Dedication of Gordon B. Hinckley Building

(Oct. 22, 2002)

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Text from the talk! (remember this is not the whole talk, just the last part)

First, I want to tell you that I love you. I love you kids, you wonderful young people of this Church. I love you. I believe you are the best generation this Church has ever had. No generation which has gone before measures up to the stature to which you measure up. You are better educated. I think you have greater faith I think you have shown that faith and are showing that faith than any other previous generation. I am so thankful for you. I thank you for your strength; for your willingness to do the right thing; for your desire to serve the Lord; for your capacity to help build the kingdom; for the fact that you get on your knees and say your prayers, as I know you do; for the fact that you pray to the Lord to help you, to guide you in the things you do, as I know you do.
God bless you for what you are and who you are.
Now, don't ever do a cheap or a tawdry or a mean or an evil thing, my dear young friends. You don't have to engage in these things. The world is on a slippery slide, it is going downhill and it is going fast. And you are as a beacon on a hill young people of rectitude and virtue and decency and goodness. Remain that way. Do not destroy your effectiveness. Do not become involved in any kind of behavior which would destroy you, injure you, hurt you, debilitate you in any way whatever. You don't have to do those things. You can stand above them. You must stand above them! The world will look to you as the years pass, of that I have no doubt whatever. For if it continues to go in the direction in which it is going, the disparity between the world and this Church will grow and lengthen and we will become more and more of a peculiar people.
Now, be faithful, be true, go forward, be ambitious. Don't short-circuit yourself. Don't stop now. Keep growing. Keep going. Educate your minds and your spirits and never lose sight of the fact that you are a child of God with a divine destiny and capability of doing great and good and wonderful things. Don't sell yourselves short. Don't cheapen yourselves. You know who you are. Each of you knows that you are a child of God and that your Heavenly Father expects something great and noble and good of you.
The Lord bless you, my dear young friends. As I look into your faces, I see the future. Keep the faith. You will marry. You will have children. You will have grandchildren. You will go out and do the work of this world, but maintain your integrity. Be honest. Be good. Be decent. Be prayerful and the God of heaven will smile upon you and bless you, and give happiness in your hearts and a sense of peace in your lives.
I wish for you nothing but the best. You are so choice and so wonderful and the future is so great that you can't afford to betray yourselves in anyway or to do anything less than that which each of you is capable of accomplishing. You don't have to be a genius. You don't have to be a straight-A student. You just have to do your very best with all the capability you have. You have to do your very best. And somehow, if you do that, God will open the way before you and the sun will shine, and your lives will be fruitful and you will accomplish great good in the world in which you take a part. I couldn't wish for you anything better as I look into your faces this day.
May heaven smile upon you. May you be blessed. May you be happy. May you have joy in your lives. May your tears be few and your smiles many as you go forward with your lives is my humble prayer as I stand before you and express unto you my love for you and my confidence in you and my hope for you and my prayer for you. You are the very fiber of this Church and this Church will grow as its young people the young people of this generation magnify their callings and go forward and serve the Lord and live in loyalty toward Him. God bless you.
There is no end in sight for the good you can do. Do you know it? You are just simple kids. You are not geniuses. I know that. But the work of the world isn't done by geniuses. It is done by ordinary people who have learned to work in an extraordinary way people of your kind who can do these things.
I repeat. Don't sell yourselves short. You look in the mirror every morning when you boys get up to scrape off the fuzz, and the girls get up to put on the paint you look into the mirror and say "I can do the right thing today, God being my helper. And I will do it."
Heaven bless you is my humble prayer for you.
~Gordon B Hinckley Given at the Dedication of Gordon B. Hinckley Building (Oct. 22, 2002)