Rachel Romney 

“Living by faith is not living blindly, but living in such a way to experience and know what is real. The knowledge gained by exercising faith is not abstract and impersonal, but experiential and lived knowledge.” This was the message shared by Sister Jennifer Lane, Associate Academic Vice President for Curriculum, concerning living a life that is bound to faith and knowledge in her Devotional address, “Faith in the Redemption,” on Tuesday, January 15, 2013.

BYU–Hawaii held its annual Great Ideas Conference on November 28-29 with more than 60 students from all disciplines bringing their best business ideas forward. Each student has exactly 2 minutes to give an “elevator pitch” of their Great Idea to a panel of judges who ranked the ideas on criteria such as creativity, viability, and performance.

“Be prepared, you will be asked, ‘Are you a Mormon?’ How will you reply? Are you asleep or are you true blue through and through… This is the Lord’s kingdom. This is His work. And we are building for eternity.” This was the counsel of David A. Lewis, vice president of construction and facilities management at BYU–Hawaii, during his devotional address Tuesday, November 20, 2012. His talk, “Time to Build,” focused on structuring our lives in accordance with the Lord’s will in order to build eternal homes and families.

Robert L. Millet, Professor of Religious Education at BYU, discussed the life and work of Joseph Smith in his devotional address, “Joseph Smith and Christ’s Eternal Gospel,” on Tuesday, November 13, 2012. Millet opened by telling of the power and importance of the restoration of the Book of Mormon through the Prophet Joseph Smith. “The Choice Seer Joseph Smith taught us that God our Father has a plan for his children, a program established to maximize our growth and insure our happiness. And yet that fact alone—that there is some divine plan to life—is not as obvious from the Bible as from latter-day scripture. Knowing what we know, we are able to recognize divine design, but seldom can we turn to a specific Old or New Testament passage that speaks with clarity of a plan. How very different is the Book of Mormon!”

On November 8-10, BYU–Hawaii’s theatre department presented John Patrick’s The Curious Savage, a comedic play about the recently widowed Ethel P. Savage and her inheritance of ten million dollars. Savage, aided by a group of social misfits, misleads her selfish step children from the inheritance in order to ensure that the money is spent with integrity. With the help of a delirious mother, a compulsive liar, an ex-military pilot, a once statistician, and an extreme cynic, Savage is able to carry out her plans to establish a fund for others to achieve their dreams.

James D. Lee, Associate Professor and Department Chair of Computer and information Sciences, spoke on the desire to become better christians, saints and disciples of Christ in his devotional address Tuesday, November 6. “Over the years, I have learned that becoming a number one Christian is not simply something that I would like to do, but it is something that I need to do if I want to return and live with Father in Heaven again…. it is something that requires a lifetime of effort, lots of repenting, learning along the way, overcoming challenges and obstacles, loving and serving each other and most importantly, taking advantage of the healing power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.”

Elder J. Christopher Lansing, Area Seventy, North America Northeast Area, discussed our time and development here on Earth through personal trials in his Devotional address, “That’s Life,” on Tuesday, October 30, 2012.

“All of us have lives filled with minutiae. It’s a confinement of sorts—the endless tasks that fill our time. I have them. You have them. But they don’t need to consume our heads. We can attach the details of our lives to Big Ideas and elevate the way we think and live,” This was the counsel of Sister Virginia Pearce, author and former first counselor in the Young Women General Presidency, during her BYU–Hawaii Devotional address Tuesday, October 23, 2012. She focused her remarks on how this life has provided us with the opportunity to think, learn and grow, both secularly and spiritually.

Sister Katherine Workman, Laie Hawaii Temple Matron, spoke on life’s “Defining Moments” in her devotional address Tuesday, October 16, 2012. Her focus centered on the effect certain events can have on our lives depending on how we choose to deal with them. “In each of our lives, there are events, moments if you like, where something happens that has a lasting impression in your mind and which affects the course of your choices in the future. I like to call these events, ‘Defining Moments.’ I suppose most people have them but perhaps many miss the dramatic effect Defining Moments have on their lives. To miss them, is to miss the influence of the Lord in your life.”