Elder Patrick Kearon asks BYU students to become ‘flecks of gold’

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

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

After laughing delightedly with the audience and while Reese smiled broadly, he joked that, “The Reeses are still smarting over your absence.” (For the record, attendance at the two devotionals was similar .)

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

“I have a particular sensitivity to the freshmen amongst you, as I am one, feeling at least as raw and somehow homesick as you might be,” said Elder Kearon, who joined the Quorum of the Twelve in December 2023.

Elder Gary E. Stevenson of the Quorum of the Twelve had been scheduled to speak Tuesday, but the Kearons received the assignment at the end of last week, Sister Kearon said.

“To say that I’m surprised to be here is an understatement,” Elder Kearon said. “I’m constantly apologizing for the fact that you haven’t got, as I would say, a real apostle with you here today. There was in fact a senior one lined up, and he’ll be here in a few months.”

Become ‘flecks of gold’

Elder Kearon invited students to become flecks of gold. He showed a clip of a story told by the late President M. Russell Ballard about a 49er who was angry to find that the California Gold Rush’s promise of gold nuggets so large he could barely carry them was an empty one. Another man showed him that he had accumulated thousands of gold flecks and made a fortune.

“Like the small flecks of gold that accumulate over time into a large treasure, our small and simple acts of kindness and service will accumulate into a life filled with love for 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 said was BYU’s anxiously engaged students.

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

“You are not meant to be like everybody else,” he added. “You’re just not meant to be like every other student at every other university around the world. This is meant to be special. It is meant to be higher, it is meant to be holier, and goodness knows, is meant to be much more joyful. I pray that you’ll be that.”

He said another key component to his conversion was the Latter-day Saint teaching that all people are spirit children of a Heavenly Father who loves them, and he asked the students to deepen their understanding of that relationship and avoid becoming complacent about it.

Elder Kearon said the mission of BYU, the flagship school of the church’s educational system, is to develop students who would take that truth and others with them upon graduation.

“This institution is not meant to be like any 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 learn, in terms of your studies but also in terms of the development of your character, the development of this nature, around the world.”

Elder Kearon encouraged the students to look outside themselves and to God in their quest to become flecks of gold.

“I pray you will enjoy this process, that you’ll receive this invitation and that you’ll act upon it, starting today, with small acts of kindness, blessing those around you and realizing that as you look out and you look up, you will be blessed, and that millions will be blessed as you go forth 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 “besties,” but was grateful for the surprise assignment to speak at BYU.

“Generally speaking, the human mind doesn’t like surprises,” she said. “It prefers order. We like routine, stability, predictability. We like to know whom and what we can count on. We make nice neat plans for our lives, and we assume things will go a certain way — the way we have envisioned, 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, as President Reese said the Kearons had their lives turned upside down by the calling as an apostle.

“I love the idea of surprising God,” Elder Kearon said, “because, goodness knows, he’s really surprised me lately.”

Some surprises are wonderful, others are shocking, jolting and even disastrous, Sister Kearon said. But she said that Jesus Christ taught in Matthew 7 that while a surprise might appear like God was giving a stone, he only gives bread, promising that all things work together for a person’s good.

“Some of God’s surprises are wonderful, some confusing, some difficult to navigate, and some perfectly heartbreaking,” she said, “but hold on to him through it all. If you have eyes to see and if you 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 design for your life. He really is that good.”

Sister Kearon also had an invitation for students. She asked them to surprise God back, noting that because he is omniscient, he will not be surprised.

“Surprise him with your faith,” she said. “Surprise him with your loyalty — to him and to his prophets. Surprise him with your worship — privately at home, publicly at church and in his holy house as often as you can get there. Surprise him with your persistent repentance — don’t you give up. Surprise him with your joyful, consecrated life.

“Surprise him with your choice to choose him, always. Because he will always choose you.”

The Kearons’ daughter, Emma, a BYU senior studying psychology, gave the opening prayer.

The devotional can be watched now at BYUtv.org . The texts of the Kearons’ talks will be available soon on speeches.byu.edu .