A Picture is worth a thousand words....

Riley is off...

Riley was all smiles...

Last photo with family


Off he goes for two years
First twelve weeks in the MTC to learn Thai.
Then off to Thailand!

Riley's Farewell...

Hello Brothers and Sisters.

I was asked me to speak on a part of the Sermon on the Mount: verses 13 through 16 in Matthew chapter 5. To start out, I thought I would read the verses…

Matt 5:13-16

The first thought I had after I read that was “what does it mean to be the salt of the earth?”

My wise sister told me to just skip that verse and talk about the others…I decided it wasn’t a good idea.

So what does salt do? What is it used for? My inner chemistry nerd thought of how we used salt to change the color of flames in chemistry class. When salt is burned the resulting flames can be bright, vibrant colors, making the fire more attractive. Perhaps the Savior meant that we should help bring about change in people’s lives. Perhaps he meant us to be the reactant that beautifies a person’s inner fire, their soul…but I don’t think the Lord had this in mind when he gave the Sermon on the Mount. Then I thought of how we use salt today to flavor and preserve our food. I think this application makes more sense. But does that mean we are to be the flavor of the earth? That didn’t help at all, now the scripture is more confusing. But if you think about it in a different light it clicks. We use salt to make food better. If we are the salt in this scenario, then Christ is using us to make the world better. The same holds true for the preserve part too. We use salt to preserve our food, so we can save it. So too does Christ use us to save our fellow man. In Mormon Doctrine we read that to be the salt of the earth means “to be the seasoning, savoring, preserving influence in the world, the influence which would bring peace and blessings to all others.”

So how do we do that? This is when verses 14, 15, and 16 come in. I’ll read them again, just in case you forgot them already.

Matt 5:14-16

Verse 16 sort of sums it up for us. We are to be an example to bring people to our Father in heaven. In Doctrinal New Testament Commentary (quite a title if you ask me), Elder Bruce R. McConkie said, “Even as Jesus himself is the light of the world , so he expects his saints to set perfect examples of righteousness so that they too shall shine forth as lights to their fellow men. ‘Behold I am the light; I have set an example for you,’ he says [in 3 Nephi Chapter 18], and then commands: ‘Hold up your light that it may shine unto the world. Behold I am the light which ye shall hold up—that which ye have seen me do.’” I found a good example of this in a seminary manual. Imagine one of your friends is lost in a cave. You are the flashlight that can guide your friend out of the dark and into the light of Jesus Christ. The question that remains is what kind of flashlight are you? Are you the type of flashlight that will guide your friend to safety with a strong, brilliant beam of light? Or are you the flashlight that starts out strong but slowly dims to nothing as your batteries die out?

That takes us to my next topic. What does it mean to lose our savor? Not knowing what savor meant, I googled it. I found two definitions. The first is an archaic one, meaning reputation, or how others perceive you. We cannot lose our good name or the respect of those around us and still expect to be a guide unto them. How can we be an example when our name is with pigs in the mud? The second definition I found is more current. It says savor is the quality in a substance that affects the sense of taste or smell. So if we lose our savor we lose that quality of substance. In his general conference address in 1980, Carlos E. Asay said, “A world-renowned chemist told me that salt will not lose its savor with age. Savor is lost through mixture and contamination. Similarly, priesthood power does not dissipate with age; it, too, is lost through mixture and contamination. When a young man or older man mixes his thoughts with pornographic literature, he suffers a loss of savor. When a priesthood bearer mixes his speech with lies or profanity, he suffers a loss of savor. When one of us follows the crowd and becomes involved in immoral acts and the use of drugs, tobacco, alcohol, and other injurious substances, he loses savor. Flavor and quality flee a man when he contaminates his mind with unclean thoughts, desecrates his mouth by speaking less than the truth, and misapplies his strength in performing evil acts.” So we lose our savor when we dirty ourselves with unclean behavior. Savor is akin to purity.

When read, the words Savor and Savior are almost identical. If you substitute the word savior in for savor, then verse 13 of Matthew 5 tells us that when we have lost our Savior we are good for nothing. We must keep our Savior, Jesus Christ, at the center of our lives in order to keep our savor. When we lose sight of Christ, we lose sight of everything and find ourselves in our own cave, lost in the darkness. President David O. McKay quoted James L. Gordon about the atonement: “A cathedral without windows, a face without eyes, a field without flowers, an alphabet without vowels, a continent without rivers, a night without stars, and a sky without a sun—these would not be so sad as a…soul without Christ.” Christ is the center of it all. As it says in Doctrine and Covenants 88:13, Christ is “the light which is in all things, which giveth life to all things.” As we go forth to be a light unto the world, we must have His light in our countenance. Our light is really a reflection of his light.

My grandpa shared a story with me that illustrates the need for Christ. It also shows the guiding power that Christ can have in our lives if we let Him.

There was once a man who didn't believe in God, and he didn't hesitate to let others know how he felt about religion and religious holidays, like Christmas. His wife, however, did believe, and she raised their children to also have faith in God and Jesus, despite his disparaging comments. One snowy Christmas Eve, his wife was taking their children to a Christmas Eve service in the farm community in which they lived. She asked him to come, but he refused. "That story is nonsense!" he said. "Why would God lower Himself to come to Earth as a man? That's ridiculous!" So she and the children left, and he stayed home. A while later, the winds grew stronger and the snow turned into a blizzard. As the man looked out the window, all he saw was a blinding snowstorm. He sat down to relax before the fire for the evening. Then he heard a loud thump. Something had hit the window. Then another thump. He looked out, but couldn't see more than a few feet. When the snow let up a little, he ventured outside to see what could have been beating on his window. In the field near his house he saw a flock of wild geese. Apparently they had been flying south for the winter when they got caught in the snowstorm and could not go on. They were lost and stranded on his farm, with no food or shelter. They just flapped their wings and flew around the field in low circles, blindly and aimlessly. A couple of them had flown into his window, it seemed.

The man felt sorry for the geese and wanted to help them. The barn would be a great place for them to stay, he thought. It is warm and safe; surely they could spend the night and wait out the storm. So he walked over to the barn and opened the doors wide, then watched and waited, hoping they would notice the open barn and go inside. But the geese just fluttered around aimlessly and did not seem to notice the barn or realize what it could mean for them. The man tried to get their attention, but that just seemed to scare them and they moved further away. He went into the house and came back out with some bread, broke it up, and made a breadcrumbs trail leading to the barn. They still didn't catch on. Now he was getting frustrated. He got behind them and tried to shoo them toward the barn, but they only got more scared and scattered in every direction except toward the barn. Nothing he did could get them to go into the barn where they would be warm and safe.

"Why don't they follow me?!" he exclaimed. "Can't they see this is the only place where they can survive the storm?" He thought for a moment and realized that they just wouldn't follow a human. "If only I were a goose, then I could save them," he said out loud. Then he had an idea. He went into barn, got one of his own geese, and carried it in his arms as he circled around behind the flock of wild geese. He then released it. His goose flew through the flock and straight into the barn -- and one by one the other geese followed it to safety.

He stood silently for a moment as the words he had spoken a few minutes earlier replayed in his mind: "If only I were a goose, then I could save them!" Then he thought about what he had said to his wife earlier. "Why would God want to be like us? That's ridiculous!" Suddenly it all made sense. That is what God had done. We were like the geese -- blind, lost, perishing. God had His Son become like us so He could show us the way and save us. That was the meaning of Christmas, he realized. As the winds and blinding snow died down, his soul became quiet and pondered this wonderful thought. Suddenly he understood what Christmas was all about, why Christ had come. Years of doubt and disbelief vanished like the passing storm. He fell to his knees in the snow, and prayed his first prayer: "Thank You Jesus for coming in human form to show me the way out of the storm!"

We must follow Jesus’ example and be a light “unto all that are in the house.” We must be their light in the dark to help guide them out of the storm of life. So saying we must be a light to those around us is one thing, but actually being a light is another. How do we be that guiding influence in each other’s lives? The answer, I think, is to always build people up. Do our actions ever cut other people down? Can we honestly say that everything we do strengthens our friends? We need to be less selfish and more selfless. The key to being a light to those around you is forgetting yourself, and putting the needs of others above your own. Serving those around us is how we can help guide them. Little things such as a simple testimony shared with a friend, a sincere conversation with someone who is alone, even a quick smile given to stranger, can go a long way. In essence, the answer to how we can be a shining example to the world is charity.

As a missionary I know that I can be that light of Truth that brings the people of Thailand to Jesus Christ. I will be proclaiming the good news of the Atonement. The news that Christ atoned for our sins; that he descended below all things so that he might know how best to elevate all things. As a missionary I will be the Lord’s hands, carrying forth his work in Thailand. To close I would like to share my favorite quote from Elder Bruce R. McConkie:

I am called of God. My authority is above that of the kings of the earth. By revelation, I have been selected as a personal representative of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is my Master and he has chosen me to represent Him. To stand in His place, to say and do what He himself would say and do if He were personally ministering to the very people to whom He has sent me. My voice is His voice. My acts are His acts. My words are His words and my doctrine is His doctrine. My commission is to do what He wants done. To say what He wants said. To be a living, modern witness in word and deed of the divinity of this great and marvelous latter-day work. How great is my call.