Days before the opening ceremonies of the 2024 Paris Olympics, Presiding Bishop Gérald Caussé asked Latter-day Saint youth in France to remember a powerful sentiment: “I am a disciple of Jesus Christ.”
Following Him and the leaders of His Church will ensure a victory greater and more certain than Olympic gold, he said. “The best medal is eternal life.”
Bishop Caussé, who is French, spoke during a special devotional for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Sunday, July 21, in Versailles, France. Joining him were former BYU basketball star and 2024 Olympian Jimmer Fredette; former Olympic gold-medalist gymnast Peter Vidmar; and Rudi Sordes, who composed music for the opening ceremony of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.
Watch the English version of the devotional above or on YouTube.
The Latter-day Saint Olympians joined Bishop Caussé in speaking about daily decisions and long-term goals and asking youth and young adults to prepare now to finish the ultimate race and earn celestial glory.
Bishop Caussé shared the story of John Stephen Akhwari, a Tanzanian marathoner who competed in the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City. Dealing with the high altitude and injury, the runner finished last. When reporters asked him why he did not quit, he was definitive: “My country did not send me 5,000 miles to start the race; they sent me 5,000 miles to finish the race.”
Bishop Caussé said Latter-day Saints can share a similar sentiment. “Our Heavenly Father did not send us here to start the race but to finish it.”
The journey is not easy, and the finish line can feel far away, but the journey is “incredible and magnificent,” said Bishop Caussé.
And different from athletic competitions, some participants arrive first, some last and some injured. But in the Lord’s race, “everyone wins.”
Paris Olympics
Bishop Caussé said it is a great honor for his country of France to host the Olympic Games and guests from around the globe. “The nations of the world are meeting in Paris,” he said.
Amid conflicts and divisions in the world, he added, “there are not many times that all nations of the world gather together to celebrate.”
Paris — which has hosted the Games on two other occasions — also plays a significant role in Olympic history. In 1900, Paris became the second city to host the modern Olympics — then a grand event intertwined with the World’s Fair and celebrating not only athletic excellence but also culture and cutting-edge technology.
The city hosted the Games again 100 years ago in 1924.
Bishop Caussé said the history of the Olympics is woven into the fabric of French history.
Baron Pierre de Coubertin is credited with founding the modern Olympic Games. At the 1889 Paris Universal Exposition, he organized the world’s first Congress on Physical Education. In 1892 at Sorbonne, he proposed the idea to reestablish the Olympic Games. And on June 23, 1894, the International Congress of Paris for the Re-establishment of the Olympic Games approved the proposal.
Now the opening ceremonies of the 2024 Games will take place on the Seine River in the heart of Paris. Some 10,500 athletes, representing 206 countries, will sail in the open-air parade of 160 boats.
France is, in many ways, “a crossroads of the world” — making it natural for the French to “receive the world in their home,” said Bishop Caussé.
Read the Book of Mormon daily
Fredette is among the thousands of athletes competing in Paris; he’s participating in men’s 3-on-3 basketball.
During the devotional, he spoke about entering the NBA after his BYU team reached the NCAA’s Sweet 16 and he was recognized as the collegiate national player of the year. He had a lot of media attention.
But after getting drafted and moving to Sacramento, California, things did not go as he had planned.
“All of a sudden, I was not playing nearly as much as I was at BYU,” he said. “I wasn’t playing nearly as well as I was at BYU.”
For the first time in his career, he wasn’t getting minutes in every game. He felt alone and depressed.
Then one day halfway through the season, he got a phone call from the late President M. Russell Ballard, then acting president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, who had previously met Fredette.
As they talked, Fredette listed his problems and President Ballard listened. Then President Ballard asked, “Jimmer, are you reading the Book of Mormon daily? … I guarantee if you do that, it will change your life.”
Fredette took President Ballard at his word.
“My basketball situation didn’t change. I was still alone. But everything changed in my life because I had a different perspective. I was focusing on the right things, which made everything better. I became a much happier person.”
Prophets and apostles are inspired, he said. President Ballard “did not need to reach out to me that day. For some reason, he knew that he needed to. It was an amazing experience.”
Fredette told the youth they will each face difficult things in life. “You have to decide what road you are going to take. I know the power of having Christ as the center of my life.”
‘Always say your prayers’
During his remarks, Vidmar asked the youth to consider the distractions in their lives — especially their cellphones.
“Sometimes we spend more time watching people we don’t know, and we miss out on being inspired by people we do know,” he said.
Vidmar’s father, John Vidmar, learned gymnastics when he was young and loved the sport. But in his late 20s, he contracted polio and lost the use of many muscles in his body.
Peter Vidmar remembers as a child a day when his father came home from work, face bloodied. He told his family about a fall he had taken while crossing the street. Instead of complaining, he simply smiled and said, “‘I have to be more careful next time.’ That was the full extent of complaining that I ever saw from my father.”
John Vidmar inspired a family motto: “Vidmars do not quit.”
“My father never had to preach those words, he just lived that example,” Peter Vidmar said.
In his final days, John Vidmar was asked by a granddaughter if he had any advice for his great-grandchildren. “He said, ‘Always say your prayers, never give up.’ Those were the last words I heard my father speak,” Peter Vidmar said. “The lesson to me and to you is always say your prayers. Have faith in the Lord, and do the things He asks you to do. Never give up.”
‘Choices you make’
Sordes, a French Latter-day Saint, spoke of growing up in the same ward with Bishop Caussé — and detailed how the choices both he and Bishop Caussé made changed the course of their lives.
“The choices you make as a youth will impact the rest of your life,” he said.
Sordes was studying engineering when he contemplated changing directions and leaving the university and studying music composition at a conservatory.
He prayed all night and in the morning received a strong prompting: “Finish what you started.”
He stayed the course and, to his great surprise, found a way to pursue both paths. “Do your best,” he said, encouraging the youth to make “room in your life for God to perform miracles in your life.”
Sordes said participating in the devotional was an honor “to be featured alongside two exceptional athletes who demonstrated that fame and performance can coexist with humility and love.”
