Alec Roland Video

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Can You Feel So Now podcast. I'm Justin Barton, and I love having the opportunity to sit down with freshly and recently returned missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. And today I'm sitting down with somebody I've never met before, and I'm grateful to do so. This is, such a cool opportunity for me to expand my network of Really cool people.

And I'm going to sit down here today with Alec Roland. So Alec, why don't you tell us just a little bit about yourself, where you're from, a little bit about your families and some hobbies that you have. Yeah, for sure. So yeah, my name is Alec Roland. I am from Spokane, Washington. So I was born and raised in Spokane, and I recently returned from my mission in Bangkok, Thailand.

It was a great mission, and just growing up, I was a big, basketball player. Played a lot of basketball, a little bit of football, and loved doing that. And then went to one semester at BYU before the mission, and then after that. Submitted my mission papers and headed out, served [00:01:00] two years in Thailand.

And it was great. Love that experience. And now I'm back to Spokane and soon I'll be heading back down to BYU. So that's where I'm at in life right now. Thanks for sharing that Alec. And you said you served in the Thailand Bangkok mission. What were the approximate dates that you served?

Oh yeah. So I left January of 2023 and then got back December of 2024. All right. So you just barely got back. You're very recently returned. Yeah. Super fresh. Awesome. Good. So talk to me a little bit about what made you decide. To serve a mission. What was that process like as you got closer and closer to that?

Yeah, for sure. So growing up, I grew up in the church, grew up with my, dad's stories and my grandpa's stories about going on missions. So growing up, I knew it was something that I wanted to do and that I had to do because my priesthood responsibility. I went [00:02:00] through high school with that mindset, it would be fun. I'd have stories to tell. And it was also like my responsibility as a member of the church and as a male. And then when I went down to BYU, I took a book of Mormon class from Hank Smith. That was one of the first times in my life that I had really like. Doug into the book of Mormon before that I had gone to EFY and youth camps and read the book of Mormon a little bit and gotten an answer that the book of Mormon is true, but I'd never really dug into it or really studied the book of Mormon until I was in college.

And while I was at college, I really started studying the book of Mormon and got a better testimony of the book of Mormon. And I would say at that point, I really developed the desire to serve a mission. And so I put my papers in and. Just decided to go right after one semester. Very cool. So as dove deep, deeper into the Book of Mormon, were there any particular verses of scripture that jump out at you as something that [00:03:00] may be a game changer in your own life and in your own experience?

Yeah, for sure. One of the scriptures that I loved growing up, not towards the end of high school and kind of that first year of college was Moroni 10, I think it's verse 30 or 31. It basically just talks about how, if we come unto Jesus Christ He can perfect us and, make us perfect.

I, love that scripture. I love that concept because here it is 32 says, yeah, come under Christ and be perfected in him and deny yourselves of all ungodliness. And if you shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness and love God with all your might, might, mind, and strength, then it's his grace sufficient for you that by his grace, he may be perfect in Christ.

And if by the grace of God, you're perfect in Christ, you can in no wise deny the power of God. I just loved when I was in college, when I was in high school, I love that idea of if we come under Christ, we'll be perfect. He'll perfect us. And that [00:04:00] helped me a lot because I was never someone that had a great gospel knowledge or really knew the scripture super well, but to have that testimony that Jesus Christ is enough for me, even if I'm not super skilled in the scriptures, that was always super inspirational to me.

Jesus will take me how I am and he'll. Help me to become perfect. As you were sharing that and starting out with that, I was like, man this perfect, perfection, striving for perfection is something that really is intimidating to me. But as you wrap that up, that Jesus is enough for me, talk to me a little bit about what that means to you.

Maybe you are a perfectionist that wants to demand perfection from yourself and from others around you, but what does that mean that Jesus is enough for me? Yeah. Well, one of the things that, I make a lot of mistakes and it's never been part of my personality.

I've been a perfectionist, but the concept of perfectionism or like [00:05:00] being perfect was something that scared me at the beginning. I always thought. I'd, never be good enough. I remember one time my seminar teacher asked me what kingdom I would go to as a special, like celestial, terrestrial and celestial kingdom.

And I answered the terrestrial kingdom. Cause I was like, I'll just never be good enough. But after I read some really awesome talks by Brad Wilcox about the grace of Jesus Christ. That really helped me to understand that Jesus Christ already paid all of our debt and already performed the atonement.

And the atonement is so incredible that. It can perfect us. It can turn us into that perfect person that we want to be. And that concept that Jesus Christ paid for everything up front. That always helped me that we don't have to earn anything. We just have to trust in Jesus Christ.

He already paid for all of it. He already has the power to perfect us and we don't have to earn any of that. He just expects us to keep trying, have faith in him and, repent daily. And so that's, how I learned to love that, concept of perfection. Yeah. Did that concept [00:06:00] of grace, his grace being sufficient, is that something that you grasped before your mission or is that something you learned on your mission or is that something that has developed over time?

And what does that look like? Oh, that is a great question. I would say that's something I began to grasp right before my mission, right before my mission, I got into that and started to understand it. But it's really been something that's just continually grown on me. I've come to understand it more and more.

Recently I actually heard a really cool story that helped me to understand this at an even deeper level. It was the parable of the 10 virgins, which is one that we all know. And I never thought that was about grace until I heard it explained in a certain way. So, so what people normally know is that there's like the five virgins, right?

Five of them are foolish. Five were, wise. And what we've been, what I was taught all growing up was five are foolish because they didn't bring oil and the other five were wise because they did bring oil. That's what, how we understand that. [00:07:00] And what I heard recently was someone was talking about how five of them are foolish because.

When the bridegroom came, they scurried away and thought they were going to be able to make their own light by some of their own actions. And five were wise because they stayed and trust in the groomsmen and were there when, or the bridesmaid is the bridesmaid, correct? Yeah. The bright, the bride groom.

Bridegroom. Yeah, there you go. And they were there and they waited for the bride's groom. And I just thought that's really interesting to me that like, we know Jesus Christ light is enough for all of us, no matter what. And that it's interesting to talk about how those five virgins could have been foolish because they didn't trust in the bride's groom.

They were foolish because they left and thought they could save themselves by their own actions rather than. Relying on the Savior. Relying on the Bridesgroom. And I thought that was really interesting. That kind of gave me another, shade to this [00:08:00] topic of grace.

Dude, I'm buzzing. I'm buzzing from that. I've never seen it that way. And I really appreciate it. So as you look at well, let's just sit there on that, that parable for just a minute. And you look at that. And from that perspective, do you have any examples maybe from your mission where maybe you were one of the five that ran, scurried off trying to figure it out with your own light or you stuck around and entrusted that what little oil you had was going to be enough to, for him to make it, to make you perfect, to, to perfect.

Yeah. Oh man. That is like, my whole mission is not being good enough. Making that decision between trusting the Lord and, not trusting the first kind of memory that came to my mind was so it was the first time we'll go with this one. So I was, a greenie. I had just gotten to the country.[00:09:00]

And for those of, for people that know what a greenie is, it's. Brand new, fresh missionary just got into country and most time greenies can't speak the language and they don't know the culture. They're not used to the weather, the heat. And that was what my situation was. I couldn't speak the language.

I couldn't talk to anybody other than my trainer. Me and my trainer did not get along. So we were, I struggled there. It was like 115 degrees and 90 percent humidity every day. The food was so spicy. I could hardly anything. And I was just going through a really tough time, right? And on this particular day that I'm thinking of, I woke up in the morning and I had this rash all over my face.

My eyes were swollen shot. There's a rash on my face, down my body, down my arms. I felt like that waking up with that rash. That was like the peak of misery to me. I was like, everything's going wrong. Everything's hard. And now I have this rash on my face. I can't open my eyes. And so I was just going through a really tough time.[00:10:00]

And so we go throughout our day. We go to our normal missionary work. Finally, around like four or five o'clock at night, we meet up with a member and the member basically took one look at me and told us we had to go straight to the hospital. So we go to the hospital, they start drawing blood out of me.

They start pumping fluids into me. I couldn't tell what they were doing. Cause I didn't speak Thai. But eventually they, say they gave me something that worked and they turned me on my way. At that point I was so exhausted and delirious. We decided to just call it a day and go home.

But before we went home, we went to this we went to a market, a little street market, and I was going to I, got to the market and just fell asleep right on the table right there. Cause I was so tired. After five or so minutes, my, my trainer, he gave me a little elbow and woke me up and was like, all right, elder Roland, we gotta go get some food.

So he told me to go up and get some food. I was walking up there. He called me back. He's like. Invite that street vendor to church [00:11:00] or like invite them to, I think we had an English class. Give me a little pass along card. And as you can imagine at that time, that was like the last thing I wanted to do.

I didn't want to do any work. I didn't want to proselyte. I was just tired and fed up with missionary work, but I decided. To just do it anyways. And so we walk up there and I invited the guy to our English class and he just said, no, he just rejected me right on the spot, but I already felt like I was at rock bottom, so I didn't take it too hard.

But when I had invited that guy, the lady standing behind me in line, she was interested in English. And so she got my attention. We started talking and I got her contact information and long story short, that lady. Ended up being interested. She progressed and got baptized. What we didn't know at the time was that she, so Thailand is a completely Buddhist country.

There's almost no Christians. But this lady had heard something [00:12:00] about Christianity. She was going through a really hard time in her life where her husband had left her. She had a young child. She was struggling with money and jobs and everything.

She asked God, if he could send her some help, send her someone to give her guidance. And about five minutes after that prayer, she bumped into me and saw that I was a missionary and I was teaching English. And what was just incredible to me in this story is that At that time in my mission, I felt like a broken missionary.

I felt useless. I was, not having a good time not enjoying it, but because I was, had faith and kind of put my trust in God, he was able to work that miracle through me. And even though I was not a good missionary, I felt like I wasn't enough. God was able to make my like meager offering perfect. He was able to make me succeed because of his.

Power and his, miracles. And I think that kind of goes along with that concept of grace, where no matter what we do, we're never enough. We're [00:13:00] never good enough but because we put our faith in Jesus Christ, Christ can make us perfect. He can perfect whatever meager offering we have. He can take it and make it perfect.

So I think that's, that was one of the biggest lessons I learned on my mission for sure. That's such a cool story and such a I love how you brought those together that with that you mentioned that in Thailand the country is almost completely Buddhist almost nobody's Christian And everything like that.

What did you learn? From your interactions with Buddhism that maybe broadened your mind broadened your understanding of how God works Oh, that's a good question. I would say wraps into the similar topic of grace. Not completely, but so with Buddhism, they have their, the religion of Buddhism is very reliant on your works.

So how I've come to understand Buddhism is similar to almost like a point [00:14:00] system. It's called in Thai, it's called Tambun, which is do merit. It's rough translation. So you're basically trying to. Do good things to become a better person. And if you do bad things, that's like a negative in your, points.

And so Thai people are very into how you perform by yourself. If you're a good person by yourself and they don't really there's not a lot of outside forces acting upon you, right? It's much on how you perform what you do by yourself. If you're a good person by yourself.

Awesome. If you're a bad person by yourself you score lower on there for lack of a better term, Buddhist point system. Which is very different to what we believe, is we believe that. It's less about our works and the good that we do and all about our faith and how much our testimony in Jesus Christ, if we have a valiant testimony in Jesus Christ or not.[00:15:00]

And I think that is something that really opened my eyes to the fact that we don't have to be perfect through our actions. I'm watching Buddhism and watching how they. Put such an emphasis on their actions and their keeping their commandments and doing all that. It helped me to understand that while that stuff is important, what's really important is our testimony, Jesus Christ, and that we, always have faith in him, we continually believe in him.

And we we trust in him more than we trust in ourselves. We try our best to keep the commandments and be good people. But at the end of the day, what's important is that we put our trust in Jesus Christ and endure to the end in our faith in Jesus Christ. Yeah, so Alec one thing that I'm actually gonna push back a little bit here because this is for much of my life I believed this way and a lot of people other Christian faiths look at the our faith and say man you guys think it's all about works and doing good and [00:16:00] Scoring points and checking off checkboxes in order to get to the celestial kingdom.

And that's one of the things that people say is is wrong about our faith. And I believed that for a long time. Man, I've got to do better. I've got to be ye therefore perfect. And what I heard there was, I have to do those things. How do you reconcile? Teach me. How to move away from that type of belief if, as if I'm somebody who doesn't understand that.

Oh, that's a great, question. Yeah. And I can totally relate to that because I felt like for a big part of my life, obviously I'm not, haven't had that long of a life yet, but for a good part of my life, I thought very similar where I thought we had to, I had to keep all these commandments going through high school.

I had to keep the word of wisdom, law of chastity. It was a long list of things to do, especially for a high school that didn't have a valiant testimony or great testimony. I would say [00:17:00] the biggest thing that honestly helped me to gain a deeper understanding of grace is.

Reading Jesus's parables at the end of his life, he has a chapter. I think it's Matthew 25. . , but he puts out three parables, right? There's a parable about the vineyard. . And then there's the parable about the talents, I believe.. So we all already talked about the parable of 10 virgins and how , you can look at that in the lens of grace, right?

But one thing I'd like to do is look at all three of these and see how they. Have the lens of grace on them. And when you look at it that way, you can see that Jesus at the end of his life is trying everything he can to get us to understand this concept of grace. So with the 10 virgins, we saw that like, why is people trusting Jesus Christ to the end, no matter what their actions are, the foolish people can turn away and try and save themselves by their own actions with [00:18:00] the parable of the talents.

I was talking about this with my dad, the other day. The parable of the talents, a talent. I think he was saying it translated to something like 75 years of work.

. And he was talking about how in the parable they give, I think it's 10 talents, five talents, and two talents. And what we leave out in our modern understanding is that this amount of money that He was giving the people was an astronomical amount of money.

It was way more money than they would ever earn or they would ever spend. So what his point is that is what Jesus did for us with the atonement it's like astronomical how valuable the atonement can be to us. And what Jesus Christ doesn't want us to do is he does.

He's saying that he already paid the price. He already did the atonement. He performed the atonement and he doesn't want us to worry and stress out about the little things, but rather go live our lives, try and do good, spread Jesus Christ's life and rely on [00:19:00] Jesus Christ rather than rely on ourselves.

And that parable, he gives them an astronomical amount of money. And tells him to go go multiply and go, use that money. And what I love in the parable is he has three people that two of them do that. One is more successful than the other. And he gives them the same response. The third one buries that money in the ground.

And that's the one that gets a negative response is the person that buries his money in the ground. And that kind of helps me to understand that Jesus Christ doesn't want us to be. Ultra careful and ultra caught up in all the little things, all the tiny commandments. He rather wants us to rely on his grace, go through our lives and do his work.

That's what Jesus Christ wants us to do is do his work spread, his light and share the gospel. And put ourselves out there and I'm going to jump in here real quick because this is there's a lot of things coming together for me [00:20:00] right now, and I really appreciate you helping facilitate this just today.

I got a text message from my youngest sister. We're talking about trusting in God. We're talking about the breaking out of the prison of self, basically the prison of. What was me my life is this way and I'm in prison and she sent me a farsight cartoon and I'm just gonna do a quick job of describing this here and I think it relates to this print this talent that you're talking about and it's a picture of this tropical paradise and there's birds and a beach and Palm trees and everything.

And then there's this giant bird cage with a little bird in, in it on its swing on its perch. And it says at the bottom, winning the lottery had changed his life, but at times Chico still felt strangely unfulfilled. He'd won the lottery and he built this big old bird cage and he wasn't free to do anything about that.

So let's dive into that. What does that look like to you [00:21:00] in relation to what you just taught me about the parable of the talents? It's like, yeah, it reminds me of the I think Uchtdorf has a talk where he talks about how we often live below our privilege . And I think that kind of, yeah, hits that topic right on the spot that yeah, Jesus Christ he paid the atonement for us. He did that for us.

And we oftentimes live below our privilege and don't use that. , one thing I love is that. Jesus Christ, when he played the atonement, he I would always, teach this to my investigators to help them understand the atonement is that when Jesus Christ paid the atonement, he paid it for every single sin that every single person ever did, right?

Every Buddhist person, Islamic person, Christian person, he paid it for all of them. And so it doesn't matter. Like us repenting doesn't cause him to suffer anymore. Us not repenting causes him to feel like he wastes his gift, right? It's us wasting [00:22:00] his gift, to us. And so that's helped me to understand that Jesus Christ has already opened the door for us to repent of everything we've ever done.

And when we don't do that, we're living below our privilege. Like you said, with the bird that built the cage after he won the lottery. , that's not what Jesus Christ wants us to do. He wants us to use. His gift to us and use it to the fullest that we can. So not repenting is burying that talent that, that massive amount of resource and gift and whatever that Christ has given me freely.

I'm burying it when I turn my back on him. So what does repentance look like to you on a daily basis right now? That's a good question. One of the goals I set for my mission came right at the end. Elder Uchtdorf came to our mission. He invited us every single night when we kneeled down, he said to repent of everything that we did that day.

And so every single night we're hitting our knees and repenting of everything so that the next day when we wake up, it's a fresh new day. [00:23:00] And that's how I've. Done my repenting recently. I haven't always done it like that, but I really like how Uchtdorf talked about it in that way we repent every night and each day is like a fresh new day. If we do it like that . Another thing that one of the members taught me in Thailand is they would always say, never let the sun set without repenting. That's just help us remember to repent daily and never, let us sin fester, let us sin sit on us too long.

That's how I've, looked at it recently. , how have you experienced letting a sin fester and not repenting of it quickly? And how has that affected you in a, whether the short, term, medium term or long term?

Let us in fester. I've never said that before my whole life, but I'd say one, okay, I'll just share another story because I feel like stories teach well, [00:24:00] one story that kind of displays the idea of letting us in fester when I was playing high school basketball, there was this kid on my basketball team,

we did not get along great. We were competing for the same position and we did not get along. We clashed on every level. Our personalities clashed on the basketball court. Seemed like we were always trying to hurt each other.

We were just trying to hit each other as hard as we could. And for most of the basketball season, I hated this kid. I couldn't, stand him. Couldn't stand to talk to him, run a drill with him. And it really stressed me out. Cause I felt like every, day I had basketball practice and every day I had to go meet up with this kid

that I hated and that was wrong. That is not how Jesus would want me to treat this kid, but that's what I did for, months. And so it kinda like, like we were saying, I let that sin fester, right? I just kept hating them every day. I would go to practice, try and hit him as hard [00:25:00] as I could.

Every, rebound and every play down the court, I'd try and hit him. And one day I was talking to my mom about it and my mom, she told me to think of what he has at home. , I don't think he had a father and , he didn't have any support at home.

And my mom helped me to realize that, He might not really be getting any love at home, and that might be the reason that he acts like that on the basketball court. And he acts like that at school is because he's a kid that just didn't have any anyone to love him or support him.

And my mom told me to instead of Trying to hit him so hard and fighting with him every day. She told me to kill him with kindness and to just go, to basketball practice every day and try and be his friend, try and show him love. And that is not something I wanted to do.

And so I tried and eventually . It worked by the end of the season, we were really good friends. And that's something that I did not expect to [00:26:00] happen . Cause I like, like I said, I really did not get along with this kid. We were, trying to hurt each other every day for three months.

But after my mom told me to just kill him with kindness, it really flipped the switch for me. And we actually became really, close friends. So I thought that was interesting. Yeah. I love when you let something like that fester a resentment something that you're angry about a perceived wrong that somebody has done to you it can really.

blow up, but this, concept of killing with kindness. As you put that into real practice, you saw the situation change. Was it him that changed or was it you that changed in that process? I honestly think it was, me that changed.

I think he, I don't know if we got off on the wrong foot, the start of the season, but I think he saw the way that I didn't love him at first and that kind of. Just put him in defense mode for lack of [00:27:00] better term. He was just decided to be mean because he knew I didn't like him right from the start.

But I think once I started to show him some more love and, turned things around on my part, he changed and he was more accepting of me after that. So I think we both changed, but . I think I was. More in the wrong than I accepted.

Yeah. And I, find that super powerful to examine and not to beat myself up, but to say, okay, in this situation where , I perceive that somebody is wrong to me and I'm feeling defensive, resentful, whatever it is, I want to throw an elbow in this guy when I'm, I want to back box him out for a rebound really hard and then I look at, okay, what is my part in this? Where am I wrong? Talk to me a little bit about some, maybe a situation on your mission with a companion or a friend or mission president where you had a resentment and then you asked yourself the question, where am I wrong in this?

What do I need to change? And things change.

Let's see, . I [00:28:00] had the trainer that I didn't get along with very well. And I don't know if there was ever a point when I was companions with them that I. Really would say I got along with him. We butted heads for, I think all of the three, four months I was with him.

But right, , after we split up I started to realize that I was being pretty negative when I was with him and started to realize how great of a missionary he actually was, and I really regret not realizing that sooner because I think I actually could have gotten along with him really well, and I think we actually would have.

Been really good friends if I didn't realize that sooner. But yeah, it was one of those things where I, really regretted it later. So how do you go about trying to make that right in that situation? Have you already had that conversation with him

I might need to have a better conversation with him. I think I saw him later in the mission and told him I was grateful to be comps with him, but I might be one of the things that I need to go [00:29:00] make right again. I don't think I. Fully made that situation, right? So I would say, yeah, I probably need to go, talk to him again.

But yeah, I think that's one of those things that you just gotta, you gotta own up to it. Just talk to him straightforward and own up to what you did and what you want to write, what you want to make better. Yeah. I think that's a vital part of. The repentance process, whatever you want to call it, a men's process.

But what a cool opportunity that you and I have to sit here and reflect on these things and see our, have our eyes open. You've opened my eyes, maybe your eyes have been opened a little bit here, and that's one of the purposes of this. So as, you experienced your, time there in Thailand.

We talked a little bit about how Buddhism, your eyes were opened to the nature of God a little bit and grace through Buddhism. What were some other things, whether it be culture, [00:30:00] religion, or just traditions that really helped you see that life isn't just about what I've learned in Spokane, Washington.

Yeah. I'd say one of the things I learned is that I got to see people in a very, different background than what I, grew up in. So I grew up in Spokane, Washington, very like generic American city.

But when I went to Thailand, I got to see a lot, different type of people. A lot of people are in poverty that work in the rice fields and don't have the same opportunities I have. And that is, was really interesting. It opened my eyes a lot that. That we're very blessed for what we have in America and that not everyone has the same opportunities.

We have to be grateful for what we have. One of the things that really opened my eyes was the church in Thailand. I'm wrapping into the church is that the church in Thailand is [00:31:00] super new. So they've only had missionaries there for like 40, 50 years. And so it's not very big and the oldest members you really ever find her been members for 30.

20, maybe 30 years. You don't find a lot of members that have been there for longer than 30 years. And so a lot of the traditions and cultures we have in our church in America, they just don't have in Thailand. So it's really interesting to see their kind of views on the gospel there, how they run their, meetings which has been interesting there.

It was really interesting to go through that and see. The Thai church and see , what stuff is doctrine and once what stuff is culture. But it's interesting to see that the doctrine is the same all around the world, that we're all living the same doctrine.

We're all trying to do the same thing here on earth. By observing the culture of the church in Thailand, ? Did that make you want to come back here and not change the culture in and of itself, but change your own culture in how you interact in church and with members of the church, where you're like, [00:32:00] man, we need to do more of that here.

There was a couple of things that I feel like the Thai church does really, well. And then a lot of things that they don't do well. And so that really gave me a good perspective of what I want to do with my life. One of the things that the Thai church does incredibly is, the member to member relationships.

So in Thailand, every single ward, every single Sunday has a munch and mink where all, the members bring food together and they all eat together. And so what happens is all the, members are pretty good friends because. They have a munch and mingle every single Sunday and every member goes.

I remember brings food and goes. And so I thought that was really, interesting that just the camaraderie that they have in the church in Thailand. And that's one thing that I want to do as a member in America is just try and bring that friendship into America. Thailand does a really good job of that. And that's one thing I think we could improve on is just making sure everybody's included and everyone feels like they have a friend at church. [00:33:00] That'll be the first thing. The second thing that was shocking in Thailand is they don't have a lot of kids or families.

At all in the church, which is one of the biggest things that's hindering the growth of the church in Thailand is they just, they don't have families. They don't have young families that are grown up in the church. Almost no one is born in the covenant. Almost no one. Really gets married and the youth in the church in Thailand, for the most part, don't really want to get married or have kids either.

So that's one of the things that I saw that I feel like really hindered the growth of the church in Thailand. And so coming home I'm not saying I'm trying to get married within three months, but I, it does help me see the importance of, marriage and families. Since my mission, I, that's definitely become my number one goal is to get married, have a family and raise them in the church, raise them as, good members.

Is that something that's evolved? Do you think before your mission where you're like I don't know if I [00:34:00] even want to get married or it's going to be a while before I even look at that, or is that something you've always thought it's going to be fairly early in my life that I get married and have a family.

I would say it's always been something I've wanted to do my whole life. I've wanted to get married and, be a dad. That's been one of my goals my whole life. But since the mission, I feel like I understand the magnitude of that a lot more. A lot of things that we learned in the temple and, you learn from studying the talks of the.

Apostles and prophets is how important marriage and family is. And so as a growing up, I always wanted to do it, but I never understood how important it is. I think president Nelson has a couple of talks that talk about how marriage and family are like the most important thing in this life. If we couldn't have celestial marriage, the whole world would be for nothing.

Like it would be wasted, . And, another thing that has really helped me is I've been serving in the temple, working in the temple since, I came home from the mission, I've been paying attention to the word. One of my favorite words [00:35:00] is the word joy. And if you go through the temple and listen to the word joy almost, not every single time, but almost every time it talks about it, it's paired with the word posterity.

This is, we need to have joy in our posterity. We need to multiply and replenish the earth so that we can have joy in our posterity. And so those little things have helped me understand that not only is marriage and family, something that's important, but also it's central to our Heavenly Father's plan and central to what He sent us here to do.

Oh, this is really good. So before we start wrapping up this conversation, is, there anything that's sitting on your heart, either that you brought into this, that you're like, no, I really want to talk about this, or as we've been speaking that you've thought, man, that's important.

I need to say something about this. That's a good question. So before when I was prepping, I didn't really know what to expect. So I just wrote down four or five scriptures that I liked. So one of the scriptures that stood out to me

[00:36:00] And heal them in three 27 to 30. So I had two mission presidents in my mission because they switched, this is the last scripture and kind of talk that my mission president gave, he shared this scripture and talked about how important the scriptures are.

So it's Helaman three 27. And,

I just wrote this down cause I've loved this scripture. I loved it. My, my whole mission ever since he shared it. And so I guess I can just read that for us. I'll do 29 and 30. Those are the important ones that I like. It says 29 says, yay. We see that whosoever will may lay hold upon the word of God, which is quick and powerful, which shall divide asunder all the cunning and the snares and the wiles of the devil and lead the man of Christ in a straight and narrow course across that everlasting gulf of misery, which is prepared to engulf the wicked.

And land their souls, yea, their immortal souls at the right hand of God in the kingdom of heaven to sit down with Abraham and Isaac and with Jacob and with all our Holy Fathers to go no more out. [00:37:00] So, I love that scripture. I think it's super powerful. I love how it uses the idea of It's going to, the scriptures is talking about the scriptures and the word of God is going to lead our souls over that everlasting gulf of misery and land us at the right hand of God and the kingdom of heaven.

I just love the idea that the scriptures are our guide and our iron rod to the celestial kingdom. And as we follow and hold onto the word of God and the scriptures, they'll lead us right back to heavenly father, right back to his kingdom.

I love that concept. Love that scripture. So I felt like I should, share that. No, absolutely. And it's a great great place to go. And I really appreciate it. Thank you, Alec. All right. My last few questions I have for you are based on what the theme of this project is called. Can you feel so now, which comes from Alma chapter.

Five verse 26, and that verse reads, and now behold, I saying to you, my brethren, if you have experienced a change of heart, and if you have felt to sing the song of redeeming [00:38:00] love, I would ask, can you feel so now? So Alec, you've talked some about this change of heart that you've experienced over, your mission and through this last couple of years.

Tell me a little bit more about the change of heart and how, why that's important to you. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Change of heart, I think is super important. When we talk about grace and talk about the savior kind of saving us from our imperfections.

One of the concepts that I love is the idea of that it's where our heart is, it's where our desires are is less so our efforts and our actions but where our hearts are what we truly want to. To do there's a scripture in the book of Mormon. It says that Jesus Christ can't save us in our sins, but he can save us from our sins.

I love that, that if we want to be saved out of our sins, Jesus Christ has 100, 100 percent power to do that. But if we want to be saved with our sins, Jesus Christ can't save us with our sins. We have to have that change of heart. We have to be converted to the Lord in order to.[00:39:00]

access is saving power. And I, liked that you brought up the change of heart in Thai, the word, they don't have Christian words, so they're all made up. They're all just mashed words from what Thailand has already. And so the word for repentance, it's called, it's, and so I say in Thai, and it means to flip your heart.

So they don't have the word for repentance, but they have the word flip heart. So that's how you say repent in Thai, which I think is really insightful that repentance isn't to be perfect or to just change what we did wrong. It's a change of heart. We need to change our heart and be more converted to the Lord.

And so I think that's super important that. When we repent, , we need to have that change of heart and, that'll be a lasting change in heart. . I love that. And that's such a cool insight about the, language there and to flip your heart. Love it. . The next phrase in that verse felt to sing the song of redeeming love.

What does that mean to you to sing the song of [00:40:00] redeeming love ? , where my mind goes to first. So I've never been perfect. I've made a lot of mistakes in my life, but when I repent, , one of the biggest testimony building experiences I have is repenting and the joy that comes after your repent,

happiness and it's the Holy ghost, that instant feeling of the Holy ghost that you get right after your pen. And right after you let some of your bigger sins go. And to me, to sing the song of redeeming love. Is, that feeling that to me is where my, mind goes instantly is that after we repent, after we feel that redeeming power, then we sing the song of redeeming love because we, feel that, saving power of the savior of Jesus Christ.

I love getting all sorts of different perspectives in these questions.

And the last question is, can you feel so now? And what I like to do here, Alec is let's jump in a time machine. Let's jump ahead 10 years from now. And we walk in and you're sitting there. And you're just going, [00:41:00] what is going on? I am not feeling God in my life.

I'm not feeling this joy. I'm not, feeling the change of heart that I had before. And sure as heck, I'm not singing the song of redeeming love right now. Talk to yourself and remind yourself. Coach yourself up here.

Let me hear what you have to say. That's a hard question. I hope I never get there, but I'm sure everyone goes through it at least one time after the mission. So,

I think I would go with one of the things that means the most to me. The first is that the concept of grace that we talked about before. Obviously that's one of the things that got me on the mission and the biggest takeaway I had from my mission is that, Jesus Christ will take us how we are and he'll perfect us how we are.

And I think I would make that point to myself is that I know that Jesus Christ is our savior. I know that he is perfect. And in our trials, you can save us through our trials. Even though you're not feeling [00:42:00] it now you felt it before, so that's true.

It's all true that you've, learned all the things you've learned is true. And that even if you're not feeling it now. Jesus Christ still has the power to save you. And that sometimes we're not going to feel perfect in our lives. We're not going to act perfectly, but we just got to keep going, got to keep enduring to the end.

And as we do that, Jesus Christ will be with us and he will, eventually save us. He'll eventually rescue us from whatever we're struggling with. I would say that. And then the second part of that question, I would say is, the other rock of my, testimony. The other thing that I love. A lot is the temple and eternal families growing up and on my mission, one of the times I felt the spirit, the strongest is in the temple.

And when we hear people testify about eternal families, so that would might be like the, homework I would give myself is [00:43:00] to, go to the temple and maybe do a sealing, do something to get myself thinking about those eternal families. Cause I know for myself, that's the thing that really gets me to think about.

the savior and really helps me to feel the spirit. Beautiful. Thank you, Alec. And I don't ask this of everybody, but I feel to ask you this. Are you willing to bear testimony in Thai? Oh yeah. To close this out here? Yeah. Yeah. I'd love to.

. I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior. If we trust in the Lord can help us overcome the difficulties in our lives. We all have obstacles that make us weak.

Made me with that. Hello?

Amen. Amen. Amen. Beautiful. Thank you so much. This has been super meaningful for me, Alec. I hope it's been meaningful for you also. Yeah, I've loved it. It's been great. Thank [00:44:00] you so much for having me on.