OGDEN, Utah — With two semesters left before graduating from the University of Utah, and while serving as an elders quorum president in his campus ward, young Ronald A. Rasband was given an offer from a high councilor in his stake — Jon M. Huntsman Sr. The very next week, Huntsman needed him to be the new account manager for a major customer in Troy, Ohio.
Elder Rasband, now a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, recounted this life-changing opportunity during a devotional with over 1,500 students at the Institute of Religion near the Weber State University campus in Ogden, Utah, on Sunday, Oct. 23.
Overnight, this son of a truck driver with admittedly not-so-stellar grades had a decision to make: finish his degree in marketing and business, or drop out of school and take this job offer. After consulting with friends and loved ones, Elder Rasband and his wife, Sister Melanie Rasband, prayed for direction. “My dear wife, Melanie, was inspired with our answer. ...
“She said, ‘Ron, isn’t this what people go to college for, to find an opportunity like this one?’”
He realized that his future was not about school, but about providing for his family based on a foundation of integrity.
The decision to accept this offer set the course of his entire life, eventually leading to Elder Rasband becoming president of Huntsman’s global corporation. Huntsman offered him the position, “but I had to make more of it than a job,” Elder Rasband said. “I had to make of myself a man of integrity. I realized then and now that my personal integrity is what has defined me in my marriage, business, relationships and Church service.”
He soon learned to be an effective and fair businessman, and lived by the standard, “Be moral, ethical and honest.”
The students in attendance that night are at a similar point in their life, gaining an education before beginning their careers. “Many of you will be asked in the years ahead to bend the rules, to grease the wheels, to look the other way, to compromise,” Elder Rasband told them. “Some may even assume that is the way things are done in education, business, government or, heaven forbid, your own home.
“Don’t you believe it,” he said, punctuating each word. “Your integrity will be on the line, and the price will never be worth it.”
Elder Rasband cited Nephi, King David and Jesus Christ as examples of integrity from scripture, and Joseph Smith and Brigham Young as similar examples from latter-day Church history. The 13th Article of Faith — “We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous and in doing good to all men … .” — is a good measure of integrity, he said.
“Those are not just words, they are strengths that should guide our every move.”
While learning skills that will help them establish traditions in their homes, methods in their work and contributions to society, students should remember, “Skill is important, brothers and sisters, but hearts guide hands,” Elder Rasband said.
As they stand at the cusp of professional life, students are establishing the foundation of the rest of their lives. “The time to decide your epitaph is not at the end of your career but at the beginning. Right now,” Elder Rasband said. “I recommend you simply ask yourself as you face every decision going forward this easy-to-remember thought: ‘Is this moral? Is this ethical? And is this honest?’ That will lead you to know who it is you want to be.”
In order to be moral, ethical and honest, one must pay attention to how he or she treats other people in every walk of life. “Integrity in being about the Lord’s work is to love as He loved, essentially to feed His sheep with kindness,” he said.
“Our young friends, we trust you to carry forward the kingdom of God. Central to that work is exhibiting integrity in your family, spiritual and Church matters, in your education, business and in your relationships with friends, neighbors and associates. All these draw from the same well of strength, which is your integrity to the cause of Jesus Christ.”
In her remarks, Sister Rasband said she felt the students “ought to know that I did not marry an Apostle at that time. I married a young man home from his mission. He was young, he was faithful, he wasn’t too sure of all that he was going to do, but I knew that he would keep his covenants with the Lord, that he would always be faithful to the Lord, to his covenants, to the gospel, that he would help me in raising a family unto the Lord.”
She knew these things about Elder Rasband and could trust him as her eternal companion.
“Everything that I knew about him when we were married has only gotten better, has only been increased because of the Lord’s part in our lives,” she said. Throughout their lives, they have made the Lord a part of every decision and covenanted to obey His word and listen to His voice. By trusting the Lord, he was prepared to be an apostle.
Sister Rasband recalled that President Russell M. Nelson once told the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, “It takes a long time to grow an Apostle.”
“It does, and it has,” she added.
Sister Rasband said she hopes that “you will prepare yourselves to be all that the Lord needs you to be.”
Each member of the audience is a son or daughter of God, “and I hope and pray that in your lifetime, you will come to appreciate who you really are and how much your Father in Heaven loves you. He has sent you here for a divine purpose in these last days to prepare the world, to prepare your family, to prepare those close around you, to prepare those far from you as you venture out into the world in one form or another.”
Nick Hendrickson of the Ogden YSA 11th Ward, Ogden Utah YSA 1st Stake, learned from Elder Rasband that “it’s important to have integrity and to be moral and to take time before each decision we make and decide if it’s something that God would want us to do essentially.”
After listening to the devotional, Hendrickson said, “I think I’ll definitely be a lot more deliberate with the choices I make, and try and make sure that they line up with what [Elder Rasband] said, ‘be moral, honest and [ethical]’.”
“Something that I learned a lot was just how important it is to have an idea of who you want to be and just stick with it,” said Erin Sheffield of the Ogden YSA 12th Ward, Ogden Utah YSA 1st Stake. “I think a lot of times it’s easy for us to lose sight of who we want to be, but Heavenly Father obviously knows what’s best and knows who we’re going to be. So as long as we follow revelation or promptings that we receive from Him, we’ll be good.”
Sylvia Duke of the Provo YSA 32nd Ward, Provo Utah YSA 3rd Stake, came to the devotional with concerns on her mind. “Everything that [Elder Rasband] said about having integrity and being honest was a direct answer.”
Duke appreciated the answers she received during the devotional. “Dealing with dating things has been very stressful, so everything he had to say was directly relevant — direct in the way that the Lord is direct — and that I felt a little chastised but in the best possible way. It was like I have a clear direction of where I need to go. So this was definitely an answer to prayers.”
Eastin Hartzell’s favorite thing he learned at the devotional came from Sister Rasband talking about “the fact that when they married, they weren’t where they are currently, that [Elder Rasband] had to grow and he had to become [an Apostle]. It’s so cool seeing a man like that, understanding that we are all at the same place he once was and striving to become better and more Christlike just as he obviously did.”
Hartzell intends to take what he learned about integrity and being more moral and strive to “create and have those principles and then not falter from them, continue to have those in every part of our lives.”