By ROB HERTZLER
rob@du2.byu.edu
The building of Wyview Park is a great investment into the future of the church, said President James E. Faust, Second Counselor in the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, at Sunday's dedication of Wyview Park.
President Faust also gave the dedicatory prayer, and the dedication was also attended by Elder Henry B. Eyring of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and by President Merrill J. Bateman, president of Brigham Young University and a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy.
President Faust joked about the great cost that went into the complex, which includes 426 two - and three-bedroom apartments, a laundromat, a convenience store and a multi-purpose building.
'There aren't many things that give President Hinckley a jolt, but the cost of this complex did,' he said.
Even with the huge cost involved, President Faust said it is worth it.
'This beautiful complex is a beginning laboratory of eternal families. It's a microcosm of the future of this church and this society as well,' he said.
President Faust spoke to the families who live in Wyview and encouraged them to sink down in 'deep roots of faith.'
'We commend you young people for going forward in faith. It's an act of faith to get married,' he said.
He also encouraged the husbands to love their wives.
'We urge you brethren to be kind and thoughtful and considerate to your wives. It isn't easy to be the wife of a student,' President Faust said.
Elder Eyring said wherever he travels around the world he likes to ask married couples where they met. They almost always answer that they met at BYU.
President Bateman spoke on BYU's uniqueness of combining secular and spiritual things.
'A sign of the special nature of BYU is that all the buildings are dedicated,' President Bateman said.
He encouraged married students to think about that as they move from BYU to their own homes, that they should dedicate their homes as a place where the Spirit of the Lord might reside.
President Covey also commented on the spiritual uniqueness of BYU.
'Where in the world would you find a more righteous people?' he said.
David A. Hunt, assistant student life vice president over Student Auxiliary Services, said that BYU's married housing has come a long way since 1948, when former army barracks served as the first on-campus family housing. He said the smallest apartments back then cost $28.50 a month.