With snow beginning to dust the top of nearby Mount Timpanogos and rain drizzling over the Provo, Utah, campus below, thousands of Brigham Young University students and faculty filled the Marriott Center on Tuesday, Sept. 17, to hear instruction and counsel from the Church’s newest Apostle.
Elder Patrick Kearon, who was set apart as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles less than a year ago, noted during Tuesday’s devotional at BYU that in some ways he felt as “raw” as a new freshman.
“I really welcome you to this beautiful place, this extraordinary setting, this glorious institution, where you can grow in light and knowledge, in love, in kindness — and certainly in joy — and in an understanding of who you really are,” Elder Kearon told students. He was joined at the devotional by his wife, Sister Jennifer Kearon, who also spoke.
In his remarks, Elder Kearon issued a simple invitation: “Look outward and upward.”
He invited students to reach out in kindness and love each day — “in your apartment, in your classes, in your ward, in your branch, at home.”
To begin his address, Elder Kearon, who joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in his 20s, recalled visiting the BYU campus prior to his conversion. “I was stunned in the most wonderful way,” he said.
First, he was impressed by the physical setting of the campus — with the mountains as backdrop and the valley where the university was planted. “It was literally breathtaking to me,” Elder Kearon said.
Next, he was impressed by the students. “They were extraordinary. They were happy, they were positive.”
Elder Kearon told those filling the Marriott Center: “Dear friends, you still are. You still are extraordinary. … You are in the midst of this beautiful, stretching, glorious experience that you will have for a few years in this beautiful place.”
To those struggling or feeling painfully “stretched” in their journey, Elder Kearon quoted President Henry B. Eyring, second counselor in the First Presidency, who taught, “The Lord doesn’t put us through this test just to give us a grade; He does it because the process will change us” (”Waiting Upon the Lord,” BYU devotional, Sept. 30, 1990).
That process requires both the rough and the smooth, Elder Kearon said. He then shared a story told by the late President M. Russell Ballard, acting president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
In the story, a young merchant in 1849 sells all he has to travel to California to pan for gold. Each day, the young man dips his pan into the river and comes up empty. Discouraged, he is about to give up when an old prospector points out a rock dotted with gold.
Searching for nuggets, the young man replies such small flecks are hardly worth his time. The old prospector, in turn, shows him a pouch filled with thousands of flecks of gold. He explains to the young man that the patient accumulation of those small flecks has brought him great wealth.
President Ballard then said, “Like the small flecks of gold that accumulate over time into a large treasure, our small and simple acts of kindness and service will accumulate into a life filled with love for Heavenly Father, devotion to the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, and a sense of peace and joy each time we reach out to one another” (”Finding Joy in Loving Service,” April 2011 general conference).
Elder Kearon said as students look up and look out — or continue to reach out in simple acts of kindness and service — they become flecks of gold to an often-troubled world. He concluded by inviting them to “rejoice in being flecks of gold.”
As students prepare to go out into the world, Elder Kearon said he hopes they will rejoice in the truths they have received and remember “you are that you might have joy” (see 2 Nephi 2:25).
Surprises and curveballs
In Matthew 7, the Lord encourages individuals to ask, seek and knock, for “what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? … If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?” (verses 9, 11).
Life has a way of throwing out curve balls or surprises, Sister Kearon noted.
“Maybe you feel like you asked for bread, you planned on bread, but surprise — it appears God gave you a stone.”
These verses, however, offer reassurance: “All things, even the surprises, will eventually be for your good,” Sister Kearon taught, “because why? Because God only gives bread, never stones, in answer to your petitions.”
Sister Kearon noted that some listeners might be experiencing something that is in fact a sharp, heavy, crushing stone. “But even so, as you turn to Him with faith, trust, and patience, in time God will help you see the ways He has changed you and how much better you have come to know Him. Truly what once appeared to be a stone, through His power has miraculously turned out to be bread, and it has all worked together for your good.”
