President Monson often offers analogies to help listeners understand his message. In this address, he used the analogy of a bridge to suggest the bridges the graduates will have to cross in their paths to successful lives. He based this analogy on a poem called The Bridgebuilder, by Will Allen Dromgoole. President Monson is well-read and is known for his ability to have a poem or literary quote for any occasion. This poem tells of an elderly man crossing a deep and wide chasm. When he makes the challenging journey across the chasm, he stops and builds a bridge behind him. Someone asks him why he is bothering since his journey is nearly over and he won’t need to cross that chasm again. He explains that a young person will be crossing this chasm soon and while he managed the chasm successfully, it might turn out to be a pitfall to the young person crossing in dim light. He is building the bridge for that person. Thomas Monson offers three bridges of his own to help the young people to whom he is speaking.

The first bridge he offered was that of attitude.

Said American psychologist and philosopher William James, “The greatest discovery of my generation is that men can alter their lives by altering their attitude of mind.”

Attitude can make all the difference in our lives, and we control our attitude. It can make us miserable or happy, content or dissatisfied. To a great degree, it can make us strong or weak.” He reminded listeners that William James said if you want a virtue, act as if you already have it.

Thomas Monson told two stories that illustrated the importance of attitude. One told of John James Audubon, the great ornithologist, painter, and naturalist. President Monson has raised homing pigeons since childhood and is very fond of birds. He said that Audubon once went on a business trip. When he returned, he found rats had nibbled through a box with more than 200 of his drawings of birds. The drawings were destroyed and he was, for weeks to come, devastated at this destruction of so many years of work. Finally, he realized his attitude was destructive and he needed to take a new approach. He wrote in his journal that he was happy to have a chance to redo the drawings because this time, he could do them even better. Nothing had changed in terms of his life situation and yet when he changed his attitude, he changed his feelings about the event, thus improving his life.

The second bridge President Monson built was that of integrity, a quality that seems to be less important to many today. He said many people try to justify dishonesty.

Being true to oneself is anything but easy if the moral standards of one’s associates conflict with his or her own. The herd instinct is strong in the human animal, and the phrase “Everybody else is doing it” has an insidious attraction. To resist what “everybody else” is doing is to risk being ostracized by one’s peers, and it’s normal to dread rejection. Nothing takes more strength than swimming against the current. You, my friends, are strong and must at times decide to swim against that current.

Perhaps the surest test of an individual’s integrity is his or her refusal to do or say anything to damage his or her self-respect. The cornerstone of one’s value system should be the question, “What will I think of myself if I do this?”

President Monson told his listeners that there is no point in gaining fame and glory if you can’t look yourself in the mirror with pride.

The third bridge Thomas S. Monson offered was that of service. Thomas Monson is widely known for his compassion to those with challenges in life. As a very young bishop (a lay minister) he was assigned to a congregation with many, many widows. One of his responsibilities was to see that their needs were met. Mormon bishops have non-religious careers of their own choosing and they have families, which means their ecclesiastical work must be done after work and on weekends and must be balanced with family life. Despite this challenge, he kept a close eye on the widows, even visiting each one personally at Christmas with a fresh chicken for their holiday dinner. He spoke at all their funerals, even when he become a high level Mormon leader who traveled extensively. He often speaks of his mother, who served the men who rode the rails during the depression, and who, with the rest of the family, took gifts to families in need at Christmas time. Service is a centerpoint of President Monson’s life.

There are opportunities to serve which are open to everyone. The blind and the handicapped need friendship; the aged are hungry for companionship; the young need understanding guidance; the gifted are starved for encouragement. These benefits can’t be conferred by reaching for your checkbook. Personal service is direct and human.

Said a wise man many years ago, “We can’t do everything for everyone everywhere, but we can do something for someone somewhere.”

Our service to others may not be dramatic, but we can bolster human spirits, clothe cold bodies, feed hungry people, comfort grieving hearts, and lift to new heights precious souls.

He told students that while they may become rich or famous, their real success in life will be measured by how much they serve. This level of service is what will bring them true satisfaction, not the money and fame.

This graduation was the 100^th anniversary of the university, which began as the Saint George Stake Academy and was created by the Mormons. In 1933, the Church turned it over to the state, which considered closing it in 1952. However, voters rescued the college. It was once a high school and college combined. In time, the high school became a separate school and the community college eventually began to add four-year degrees. It is working toward university status now.

Read Thomas Monson’s address to Dixie State College.

For some, there will come the temptation to dishonor a personal standard of honesty. In a business law class at the university I attended, I remember that one particular classmate never prepared for the class discussions. I thought to myself, “How is he going to pass the final examination?”

I discovered the answer when he came to the classroom for the final examination, on a winter’s day, wearing on his bare feet only a pair of sandals. I was surprised and watched him as the class began. All of his books had been placed upon the floor. He slipped the sandals from his feet; and then, with toes that he had trained and had prepared with glycerine, he skillfully turned the pages of one of the books which he had placed on the floor, thereby viewing the answers to the examination questions.

He received one of the highest grades in that course on business law. But the day of reckoning came. Later, as he prepared to take his comprehensive examination, for the first time the dean of his particular discipline said, “This year I shall depart from tradition and shall conduct an oral, rather than a written, test.” Our favorite, trained-toe expert found that he had his foot in his mouth on that occasion and failed the examination.

Thomas S. Monson, “That We May Touch Heaven,” Ensign, Nov 1990, 45

A few days after his prayer in the Sacred Grove, Joseph Smith gave an account of his vision to a preacher with whom he was acquainted. To his surprise, his communication was treated with “contempt” and “was the cause of great persecution, which continued to increase.” Joseph, however, did not waver. He later wrote, “I had actually seen a light, and in the midst of that light I saw two Personages, and they did in reality speak to me; and though I was hated and persecuted for saying that I had seen a vision, yet it was true. … For I had seen a vision; I knew it, and I knew that God knew it, and I could not deny it.” 3 Despite the physical and mental punishment at the hands of his opponents which the Prophet Joseph Smith endured throughout the remainder of his life, he did not falter. He taught honesty-by example.

Thomas S. Monson, “The Prophet Joseph Smith: Teacher by Example,” Ensign, Nov 2005, 67

In our time, when otherwise honorable men bend the law, twist the law, and wink at violations of the law, when crime goes unpunished, legally imposed sentences go unserved, and irresponsible and illegal conduct soars beyond previously recorded heights, there is a very real need to return to the basic justice that the laws provide when honest men sustain them.

Coming as I do from the world of business, I also mention obedience to the laws, not theories, of economics. One cannot continually spend more than he earns and remain solvent. This law applies to nations as well as to men. A worker cannot, in the long run, adhere to a philosophy of something for nothing as opposed to something for something. Nor can management dismiss as optional the necessity of an adequate corporate profit and a reasonable return to shareholders if an economy of free enterprise is to flourish.

When economic decisions are based on theory rather than law, we find the chaos experienced a number of years ago in Uruguay:

“Labor wanted higher wages; industrialists wanted bigger income; but nobody wanted to do any work. Citizens thought more of their rights than of their obligations. The country’s vast web of social legislation redistributed wealth but did not create it. … Nobody had the vision to see that what Uruguay needed was production.” (John Gunther, Uruguay-Utopia Gone Wild.)

One person of wisdom observed, “Laws are the rules by which the game of life is played.” In reality, they are much more; for obedience to law is an essential requirement if we are to be successful in our quest for the abundant life.

Thomas S. Monson, “In Quest of the Abundant Life,” Ensign, Mar 1988, 2

Years ago the Church brought help to young men and young women with a program featuring posters and wallet-size cards which contained specific messages of truth and encouragement. The series carried the heading “Be Honest with Yourself!” One message featured was the provocative and penetrating truth “Virtue is its own reward.”

“Learn that he who doeth the works of righteousness shall receive his reward, even peace in this world, and eternal life in the world to come.” 2

Temptation is a part of life and will be experienced in one way or another by every traveler through mortality. However, the Apostle Paul, acknowledging this truth, gave us this assurance: “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.” 3

It has been said that conscience warns us as a friend before it punishes us as a judge. The expression of one young man is a sermon in itself. When asked when he was happiest, he replied, “I’m happiest when I don’t have a guilty conscience.”

Thomas S. Monson, “Happiness-The Universal Quest,” Ensign, Oct 1993, 2