the process of cleaning his nets when Jesus Christ comes and asks Peter if he can teach from his boat. Peter agrees, and after Christ is finished teaching, he tells Peter to “launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught.” We sense the dilemma in Peter’s mind by the first part of his response: “Master, we have toiled all the night and have taken nothing.”
What would be the logical, expected continuation of that thought? Probably something like, “Master, we have toiled all the night and have taken nothing, and so no, I think I’ll go back to shore now.” To his eternal credit, Peter shifts his line of thinking and instead says, “We have toiled all the night and have taken nothing; nevertheless, at thy word I will let down the net.” 8 We know what happens next. Peter’s nets fill with fish to the breaking point, and another boat is needed to bring in the catch.
Peter is faced with an invitation from the Savior that goes against his personal and professional judgment and experience. He’s being asked to do something that doesn’t make sense and would create even more work because he’d have to clean his nets again for nothing if they tossed them out and no fish came. But because Peter was willing to act with faith in the Savior’s word, to say “notwithstanding all the reasons this doesn’t make sense, I’m going to do it,” his “nevertheless” moment prepared him to accept the Savior’s next invitation to follow Him and become a fisher of men. 9
My parents experienced a similar “nevertheless” situation in 1975 when Zion’s Securities, HRI’s predecessor organization, decided to grant long-term leases on property in Laie to senior faculty members to build homes. There were several requirements, one of which was that construction had to begin within the year. My parents had $3,000 in the bank, no credit, no collateral, and no construction experience. Many in the community counseled them not to try to build a home. One seasoned contractor even told my parents that they should give up the lot to someone else who had the money and knowledge to build a home. Faced with valid and daunting reasons why it made no sense to embark on this house building project, they were fortified by a very powerful feeling that building a home would be a great blessing to our family, now and in the future, and not just because of the financial security it would provide.
So despite those valid objections, they shouted “nevertheless” and moved forward. They borrowed enough money from family members to get the walls and roof up and financed the remaining work with a series of home improvement loans. They gratefully accepted the help of over one hundred members of the community who volunteered their time to assist in the construction. Soon, the home was finished, and we celebrated with a large lu‘au.
My mom wrote 100 thank you notes. The April Fool’s Edition of the Ke Alaka‘i jokingly awarded our house the “Carthage Jail Memorial award for the most historically remarkable contribution to community architecture.” After my dad retired from BYU–Hawaii, we purchased the house and now live in the home that faith built. I can testify that our house has been and will continue to be a great blessing to all our family, for within its walls, we found faith, testimony, love, acceptance, and peace.
Are any of us struggling with commandments that do not make sense to us? Or have we been asked to do things by the Lord that go against our professional training and best reasoning? It’s one thing to say “nevertheless” when deciding whether or not to attend devotional, but it’s quite another thing when more consequential temptations or challenges to our faith come along. Perhaps the Lord is telling us to apologize, reconcile, forgive, ask forgiveness, defend the Church and the Brethren, follow counsel, accept instruction or correction from someone when you really feel like throwing it back in their teeth. In those moments when we have reasons not to do those things, my invitation to each of us is to say “NEVERTHELESS” and move forward in faith.
Christ in Gethsemane
And now we come to the most important and powerful “nevertheless” moment in all of scripture. After the last supper with His apostles, Jesus retires to the Garden of Gethsemane where he “began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy; And saith unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death: tarry ye here, and watch. And he went forward a little, and fell on the ground, and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt.” 10
In that moment of incomprehensible pain and anguish, what would be the logical, expected continuation of his plea for the Father to “take away this cup from me”? If we were experiencing overwhelming pain and anguish, we might say, “this is too hard,” “I can’t do it anymore,” “I had no idea it would be this bad,” or “I give up.” But in that triumphant “nevertheless,” Jesus Christ resolutely focuses on doing His Father’s will, not His own. Despite the exquisite agony of all our sins, pains, sufferings, weaknesses, and infirmities, He surrendered Himself completely to the Father’s will. Truly, I stand all amazed at the love, trust, humility, and submissiveness Jesus showed in that transcendent moment.
How are we doing at submitting our wills to the will of the Father? We may think we know what’s best for us, we may think we have it all figured out, but the God who “doeth that which is good among the children of men” knows what is best for us." 11
I testify that Jesus Christ wants to help us navigate the difficult struggles in our lives. I further testify that despite how many times we have failed to say “nevertheless” but have gone on to make poor choices, regardless of how far we feel we have wandered or felt lost, regardless of all the warnings of judgment and sorrow that await the rebellious, the defiant, and those who wallow in sin, nevertheless, Christ's arms of mercy are always extended towards those who come unto Him with a broken heart and contrite spirit. 12
I pray that each of us when faced with reasons to doubt or disbelieve or disobey, will courageously shout “nevertheless” and move forward with faith in Christ. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Notes:
1. 1 Nephi 3:29.
2. 1 Nephi 4:5-7.
3. Richard G. Scott, “The Transforming Power of Faith and Character,” General Conference, October 2010.
4. Alma 19:9.
5. Helaman 9:1-2.
6. D&C 21:4-6.
7. Russell M. Nelson, “Christ is Risen; Faith in Him will Move Mountains,” General Conference, April 2021.
8. Luke 5:5.
9. Luke 5: 10-11.
10. Mark 14: 32-36.
11. 2 Nephi 26:33.
12. 3 Nephi 9:14, 20, Alma 5:33, Mosiah 29:20.