BYU Commencement!

We picked up John at his apartment on the big day. Someone had decorated his car!

They ask you to be seated about 45 minutes before it starts so you can watch the graduates file in. When we first arrived there was some confusion about whether the graduates would be able to file in as it was SNOWING! But it was light and seemed to stop at just the right time. We found good seats while Dan was parking the car and were even able to save some for Reid and Kathy, and then with our cell phones were able to find each other. We also had fun texting to John and finding out where he was sitting. As you can guess, I was talking to Kathy and not paying much attention to the jumbotron which showed various shots of the graduates. Suddenly, Dan said: I see John! And sure enough there he was up on the jumbotron at the

Marriott Center, clear as a bell!

I like sitting off to the side so I can look at all the graduates. Here is shot of them from where we were sitting. John is there!

President Samuelson said there were over 6,200 graduates! And he also told us that there are more than 370,000 BYU living alumni!!

The Commencement Address was given by Elder David A. Bednar

Before he began his speech, he said that from his experience of attending many, many Commencements he knew that no one would remember much about his talk, and so he was going to make it very short. He did keep it short and it was very helpful in making our plans for the rest of the evening go smoothly.

His talk was entitled "Learning to Love Learning.” I was excited about that subject because I can remember the exact moment when I was at BYU sitting in a history class, and I had the thought that one main thing I was getting from my education was that I had truly come to love to learn! I couldn't always remember everything from every class, but I always had a good feeling when I was learning new things, and I wanted to keep learning and learning!

Here are the three main points he developed:
1. Learning to love learning is central to the gospel of Jesus Christ
2. Learning to love learning is vital to our ongoing personal and spiritual experience
3. Learning to love learning is an absolute necessity in the world in which we live, work and serve.

He also told the graduates to:

"Remember, you represent the Savior, your family, the Church and BYU."

(Something all 370,000 of us alumni should remember!)

I felt that a theme from all the speakers in the meeting was that we all need to do more to serve others. I was glad to be reminded of that!

Here are some photos outside the Marriott Center:

Afterwards we drove to an Applebees in Salt Lake City and met Josh and Andrea and their family for a celebration dinner. While they were getting our table ready John opened some cards and gifts.

I hope he liked the road map and cooler filled with goodies and money that we gave him!