By TONIA ANDRUS
People live in a world that gets its significance from memory, said James E. Faulconer at Tuesday’s Devotional.
James E. Faulconer, the dean of General Education and Honors, spoke on remembrance and its importance in life and in the gospel.
Faulconer said the scriptures are full of reminders to remember the tender mercies of the Lord. The Scriptures show us the Lord’s mercy and give us hope, Faulconer said.
He said conversion and reconversion comes with remembering. Remembering covenants made is different than just recollecting that they have been made.
Many important principles of the gospel are centered on remembering, including the sacrament, the Word of Wisdom, and the wearing of the scared garment of the temple endowment, he said.
“Memory is central to the gospel. We covenant to remember when we take the bread and water of the sacrament,” Faulconer said.
Faulconer shared some of his memories of spiritual experiences about President Hinckley visiting the Church members in Korea when Faulconer was a boy there and of the spiritual experience that helped in his conversion when he took the sacrament for the first time.
He also shared an experience he had with his son when he picked him up from his mission in Brazil and how Faulconer was impressed by the knowledge that the Lord loved those people and blessed them through what Faulconer had thought were mere circumstances.
Faulconer also shared experiences from his childhood about riding in the car with his mother and grandparents, his grandparents’ house, his sick aunt being taken to the car and walking with his father in the woods of Germany.
He additionally said that how people interact with others is based on the memory of their interactions with others.
The dean said the University remembers many things for people, and not just in its library collection.
“It is a place of remembrance … a memory of the Restoration and a memory of how it enlightens the academy.”
Many students filled the JSB Auditorium for the first devotional of Summer Term. The Devotional was also broadcast to the Varsity Theater and 2084 JKHB.
“It (The Devotional) was wonderful. I liked how he shared personal experiences from childhood and how he related that to memory and the Spirit; and how those spiritual experiences are always the most remembered and significant in our lives,” said Aaron Manning, 21, a sophomore from Mesa, Ariz., majoring in chemical engineering.
Steve Wood, 18, a freshman from Morristown, N.J., with an undeclared major, said he really enjoyed Faulconer’s theories on memory and recollection and how he tied it into the Spirit.
“I liked his mix of philosophy and personal experiences,” Wood said.
