PROVO, Utah — Life is "a great chain of generations that we in the Church believe must be linked together," President Gordon B. Hinckley told more than 18,000 BYU students Nov. 30.
"Never become a weak link in the chain of your family's generations," he said. "Do whatever you are asked to do and do it with a glad heart. Do not worry about office or position in the Church. Simply do whatever your calling requires and do it with joy and gladness."
Speaking during the school's weekly devotional at the BYU Marriott Center, President Hinckley urged the capacity audience to be faithful, true and loyal to the great cause of which they are a part.
President Hinckley was accompanied to the devotional by his wife, Marjorie. Also in attendance were Elder Henry B. Eyring of the Quorum of the Twelve and commissioner of Church education, and his wife, Kathleen, and Elder Merrill J. Bateman of the Seventy and BYU president, and his wife, Marilyn.
During his address, President Hinckley told the young adults of his great honor and respect for them. "You do great credit to this Church. You are not everything you ought to be, but by and large you are very good, and you can become what you ought to be."
This, he continued, is a marvelous time in the history of the world. "How exciting it is to be on the stage of life when one millennium rolls into another. . . . As we close this great and remarkable century I stand in awe at the blessings we have. I have now lived through 90 years of this century. When I think of the wonders that have come to pass in my lifetime, more than during all the rest of human history, I stand in reverence and gratitude."
President Hinckley counted automobiles, airplanes, computers, fax machines, E-mail, the Internet and antibiotics and some of the miraculous and wonderful inventions of this century.
"And capping all of this there has been the restoration of the pure gospel of Jesus Christ. You and I are part of the miracle and wonder of this great cause and kingdom which is sweeping over the earth blessing the lives of people wherever it reaches. . . .
"No generation that has ever walked the earth is as fortunate as you are," he said.
President Hinckley then recalled an interesting experience he had at the dedication of the Columbus Ohio Temple.
There he was accompanied by his wife, daughter, granddaughter and great-grandchildren. Sitting in the celestial room of the temple, he thought about his great-grandfather, his grandfather and his father.
"These three good men represent the three generations of my forebears who have been faithful in the Church," he explained. "Then, while seated in the temple, I looked down at my daughter, at her daughter, who is my grandchild, and at her children, my great-grandchildren. I suddenly realized that I stood right in the middle of these seven generations, three bev me and three after me.
"In that sacred and hallowed house there passed through my mind a sense of the tremendous obligation that was mine to pass on all that I had received as an inheritance from my forebears to the generations who have now come after me."
As he sat in the celestial room, President Hinckley said he vowed to himself to never become a weak link in the chain of his generations.
"It is so important that we pass on without a blemish our inheritance of body and brain; and, if you please, faith and virtue, untarnished, to the generations who will come after us.
"You young men and you young women, most of you will marry and have children. Your children will have children, as will the children who come after them. Life is a great chain of generations that we in the Church believe must be linked together. I fear there will be some broken links. Do not let yourself become such, I pray."
President Hinckley told the young adults that they do not need to be a leader in the Church to serve in a way that is acceptable before the Lord. "What matters," he said, "is the spirit in which we serve and the manner in which we apply our talents and our resources."
He recalled receiving a letter from an 8-year-old boy who sent $100 to help build a temple. A few days later he received a phone call from a well-to-do man desiring to give $1 million to the temple construction.
"Whose gift was the most acceptable?" President Hinckley asked. "Both of them, I believe; the boy's $100 as well as the man's million."
President Hinckley said sometimes men and women aspire for office in the Church. "This is unfortunate," he said. "It becomes the very reason why they should not be granted such office."
President Hinckley concluded his remarks by recounting the story of Misao Toma — a faithful Church member he met 30 years earlier in Okinawa.
"So far as I know she held no office in the Church except that of a worker in the Tokyo temple. She may have taught a class or two, but she did not preside over any organization.
"Was her offering acceptable to the Lord? She gave her children the ultimate, having nurtured them in faith with prayer and love. She did whatever she was asked to do. . . . Today as I think of her family I think of her great offering and of its acceptability before the Lord."
He concluded: "It is not where we serve, but how we serve. Is there gladness in our hearts, joy in our lives as we reach out to bless others?"
