“I Call you to be a Christian”, Elder Allan Wilkins, BYU-Idaho Devotional, October 18 2011

“In one ward we attended, we observed a couple, Sandy and Nancy, who seemed to know everyone in the ward and were involved in helping them though neither was involved in a calling in which they would be expect them to do so. When we asked Sandy about this he told us an interesting story. At the end of a year when he served as elders quorum president in a BYU ward, his bishop thanked him for his service and told him that he wanted to give others the opportunity to serve so he was recommending that the stake president release Sandy.

Furthermore, he explained, “I’m not going to give you a formal calling, Sandy. But I call you to be a Christian. I call you to notice those who sit alone in church and sit with and get to know them. I call you to walk with those who walk alone and find those who need help and pray for inspiration to see how you or others can help them.”

Sandy explained how awkward it felt initially to put himself forward in those ways. However, he related that this was the most meaningful year of Church service he had ever had. He met people he would never have known and found the Lord inspiring him to see needs he had been unaware of as an elder’s quorum president. He was involved in reactivating several people, doing missionary work as he helped others to change a flat tire, and giving blessings to others in the hospital. His life was full and more meaningful than ever. When they married, he and Nancy had committed they would continue to be Christians thereafter.

Brothers and sisters, we have all covenanted to be Christians. As President Eyring reminded us in the recent General Conference, Alma taught his people that baptism is a covenant to 1) be charitable (for example, “to bear one another’s burdens”); 2) “stand as witnesses of God at all times, in all things, and in all places that ye may be in…”; and 3) to endure to the end in doing these things.

We don’t have to have a “significant” or even a formal calling in the Church to be of service and to live the gospel. Life is so much richer when we learn the great Christian paradox: only those who are willing to lose their lives in the service of the Savior will find themselves. And paradoxically, those who forget themselves in these ways feel more fulfilled as emerging adults.