Can People REALLY Change?

When you live as long as I have (76 and counting), you might find yourself reflecting upon your life experiences more than you did when you were younger and you were creating those memories. You will rub shoulders with a vast variety of souls in mortality. Some of the more interesting ones might even be in your immediate family. 

We often think others might be "out of touch" - sometimes they're just a little weird for our taste. We tend to seek associations with those of like-minded nature as ourselves. It's just human nature. We often dismiss others with, "Well, he'll never change."

Once in awhile, however, we are surprised to learn someone has changed who we haven't seen or been in contact with for many years. That leads me to discuss today's topic - can people really change?

My answer is a resounding "YES" - they can and they do!

Think about your own life. Have you changed from what and who you were during your youthful days of college? Have life's experiences tended to knock off some rough edges, rounding you into a more useful and accepting personality? Do you now seek the welfare of others more willingly and voluntarily than you did at one time? Do you count the cost and the potential return for you before you reach out in service to another, or do you give freely and voluntarily without a thought of possible remuneration?

We send missionaries all around the world today to seek those who want to change. We promote change. We advocate for change when it produces positive results. We bless lives instinctively. It becomes second-nature to us.

This morning a returning missionary couple shared their experiences during a humanitarian mission to first India, then they were re-assigned with nine months left to Cambodia. They cited examples of the most humble souls one could imagine who embraced the meager help this couple offered. In each case lives were blessed, changed, and improved. They weren't the kind of stories that will ever make the front pages of a newspaper, but eternally the impact of their service will be felt forever.

We tend to change most readily when we seek the awareness that change is warranted. When we do our own self-inventory as many do at the first of a new year, can we think of things others have said to us giving us some direction in what change for the better might look like? 

Is there ever a husband who doesn't freely offer course correction for his wife? Conversely, is there ever a wife who can't think of something her husband might do that could be helpful to her? Parents are quick to seek change in behaviors among their children. 

Most importantly, the Spirit of the Holy Ghost will always offer gently the ways in which we can change to bless others. These are always soft, gentle whispers so lovingly offered to us we may not be attuned to hearing them, but if we focus we can hear and feel those nudges. Acting upon them opens the door for change.

If we believe change in people is not possible, then why would we deploy tens of thousands of missionaries all around the world to see if we can share the gospel message with them? We have this abiding belief that they will embrace the fulness of the restored gospel, come unto Christ, join His Church here on earth, and then take steps to the temple where they are promised they can receive “all that my Father hath.” 

Imagine just how audacious that might seem to some. “I’m happy just the way I am,” they used to tell me in Northern England all those years ago. Or, “Got me own, luv,” was another frequent response when we posited changing churches. Those, of course, were the ones who could have cared less that I was in their home country on a two-year mission to save the world - their world - from certain destruction if they booted me off their doorstep. I learned how to deal with rejection in very real and precise terms in that experience.

But I also, on occasion, was a witness to those few precious souls who DID embrace the possibility of change. They gave up coffee, tea, alcohol, tobacco and hard drugs for starters. They had to change before they could be baptized, and a few blessed souls to whom I carried that possibility actually did change in dramatic ways right before my eyes. As our visits together progressed, I saw visible changes in their homes. They cleaned up before we had lessons. They cleaned their clothes, they bathed and dressed their young children so they were “presentable” to us. One even told me they thought we were angels from the presence of God who had come to their home. And they changed. Asking an Englishman or woman to surrender their tea to us, then never drink it again was like asking some to cut off their arm. It was the acid test of their sincerity, and some just couldn’t do it.

I am bound to my eternal companion Patsy in bonds of celestial marriage. How does this relate to raising our children in today’s environment? We are bound together by celestial bonds and covenants as an eternal family. We love one another, we love being together, and we are sometimes saddened when one of us might weaken or falter in whatever extremity with which we are dealing at the moment. So we reach out to help one another in love. 

We are inspired by each other as we witness one rising above their challenges and succeeding as they move along life’s path. I know I have drawn strength from each of you as I watch from the sidelines. I thank you, each one of you, as I see you change, grow, and conquer your demons. 

The other night after I had upgraded to the new i-Phone 15, I hadn’t realized I would have to download all my apps on my new phone. The Google browser was just spinning, and I couldn’t figure out how to get it unstuck. Grandson Alex was here, I asked him my question, he took my phone, hit a few buttons, and bingo - it somehow “magically” downloaded in seconds. He said something that has stuck with me: “Grandpa, sometimes the best solution when it comes to technology is just to hit the restart button. That solves almost every problem.” I told him whimsically, “That’s why you've come home from your mission at just the right time, so you could help me change my phone.”

Isn’t that the way it is with each of us? Sometimes we get “stuck,” and we can’t seem to find the next step out of our dilemma, whatever it may be. We need a “reset.” How blessed we are to have the gospel to guide us to daily repentance. 

We reset ourselves, then begin again as we pursue our course in life and get back on the covenant path if we have wandered off it for a time. Changing for the better is what life is all about.

That's why we have a "reset" button on our phone and the Holy Ghost as our constant companion.

Change Doctrine

I awoke this morning with my first conscious thought - embracing change in our lives is what brings improvement.



Let me illustrate. In my daily work I am tasked with introducing Packsize to businesses all across the country who have expressed not only an interest in our value proposition, but are committed to change. We deploy On Demand Packaging, an end-to-end supply chain improvement for corrugated paper. Our founder and CEO, Hanko Kiessner, is fond of asking the rhetorical question, "We can put a man on the moon, but we can't make the right-sized box?" His life's work is devoted to answering that question.

Businesses we target exist and continue to thrive in this country despite all the negativity and regulatory hurdles that swirl around them from the political class, because they are constantly evolving to a higher level of efficiency. They manage budgets. They seek profits. They employ people. They reject wasteful practices. They look for ways to innovate. They are rarely content with the status quo. They embrace disruptive technology like ours.

I train my team to look for the decision makers in organizations who are committed to these principles. Rarely do we have success by engaging low-level managers. When I talk to a purchasing manager who tells me, "We already have established relationships with corrugate suppliers," I know I am speaking to the wrong person. Those people exist for one reason only - to make the status quo work. They defend what they are doing. Change for some managers threatens their existence. No, I tell my team, those aren't the people we are interested in engaging for our conversation about change. We want strategic thinkers who are risk-takers; senior-level executives who are willing to extend themselves into the future lives of their companies. We want the people who are judged by their organizations on their willingness and courage to embrace change. We want the executives that understand change is painful but necessary for their future survival as a company.

Just yesterday, we engaged the strategic thinkers at Panasonic, US Auto Parts, Knoll Furniture, Bosch Rexroth, and Berry Plastics. These are each innovative and dynamic companies with an eye on the future. Our competitors might read this and look with envy on how we managed to engage these stellar companies. Am I worried? No. They cannot begin to compete with what we do and how we do it. We are agents of change, and initially we often impose painful realities on our clients. We get a commitment that they are open to exploring change. But invariably they thank us later. Our video testimonials are testament to that fact.

Our area managers, deployed now around the world, are not traditional salespeople. Instead, they are team captains who are adept at engaging the client with our engineers to develop customized solutions with an eye to improvement. The business case must be made to the satisfaction of each side. We invest a lot of up front consulting to discover the needs of our clients. We are confident in our ability to deliver that change with an accompanying significant cost reduction. We obliterate the status quo. And we are very profitable.

This pulsating Democrat political meme that corporations are somehow to be denigrated and criticized for making profits is wrong-headed and misguided. Profits in the hands of wise entrepreneurs are routinely re-invested and often plowed right back into the operations of their companies so they can continue to grow, thrive and prosper. THAT's where jobs come from. Anyone whose address is Washington D.C. cannot assert they create jobs. I've worked in the private sector my whole life. I can tell you who the job creators are. They are the innovators and the decision makers, the risk-takers, who routinely figure out ways to employ people and meet their payrolls and pay taxes.

They are people like Mitt Romney. They are NOT people like Barack Obama. We all know what makes America tick. In 2008, anxious for change, we made a mistake, but it was only an aberration and we can adjust and correct it this year.



Governments are NOT the solution to ANYTHING. They exist to serve us as the people, and for no other reason. We have allowed our federal government to consume and waste far too many of our resources. We  must now assert CHANGE on the political class on November 6th. We must take remedial action to improve as a country. It will be painful to some (those who don't embrace this year's change agent, Mitt Romney), but it must be done if we are to have any hope of changing the trajectory of America's future.

On a personal level in a gospel paradigm, think about what change means to you. It often comes under the label "repentance." I am not impressed with people who steadfastly reject repentance because they think it is just too painful. They defer, they procrastinate, and they resist change. They "manage" the status quo. I will never forget one young man I interviewed, when he said to me, "Bishop, I just don't want to repent fully because I love my sins too much." It startled me when he said it, but as I reflected later on his words, even after all these years, I realized he was speaking a marvelous truth. Change is often painful. Repentance is often hard at first. Stepping over the hurdles that would impair our desire to change, however, often brings improvement and innovation.

Many people tell me they feel "trapped" by their circumstances. Those people embrace a "victim mentality," suggesting that everything that is going on their lives is beyond their control. I remember so many disgruntled employees I worked with years ago at Zions First National Bank (back in the day), who hated everything they did on a daily basis, but refused to quit and find something better. I resolved I would never be one of them. They are in agony, most of them. They lament that things are the way they are, and they seem helpless to change and improve. They cite factors beyond their control as evidence of their inability to effect real and lasting change in their lives. Happiness seems to elude them. They find little joy in their daily existence.

These are fanciful falsehoods. Their author is the enemy to all righteousness.

In the gospel of Jesus Christ we encounter many seeming paradoxes that are worth considering. They may even be called "divine paradoxes." Let me give some examples and see if this is not true in your life.

"Come unto me, all ye that are labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." (Matthew 11:28).

"Take my yoke upon you. . . and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." (Matthew 11:28-29).

"For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it." (Matthew 16:25).

To be brief, let me just say it - the quest for happiness in this life does NOT consist of lifting up our heads and glorying in our own strengths, skills and successes. Rather, happiness in this life consists in finding Him. That usually involves repentance. We will only repent if we believe He can heal us, and that requires faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as our Redeemer. He becomes the true change agent in our lives. We cannot bring about that needed change on our own. It takes someone who can help us manage through the needed changes for improvement. It takes perfection to make one perfect.

We often cite the 32nd chapter of Alma as the definitive explanation for what constitutes "faith." But upon more careful examination you will discover something much deeper. Alma was not making a general statement about faith in his teachings to the people, rather he was suggesting something very specific and singular about faith as the only unseen power that can change one's soul. That's more than saying, "I have faith the sun will rise in the morning skies to the east."

Alma teaches about having enough faith to begin "an experiment" on THE WORD. That experiment is about finding the truth about the divinity of Christ. Only a Divine Redeemer can effect an infinite and eternal change in us. And only Jesus Christ could offer an infinite and eternal sacrifice because He was Himself "infinite and eternal" by His very nature as the sinless Only Begotten Son of the Father.

In the next chapter, Alma, sensing they did not understand his meaning, offers this commentary on his words by citing his listeners back to the words of an ancient prophet, Zenos:

Do ye remember to have read what Zenos, the prophet of old, has said concerning prayer or worship?
For he said: Thou art merciful, O God, for thou hast heard my prayer, even when I was in the wilderness; yea, thou wast merciful when I prayed concerning those who were mine enemies, and thou didst turn them to me.
Yea, O God, and thou wast merciful unto me when I did cry unto thee in my field; when I did cry unto thee in my prayer, and thou didst hear me.
And again, O God, when I did turn to my house thou didst hear me in my prayer.
And when I did turn unto my closet, O Lord, and prayed unto thee, thou didst hear me.
Yea, thou art merciful unto thy children when they cry unto thee, to be heard of thee and not of men, and thou wilt hear them.
Yea, O God, thou hast been merciful unto me, and heard my cries in the midst of thy congregations.
Yea, and thou hast also heard me when I have been cast out and have been despised by mine enemies; yea, thou didst hear my cries, and wast angry with mine enemies, and thou didst visit them in thine anger with speedy destruction.
And thou didst hear me because of mine afflictions and my sincerity; and it is because of thy Son that thou hast been thus merciful unto me, therefore I will cry unto thee in all mine afflictions, for in thee is my joy; for thou hast turned thy judgments away from me, because of thy Son. (Alma 33:3-11).

And thus we find once again the power of The Book of Mormon. It is a book replete with references to people and their deliverance from sins and afflictions of all sorts based upon the merciful intervention of God in their lives. We always may find solace and comfort in THE WORD. When we exercise even a particle of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, repent of our sins, and embrace His perfection, we are healed and we are on the way to perfection ourselves as we change from our fallen state. We see His mercy at work in our lives. In our anguish He succors us. He assures us change is possible and desirable so we may have the long-term improvements we seek. And it is more than disruptive new technology. . .

. . . It is the stuff of which eternal life is made.

42 Questions for Sunday

A few years ago I spoke in one of the wards in our stake as the regular third Sunday high council speaker.  With ample time to develop a topic (a rarity) I felt impressed to revisit the 5th Chapter of Alma. 

As the president of the church and also the head of government as chief judge, Alma decided to appoint another chief judge and go out among his people to ". . . pull down by the word of God all the pride and craftiness and all the contentions which were among his people, seeing no way that he might reclaim them save it were in bearing down in pure testimony against them."  (Alma 4:19).

Later in the day on that Sunday afternoon, I received a call from an older, venerable and kind brother in that ward who declared, "That was the greatest talk I have ever heard in my whole life."  All I did was ask Alma's 42 questions. 

It might be a worthwhile Sunday activity today for you and your family to consider your answers.

ALMA 5 – How Would You Answer These Forty-two Questions if the Prophet Asked You?


1. And now behold, I say unto you, my brethren, you that belong to this church, have you sufficiently retained in remembrance the captivity of your fathers?

2. Yea, and have you sufficiently retained in remembrance his mercy and long-suffering towards them?

3. And moreover, have ye sufficiently retained in remembrance that he has delivered their souls from hell?

4. And now I ask of you, my brethren, were they destroyed?

5. And again I ask, were the bands of death broken, and the chains of hell which encircled them about, were they loosed?

6. And now I ask of you on what conditions are they saved?

7. Yea, what grounds had they to hope for salvation?

8. What is the cause of their being loosed from the bands of death, yea, and also the chains of hell?

9. Behold, I can tell you – did not my father Alma believe in the words which were delivered by the mouth of Abinadi?

10. And was he not a holy prophet?

11. Did he not speak the words of God, and my father Alma believe them?

12. And now behold, I ask of you, my brethren of the church, have ye spiritually been born of God?

13. Have ye received his image in your countenances?

14. Have ye experienced this mighty change in your hearts?

15. Do ye exercise faith in the redemption of him who created you?

16. Do you look forward with an eye of faith, and view this mortal body raised in immortality, and this corruption raised in incorruption, to stand before God to be judged according to the deeds which have been done in the mortal body?

17. I say unto you, can you imagine to yourselves that ye hear the voice of the Lord, saying unto you, in that day: Come unto me ye blessed, for behold, your works have been the works of righteousness upon the face of the earth?

18. Or do ye imagine to yourselves that ye can lie unto the Lord in that day, and say – Lord, our works have been righteous works upon the face of the earth – and that he will save you?

19. Or otherwise, can ye imagine yourselves brought before the tribunal of God with your souls filled with guilt and remorse, having a remembrance of all your guilt, yea, a perfect remembrance of all your wickedness, yea, a remembrance that ye have set at defiance the commandments of God?

20. I say unto you, can ye look up to God at that day with a pure heart and clean hands?

21. I say unto you, can you look up, having the image of God engraven upon your countenances?

22. I say unto you, can ye think of being saved when you have yielded yourselves to become subjects to the devil?

23. And now I ask of you, my brethren, how will any of you feel, if ye shall stand before the bar of God, having your garments stained with blood and all manner of filthiness?

24. Behold, what will these things testify against you?

25. Behold will they not testify that ye are murderers, yea, and also that ye are guilty of all manner of wickedness?

26. Behold, my brethren, do ye suppose that such an one can have a place to sit down in the kingdom of God, with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob, and also all the holy prophets, whose garments are cleansed and are spotless, pure and white?

27. And now behold, I say unto you, my brethren, if ye have experienced a change of heart, and if ye have felt to sing the song of redeeming love, I would ask, can ye feel so now?

28. Have ye walked, keeping yourselves blameless before God?

29. Could ye say, if ye were called to die at this time, within yourselves, that ye have been sufficiently humble?

30. That your garments have been cleansed and made white through the blood of Christ, who will come to redeem his people from their sins?

31. Behold, are ye stripped of pride?

32. Behold, I say, is there one among you who is not stripped of envy?

33. And again I say unto you, is there one among you that doth make a mock of his brother, or that heapeth upon him persecutions?

34. And now if ye are not the sheep of the good shepherd, of what fold are ye?

35. Behold, I say unto you, that the devil is your shepherd, and ye are of his fold; and now, who can deny this?

36. Do ye not suppose that I know of these things myself?

37. And how do ye suppose that I know of their surety?

38. And now my beloved brethren, I say unto you, can ye withstand these sayings; yea, can ye lay aside these things, and trample the Holy One under your feet; yea, can ye be puffed up in the pride of your hearts; yea, will ye still persist in the wearing of costly apparel and setting your hearts upon the vain things of the world, upon your riches?

39. Yea, will ye persist in supposing that ye are better one than another; yea, will ye persist in the persecution of your brethren, who humble themselves and do walk after the holy order of God, wherewith they have been brought into this church, having been sanctified by the Holy Spirit, and they do bring forth works which are meet for repentance – Yea, and will you persist in turning your backs upon the poor, and the needy, and in withholding your substance from them?

40.  For the names of the righteous shall be written in the book of life, and unto them will I grant an inheritance at my right hand.  And now, my brethren, what have ye to say against this?

41. For what shepherd is there among you having many sheep doth not watch over them, that the wolves enter not and devour his flock?

42. Behold, if a wolf enter his flock doth he not drive him out?

And the last summary verse (62) in this chapter says:

"I speak by way of command unto you that belong to the church; and unto those who do not belong to the church I speak by way of invitation, saying: Come and be baptized unto repentance that ye also may be partakers of the fruit of the tree of life."