BYU President C. Shane Reese and his wife, Sister Wendy Reese, invited students to focus on positivity and becoming what God would have them become in the first devotional of Fall Semester 2024.
Students filled the Marriott Center, with a total attendance of 12,531, according to internal communications director Aaron Sorenson.
Sister Reese opened the devotional challenging students to be positive, even amidst the challenges brought by new classes, roommates, dating or callings to serve in local congregations of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“What if I told you that positive thinking might be part of your solution to dealing with the many stresses and challenges inherent in the new semester?” Sister Reese asked. “I would like to offer two suggestions for harnessing the power of positivity — seeking for good in our lives and turning our hearts to God.”
Sister Reese shared examples from her own mother's life who was a “pillar of positivity” while enduring two brain aneurysms. Through her mother's example, Sister Reese said she learned that “when we actively seek for things that are good, we will find more good things.”
She added each student can seek intentional positivity by looking for tender mercies and manifestations of God’s love in their life.
President Reese followed Sister Reese's remarks, teaching students about how to become what God would have them be. President Reese tied his message to his inaugural challenge to “become BYU.”
“As we begin this new semester, I boldly echo that invitation — the invitation to become ... This university invites all who enter BYU to become what God wants you to become,” President Reese said.
According to President Reese, the three necessary components of becoming include “1) a vision for what we want to become, 2) persistent and consistent effort, and 3) making and honoring covenants with God.”
President Reese explained we won't know how to become if we don't first recognize what we want to become or who we may become.
“All of us sometimes need someone with a bolder vision for our future than we have for ourselves. And we also all need to reciprocate that blessing,” President Reese said.
President Reese counseled students to find that vision through those who, like God, see more in them than they may see in themselves. Heeding the Spirit and reading a personal patriarchal blessing can also help, he said.
President Reese reminded students to embrace the hard work necessary to achieve this vision.
“It is easy to envision the harvest — to dream of our figurative orchards and fields teeming with bounteous fruits and vegetables. Today I invite you to embrace the hard work — the “labor, incessant and constant” — that must precede and produce that harvest,” President Reese said.
President Reese closed by referencing President Russell M. Nelson's teachings of about the central role of covenants in spiritual becoming.
“Making and keeping covenants with God accelerates the process of becoming, thanks to that special gift of love and mercy afforded to children of the covenant,” President Reese said.
He said that “it is no coincidence that each member of the First Presidency emphasized the power of covenants” in the Annual General Conference held in April 2024.
“Jesus Christ is our ultimate example of becoming. He had a vision of His divine role as the Savior of the World. His vision for those to whom He ministered was majestic and inspiring. He built others. He aligned His will with His Father’s will exactly. He loved perfectly. He kept His covenants with the Father. As with all things, Jesus is the answer. His life was perfect, and it was and is the divine model for each of us,” President Reese said.
More from President and Sister Reese's devotional can be found here.