Latter-day Saint Taysom Hill has played with the New Orleans Saints for eight seasons. A teammate called him “the best football player I’ve ever played with” and “the nicest person in the world.” And an NFL broadcaster said Taysom is “like the perfect football player.”
And while Taysom’s career hasn’t been ideal—he’s suffered multiple season-ending injuries—he has made his mark in the world of professional sports. And he was able to do it even after taking a two-year pause post high school to serve a full-time mission.
“Serving a mission was always something that I knew I needed to do,” Taysom recently said on LDS Living’s All In podcast. But at least one person in his life didn’t see a mission in the same light.
Withstanding Opposition
“There was one person in particular that I swear—[I’d be] exaggerating a little bit by saying every day—but it was pretty frequently that he would pull me into his office and say, ‘Hey, you know, I was thinking about this, what if you went and played first and then if you got hurt, you could always go and serve your mission then? Or you could go and play, and then go serve your mission at that point?’” Taysom remembers.
But those conversations didn’t change Taysom’s mind. “Truthfully, [a mission] was a non-negotiable for me,” he says. “I recognized that God had been so good to me, and I wanted to give back.”
Taysom’s Gratitude for His Mission
Taysom served in the Sydney Australia Mission. And while he may have set out on his mission to help others, he found that his own life was changed the most.
“For everyone who has served a mission, … you realize that the life that was changed was yours. And that was no different for me. The experiences and what I learned as a missionary [have] formed me into the man that I am today. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t benefit from the experiences that I had there,” he says.
Before his mission, Taysom committed to playing college football at Stanford with coach Jim Harbaugh. But Coach Harbaugh left Stanford while Taysom was serving, and Taysom ultimately decided to join the team at Brigham Young University.
“There’s nothing like going to BYU and having the opportunity to play for and represent the Church. There’s just no other platform that you can have as powerful as that,” he says.
Lifelong Faith in Christ
Taysom met his wife, Emily, while at BYU, and they were married in the Salt Lake Temple. The couple now has two young boys and seeks to continue centering their lives on Christ.
Taysom says a verse that he always goes back to is Mosiah 5:13: “For how knoweth a man the master whom he has not served, and who is a stranger unto him, and is far from the thoughts and intents of his heart?”
“It is so important to serve and understand the Savior,” Taysom says. “If you know the Master, and if your thoughts are in line with His thoughts, if your intents are in line with His intents, then you’re always going to do right. [That] doesn’t mean we’re going to be perfect, but I think doing the little things to be a disciple of Jesus Christ and lifting where you are [is] an important principle [of being] ‘all in.’ …
“It’s all about the Savior and keeping Him at the forefront of all that you do.”
You can listen to Taysom’s full interview on the All In podcast on all major streaming platforms. Find more information on ldsliving.com/allin.
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