A Sense of Prophetic Urgency

Thank you, Wendy, for bringing your whole soul to this campus. I love you.

And to each of you, my friends, welcome back to campus! What a wonderful Christmas break!

Wendy and I hope it was a special time for each of you to reflect on the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ. Last semester, President D. Todd Christofferson taught us so poignantly about the significance of “the condescension of God”¹—Christ’s willingness to come down from on high to be here with us, to be born humbly, and to fulfill His infinite atoning sacrifice and miraculous Resurrection. The Latin roots for condescension mean “to come down with.” Even His name points to Him being with us. You see, Immanual means “God with us.”²

This new year—and this new semester—offers you and me an opportunity to renew our faith in Jesus Christ, to hope for good things to come, and to make plans to become the person God needs each of us to become. It’s okay to feel a bit of divine discontent and some holy hastening in our efforts to become Christ’s disciples.

I also hope you received everything on your Christmas wish list—including, maybe, even a few Pop-Tarts in your stockings.

How about those Cougars?!

One thing I know is that Coach Kalani Sitake received a few Pop-Tarts this year. I’m honestly a little worried that Pop-Tarts might actually try to hire Coach Sitake away from us.

You see, after a video of our coach absolutely destroying a Pop-Tart in record time went viral, even Joey Chestnut, the competitive eating champion of the world, acknowledged that our coach has game.³ And I have to say that I agree. But even more impressive and beautiful was how Coach Sitake redirected the attention of 8.7 million viewers right to where it should be. When asked about the impact of BYU’s senior class, he responded:

These guys are great spiritual men. They have a testimony and a belief in the gospel of Jesus Christ. We get to celebrate Christ’s birth around this time. So I’m really thankful that I get to be around faithful men. And these guys have taught me a lot—and I’m still learning.⁴

ESPN’s Quint Kessenich, who had asked the question about the senior players, observed, “Faith, football, and love—you talk about it all the time.”⁵ Now that is a fabulous example of what it means to have the courage to be different.

Two Mighty Prophets, Seers, and Revelators

This year is a truly historic year at Brigham Young University, and not just because it’s our 150th anniversary or because millions of people are tuning in to watch our student athletes or because our incredible performing artists are sharing their gifts around the globe or because we’re now a Research 1 institution or because this past year’s fundraising—which, by the way, is almost entirely aimed at aiding you students in your studies and in experiential learning opportunities—shattered all historical records.

While all that is impressive and notable and good, what is really unique and remarkable this year is the service, light, and learning you bring to this campus—all of which reflect the light of Jesus Christ.

As I walked around this campus on the first day of classes, I was struck by the light in your eyes. Wendy and I love you—more deeply than you can possibly imagine. And we can’t wait to make this semester something memorable and impactful right alongside you.

In his prophetic address “The Second Century of Brigham Young University,” President Spencer W. Kimball foresaw your unique light and “the unique light” of this university.⁶ He foresaw the “Christ-centered, prophetically directed university” that BYU could become.⁷ He foresaw “brilliant stars”⁸ refined on this campus going out to shine and serve the world over. He saw you.

One of those brightest, most brilliant stars is our beloved President Jeffrey R. Holland. He truly was and is a special witness of the name of Jesus Christ.⁹ As you know, on December 27, 2025, President Holland was reunited with his beloved wife, Pat, and with His Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, to whom President Holland pledged his everything and to whom he gave his all.

Today I’d like to share just a few lessons and teachings from the lives of two mighty prophets, seers, and revelators who have shaped, influenced, and inspired this campus for the past 50 years: President Jeffrey R. Holland and President Dallin H. Oaks, our beloved prophet and president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

If there were ever two patron saints of BYU, they would surely be President Holland and President Oaks. Their influence on this campus during this second century is immeasurable and ongoing. It will endure forever. And equally important for you students, they both sat where you sit. They walked where you walk. Their paths, like yours, were not paved for them. Their households weren’t picture-perfect. But their faith in the Lord was and is extraordinary. They have always strived for educational and professional excellence and never deviated from the path of Christian discipleship.

They’ve done it all—as will you, I contend—with determination, hard work, support and encouragement from loved ones and Church leaders, and an unwavering faith.

They entered this school to learn, they went forth to serve, and they have never once stopped serving.

President Holland and President Oaks, of course, were back-to-back presidents of Brigham Young University from 1971 to 1989. Their combined tenures account for nearly 20 years of this school’s history. Both later chaired the executive committee of the BYU Board of Trustees. President Oaks subsequently served as a vice chairman and now presides as chairman of the BYU Board of Trustees. He is in a class of one, having graduated from both Brigham Young High School and Brigham Young University and having served as president of BYU and as chairman of its board.

There is much you and I can learn from the remarkable life and teachings of this mighty prophet. As Elder Neal A. Maxwell once taught from this pulpit, “The small talk of great men and women is worthwhile. We discover so many wonders when walking carefully through another’s garden.”¹⁰

When it comes to learning from the gardens of President Dallin H. Oaks and President Jeffrey R. Holland, count me a proud horticulturist.

One thing I’ve learned from each of them is their profound sense of prophetic urgency.

President Jeffrey R. Holland

President Holland spent weeks in a coma after the passing of Sister Holland. During that time he had a spiritual—even sacred—experience and awoke with a remarkable sense of prophetic urgency. President Holland recounted:

Virtually all my experience in the hospital during that first period is lost to my memory. What is not lost is my memory of a journey outside the hospital, out to what seemed the edge of eternity. I cannot speak fully of that experience here, but I can say that part of what I received was an admonition to return to my ministry with more urgency, more consecration, more focus on the Savior, more faith in His word.¹¹

In another setting, President Holland elaborated on that experience:

For four weeks I was somewhere with a foot in another world. And [there were] two lessons that I was given there and in effect told to take back to the Church. . . .

[The first lesson was] pray more than you pray. . . .

I took that to be part of this hastening—the hastening of the work, the hastening of family history and every other aspect of our work. Missionary work and all else. . . .

The other lesson was to testify, to be a witness. And however much you testify, testify more.¹²

When good things are on the horizon, you can’t help but want to hasten them along. President Holland and President Oaks have taught us time and time again that with Christ, good things are ahead.

On a rainy day on our campus, President Holland—then BYU’s ninth president—saw a student caught in the downpour. The student’s name was Matt. President Holland rolled down his car window and beckoned Matt to come over. Sister Holland was in the car as well, and the Hollands offered Matt a ride home.

Unbeknownst to the Hollands, Matt was uncertain about his future and didn’t know if he could “make it.” But as they drove Matt to his apartment—in the very same complex where President and Sister Holland had themselves once lived—he opened up about his worries, and they assured Matt he could and he would make it.

“Matt, part of your problem is that you don’t believe,” President Holland finally put it bluntly.

“Oh, I’m not talking about your testimony,” he went on. Rather, “you just believe that God will work His mighty miracles for everyone but you.”

And then President Holland underscored the point: “You gotta believe, Matt. You gotta believe.”¹³

Elder Matthew O. Richardson would go on to serve as BYU’s advancement vice president, as a mission leader together with his wife, Lisa, as a member of the Sunday School general presidency, and now as an Area Seventy. Elder Richardson teaches on our faculty as a professor of Church history and doctrine.

You just gotta believe.

That was the same admonition President Holland received on a summer day in August 1963—also on BYU’s campus. He arrived in Provo, in his own words, with a “new family, new life, new education, [but] no money and no confidence.”

“Do you think we can do it?” he asked his wife, Pat. “Do you think we can compete with all these people in all these buildings who know so much more than we do and are so able? Do you think we’ve made a mistake? . . . Do you think we should withdraw and go home?”

“She grabbed me by the lapels,” President Holland recounted. And then Pat fiercely declared, “We are not going back. We are not going home. The future holds everything for us.”¹⁴

Thirty-six years later, as President Holland reflected in general conference on the trials of an earlier time, he offered this fervent counsel to his younger self—and, I say, by extension, to each of us here today:

“Don’t give up, boy. Don’t you quit. You keep walking. You keep trying. There is help and happiness ahead—a lot of it—30 years of it now, and still counting. You keep your chin up. It will be all right in the end. Trust God and believe in good things to come.”¹⁵

In that message and throughout his remarkable ministry, President Holland testified of the Savior in His merciful role as our “high priest of good things to come.”¹⁶

President Dallin H. Oaks

Jesus Christ is the master of better things and better days. President Dallin H. Oaks shares this sense of prophetic urgency for “good things to come.”

After his inaugural year as president of BYU, the Provo Daily Herald ran a story about the “dynamic, youthful” Dallin H. Oaks. It read, in part:

With hardly time to get his feet wet, he adopted a new [academic] calendar, made plans for an addition to the library, involved students in fundraising, discontinued one college and reorganized two others, reemphasized the university’s no-nonsense policy on dress and behavior, set up programs to tighten and improve the curriculum, and initiated a whole series of moves to delegate authority to deans, department chair[s] and faculty and to clarify lines of operation.¹⁷

Whew! I’m tired just reading that.

It’s worth noting that President Oaks accomplished all this while simultaneously setting up BYU’s Law School—which, according to his biographer, “required finding a dean, identifying faculty, locating space for the first classes, acquiring a law library, and planning to construct a new law building.”¹⁸

President Oaks learned from a very early age to trust in Jesus Christ, to have faith that better days are ahead, and to believe in good things to come—even when things seem bleak.

In his October 2025 general conference address, President Oaks described the harrowing season that followed his father’s passing.¹⁹ Not only did he lose his father, but, six months later, his mom was away for an extended period,

anxious to qualify herself to earn a living for her three children . . . [by] pursu[ing] a master’s degree at Columbia University. [But, as President Oaks has recounted,] this proved to be too soon. The loneliness resulting from this separation from her family so soon after the loss of her husband, combined with the rigors of graduate study, strained her beyond the breaking point. In May 1941 [his mother] suffered . . . a nervous breakdown, which required medical supervision away from her family for many months. With faith and priesthood blessings and the loving support of her family, she was able to resume her employability and unassisted parenting in August 1942. Her spiritual and emotional strength was felt throughout the remaining thirty-seven years of her life in her leadership and service in many professional, civic, and Church positions.²⁰

But while his mother was away and then recovering from illness, President Oaks’s third- and fourth-grade years in elementary school were, as he described it, “terribly unhappy.” He was bullied on the school bus and playground. And his fourth-grade teacher required students to pass their “arithmetic papers forward to be graded publicly.” The teacher would then announce results, usually putting young Dallin “at the bottom of the class.”²¹

President Oaks later wrote: “I knew I was the dumbest boy in the room. I remember one occasion when some classmates threw snowballs at me and called me stupid.”²²

Things felt like they couldn’t get any lower. But Christ had other plans for this young man of promise who would someday stand out among the most respected legal minds in the world—so much so that the president of the United States seriously considered appointing him to the U.S. Supreme Court. Later still, he would be called as a prophet of God.

Things improved. The family moved and formed “a stable home.” The new school was better, and a new teacher with “a wise combination of confidence and challenge” helped President Oaks “back on the path of learning and gave [him] many happy memories.”²³

President Oaks observed:

These experiences taught me firsthand that when a person is not performing well, there are many possible reasons, some not of his [or her] own choosing. I am forever grateful for a marvelous mother and a wise and loving teacher. Their faith in me encouraged me in the thought that I could amount to something. . . .

Given love and opportunity, every child and adult can recover. All who know this and have the capacity to help others should assist as they can.²⁴

President Oaks is an unrelenting champion and a prophetic voice for stable families and for education. These are institutions that can help God’s children advance through the test of mortality and on into the eternities.

Just over two years ago, during my inaugural dinner, I had the privilege of sitting next to President Oaks and inquiring what guidance he would give to a new and green university president. After some reflection, President Oaks leaned back in his chair and said students today need models of civil dialogue and disagreement. There are too few examples of this in the public square, he observed, and it is incumbent upon BYU and other campuses to model it in our classrooms and throughout university life.

President Oaks has not just preached this principle from the pulpit—though he has done that masterfully and powerfully—but he has also lived it as a lifelong disciple of the Prince of Peace.

In the 1970s, when newly proposed federal regulations appeared to prohibit religious schools like BYU from having separate on-campus housing for men and women, President Oaks was given the chance to testify before Congress on the matter. He began not by condemning or attacking the proposal but by first expressing support for the new law’s “overall nondiscrimination objectives.” Only then, after this truthful and conciliatory statement, did President Oaks go on to make the case “that the proposed regulations went too far.”²⁵

President Oaks’s wise and honest approach proved persuasive. Over time, BYU was “granted an exemption from those requirements.”²⁶

President Oaks has been a guiding hand in efforts to protect religious freedom while moderating and unifying on contested issues.

I hope you fully appreciate the significance of having a prophet of God lead us in our day. I’ve witnessed the prophetic mantle descend on this mighty prophet who has been prepared for a time such as this.

Shortly after the passing of our beloved President Russell M. Nelson, our BYU academic vice president Justin Collings shared an experience of sitting next to a distinguished leader not of our faith who was visiting Church headquarters from overseas.

After this gentleman had heard President Oaks give some brief remarks, he turned to Vice President Collings and noted how impressed he was with the man who had just spoken.

Vice President Collings started to detail President Oaks’s background and professional accomplishments when this man interjected, as if Justin had missed the point: “No. He has a light. There is a light that shines from him. . . . He has a light that is different from anyone here.”

Vice President Collings then explained to the man that President Oaks had recently become the most senior leader of the Church.

With a look of great satisfaction, the man nodded and said, “Then may God grant him long life, that he may live and shine a light for your people and for the world.”

President Oaks is God’s prophet. In a masterful general conference message entitled “The Challenge to Become,” President Oaks invited all of us, with a sense of prophetic urgency, to “become”: “In contrast to the institutions of the world, which teach us to know something, the gospel of Jesus Christ challenges us to become something.”²⁷

Become Something: Become a Disciple

I pray that you will make the very most of your time at Brigham Young University. Become something: Become a disciple. Make the most of this semester, this week, this day. Make the most of your classes and your relationships on campus and in your wards and in your classes, as well as among your classmates and in your families. Seek out inspiring experiential learning opportunities.

I’m told that while President Holland was studying at Yale, a young woman interested in the Church asked him a challenging question. She said, in effect—and I’m paraphrasing—“Why is it necessary to join the Church? Why can’t you simply study the books and the teachings, take the good, and be on your way? Why do we need eternal covenants, a church, callings, and all the rest?”

President Holland wisely responded with a question of his own. He asked, in essence, whether this incredibly bright and promising young woman could call herself a graduate of Yale if all she did was read a few books that her professors recommended.

Reading books is important, but so too is attending class, grappling with the hard assignments, delving into a major, attending activities and lectures, and engaging in the intellectual and student life of the university—it’s all designed to help you become.

Please don’t miss the opportunity before you.

Wendy and I believe in you. President Holland believes in you. President Oaks, the living prophet and oracle of the living God, believes in you. Jesus Christ Himself bled and died because He believes in you. So, please, believe in yourself. Believe in Him “who is mighty to save.”²⁸

Believe in and work for those “good things to come.”

As this semester begins, I invite you to ask yourselves two questions:

• What is God revealing to you personally that asks for more urgency from you?
• What have prophets, seers, and revelators taught with urgency that invites you to act with an equal urgency?

To all within the sound of my voice, I want each of you to know that I know that Jesus is the Christ. He lives. Everything that is unfair in this life will be made right through His atoning sacrifice—not only in the eternities but much of it in the here and now. As Sister Holland tenderly reminded Jeffrey Holland, your future holds everything for you because of Him, even Jesus Christ.

In His sacred and holy name, I testify, even in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

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