Former BYU Cougar basketball player Travis Hansen played professional basketball for more than a decade, spanning the NBA and internationally in Spain and Russia following his collegiate career.
But basketball doesn’t define Hansen; from a young age, he had many tender experiences that helped him build a strong spiritual foundation and know that Heavenly Father loves him.
On this episode of the Church News podcast, Hansen joins Church News editor Ryan Jensen to discuss his professional and spiritual journey, highlighting the positive influences that have shaped him.
As a basketball player, a missionary in Chile, a husband, a father and currently a young adult leader in Orem, Utah, he shares how his faith and effort to “be in the right place” blessed his life and the lives of others.
Listen to this episode of the Church News podcast on Apple Podcasts, Amazon, Spotify, bookshelf PLUS, YouTube or wherever you get podcasts.
Transcript:
Travis Hansen: The best person that you could put first is Jesus. And can you keep following Him? Can you keep putting Him in your life? You’re going to get off the iron rod at certain points in time, due to influences in earth life, but can you keep coming back to Him, and through His grace and His love and the person that He is, through His teachings? But that’ll save you more than anything, and it’s working. And my covenants mean so much to me. They just mean so much. The promises that you make in the temple, if you’ll spend time on them and you’ll understand them — and I’m trying to even more than I ever have — there’s just an incredible power that will help you get through your day, that will help you get through any challenge. It could still be hard. You might lose your mom to pancreatic cancer, you might have to go through some really hard things, but there’s power in your covenants. And for that, I’m incredibly grateful.
1:07
Jon Ryan Jensen: This is Jon Ryan Jensen, editor of the Church News. Welcome to the Church News podcast. Today, we are taking you on a journey of connection as we discuss news and events of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Former BYU basketball player Travis Hansen played professional basketball for more than a decade across the NBA, Spain and Russia following his collegiate career. But basketball doesn’t define Hansen. From a young age, he had many tender experiences that helped him build a strong spiritual foundation and know that Heavenly Father loves him.
Hansen shares with us today on the Church News podcast some of his journey professionally as a basketball player, as a missionary in Chile, as a husband, as a father and as a young adult leader currently serving in Orem, Utah.
Travis Hansen, thanks for joining us today on the Church News podcast.
Travis Hansen: Thanks for having me. Super excited to be here.
2:00
Jon Ryan Jensen: I think for individuals who watched you play when you were at BYU, you are known on the basketball court for being tenacious. You were super energetic. Everyone loved feeding off of your energy, both your fellow players and those who were in the crowd.
And I would love just to hear from you: Where did that come from? Where did all of that energy come from when you were on the basketball court?
2:25
Travis Hansen: That’s a good question. I don’t know. You’ve got to ask my mom. My mom called me “Animal baby” from the Muppets because I was the crazy kid with the drums and the crazy hair. It’s just in my DNA, I think.
I wake up in the morning, and I’m excited about every day. I think every day is a gift. And I really, really, actually enjoy life. I’m pretty naturally happy. And my mom said, “Look, if you’re on the court and we’re going to spend all this money and all this time and everything to come see you play, we’d actually really like to see you play hard and play well and put the nice guy in your pocket and play hard for that 40 minutes.” And I tried to do that when I played, and I found a lot of joy in playing basketball.
3:05
Jon Ryan Jensen: It’s a fun game, it’s a great game. And so many parents are walking that line with their children as they learn to play sports or find a hobby that they enjoy.
But for you, this perhaps was maybe a little extra special as you talk about your mom because she didn’t get a chance to see you all of those years at BYU. What was your relationship like with her, and would you share maybe a little bit of her experience with cancer?
3:32
Travis Hansen: My mom’s the best. I’m “born of goodly parents” (1 Nephi 1:1). My mom’s from Richland, Washington. My dad’s from Boise, Idaho. They met at Ricks College, fell in love and then moved down to Utah County as my dad attended BYU, and we had a beautiful childhood. My mom was a great mom, and she loved Jesus, and she loved being a mom.
And we approached the age — I was about 18, and life was great, and then she started having back pain, and within a matter of about 60 days, she went from “Something doesn’t feel right” to diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, one of the most deadly cancers. And after that, within another 90 days, we watched as she got worse and didn’t get better. And her room filled up with medications to help her feel better, and we watched as we lost the person that meant the most to us.
And it was heartbreaking. It was a terrible experience, because you see someone that you love so much, and you can’t do anything about it. As much as you pray, as much as you beg the doctor, sometimes it’s their time, and it’s really, really hard to deal with, especially as an 18-year-old. And my brother was 14, and my little sister was 11 — actually had an older brother on a mission. He came back off his mission to Japan, attended the funeral and then went back to serve the Lord and finish his mission. He’s one of my heroes.
And I was in my mom’s room, rubbing her feet as the medication would make her itchy and swell, and it was 48 hours before she passed away. She asked me, “Travi, are you going to serve a mission? Are you going to follow Jesus?” And I don’t know if I’d made that choice yet in my life, and it says a lot about my mom that as she was struggling with her own pain and her own struggles, she thought of me and she thought of my brothers and sisters and what — she wanted the best for us.
So I love my mom. I mowed “I love mom” in the lawn with my lawn mower, like I was obsessed with my mom. I love her so much, and I wanted to be around her at all times. And so as soon as she asked me that, I immediately decided to serve a mission. And I turned 19 two weeks after she passed away. And then I found myself in Chile Santiago West, four months after we lost my mom, serving the Lord, and that’s where I was supposed to be.
6:05
Jon Ryan Jensen: Wow. My dad also was terminally ill when I was younger. And so there are so many parts of that story that hit home for me, and I think about the growth of an individual’s testimony when you’re going through that and watching someone you love go through a hard time. But I imagine that you didn’t just choose to serve because she wanted you to, but I would guess that your testimony also grew in different aspects during that time.
Is there a part of that experience where you can say, “Because of this part of what happened and what I was witnessing, I felt this part of my testimony grow”?
6:43
Travis Hansen: The grace of Jesus Christ, the amount of love He has for us, and knowing that I was going to see my mom again and be with her and be with my family because of Him — yeah, it completely changed my faith. It allowed me to stop thinking about things that didn’t really matter much and to start to think about the things that mattered a lot more.
And then my mission completely changed. I mean, my first companion was awesome. His name is Jason Abbot from Las Vegas. He taught me how to pray. He would pray for everybody. He — on our bunk beds — he’d stay up late at night, 45 minutes to an hour. I’ve never seen someone pray for that long. He prayed for everyone at home, his friends, his family, our companionships, our district, everyone we met that day, our mamita that took care of us in Chile.
And I would be in awe of how faithful he was. And so he changed my life. So that was the beginning of a domino effect, where you put yourself in the right places, angels and so many people bless your life, and you’re able to take little pieces from everybody.
Jon Ryan Jensen: Are you still in touch with people from Chile?
Travis Hansen: Absolutely, yeah. All my friends are from Chile. I love Chile. The people, the culture, it’s the best place ever. The Chileans are my second family. They’re awesome. And yeah, we stay in touch with quite a few.
8:01
Jon Ryan Jensen: The missionary age change affected some individuals’ decisions — and especially for athletes — where you used to have a year of college experience and then go on a mission and come back. That’s a whole different ball game now.
So when you talk with athletes who are considering going on a mission and coming back to play, what does that discussion look like with them?
8:21
Travis Hansen: Well, it’s very individual and it’s very personal. And so you’re trying to help everyone you meet, whether it’s your kids or young single adults or student athletes. You’re helping them formulate a plan and a vision for their life. It’s amazing how many people don’t have a goal or a vision or a plan, and so then they can’t start to implement a strategy to actually hit their vision or plan, because they don’t have it. And so you start to kind of ask the certain questions: “Well, what do you think your life should be like?” or “What do you want your husband to look like?” or “What do you want?” And to help them start to build their own plan.
And to the young men and young women that choose to serve the Lord, how awesome is that, that they put Jesus first in their life, and they stop everything else they’re doing. And they did it in the preexistence when they chose to follow Jesus and get a body, and they do again when they serve a mission. So we just hope those returned missionaries keep doing it. That they keep continuing to put Jesus first throughout their life.
And that’s what my mom was trying to teach me, is: “Look, I’m not going to be here. The best person that you could put first is Jesus. And can you keep following Him? Can you keep putting Him in your life? You’re going to get off the iron rod at certain points in time due to influences in earth life, but can you keep coming back to Him and through His grace and His love and the person that He is, through His teachings, that’ll save you more than anything.”
And so can we get these young single adults and student athletes to see that? It depends on their personal journey and where they’re at. And so we help them develop that plan and then the steps to get there, and then we just give them the tools and the encouragement along the way.
10:00
Jon Ryan Jensen: I sat down a couple of months ago with Tom Holmoe, and that’s very similar to what he said, where he said that one of his favorite parts of his role as athletic director at BYU has been watching those personal journeys of individuals as they’ve decided, sometimes mid-journey, and recognized, “I’m not where I want to be in relationship to the iron rod and the Savior,” and then “What do I need to do to get there?” and choosing that goal and learning how to work toward it. You mentioned what parents do with kids and with young adults, and I think that those are two things close to you, because you have five children and you serve with young adults.
Do you see yourself echoing things that your mom taught you when you’re talking with your children?
10:44
Travis Hansen: If I’m smart enough, I would, yeah. I try to implement anything that she taught me. First of all, Tom Holmoe and Lori Holmoe are awesome. That’s a legacy. Those are people that I want my kids to be around. Student athletes at BYU have been incredibly blessed to be around people like that. And he had his own transformational experience, coming as a Lutheran to BYU, and so he’s amazing, and his wife is too.
I’m lucky that I married an amazing person. She is the best. It’s easy to be married to her. She’s strong in the gospel, she’s all in, she loves Jesus, and she’s just smarter and wiser than me. She’s more intuitive, too. And so I’ve found that, throughout my life, I feel like the Spirit speaks through the women in our life, and if the men are humble enough to listen, that they’ll guide us, that they are angels. And so my wife really pushes a lot of the lessons in our family, and I back her up.
There’s this one — so I get done playing basketball, I’ve been playing for so many years, 12 years playing professional basketball, I get home to Utah County finally. And we love Utah. We’re so grateful to be back. And there’s this poem: “You travel around the world in search of what you need, and you come home to find it.” And we’ve came home to find that Utah is our place.
And she says, “Take the kids to a BYU basketball game.” I’m like, “Man, I have watched so much basketball. Can I take a break?” And she said, “Well, the kids are going to like what you like.” “OK, yes ma’am.” So I take them to a game and get them a brownie and a CougarTail and have the full experience, and I talk about the players — “Look at how good they are, look at how they move, and look how they set a pick, and I love them.”
Jon Ryan Jensen: And you’re singing, “Rise and shout,” all the things.
12:23
Travis Hansen: The ROC is on my left — cheering in the student section is amazing. And I see my kids after the game come home and through the next week buy Nerf basketball hoops from the grocery store. They put it on their bedroom door, and they start to play. And then I see a piece of paper, and they’ve written down the whole roster of all the athletes, and they’ve added their name — that they’re on the team. And little by little, as they’re playing, all of a sudden now they’re in the starting lineup.
And she says, “We’re doing ‘Come, Follow Me’ as a family,” which has really blessed our life. And she says to me, “Now do that with the gospel. How much do you talk about Jesus? How much do you talk about how much you love the gospel? How much do you talk about ‘doubting Thomas’ or the brash, impetuous Peter or James and John, or your temple covenants?”
And I’m like, “OK.” I mean, that’s the beauty of marrying an amazing woman, is they help refine you and teach you. And if you’re humble enough to listen to them, they’re right, and it changed my life forever. A good lesson on how to be a great dad is to teach them what you love and make sure that’s aligned with the gospel, and hopefully you’re echoing the prophet as much as possible.
13:33
Jon Ryan Jensen: Recently, Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and his wife, Sister Susan Bednar, were up at Brigham Young University–Idaho, up in Rexburg, where you said your parents met. And they shared their experience of counseling together through 50 years of marriage, just having had their 50th anniversary.
And so I love what you’re saying. It’s a lot of what they talked about, how when you counsel together, each other will see things that the other could do to help the family, and that you both have a role in the raising of the family. And the two of you started really before your professional basketball journey and at the very beginning of being on your college journey.
How much do you feel that getting married at that juncture helped the two of you be able to learn and grow together through that process of being a professional player, and now to be able to come home and raise a family here in Utah?
14:28
Travis Hansen: I’m a big believer in “You should be where you’re supposed to be.” And I’ve looked at my life and seen so many different miracles come because I feel like you’re showing a recognition pattern to the Lord, and He can start to put people in your place that He knows you’re going to be at a certain place.
And so, I went to Utah Valley University. I wanted to stay close to my mom while she was going through cancer. And I’m driving down — I know I’m supposed to be at practice at a certain time, so I’m driving down early to make sure I’m a good teammate, and I do what I say. And I see my wife walking in the Institute of Religion of Utah Valley Institute. And I’m like, “Hmm, she’s cute. Something’s different about this girl.”
Jon Ryan Jensen: So you’d never met her at this point?
Travis Hansen: I’d never met her, nope. That was the first time I ever saw her. And then I ran into her six, seven, eight times over the next few weeks. And it was obviously something in our paths showing us that this could be something special, that “You need each other.” And I don’t know how much she needed me. She was a 10. I was a six at the time — or maybe a four — and I was marrying perfection. She was marrying potential. But she changed my life, and it’s because I was in the right place at the right time, trying to do the right things and striving to get that temple covenant, to get married, and it worked out.
Now, 25 years later, after traveling the world together, four years ago we were called back to the Utah Valley Institute of Religion to serve, and I serve in a stake presidency there, and it’s been such a blessing. So the young single adults come in, I say, “Hey, you should probably sign up for Institute of Religion classes, because the whole stake presidency met our wives in seminary or institute. It’s a pretty good place to meet people.” And so if you’re in the right places and if you’re doing what’s right and you’re showing up when you’re supposed to, I really believe miracles and blessings will happen more often.
16:16
Jon Ryan Jensen: You referenced Nephi at the beginning of the interview, and I think he’s a perfect example of that — being constantly in the place where the Lord needed him to be, and doing the things that he was asked to do. Sometimes being prompted, “Do you recognize what I’ve put in front of you here?” And sometimes we get angels that come down and do that for us, and sometimes we just have to follow those promptings of the Holy Ghost and say, “I think this is what this means”
For you, then, you get married, you’re playing at BYU, and most players’ journeys don’t involve going to the NBA as an individual who’d been married for multiple years already. So you play at BYU, you go to the Atlanta Hawks, and you’ve got more time married than I would assume a lot of those guys had ever had a girlfriend.
Did that make your experience different going in as a rookie in the NBA? Or how did that make it different than what you were seeing around you with your peers who were also drafted that year?
17:19
Travis Hansen: I think the main difference is the foundation of values, that my covenants mean everything to me. When I went through the temple for the first time, I may have gone through more of how we agree to terms and conditions, certain things on our phone, and we scroll down and click yes.
Jon Ryan Jensen: Scroll to the bottom, click yes.
Travis Hansen: “I’m in. Let’s do it.” And as I attended BYU, which completely changed my life, it’s the greatest institution in the world. It was way more than a jersey. I found identity, I found purpose, I found a family there, and they came with me. Those people, those fans and Cougar Nation, they come with you when you go to play. And so I wasn’t going to Atlanta Hawks with just my wife and I and our son Ryder. I was going with all of Cougar Nation. And as I arrived in Atlanta, you go with such an incredible foundation of friends and influences that, yeah, you go into your career differently than most people.
And then you go into Atlanta and Georgia, which we love, and the South and the food and everything. I got so many good things to say about it. But you land into a place where you find Cougar Nation again. How is this possible? When we go to church and you find another group of people that just love you and will embrace you and help you, and you have diverse talents, but not diverse values. And that has been an incredible blessing throughout my life, more than you know anything else, achieving that NBA dream.
18:49
Jon Ryan Jensen: “Diverse talents, but not diverse values.” I love that thought. For people who don’t know that NBA draft class, it included players like Dwyane Wade, Carmelo Anthony and some guy who’s still playing, LeBron James.
Travis Hansen: Chris Bosh, Luke Walton, Jarvis Hayes, the great guys, great players.
19:14
Jon Ryan Jensen: Long-term players, coaches and guys who, like you, have been around the game their entire lives and love it. Your time in the NBA was a little shorter than some of those guys, but your journey playing professional basketball and your chance to take your testimony with you and take that bubble with you that you just talked about extended, then, to both Spain and Russia.
And yes, if we could sit here all day, I would love to hear all the stories about playing in both of those places. But as it pertains to the Church News podcast, my big interest right now is: What was it like to go knowing that you were going to have maybe a little bit of a Church member spotlight put on you in each of those places? And what experiences did you have, then, with a growing young family going to Spain and then to Moscow?
20:05
Travis Hansen: It was life-changing in such a positive, incredible way. We know the Lord’s hand was with us and guiding us to go travel the world. And how many people pay quite a bit of money to go live in Spain? It’s like, “Sure, that sounds awesome.”
Jon Ryan Jensen: I would have taken it.
Travis Hansen: Yeah. Why not? So let’s go play for Real Madrid, one of the most prestigious, amazing clubs in the world, and get paid to go live there and get — sure. And then you go there, and it’s 100 times better than you thought it would be. The wonderful members of the Church in Madrid, the players, the fans, the food, the cultures.
The farthest my wife had been previous to that was Oklahoma. Her dad did a training for his job, and they pulled out the old station wagon and drove to Oklahoma. So now, since we’ve met, she’s already been to Atlanta, Georgia, and quite a bit around the nation in the United States of America. And now, taking her to Spain, and it was fun to see her embrace it and embrace the culture.
21:09
Jon Ryan Jensen: And you already had a little bit of an advantage because you spoke Spanish.
Travis Hansen: That’s a huge advantage.
Jon Ryan Jensen: Does she speak any Spanish?
Travis Hansen: Nope.
Jon Ryan Jensen: She’s learning culture, distance, language.
Travis Hansen: Yup. And I’m learning a different kind of dialect of Spanish, compared to Castellanos in Chile, but they were pretty shocked that I spoke Spanish, and then that opened incredible doors to talk about the gospel and about missionary work.
And even in Russia, we are actually dealing with some infertility problems. We were in the Marriott Center. This is my senior year, and — maybe it was my junior year — at a devotional, and a little cute family in front of us had a little baby, a little newborn. As we’re listening, we see this little family in front of us, and we both get the impression, “You’re going to have a hard time having kids.”
We think, “What? We want a big family. We want a large family. We come from large families. That’s like the great —” And we didn’t, we — not to begin with. We had Ryder right away. And then after that —
Jon Ryan Jensen: Who was there with you your senior year.
Travis Hansen: Yeah, who ended up being senior year. Came out my senior graduation with little Ryder, holding him in front of all the fans, 20,000 fans. Everyone got to know Ryder. And then after that, every child we had, all four, were miracles. Wife praying and fighting and struggling and going through doctors, everything we could. And so we found ourselves in Russia right after my wife had her second miscarriage, one of the hardest times in our life.
No. 1, you’re away from family, millions miles away, and then you’re away from the comforts of your home and from family and doctors that you know. And it was really, really hard. And I found my wife with the New Testament, with the Bible, reading in Matthew 11:28-30, reading about Jesus, and that said a lot about her — how she would, in her direst of times and when she’s struggling, where she goes to find answers, where she goes to find peace and joy.
There’s nothing she wanted more than to be a mom. And it hurt me as her husband seeing her go through this, and then obviously I wanted to have a large family. And so she’s reading in Matthew, and all of a sudden she gets up and says, “We’re not here for basketball.” I said, “What do you mean we’re not here in Moscow, Russia, for basketball?” She says, “No, we’re not here for basketball. We’re here to help people. We’re here to lift people up.”
So she starts to volunteer with our driver, as he would take her after they dropped me off at practice and then drive around, and find orphanages or find different places that we could help. She found the answer to her prayers — when she’s challenged and when we’re all struggling the most, the answer is to serve and to stop thinking about yourself and your own problems, but to look outward and do something for someone else. And she found amazing opportunities.
I remember we were sitting down as a family, we’re kneeling down in a Moscow apartment, 16th floor of the building, it had like 20 locks on it, and praying for opportunities to help others. I think the first time we’d done that as a couple, and they came. And so we found out quickly that we were not in Europe for basketball, that we were there to learn and to progress and to meet amazing people, but also to help as many people as we could.
24:34
Jon Ryan Jensen: I hear a lot of what you just said and think about Elder Ulisses Soares from the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and he and his wife, Rosana, have talked about a similar journey with miscarriages in their family. And Elder Soares talked about that in France last year, in 2024, and coming out on the other side of it. And he talks about that loneliness — being in a new place, feeling like there was no physical support system around them.
And when he talked about the growth that they had together as a couple and really searching, the way that you talk about you and your wife searching, then “What is the purpose that we have here?” I love what Elder Soares said afterward. He said, “We felt the promises of the Savior, Jesus Christ, to us. I felt so much joy in my heart, a joy that I cannot describe. Like Ammon said, ‘How grateful we are for this gospel. How blessed we are for Jesus Christ.’”
And it sounds like that’s what you all were feeling at that same time, was, “Yes, this is a challenge, and yet we have an opportunity to go and make something positive out of this and share joy with other people.”
So, being in that scenario, for all the good intentions that you have individually and as a couple, professional basketball is what professional basketball is. And I imagine that living that life is not just a gold-paved pathway to blessing other people’s lives, that there are some challenges that can come with that too, some temptation, whether that’s for the money or the attention or other temptations that come with that kind of a career.
How did you navigate that? And did you see a lot of that in your experience?
26:18
Travis Hansen: The locker room is a place of joy and happiness and dancing when you win, and complete devastation and a funeral when you lose. And it can also be a place of immense happiness and fun and jokes and teammates. And sometimes it gets inappropriate, but it was an incredible experience.
And then when you do get in that professional world, which I assume — not just professional basketball, but all kinds of careers you put yourself in — there’s pressure. And there’s pressure on student athletes and young single adults nowadays, and the last thing you need in that career is more pressure. You need encouragement, you need hope, you need happiness, you need Jesus Christ, you need the prophet and apostles, you need general conference.
And what you find yourself in, at least I did in that professional world, is an incredible amount of temptation, incredible amount of people that have dropped their values and potentially are trying to get you to make poor choices.
27:18
Jon Ryan Jensen: So now it’s almost the opposite of what you talked about with Atlanta, where now you’ve got some people who share a value of winning in a basketball game, but that might be where those shared values kind of ended?
Travis Hansen: I agree, yeah. And so you have to be careful to surround yourself with good people, but also what you listen to and what you think about and who you spend your time with. And it goes back to being in the right place at the right time. And my wife has been incredible at this, is teaching about Jesus and how when He fasted for 40 days and 40 nights, He was able to understand that that was from Satan, and give Satan a scripture (see Matthew 4).
And something empowers us. The most repeated scripture in the Church is the sacrament scripture, where we promise that we’ll believe and remember Jesus Christ. We’ve chosen — our first scripture was Helaman 5:12 as a family. And I found it to be incredibly useful and influential that as soon as I start to mention this scripture, my thoughts become cleaner, my actions, the temptations go away.
And so we say, when our sons or other people or ourselves have temptation or fleeing thoughts — and these can also be “I’m feeling depressed” or “I’m feeling sad” or “I just don’t feel good today” — then I say: “And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall” (Helaman 5:12).
You get through that scripture — I’ve never had anything in my life that was more powerful than that. And it puts you in the right mindset. It cleanses you. It allows you to have a little bit more clarity mentally in what you need to accomplish. The temple does that for us incredibly well. When I go through the temple, I have this clarity as I’m leaving the temple that, “Man, I was worrying about such trivial things. Now I’m very clear in exactly what I need to accomplish and what I need to do with my family or my career.”
And so, we found that throughout our lives, in your professional life, that if you surround yourself with the right voices and the right influences, you’ll get off the iron rod a little bit, but never too far. And then eventually you’re so on the iron rod that the only desire you have is just like Lehi, you’re just trying to get other people on, and you’re just trying to lift them up and bring them. And it’s been fun to see it in our life.
We weren’t always like this in our 20s, and it’s fun to — other people grabbed us. Our branch president, Kent and Janet Russ, in Moscow, Russia, they came to our apartment in Moscow, Russia, and they got us. They said, “Do you know where the branch is?” “No.” “Do you know when sacrament starts?” “No.” “We’ll come pick you up. We’ll come and take you.” And they changed our life forever.
We saw it when we moved here to Orem, Utah. Bob and Kathy Rowe came and said, “Have you guys ever done ‘Come, Follow Me’ on Sundays with our family?” “No.” “Do you want to come? Have you done it yourself as a family?” “No, not really.” “Come to our family, come over to our house Sunday. We’re going to have a wonderful meal.” It always helps if they have good food.
And then they just did an easy, cute lesson. Changed our life forever. “Well, we want to be like that. We want to be like Bob and Kathy.” So we implemented it in our family. So little by little, you pick up traditions, and you see people you want to be like, and it forever changes your life. And it’s changed our life forever.
30:39
Jon Ryan Jensen: And it’s one thing when somebody tells you, “Hey, you need to do this.” It’s another when they’ll bring you into their fold, so to speak, and model it for you, and then you get to go back and say, “What did we like out of what the Rowes were doing? How do we apply that in our family?”
I think it’s worth mentioning, too, every scripture you’ve said so far — people aren’t watching this, so they don’t know — but you’re quoting all of these. You have these ingrained in you. And as I was listening to you say the words from Helaman 5:12, what you said before that reminded me of President Russell M. Nelson, President of the Church, that in the closing address that he gave at our most recent general conference, when he talked about having virtuous thoughts.
And he said, “The Lord tells us to garnish our thoughts unceasingly with virtue. Imagine the boost you will receive to any positive thought when you enhance it with virtue.” So that’s what I’m hearing you say, Travis: Virtue makes everything better and happier. “On the other hand, imagine what will happen when you add virtue to an impure thought, a cruel thought or a depressing thought. Virtue will drive away those thoughts. Virtue will free you from anxious, troublesome thoughts.”
31:55
Travis Hansen: I love that. It’s so nice to have a living prophet guiding us and helping us. He’s absolutely amazing. One thing we love, too, that he said recently is: “The joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives.” And these young athletes or young single adults, when they come over to our house for Sunday dinners, we tell them, “Look, you can go sign this amazing NIL deal, or you could go get your dream job. But nothing will bring you happiness more than focusing your life on Jesus Christ.”
And President Russell M. Nelson said this when he said the most important question you’ll ever ask yourselves is: To what or to whom will you give your life? And then he answered it with the most important thing he’s ever done was to give his life to Jesus Christ. And so how do you get there? Well, it’s relationships and it’s kindness and it’s common interests.
And how many Seventies and Area Authorities and branch presidents came to my games in Spain and Russia? They’re probably bored, but they came, and they helped support us, and we’ve learned these little amazing traditions.
And so when this amazing young man named Egor Demin came from Moscow, Russia, and he chose to come to BYU to play basketball last year, the first thing we did was have him over for Sunday dinner, because we had been taught that that is something we want to do for others. And he came, and he liked it, and then he loved it, and then he loved our family. And it’s really hard not to love our family when we have a little 7-year-old named Gwen that runs at you as soon as you come to the front door and hugs you. Something about that melts your heart.
And I think it’s completely changed Egor’s life, seeing what a family can be and what a family looks like. He comes from a family that’s divorced. He comes from a family that’s Orthodox Catholic but doesn’t really understand the depths of Christianity. And I think his eyes have been opened to what real joy and real peace is, and he’s starting to really, really like it and ask more and more questions.
And isn’t that what life’s all about? By having these awesome relationships, that tends to lead into “Talk about what you like.” And it goes back to what my wife said: “Are you going to teach him about basketball? Or are you going to teach him about something a little bit more important?” And sometimes you start with basketball and end up in a place where I think the Savior would be pleased.
34:25
Jon Ryan Jensen: So just to hear you talk about, I mean, I’m watching you recall the moments when you’re being invited to go with the Rowes, and then I’m watching you tell the same story on the other side and become the Rowes, in a way, where you’re inviting someone. And I imagine that that’s — there’s a lot of fulfillment that comes from that for you personally, too, because you — similar to the experiences from being in the mission — you go, and you might go because you clicked on that terms and conditions box, but then you grow to become a certain kind of missionary who loves sharing the gospel.
You grow and learn your temple covenants with your wife together, and now you’re continuing that with the fulfillment of those two verses that we use as the prayers over the sacrament every week. You’re taking His name upon you and sharing that with other people so that they too can have that joy. Just that whole path is continuous.
And so now you have that chance, but basketball’s still not over. Your name was recently included as perhaps being a candidate for another basketball role — this time, maybe in a front office.
So for you, what does it look like now as you try to continue to be in the right place, as you’ve talked about, counseling others?
35:42
Travis Hansen: Well, we’ve been incredibly blessed. It started with my parents. Having good parents is such a blessing, and then we just had incredible influences around us throughout our lives.
And lately, there’s been so many miracles. We counted seven the other day that happened in the last 18 months that are helping prepare our family for something different. It feels like something’s in the works, and you start to feel it together. And then my wife will — we listened to a talk the other day that was so good. It was a BYU devotional by Brother Gabe Reid. It was amazing.
Jon Ryan Jensen: Who’s now a counselor in the Sunday School general presidency.
36:21
Travis Hansen: Yeah. He’s awesome. And it was very revelatory. An aspect of — it just blessed our life. It gave us peace, it gave us happiness, and it was an answer to our prayers.
And that’s the fun part about the gospel, to be honest, is No. 1, I hope everyone has a transformational experience, like Paul on the road of Damascus (Acts 9). Like, I hope everyone at some point has to really choose whether they want to be all in or not. And I did, 100% did, and then my wife did. And we could have been kind of all in, and then at some point there in Russia, we made a choice, and it helped with all these influences to help us, but we love it. And now it’s, “Well, what are you going to do?”
And I remember our Savior in Matthew 8, 9 — we kind of get to see His life, a day in the life of Jesus, and He’s a worker, and He’s a doer, and He’s blessing, and He’s healing, He’s casting out devils, He’s so busy. And at the very end, He’s — I like to think He’s on the Sea of Galilee; I don’t know exactly where He was — but He kneels down and says a prayer to Heavenly Father, and He says, “The people are distracted and fatigued and tired.”
And we see that in today’s world — we’re distracted, iPhones, we’re tired, depression, anxiety, we’re fatigued. “I need more help.” And so, in times where I feel tired because of my calling or my kids or fatigue, I don’t want to wake up in the morning, I try to think that Jesus is calling me, that He’s asking, “Look, I need more help. I can’t do this all myself. I’m a one-man shop over here trying to do it all. And I really just — please, Heavenly Father, will You send more help?”
And so I want to be one of them. I look at — we got the opportunity to go to Rome, Italy, and it was amazing. And we went inside the visitors’ center of the Rome Italy Temple. And in there you see our Savior — the Christus — it’s amazing. And then behind Him is all these disciples. And the disciples — you sometimes look at, and they’re all the same size, and the statues all look kind of the same. You start to think in the gospel, maybe there’s a cookie cutter that you have to be.
And then you start to learn about their stories. And you have “doubting Thomas,” who had a hard time believing. And if you have a hard time believing the gospel of Jesus Christ, there’s still room for you to be a disciple. And then you look at James and John, and they kind of like nice stuff. They wanted certain things in heaven.
Jon Ryan Jensen: “And why don’t we have this here? And when are we going to get that?”
38:56
Travis Hansen: And if you’re like that, there’s still room for you to be a disciple. And then you see Peter, who is my favorite, and he’s impetuous and brash and even cuts people’s ears off (see John 18:10). And if you’re like that, there’s still room for you to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.
And so it makes me feel like that’s OK if I’m not perfect, but there is room, and He is calling you, and He will not stop calling you. And sometimes it’s through a bishop, then sometimes it’s through a general conference talk, and lots of times it’s through His prophet — that He’ll never stop calling you, that He needs more.
And there’s room, no matter what you look like and what you’re like and what weaknesses you think you have — that there’s room for all of us to be disciples of Jesus Christ. And so it makes me happy. The gospel makes me happy to share my story of grace and to double down on kids that are like me. “Are you an athlete? Are you struggling? Maybe you’re not the best at school, maybe you’re not the best at making choices. Maybe your playlist isn’t the best right now. Let’s talk about it, and let’s help each other out.”
And I’ll be there along the way, and I’ll give you the skills and encouragement that I wish I had when I was younger. And it’s working. And you see it with Egor. And with Egor, who’s probably an NBA lottery draft pick, who’s an amazing young man, who came all the way from Moscow, Russia, to try to reach his dreams. And we’re with him in L.A., and he shows me his phone while everyone’s eating — my kids and my wife — and he says, “Look what I listened to today.” I look down, and it’s “Gethsemane.”
I’m like, “OK, give me a hug. You’re my favorite. You’re listening to ‘Gethsemane.’ You’re 19 years old. How mature are you? What an old soul.” And if we had a little part to play in that, how could you not want more of that? And so the gospel does so much good, and it does so much good to us, and it lights a fire — if you do it the right way — to go and share it, and share in the right way. And you can start with Sunday dinners.
40:52
Jon Ryan Jensen: So many examples of individuals — whether they are Apostles or just normal members, regular, everyday members of the Church — who are using their talents to do certain things. And Heavenly Father is also putting them in positions to develop a talent that either they feel like they don’t have or didn’t know they were going to need to develop in this life.
And so as I hear you telling that story, I can feel a little bit of, “Yeah, I don’t know 100% what’s next. But I’ve developed a trust in Heavenly Father, that wherever it is that He does put me, I’ve had enough experience to know it’s going to be for our good as a family, my good personally, and that I’m going to be able to help Him, because He put me there.” And that’s an immense amount of faith to develop in life.
Travis, as we come to the end of the podcast, we have a tradition where we love to give our guests the final word. And throughout all of this journey that you have been on, I would love to give you a chance now to share: What do you know now after all of those things that you have experienced in your life?
41:59
Travis Hansen: I’m grateful. I’m grateful for this earth life. It’s an amazing experience. It’s hard, and it’s supposed to be hard, and it’s challenging, and it’s supposed to be challenging. But He gives us help, and He gives us guidance, and He gives us a living prophet that will guide us and help us. And He’s given us scriptures and families, and I’m forever grateful for Jesus Christ — for His example, for His kindness, for His grace. That He was always so disciplined and structured to do what His Heavenly Father wanted Him to do, more than what He wanted to do.
And as I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned more and more. And I’m excited to see what else I’m going to learn, because I love to learn, and I love to figure things out. And my covenants just mean so much to me. They just mean so much. The promises that you make in the temple, if you’ll spend time on them and you’ll understand them — and I’m trying to even more than I ever have — that there’s just an incredible power that will help you get through your day, that will help you get through any challenge.
It could still be hard. You might lose your mom to pancreatic cancer. You might have to go through some really hard things. But there’s power in your covenants. And besides my love and faith in Jesus Christ, my wife and kids and my covenants have grown over 20 years to mean so much to me. And for that, I’m incredibly grateful.
43:40
Jon Ryan Jensen: Thank you for listening to the Church News podcast. I’m your host, Church News editor Jon Ryan Jensen. I hope you learned something today about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and had your faith in the Savior increase by looking through the Church News window as a living record of the Restoration. Please subscribe, rate and review this podcast so it can be accessible to more people. And if you enjoyed the messages we shared today, please share the podcast with others. Thanks to our guests; to my producer, KellieAnn Halvorsen; and to others who make this podcast possible. Join us every week for a new episode. Find us on your favorite podcasting channels or with other news and updates about the Church on TheChurchNews.com or on the Church News app.
