Welcome to the Recent Speeches Podcast presented by BYU Speaches, featuring inspiring new devotionals and forums given each week on BYU campus.

Be sure to check out our other podcasts by searching BYU Speaches wherever you get your podcasts, or by visitingspeches.bYu.edu slash podcasts.

This devotional address entitled, Connections, was given on January 14th of 2025 by Wendy Reese,

wife of C. Shane Reese, then the president of Brigham Young University.

Welcome back to campus. I hope you enjoyed the holidays surrounded by the people

that you love. I've been thinking a lot lately about my relationships with other people and the

importance of the connections I've made throughout my life. The connections we make with others are

vitally important. As I look back on the last year and a half, I think about all the new connections that Shane and I have made.

We've met so many amazing people.

Some of our most memorable times have been connecting with and spending time with you, our amazing students, whether on study abroad

trips, performing arts and sporting events, in the Wilkinson Center, or just walking around

campus. We've felt such a deep connection to you, and it has meant so much to us. Why is this

need for human connection so important? Do we sometimes think, wow,

my life would be so much easier if I didn't have to interact with all these people? Every single day,

we have interactions with people around us.

Connections are everything.

Our entire lives revolve around connections.

Can you imagine living a life with zero connection?

I remember when I was younger, one of the ways we connected was through something called the telephone. It had a circular

dial on it and a curly cord that connected to the wall. If we weren't at home where we could use the

telephone, we had phone booths. If you went to a phone booth and dialed the operator, you could make what was called a

collect call, where whoever was on the other end of the phone could either accept the call

...