{"id":1614,"date":"2010-09-28T22:11:46","date_gmt":"2010-09-29T04:11:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/speeches.byu.edu\/?p=1614"},"modified":"2023-08-10T16:01:19","modified_gmt":"2023-08-10T22:01:19","slug":"saving-lives","status":"publish","type":"speech","link":"https:\/\/speeches.byu.edu\/talks\/alton-l-thygerson\/saving-lives\/","title":{"rendered":"Saving Lives"},"content":{"rendered":"

I admire those with musical talent. I sometimes wonder where I was when that type of talent was handed out. A best-selling book claims there is a way to excel. It claims that some of the greatest athletes, entrepreneurs, scientists, and musicians emerge after spending 10,000 hours in their chosen field as they master it. The book includes examples such as the musically talented Beatles and computer savvy Bill Gates, each of whom expended 10,000 hours of work in a specific field before achieving expertise.1<\/sup><\/p>\n

I was raised in the mission field and had never seen more than 200 Latter-day Saints together. When 200 Church members were seen together it was either at a district conference or while visiting relatives in the small Mormon community of Virden, New Mexico.<\/p>\n

Many of you can relate to having a similar background. Some of you can recall that the average Sunday meeting attendance was 25 people. Meetings were held in a rented building, and often cigarette butts and beer cans left by another group\u2019s Saturday night festivities had to be picked up.<\/p>\n

My sister and I were the only Latter-day Saints in our high school. I remember receiving the advice that it is best to marry a Church member and that the marriage should be in the temple. As a teenager, I would look around and wonder, \u201cWell, who is that going to be?\u201d<\/p>\n

My father received a promotion that necessitated moving to another town. In high school I was a stranger among my new classmates. On the first day in my American history class the teacher asked questions that served both as a preview of the course and as an attempt to arouse interest in history. Examples included<\/p>\n