Become “Golden Flakes” – Deseret News

The new apostle of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and president of BYU played a humorous joke on students at the start of Tuesday’s campus devotional.

Elder Patrick Kearon of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles noted that University President Shane Reese and his wife, Wendy, spoke at last week’s devotional, and then he asked President Reese to come to the podium with some materials. Elder Kearon asked, “Oh, is this the list?” Then he turned to the 13,515 students, faculty, and staff in the Marriott Center and said, “Here’s a list of those of you who weren’t here.”

After laughing along with the audience and with Reese smiling broadly, he joked, “The Reeses are still upset about your absence.” (For the record, attendance at both devotions was similar.)

Brother Kearon and his wife, Sister Jennifer Kearon, connected with the audience with a mix of spiritual encouragement, empathy and self-deprecation, rooted in his recent calling as an apostle and what he said was a last-minute speaking assignment.

“I have a special sensitivity to the newcomers among you, because I am one of them, feeling at least as raw and somewhat homesick as you,” said Elder Kearon, who joined the Quorum of the Twelve in December 2023.

Elder Gary E. Stevenson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles was scheduled to speak Tuesday, but the Kearons received the assignment late last week, Sister Kearon said.

“To say I’m surprised to be here is an understatement,” Elder Kearon said. “I apologize constantly that you don’t have, as I would say, a real apostle with you today. In fact, there was a high-ranking apostle scheduled, and he’ll be here in a few months.”

Become “gold flakes”

Brother Kearon invited the students to become gold flakes. He showed a story told by the late President M. Russell Ballard about a 49-year-old man who was angry to discover that the promise of gold nuggets so big he could barely carry them was in vain. Another man showed him how he had accumulated thousands of gold flakes and made a fortune.

“Like little flakes of gold that accumulate over time to form a great treasure, our small and simple acts of kindness and service will accumulate to give birth to a life filled with love for our Heavenly Father, devotion to the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, and a sense of peace and joy each time we reach out to one another,” he said.

Elder Kearon said a visit to BYU in his 20s was part of his two-year journey of conversion to the Church of Jesus Christ. He said he was struck by the beauty of BYU’s setting and by what he called the anxious commitment of BYU students.

“What was extraordinary were the students, and dear friends, you still are,” he said.

“You’re not supposed to be like everybody else,” he added. “You’re not supposed to be like every other student at every other university in the world. This university is supposed to be special. It’s supposed to be higher, holier, and, God knows, much more joyful. I pray that you’re like that.”

He said another key element of his conversion was the Latter-day Saint teaching that all human beings are spirit children of a loving Heavenly Father, and he urged students to deepen their understanding of that relationship and avoid becoming complacent about it.

Brother Kearon said the mission of BYU, the flagship school of the Church’s educational system, is to develop students who will take this and other truths with them when they graduate.

“This institution is not meant to be like other institutions,” he said. “It has been blessed, it has been consecrated so that you can come here and become ambassadors to take what you have learned, in terms of academics but also in terms of character development, development of that nature, to the world.”

Brother Kearon encouraged students to look outside themselves and toward God in their quest to become gold flakes.

“I pray that you will enjoy this process, that you will receive this invitation and that you will act on it, starting today, with small acts of kindness, blessing those around you and realizing that as you look around and lift up your eyes, you will be blessed, and millions of people will be blessed as you go out into the world.”

God only gives bread, never stones

Sister Kearon said she had planned to be in St. George on Tuesday with some of her “best friends,” but was grateful for the surprise assignment to speak at BYU.

“The human mind generally doesn’t like surprises,” she said. “It prefers order. We like routine, stability, predictability. We like to know who and what we can count on. We make very specific plans for our lives and assume that things will happen in a certain way, the way we imagined, the way we think is best.”

“And then, surprise! They don’t go that way.”

Elder Kearon said he appreciated his wife’s message because he could relate to her, as President Reese said the Kearons’ lives had been changed by their calling as an apostle.

“I like the idea of ​​surprising God,” Brother Kearon said, “because, God knows, He’s really surprised me lately.”

Some surprises are wonderful, others are shocking, upsetting, even disastrous, Sister Kearon said. But she added that Jesus Christ taught in Matthew 7 that while a surprise may seem like a gift of stone from God, he gives only bread, promising that all things work together for good in man.

“Some of God’s surprises are wonderful, some are confusing, some are difficult to handle, and some are heartbreaking,” she said, “but hold on to Him no matter what. If you have eyes to see and choose faith, He will surprise you with His goodness and love. He will surprise you with His wisdom and foresight. He will surprise you with His miracles and His perfect divine plan for your life. He really is that good.”

Sister Kearon also extended an invitation to the students. She asked them to surprise God in return, emphasizing that since He is omniscient, He will not be surprised.

“Surprise him with your faith,” she said. “Surprise him with your loyalty to him and his prophets. Surprise him with your worship, privately at home, publicly in church, and in his holy house as often as you can. Surprise him with your persistent repentance, not giving up. Surprise him with your joyful, consecrated life.

“Surprise him by always choosing to choose him. Because he will always choose you.”

The Kearons’ daughter, Emma, ​​a senior psychology major at BYU, gave the opening prayer.

You can view the text of the lecture at BYUtv.org. Texts of the Kearons’ speeches will be available soon at speeches.byu.edu.