President's Reflections

Lately I’ve been reflecting on my time as institute president and I have realized that there were a lot of good times, spiritual times, and hard times. Sometimes all of these were all mixed together at the same time.

Thanks to this calling, I was able to be even more involved in the institute. Institute basically became my second home. I would go there to not only go for classes, but to study, warm up my meals, or leave my things in a secure place. There were days that I would be at the institute from 7:30 AM for institute committees until about 10 PM when we finished cleaning up from one of our activities. The institute became a part of me.  Despite having these long days, it was worth it.

Institute committees at 7:30 AM sounds crazy, but this is where I met some of the most amazing people. People that really helped the institute run. Without them things would have been a lot harder. I have had such amazing Friday mornings just sitting around chatting with friends and just having a good time laughing and enjoying each other’s company. This is where I met people that have impacted my life in the most positive way.

I have taken all sorts of institute classes like “Dating and relationships,” “Physics of Heaven,” “Book of Mormon,” etc. I needed these classes. I wasn’t always able to spiritually nourish myself as much as I needed or wanted to, but coming to these classes got me by. I thought of it as if I was spiritually hungry and wanted a spiritual feast, but at the time that wasn’t possible so the next best thing was a spiritual snack. The institute was like my granola bar, which sustained me until I could have that spiritual feast. It was something that I really needed. It is so easy to get caught up in our busy schedules and let institute and our spiritual needs fall by the wayside. To be honest everyone is busy. That is just a fact about our lives at this time in our adulthood, but we need to take the time to learn about the Lord and His gospel.

There were times as president when things felt overwhelming when I was trying to prepare for tests, make it to meetings, and fulfill my duties as officer of another club, but the Lord helped me through these times. He didn’t take my burden away, but made me stronger to handle it. I think that one of the hardest things I had to deal with as president was having people leave because of graduation, marriages, etc. I had worked closely with these people and they had impacted my life in a big way and I deeply valued my relationships with them.

My time as president was very fulfilling and rewarding and I have a lot of good memories from it. The Lord definitely had a plan for me when I was called and now I have reached the point in those plans where I have to move on to other things.  I am grateful for all those that have helped me in this calling.

-Chris