'In your hands' — Future is up to you, students told
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Speaking of the challenges facing young people today, President Thomas S. Monson told the students of BYU on Jan. 20, "The future is in your hands, the outcome is up to you."
Then, to aid them in these challenges, he offered advice, "which, as you follow it, will greatly aid you and will help provide the happiness you seek:
- "Live within your means.
- "Stand firm for truth.
- "Find joy in service."
Addressing students packed in the Marriott Center for BYU's weekly devotional, President Monson, first counselor in the First Presidency, shared some humorous "heart stoppers" before elaborating on his three points of advice.
One "heart stopper" occurred about 35 years ago while in the temple one morning. He expressed the desire for the saints in the German Democratic Republic to have the General Handbook of Instructions in their own language but said it was impossible because the borders were closed and literature forbidden. Then-Elder Spencer W. Kimball suggested he memorize the handbook and they would send him across the border.
"I laughed, and then I looked at him. He was dead serious. The man meant what he said. Believe me, this was a 'heart stopper.' "
President Monson did learn the contents of the handbook and went into East Berlin. There, he sat down at a typewriter and began to type the contents of the handbook as he remembered them. Then, 30 pages into his work, he stood up and saw a "familiar looking volume" on a bookcase shelf. To his atonishment, he realized it was the General Handbook in German.
"This was a real 'heart stopper.' All my efforts had been in vain. But for the next few years, until we revised it, I was pretty well an authority on the General Handbook of Instructions," President Monson said to the laughter of the students.
Continuing, President Monson elaborated on his three points of advice:
- "First, live within your means." Speaking of the excessive debt "some
of our people are piling up," President Monson referred to high interest
rates on credit cards and of the advertising temptation of home equity
loans — or second mortgages.
"If you use a credit card, pay the remaining balance promptly. Don't stretch your payments out," he counseled, saying there will be some things, such as an affordable home or transportation, where reasonable debt is acceptable. "To be avoided is unwise borrowing for things one really does not absolutely need."
- "Second, this advice: Stand firm for truth. We are surrounded on every
side today by that which would drag us down."
President Monson spoke of today's rebirth of Sodom and Gomorrah, depicting the malady of "pernicious permissiveness. We have the capacity and the responsibility to stand as a bulwark between all we hold dear and the fatal contamination of such sin. An understanding of who we are and what God expects us to become will prompt us to pray — as individuals and as families. . . . Let us shun those things which will drag us down. Let our hearts be pure. Let our lives be clean."
- "Third, find joy in service." President Monson then shared "an experience very close to my heart of inspiration which came to me, providing an opportunity for service."
A long-time friend of his, an all-star football player and robust athlete, was stricken with a malady that left him in a wheelchair. One day, as President Monson was swimming at Deseret Gym, "there came to my mind the thought, 'Here you swim almost effortlessly, while your friend Stan languishes in his hospital bed, unable to move.' I felt the prompting: 'Get to the hospital and give him a blessing.' "
He quickly dressed, went to the hospital, found his friend sitting by the pool, totally despondent, waiting for his therapy. President Monson took him to his room and provided a blessing. "One day, a year or so later, there was a knock at my office door, and in walked my friend who had been told he would never walk again. . . . He expressed to me his gratitude for the inspiration which had come to me that day in the swimming pool at the Deseret Gym.
"Opportunities to give of ourselves are indeed limitless, but they are also perishable. There are hearts to gladden. There are kind words to say. There are gifts to be given. There are deeds to be done. There are souls to be saved."
E-mail: julied@desnews.com
