Honesty, integrity
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"Some of the greatest missing values in today's world are honesty and integrity," said Bishop Richard C. Edgley, first counselor in the Presiding Bishopric.
Speaking in the Sunday morning session, Bishop Edgley added, "Always this dishonesty and lack of integrity is based on greed, arrogance and disrespect."
He said that as a young college student, he had a summer job at Jackson Lake Lodge in Moran, Wyoming. At the end of the summer, he made the 185-mile journey home in a 14-year-old Hudson with a cracked engine block. He called his arrival home a miracle, and was happily greeted by his father, who then noticed in the back seat "three Jackson Lake Lodge towels — the kind you cannot buy."
Bishop Edgley recalled, "With a disappointed look he merely said, 'I expected more from you."'
The impact of a 370-mile round trip return to the lodge, in the still-unreliable automobile, to return the towels "was an expensive and painful lesson on honesty that has stayed with me throughout my life."
The lesson's impact affected him during an experience in Chicago's O'Hare Airport years later. He was traveling with business associates, one of whom was very wealthy but still put a single quarter into a newspaper vending machine, opened it and distributed a newspaper to each of those accompanying him.
After receiving his newspaper, Bishop Edgley said, he went to the machine and put a quarter in, saying he wouldn't compromise his integrity for 25 cents. "You see, I remembered well the experience of three towels and a broken-down 1941 Hudson."
He said his example was followed when he noticed his associate later feeding quarters into the vending machine.
Such honesty must be felt in the heart and should be taught in the home to children at an early age, he said.
"My prayer is that as Latter-day Saints we will be known as among the most honest people in the world," he concluded.
