Hasta Luego...

Thank you to everyone who came and supported Zach at his farewell! Here is the talk he gave:

Would you look at that. So many familiar faces. So glad you guys could make it! I will be serving a 2 year mission in Santiago, Chile! I'm so excited. Today I will be talking about how I chose to serve a mission and how cool this gospel is.  Big shout out to the homies that drove down from USU and up from Utah County; it means a lot to me!!!

I recently read an article from the Church News that I really liked, yes I do  read the Church News - because my Aunt Sarah is the Editor. The article is “Dealing with Life's Doors” by Boyd Matheson. In the article it talked about how President Nelson had to choose between different doors in his life. He was faced with many hard choices. When President Nelson was in Uruguay a few months ago, a boy asked him if it was difficult to leave behind his medical career when he was called to be an Apostle.  President Nelson responded, “I walked through the door into a new room and closed the other door behind me.”

Stopping his profession as a heart surgeon, and becoming a full-time Apostle in the church would be extremely hard for anyone to do. I can't imagine going to school for 12 years and then deciding to walk away from that to become a church leader.

Our opportunities and challenges in life can be compared to doors.  President Nelson says, “Life is filled with doors. How we approach them can determine our destiny.” I believe this 100 percent.  In my life I have had to choose to go through many different doors, as many of you have had to.

The first door I faced was baptism. Of course, I opened it. I love the gospel and my family helped me a lot!

The next door to open was a little bit harder, it was who to hang around with in high school. As you can tell, I hung out with a group that we called Slapshot. They were the worst kids to hang around with ... hahaha, just kidding. Out of my close friends, 20 of them are on missions leading the path for me and the younger generation. I love hearing their stories and how happy they are! I was able to Facetime some of my close friends at Christmas. It was so awesome to see the happiness on their faces. I also was able to become very close friends with my ski homies. We would ski every Saturday and probably 2 times a week after school. This was a huge blessing in my life. They pushed me way out of my comfort zone and made me achieve things in skiing that I thought weren’t even possible. I am thankful for their example. It would have been very easy for them to do drugs or drink, but not my friends in Wamas Media. They  kept me on the right path and helped me decide my morals and ethics. A lot of you know that I love these moments so much. I am up Little Cottonwood Canyon every chance I get. I opened my mission call up there. I remember one time I was at the top of Pyramid Gap with my friend Jett Johnson. Jett and I were up on the in run to the jump and I was freaking out and he told me that we would be ok and that we have done this before. Jett said a prayer out loud and we both could feel the Spirit. We knew with our training we would be ok. We have never hit this jump before in fact only a handful of people in the whole world have hit this jump. But right then and there, after Jett said that to me, I had this overwhelming feeling come to me that we would be fine and that we just needed to have confidence. I believe that if we have confidence in the Lord we will be just fine!

Next I was faced with two of the biggest scariest doors of my life: play college soccer in Montana or go on a mission.

I remember everyone I talked to told me I needed to go on a mission right out of high school and that if I didn't it would be a lot harder for me to go serve. This made me turn away from the gospel a little and wanted to rebel.  As a result I didn't go to church for like 5 months and was just focused on dumb worldly things. And as many of you know, I ended up going to play college soccer in Montana. It was one of the best choices of my life to date. It was also the hardest choice of my life. But you know what they say, “The best things in life are the things that are 100 times harder than the easy things.” College soccer was 100 times better than I expected. I would fly fish with my buddies four times a week and play soccer every day and then go out and have fun on the weekends. This was the best life and I was having so much fun, but deep down I still knew that I needed to serve a mission.

But I was scared and didn't want to leave my comfort zone. I ended up transferring to USU. Go Aggies baby!!!! When I got to USU it was completely different. I had to restart and make new friends and live with new people and adapt to conditions and habits. I loved it! Meeting and connecting with all these new people who had the same lifestyle as me was awesome!

I wanted to stay at Utah State for the rest of my life. Then just like that, another door hit me in the face. I got sick and the doctors didn't know what I had for 3 months, which was really hard. I didn't hang out with my friends because I was sick 24/9. I finally got my tonsils out and 1 week later felt like a new man. After this I was faced with the next door, which was should I get my Patriarchal Blessing or not? I was nervous that my blessing would tell me that I needed to go on a mission and that I needed to go ASAP.  I decided to open this door and it was a huge blessing. I have yet to feel the spirit that strongly and thank Patriarch Sperry for helping me! Up to this point in my life, I wasn't planning on going on my mission. I was getting really excited to see all my friends this summer who had been on mission for 2 years and I was just stoked on life.

The next door I faced to open was going on a mission. I wondered if this was the right time for me and wondered if I needed to wait and grow a little more before I left. When I told my close friends I was thinking of going on a mission, they and were unbelievably happy for me. I knew after these conversations that I was doing the right thing. I put my papers in on my birthday with President Staples over the phone. It was the best birthday of  my life. He called me and said that he wanted to meet with me 1 or 2 more times, but I insisted that my papers had to be turned in right then and asked him to click the mouse and hold the phone to the mouse so I could hear it over the phone and he did that. It was one of the best noises I have ever heard.  I  was overwhelmed with joy. Now I will have to opportunity to open the door and go serve the people of Santiago, Chile and work my butt off to help them become closer to Christ.

I know my mission will be hard. But I learned a lot from an experience President Nelson had that was also hard.

President Ezra Taft Benson asked President Nelson in 1985 to help the Church get into Eastern Europe. In 1985 all those countries were under communist rule. Religion was against the law in most of those countries.

President Nelson said: “I had no experience that would lead me to believe I could open countries for the preaching of the gospel. And yet, a prophet had given me an assignment, so I set out to do what seemed  impossible.

“...But the Lord is able to do His own work, and I was privileged to watch the unfolding of one miracle after another — always and only after I had brought my best thinking, my most fervent prayers and my most courageous efforts to the task. The Lord likes effort. Then He blesses our best efforts,” said President Nelson.

In 1992 President Nelson was able to report the church had been established in all those countries.

I am forever thankful for President Nelson’s example and how he opens doors, walks through them, and never looks back.

I know I can follow the example of my friends and President Nelson and serve a mission in Chile.

I am grateful to my friends; Chris Madson my soccer coach,  Davis Smith, Bishop Aslami, Steve Hunt and many others for their example.

After the Savior was crucified he appeared before his apostles in his Resurrected state. They had gone fishing. The Savior told them where to cast their nets so they could catch fish. Jesus asked Peter if he loved him more than his fish and boats. Peter said in John 21, “Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee.” And Jesus said, “Then feed my sheep.”

I am grateful to be able to walk through a door and feed the Lord’s sheep in Chile.

One last word on the most recent door I've opened. Over the past couple of weeks I have been spending a lot of time at Alta Ski Area just up the canyon from here. Alta is my happy place. I have been working for Alta lift company as ski lift operator. I get paid to ski - UNBELIEVABLE.

Before I started working at Alta my friends and I took a lot of risks and received a lot rewards, most of the time. Our friends have had broken collar bones, broken backs and concussions. When we ski together we always look out for each other. If one of us does not come down the ski run we wait or head back up to find them in case they have had an equipment problem or are injured -- unless it's  a powder day, then there are no friends on a powder day.

I believe Heavenly Father wants us to look out for each other.

I am thankful to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and very excited to help those in Chile learn about the Savior.

I am thankful for my family and for all my many blessings.

I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.