Be True

During the summer of 1986, while the rest of my family was in Phoenix, I was living in Provo, Utah, attending classes at BYU. In fact, I lived in the same dorm where I'd stayed as a freshman twenty years earlier. This was familiar territory. Many things looked exactly the same as I remembered them -- with one exception. Posted on the walls of the dorm lobbies, locker rooms and hallways were signs that hadn't been there when I was a freshman. These signs cautioned students to watch their personal belongings, stating that the most common problem on the BYU campus was theft.

The closing line on those signs was almost offensive to me. It said: "Remember -- anyone will steal if the temptation is great enough." I felt like writing at the bottom of the sign, "Anyone but me! I gave my word that I'd be honest;" or maybe writing, "Even a General Authority?" -- but I didn't.

Nevertheless, I was incredulous. Here I was at BYU, where as part of the admissions process every prospective student has to make a written commitment to abide by the university's exacting Honor Code. And yet the presence of these signs was an open admission by the school's administrators that, to many people, giving one's word on that application really didn't mean much.

And then I remembered the experience of thirteen-year-old Andrew Flosdorf.

"In 1982, on the fourth day of the National Spelling Bee, 85 of the 137 contestants were eliminated, including Andrew. The word that got him was 'echolalia.' When Andrew had spelled it, he had mistakenly substituted an 'e' for the first 'a' . . . the judges misunderstood him and thought he had spelled the word correctly. It wasn't until after the round when some of Andrew's friends asked him how to spell his word that he learned his mistake.

"He gulped back his tears and went right to the judges, who had to eliminate him. It was hard to do, but Andrew said, 'I didn't want to feel like a slime' . . . Suddenly the thirteen-year-old was besieged by reporters requesting interviews and appearances on network television. Andrew was surprised by all the attention. 'The first rule of Scouting is honesty,' he said" (Elder Robert L. Backman, "To Thine Own Self Be True," BYU devotional address, 23 Oct 1984).

That summer in the dorm, I met a young man from Venezuela who lived two doors down the hall. He came from a very wealthy family, his father having held every high political office except that of the nation's president. The young man was not LDS. He was at BYU to learn English.

One day he returned from campus in a triumphant mood. He was anxious to tell anyone who'd listen that he'd given his student ID to an American student who had agreed to go to the Testing Center and take his English final exam for him. Later that evening, by coincidence -- or perhaps not -- someone knocked on my door. It was a member of the faculty -- one of that young man's English instructors. He was asking where he might find another of his students. I was impressed to tell him what the young man had bragged to us about. The instructor thanked me and said steps would be taken to "help" the young man.

Obviously the Honor Code didn't mean anything to this fellow. Nor did it to another BYU student -- an athlete who was interviewed by the student newspaper in an article about drugs and sports. Without revealing his name, he talked openly about how he occasionally smoked and drank. And when the reporter asked him about the Honor Code he'd signed, he replied, "I'm not LDS, so I don't have to live by those standards."

I leave you to consider the message of the following story as told by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland (BYU devotional, 2 Sept 1980):

"Some time ago I was invited to speak at a youth conference, which is the kind of invitation that I have had to decline routinely for years. But something about this one kept gnawing at me, and I answered that I would come. It seemed a foolish thing to do. It meant a morning drive of about four hours into a neighboring state and then the same drive back that night. But I felt I should go, and I did. I put my wife and children in the car with sandwiches and a Scrabble board, and off we went.

"After I dropped them off at the local city park and swimming pool, I went over to the youth conference held at a local stake center. The trip was worth it all to me for one brief testimony that I heard there. At this very moment I honestly cannot tell you what I said to that group as their invited speaker. It's gone from my memory and undoubtedly gone from all of theirs. But this young convert's testimony is still with me, and I leave it with you today.

"She described her conversion to the Church and what the gospel of Jesus Christ had come to mean in her life. Her home life was something out of a horror story--broken marriage, mother living with a man not her husband, brother on drugs, sister expecting a baby. It was as bizarre as any social worker would ever need to see. But into her life had come the Church, and for this young fourteen- or fifteen-year-old girl it was everything, and she was hanging on. She described opening her school locker one day, only to have her paperback edition of the Book of Mormon fall to the floor. She used it in seminary, and to her it was a prized possession. She was still a little insecure about all of this, however, for the world around her had made her pretty insecure. And she was not yet certain what her new faith and friends held in store for her. She was happy but still tentative and very anxious to be stronger in the faith. She was embarrassed. She had not wanted anyone to see the book.

"She hastily stooped down to pick it up before someone noticed. But someone had noticed, and they were standing right next to her. Three girls looked first at the book and then at her. Her heart sank, and she clutched at the little blue paperback cover. She said nothing, and neither did they for a moment. But then one of them asked, 'Is that a church book?'

"She said 'Yes.'

"The other girl said, 'What church is it?'

"And my young friend stuttered, 'The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.'

"'Is that the Mormons?' shot back the inquirer.

"'Yes,' whispered the frightened little Latter-day Saint, 'that's the Mormons.'

"There was a long pause, and then her interrogator said, 'Are you true?'

"After a pause that was both instantaneous and eternal, my little friend said, with her head slightly more erect and her back slightly straighter and her hands trembling a little less, 'Yes, I'm true.'

"I must confess that when I first heard that young girl's testimony, I did not quite understand all that I was hearing. I've thought about it since, and obviously what the one girl, in her own way, was asking was, 'Are you active?' That's the way we would have phrased it. But what a tragic loss to so phrase it. How much more meaning there is in the straightforward inquiry, 'Are you true?'

"There was no reprisal. The heretofore undisclosed copy of the Book of Mormon in a school locker had not brought on physical torture or social ostracism. A little confidence came, and a little conviction increased. There was just one young soul saying to another, 'Are you true?' 'If you are a Latter-day Saint, are you a good one?'"

We must be. We've given our word.