Sister Camille N. Johnson, Primary general president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, encouraged Brigham Young University students and faculty to improve their relationship with the Savior Jesus Christ during a Tuesday devotional.
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“The Savior is steady and sure and rock-solid,” said Sister Johnson. “He is an anchor that is never displaced. He is a mooring buoy that doesn’t dislodge. He is an immoveable dock. It is us who detach from the rock, the anchor, the buoy, the dock when we let windage take us and carry us away.”
This was Sister Johnson’s first BYU Devotional address on the Provo, Utah, campus since being called to lead the faith’s Primary children around the world last year.
Sister Johnson started her address by talking about two blizzard warnings that were in effect in the U.S. states of Alaska and Hawaii in early December. The winter storm in the Hawaiian Islands brought strong winds and snow to the top of Mauna Kea on the Big Island. On Maui, a boat lost its connection to its mooring and was carried ashore by the wind and the waves, slamming into the rocky coastline. She said it appears the winds grabbed the sails and flags still on the boat.
“Do you need to reduce resistance so that you may weather the storms that are inevitably coming or bearing down on you now?” Sister Johnson asked. “Removing your personal windage will help keep you safe.”
She continued, “I have faith and testify that the Savior is the refuge from the storm. He is the anchor of our souls.”
Sister Johnson shared potential sources of windage that may inhibit our ability to weather life’s storms or to “stay securely bound to the Savior.”
They include:
- Worrying about the future instead of trusting in the Lord or waiting too long to turn it over to Him
- Failing to employ the joyful gift of daily repentance
- Procrastinating
- Keeping the wrong company
- Looking for validation and affirmation from unreliable sources
- Being distracted
- Using time unwisely
“There is no time to be wasted,” said the Primary general president as she shared some of her personal goals to “make more time for the Lord.”
Sister Johnson said, “It means more time in the temple. It means that above and beyond my regular scripture study and prayer, I need to give the Holy Ghost the chance to communicate to me by being still, by pondering on the things I read and hear and feel.”
She concluded her talk with a story about a family vacation to Lake Powell. A storm awakened her family one night as they slept on a houseboat.
“The houseboat was violently rocking side to side, and the motorboat was slamming into the houseboat,” Sister Johnson recalled. “We were moored to two points rather than one, and the whole houseboat became windage.”
“My dear friends, it doesn’t work to be moored at two competing points,” she explained. “We must be secured to the Savior, our Rock and Redeemer. … I testify that our Savior Jesus Christ stands as the lighthouse leading us back to safety if we will just follow His light.”
Watch or listen to Sister Johnson's full address at speeches.byu.edu.