I am grateful for the opportunity to speak today. The weekly devotionals and forums have been a big part of my BYU experience. I attended them when I was a student, and my wife and I still attend them with our children who are students here. I am also grateful to my family, friends, and colleagues who have taken the time to be with us today.<\/p>\n
Today is my father\u2019s birthday. He is eighty-seven years old. He and my mother are in Wisconsin watching this devotional, and if the volume on the television is turned all the way up, they are listening to it too.<\/p>\n
My father\u2019s name is Gordon Smith. My mother told me recently\u2014and she reminds me often\u2014that my father never wanted a son named Gordon, but he agreed to give me his first name as my middle name. This is the story about why I took that name upon myself and why I have come to believe that the names we call each other are important.<\/p>\n
To understand why I took my father\u2019s name as my own, you need to know a bit about my relationship with my father. My father and several generations before him had been dairy farmers in Wisconsin, but in the wake of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, my father, only seventeen years old at the time, joined the navy and was assigned to serve in the South Pacific. He eventually made a career of the military, and I was born in a naval hospital in Bremerton, Washington. Shortly after my birth he was transferred to San Diego, California, where he taught Teletype repair for five years. Following his retirement our family returned to his childhood home of Wisconsin, and that\u2019s where I grew up. Many of my earliest memories involve feeding and caring for cows, pigs, and chickens on our small farm, though I was temperamentally not well suited to farming.<\/p>\n
My uneasy relationship with farming became apparent to our whole family when our pigs disappeared. Our pigs were named Slurp and Burp. One day they were just gone, and I asked around, \u201cWhere did Slurp and Burp go?\u201d Nobody else seemed troubled by their disappearance. They just said that somebody had come and taken them away.<\/p>\n
A few weeks later, over a dinner featuring pork chops, my older sister\u2014who introduced so much of life to me\u2014said, pointing at my plate, \u201cRemember Slurp and Burp?\u201d<\/p>\n
Lessons about the circle of life were plentiful on that small farm. I saw my father assist in the birthing of a calf, and we drank milk from the calf\u2019s mother. I was playing basketball in the yard one day when a rabid raccoon came toward me, and my dad shot the raccoon. (At first I was worried I had been in trouble, and I thought he had just missed.) We learned by observation that chickens do indeed come from eggs, and we also learned by observation what it means to \u201crun around like a chicken with its head cut off.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite our humble and remote circumstances, I managed to cultivate big dreams on that farm, in no small part because of my dad. During his last year of service in the navy he traveled the world and sent us souvenirs from Europe, Asia, and Africa. He was gone for a year, and I remember that when he returned, I didn\u2019t know what he looked like because I was only four years old when he left and five when he returned. But I treasured those souvenirs that he sent me, and I spent many hours in my room in Wisconsin looking at photos of Rome or pounding on a drum from Africa or playing with toys from the Philippines, imagining what it would be like to visit those faraway lands.<\/p>\n
Some of my most treasured memories from childhood involve sitting in the living room or in the backyard listening to stories about my father\u2019s childhood or about his adventures in the navy. Like Aesop\u2019s fables, these stories almost always came with some moral that we were supposed to take from them. My son Drew and I were recently in Wisconsin for a family reunion, and we again heard stories about the importance of hard work, competence, and integrity.<\/p>\n
My father also taught me\u2014more through his reaction to war than through his words\u2014to despise war. Although he could never speak of combat\u2014and he still can\u2019t to this day\u2014one navy story inevitably connected to another, and he often found himself led to memories that he would rather suppress. We could discern when he had reached this point because he swallowed hard, his eyes welled with tears, and he looked off into the distance. My mother recently observed, \u201cThey don\u2019t give Purple Hearts for those wounds.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another significant lesson\u2014never stated explicitly but reinforced repeatedly in his stories\u2014was that one person could change the world. As far as I know, my dad never changed the course of the war through his naval service, but his stories showed me why the navy always valued one more good man. During the war he was only an enlisted radioman, but I was convinced as a young boy that, aside from Admiral Nimitz, my father was the most important person in the Pacific Fleet. To me he was\u2014and he remains\u2014a great man.<\/p>\n
As President Joseph F. Smith wrote over 100 years ago:<\/p>\n
Those things which we call extraordinary, remarkable, or unusual may make history, but they do not make real life.<\/i><\/p>\n
After all, to do well those things which God ordained to be the common lot of all mankind, is the truest greatness. To be a successful father or a successful mother is greater than to be a successful general or a successful statesman.<\/i> [\u201cCommon-Place Things,\u201d Juvenile Instructor, <\/i>15 December 1905, 752]<\/p>\n
From my own experience I knew that my dad could fix anything. Whether the problem was mechanical, electrical, or personal, he seemed to always have an answer. Like many young boys I looked up to my dad. He was one of my heroes.<\/p>\n
During those growing-up years in Osseo, Wisconsin, everyone called me by my first name, Doug. Strangely, my group of friends went through a phase in which we decided to call each other by our fathers\u2019 names. Some of those names stuck, but \u201cGordon Smith\u201d did not seem like a good fit for me at that time. And I was largely content with my name, except when my high school English teacher decided to call me \u201cDougie.\u201d No one in that day was asking me to teach them \u201chow to Dougie.\u201d<\/p>\n
I was still Doug Smith when I arrived at BYU in August 1980. I was not a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but my first class in college was Religion 121: The Book of Mormon. My best friend in high school, who had convinced me to attend BYU with him, told me I shouldn\u2019t worry about this class. He said the Book of Mormon was just a history of South America, and that was all I knew about the course.<\/p>\n
So I showed up on the first day, and the professor introduced the course by saying we would be covering the first half of the Book of Mormon. He started to talk about the events that we would encounter. I wasn\u2019t worried until the guy next to me raised his hand and said, \u201cWill we be discussing the sons of Mosiah in this course?\u201d<\/p>\n
I did a double take. I thought, \u201cHow does he know anything about what\u2019s in this book?\u201d And I thought, \u201cWell, the professor will provide us some context for the people who didn\u2019t read ahead.\u201d But he just answered the student as if it was a completely natural question.<\/p>\n
And then another student raised his hand and said, \u201cHow about Samuel the Lamanite? That guy is cool!\u201d Everybody laughed, and I completely missed the joke. Then another person said something, and by this point in the class I was starting to panic.<\/p>\n
I wasn\u2019t in the habit of praying at the time\u2014I didn\u2019t really pray much at all\u2014but I just decided that since I was at BYU, I would bow my head and say a little prayer: \u201cPlease, God, make them stop.\u201d<\/p>\n
Well, it did eventually stop, and at the end of class I approached the teacher and asked, \u201cDid you post an assignment for the first class?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, why do you ask?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, it just seems like everybody\u2019s read ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n
He looked me up and down and said, \u201cYou aren\u2019t a member, are you?\u201d<\/p>\n
I thought about that for a second, and I responded, \u201cA member of what?\u201d<\/p>\n
So we had a nice long talk about the class, and I read the Book of Mormon in my first year at BYU.<\/p>\n
The transition from that first day of college to my baptism in the fall semester of my sophomore year did not require a dramatic change in my lifestyle, but my worldview was completely upended. Embracing the gospel impelled me to look outward in a way that I never had before, to place others before myself: \u201cWhosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it\u201d (Matthew 16:25<\/a>).<\/p>\n I decided to serve a mission, and one year after my baptism I was called to serve in Vienna, Austria. I became Elder Smith. Over the past few weeks I have read my missionary journals. I don\u2019t know if any of you have done that, but it is a horrifying experience. I\u2019m not a great journal writer, but I was impressed by the effort I expended in trying to create a new identity for myself as Elder Smith. I wanted to become a powerful missionary. I knew that Austria was not a high-baptizing mission, but, I thought, England wasn\u2019t a high-baptizing mission before Wilford Woodruff got there either. Unfortunately my motives were entirely self-interested: I felt like I had a debt to pay, and I wanted to pay it. I hadn\u2019t internalized the lesson taught by King Benjamin that even if we serve God with our \u201cwhole souls,\u201d we remain \u201cunprofitable servants\u201d (Mosiah 2:21<\/a>).<\/p>\n I worked hard in Austria, and I was frustrated at my inability to reduce my debt. Every sacrifice that I made, every extra effort that I made, was repaid many times over, and early in my mission I wrote about my frustration in my journal:<\/p>\n I have been so blessed by the Lord . . . , and I wanted to go on a mission, in part, to show the Lord how much I love Him. To think of my mission as just something else by which I can make myself better is offensive to me. That implies that the biggest attempt I\u2019ve made in my life to be selfless has turned into the most selfish endeavor that I have ever undertaken.<\/i><\/p>\n By the end of my mission I had come to terms with God over my indebtedness, and I had learned that the most valuable lesson of my mission was to love the people. As King Benjamin said, \u201cWhen ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God\u201d (Mosiah 2:17<\/a>). During my last week in Austria I wrote the following entry in my journal while riding on a train from Vienna to Linz:<\/p>\n Austria is a beautiful land, dotted with small villages. One of the most common sights from the train is the steeple of a Catholic church against the background of rolling green hills. We are sitting with a lady from Vienna who is dressed in a traditional Austrian hat, blouse, and skirt. Tradition prevents most Austrians from hearing our message. And, yet, after being rejected by thousands of people, I have learned to love these people with a love that I have felt for no others. Somehow, I pray for them, cry for them, and hope for them as I do my own family.<\/i><\/p>\n You can perceive in these entries a journey taken by many young people\u2014a transition from inward-looking, self-centered teenagers to outward-looking, empathetic adults.<\/p>\n When I returned to Osseo after my mission, I shed the title of Elder Smith, and, like many returned missionaries, including my son Drew, who just came home from Ukraine, I went through that awkward phase of adjusting to being called by my first name. In my case, however, my pre-mission name evoked thoughts about a confused young boy who had arrived at BYU three years before. \u201cDoug\u201d just didn\u2019t seem to fit anymore, but I didn\u2019t do anything about it until I met a young woman at BYU the following year who was changing her name. She just decided one day to ask people to call her by her middle name. And they did!<\/p>\n I thought, \u201cIs that really all there is to it? Just tell people, \u2018Call me [Whatever],\u2019 and they do it?\u201d This was a revelation to me. I didn\u2019t have to be Doug Smith anymore. I could be anything I wanted! After much contemplation I decided that using my middle name would not only be the simplest change\u2014after all, I wouldn\u2019t have to make a legal change to my name\u2014but it would also honor my father. What I did not fully comprehend was how that change would affect me.<\/p>\n Changing my name was a tremendous hassle. My wife, Sue, was supportive, and I didn\u2019t ask our families to call me Gordon, so when we visit relatives I\u2019m still Doug. But the real challenge was among my friends. In my first accounting class of the fall semester, legendary accounting professor Jay Smith called on me by my first name, and I asked, \u201cWould you mind calling me Gordon?\u201d<\/p>\n By that time I was well into my major, and both he and my classmates looked at me quizzically, wondering, \u201cWhat\u2019s the punch line?\u201d<\/p>\n But I didn\u2019t have a punch line. \u201cUm . . . I changed my name to Gordon.\u201d<\/p>\n In another class so many people knew me by the name Doug that they simply wouldn\u2019t allow me to change my name to Gordon. They insisted, over my protests, that I was joking. My coworkers and supervisors in the Reading and Writing Center split about evenly between those who made the adjustment and those who couldn\u2019t, and that just caused confusion. It was hard on people.<\/p>\n Several times during the first few months I considered abandoning my project. In conversation I stumbled over my new name. More than once I failed to acknowledge people who called me Gordon. I experimented with new signatures. I changed my driver\u2019s license. I learned to fill out forms that had blanks for \u201cFirst Name, Middle Initial, Last Name.\u201d<\/p>\n At the same time I was surprised to discover that when people called me Gordon, it felt different than being called Doug. In the beginning, each reference to Gordon caused me to think about my father. I was clothing myself in his name, and I felt obliged to wear it honorably. I didn\u2019t want to become my father, but I wanted to become a person who would make him proud. Over time I came to associate the name Gordon with my Mormon identity and the name Doug with my pre-Mormon life.<\/p>\n I have sometimes thought of the experience of changing my name in relation to my baptism\u2014an ordinance in which I took upon myself the name of Jesus Christ. In both instances the name was given to me by another, but I was asked to embrace the name as my own. Now each week in taking the sacrament I reaffirm my willingness to take upon myself the name of Jesus Christ (see D&C 20:77<\/a>). What is the significance of this representation?<\/p>\n When I took upon myself the name of my father, I was not using his name as a description of my character. I was not saying, \u201cI am my father.\u201d Rather, I was using the name to honor him and to inspire myself to develop attributes like him. Similarly, taking upon ourselves the name of Christ is not a recognition of an achievement but rather a nudge toward improved behavior.<\/p>\n King Benjamin gave his people the name of Christ only after the Spirit had changed their hearts, but he gave them the name not because they had reached some threshold and not because they had \u201cno more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually\u201d (Mosiah 5:2<\/a>). Rather, he gave them the name so that they could remember that moment and remain \u201csteadfast and immovable, always abounding in good works\u201d (Mosiah 5:15<\/a>).<\/p>\nTaking Christ\u2019s Name Upon Us<\/b><\/h2>\n