Speeches by Topic Topics | Initiative
Four years ago I arrived at BYU with lofty expectations. I expected to grow intellectually and spiritually. I expected to be instant friends with my freshman roommates. I expected my classes to be a breeze because I was smart. I expected to graduate unmarried. I expected to broaden my horizons and learn as much as I could. I’m guessing we all had various expectations as we arrived here, some outrageous and some reasonable. If your experience has been like mine, all of your expectations were not met, but I would surmise that our unmet expectations, whatever they were, brought good things to
As I begin I would like to give special thanks to my wife and my best friend, Janice, who has been such a wonderful companion and influence in my life. Sweetheart, I love you with all my heart and thank you for being you.
As I prayed about and pondered what I should say today, I turned to a study of our Savior’s life, beginning with the first recorded knowledge we have of Him. In Abraham 3:22 we read about the premortal Grand Council that was held in heaven. There God the Father laid out the plan whereby the world would be created, and we would be sent to prove ourselves.
Then
At nine o’clock on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings, in a plain room on the bottom floor of the Jesse Knight Humanities Building, I attended my first English class at Brigham Young University—a class about writing for the social sciences in which the first 10 minutes of discussion was only rarely related to the syllabus. The professor was passionate and inspiring, and he got a thrill out of bantering with us about art, politics, and the idiosyncrasies of life on campus. He would show us ragged torn-out pages from his favorite art books, inspire us by reading aloud fantastic examples o
At about the time that you graduates were being born, I was invited to speak at a conference to be held in St. Louis. My wife, Jeanne, thought it was a wonderful opportunity for our children to see the famous Saint Louis Zoo, so I accepted the conference option of applying the cost of an airplane ticket toward driving.
We stuffed the children into our small car and headed east. Our budget-control plan pushed us into hamburger stands for lunch and dinner during our trip. In those days we used to say, “We were broke all week, so we had hamburgers.” Nowadays, with our grandchildren, we
