Thoughts for a Sunday Afternoon
Today at church one of the speakers read an excerpt from the Dedication of the Hinckley Building on the BYU Idaho campus. I wanted to share it here too, as I find it quite inspirational and helpful for today:
Now, I think we have time and I think I would just like to put away what I have prepared and say a few words further extemporaneously on this occasion to the student body.
First, I want to tell you that I love you. I love you kids, you wonderful young people of this Church. I love you. I believe you are the best generation this Church has ever had. No generation which has gone before measures up to the stature to which you measure up. You are better educated. I think you have greater faith—I think you have shown that faith and are showing that faith–than any other previous generation. I am so thankful for you. I thank you for your strength; for your willingness to do the right thing; for your desire to serve the Lord; for your capacity to help build the kingdom; for the fact that you get on your knees and say your prayers, as I know you do; for the fact that you pray to the Lord to help you, to guide you in the things you do, as I know you do.
God bless you for what you are and who you are.
Now, don’t ever do a cheap or a tawdry or a mean or an evil thing, my dear young friends. You don’t have to engage in these things. The world is on a slippery slide; it is going downhill and it is going fast. And you are as a beacon on a hill—young people of rectitude and virtue and decency and goodness. Remain that way. Do not destroy your effectiveness. Do not become involved in any kind of behavior which would destroy you, injure you, hurt you, debilitate you in any way whatever. You don’t have to do those things. You can stand above them. You must stand above them! The world will look to you as the years pass, of that I have no doubt whatever. For if it continues to go in the direction in which it is going, the disparity between the world and this Church will grow and lengthen and we will become more and more of a peculiar people.
– President Gordon B. Hinckley