Latter-day Saint Life

Elder Ballard Shares One of His Biggest Regrets, Hoping to Help Young Adults Avoid It

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In a devotional at the Salt Lake Institute, Elder Ballard shared with Latter-day students one of his biggest regrets. After Univeristy of Utah president, David Pershing, told students to put getting a degree on their life plan, Elder Ballard added, "His counsel for you to graduate, you ought to do that because I made a mistake. When I was taking business courses from professors here at the University, I’d gotten the crazy idea that I was making more money than the teachers were making. ... I was, I guess, a fairly good salesman, so I got confused and I didn’t finish my last year. I’ve regretted that my whole lifetime. I wish I’d had someone like President Pershing pushing me like he pushed you here tonight.”

"Where are you going? What is it you really want to do? And what is it you really want to be?” Elder M. Russell Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles asked a capacity congregation of students and young single adults at a devotional held at the Salt Lake Institute adjacent to the University of Utah campus on Jan. 24.

Joining Elder Ballard on the stand were his wife, Sister Barbara Ballard; President David W. Pershing, president of the University of Utah, and his wife, Sandi Pershing; Elder John C. Pingree Jr., an Area Seventy; Salt Lake Pioneer YSA Stake President Jeffrey Shields and his wife, Patty Shields; Salt Lake Bonneville YSA Stake President Kevin Anderson and his wife, Julie Anderson; and Tracy L. Williams, director of the Salt Lake Institute, and his wife, Teri Williams.

President Pershing opened the devotional by encouraging the students in the congregation to graduate. “Make sure completing your degree is on your life plan,” he said. “I know it’s hard to see the future clearly. I have had the perfect ability ... to not be able to see the future. I could never see the next step in my own life, but I can guarantee you that finishing a degree will help ensure that the next steps are good.”

Lead image from Deseret News.

For more timeless counsel from Elder Ballard, check out Yesterday, Today and Forever: Timeless Gospel Messages.

The scriptures proclaim that "God is the same yesterday, today, and forever" (Mormon 9:9). In his latest book, Elder M. Russell Ballard attests to the truth of that statement by combining his words with teachings from his grandfathers, Hyrum Mack Smith and Melvin J. Ballard. What makes this combination unique is that all three of these men have served as members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

"In preparing this work," writes Elder Ballard, "I have seen anew that the course of the Lord truly is 'one eternal round' (Alma 37:12) and that the doctrine of the gospel is timely and timeless. It is forever relevant to disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ."

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