Tad Talk

Several things stood out to me Tuesday about President Russell M. Nelson’s devotional for young adults at BYU that did not make it into my story about the talk and some of the reaction.

First, in addition to the estimated 19,000 people in the Marriott Center, according to the campus special events department, another 12,946 watched in the BYU-Idaho Center on the campus of BYU-Idaho, according to a tweet by the school.

Now here’s some information that hasn’t been shared anywhere else: As of 4 p.m. Wednesday, the devotional had been viewed 205,000 times on churchofjesuschrist.org, 176,000 times on the church’s Facebook page and 123,000 times on its YouTube channel, according to the Church Communication Department.

That’s more than half a million times the devotional has been viewed in 29 hours. This was a major event. President Nelson issued an invitation to watch on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and young adults responded in droves. In fact, they continue to do so. Nearly 40% of those views happened between 8 p.m. Tuesday and 4 p.m. Wednesday.

Second, in a related personal observation, I’ve now seen audiences in Africa, the South Pacific, Europe and North and South America respond to this leader they consider a prophet of God. I’ve written before about President Nelson’s ability to connect with large groups and church members’ reverence for a prophet. There is a sheer joy and love that flows back and forth between him and those in attendance. As much as I’ve seen it, I was struck strongly by how it existed after his devotional address on Tuesday, as 19,000 students stood up to say goodbye. He pointed and waved, as I wrote in my article, to each section of the stadium. The students waved and beamed back. This is not unique to President Nelson. I’ll get back to that in a moment.

I was looking at the students to see their reaction to his talk. What I saw was devotion.

Third, inherent in his message, but perhaps underreported, was that the church’s prophet spoke plainly about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender children and parents as sons and daughters of a God who loves them perfectly, and that church leaders wept at their grief and care for them deeply. It’s all there throughout the transcript of the talk, but mostly clearly stated in this sentence: “Because we feel the depth of God’s love for his children, we care deeply about every child of God, regardless of age, personal circumstances, gender, sexual orientation or other unique challenges.”

As he also mentioned, prophets aren’t always popular, and some people have criticized this talk. But some also have noted that it was the first time a church president has used the words lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender or the term LGBT, which has never been said in general conference. President Nelson plainly said, “I see you” and showed he listened to and heard the confusion and heartache he himself said was created in November 2015.

Fourth, it’s noteworthy that the only other time he publicly provided background about the November 2015 policy was in a worldwide broadcast to young adults in February 2016. The first time he spoke about the policy update of April 2019 was, again, to young adults in Tuesday’s worldwide broadcast.

Fifth, it’s hard to believe it had been nearly eight years since a sitting president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints spoke at BYU.

President Thomas S. Monson spoke on campus three times as church president, but the final time was Nov. 1, 2011. The Marriott Center was full that day, too, judging by the photos from the Deseret News story. As I looked for those, I found that I wrote a piece the next day about the major subject of his talk, Clayton Christensen. It included much of what President Monson said about him and provided additional information about Christensen, whose wife was one of my Primary teachers growing up and who is an author of a book on missionary work and one of Harvard’s most renowned business professors.

OK, back to that note about how other prophets have connected with large groups. Many of you have seen it happen, be it with President David O. McKay, President Spencer W. Kimball or others. But after that last BYU address by President Monson, our Deseret News reporter Sarah Gambles wrote that he left the Marriott Center in style.

He gave the crowd an air high five.

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