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Listen, Learn & Love Hosted by Richard Ostler

Episode 656: Samuel Benson, BYU Commencement Speech, Our Place in Zion

Listen, Learn & Love Hosted by Richard Ostler

Richard Ostler

Religion & Spirituality

4.8839 Ratings

🗓️ 17 June 2023

⏱️ 82 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

My friend Samuel Benson (2023 BYU grad, Boston RM, staff writer for the Deseret News), join us to talk more about his powerful BYU commencement speech call “Our Place in Zion”. Samuel (Sociology and Spanish major, pursuing a career in journalism, and author of an upcoming book about Latter-day Saint immigration) talks about creating Zion. A Zion where all belong. A Zion which is “one of diversity and of peace, one of everlasting joy”. A “Zion defines itself in terms of inclusion, a mission to allow all to find belonging.” Samuel expands on his thoughtful speech with more insights, leader quotes, principles, and examples from the life of Christ to help everyone feel they belong. A Zion with differences and diversity—but unified. I was deeply moved by Samuel’s insights. Samuel talks these big idea concepts and brings them into practical application to “lift where we stand.” Samuel concludes with his testimony and how he navigates the complicated issues to always be “led back” to the core of his testimony and be “tethered there.” I encourage everyone to listen to Samuel’s speech and his podcast to better create Zion. Thank you, Samuel, for being on the podcast and your great work in our community. Podcast Links: Samuel’s speech on YouTube: https://speeches.byu.edu/speakers/samuel-b-benson/ Script of Samuel’s speech: https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/samuel-b-benson/our-place-in-zion/ Wayfare Magazine article: https://www.wayfaremagazine.org/p/a-zion-for-all-of-us Index of Podcasts: listenlearnandlove.org/podcasts

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Welcome listeners to another episode of Listen, Learn, and Love hosted by Richard Osler.

0:09.0

I'm grateful to have a recent BYU graduate who gave the main commencement speech in April of

0:16.0

23 at BYU. The title that speech is in Zion. There are no impostors or frauds. We all belong.

0:24.8

And as I listened to that speech by Samuel Benson, I said to myself, Samuel Benson, I hope we'll come on the podcast and give that speech for our listeners and give more of the story, the principles that he shares.

0:37.0

So Samuel is in my home.

0:38.6

Welcome to the podcast, Samuel.

0:40.3

Thank you so much Richard.

0:41.4

I'm happy to be here.

0:44.6

The speech will be part of the podcast.

0:47.0

So at some point, you'll listen to the speech.

0:49.0

It's about...

0:50.4

It's nine minutes or so, eight or nine minutes.

0:52.5

So the podcast obviously can be longer.

0:55.2

It's a terrific speech.

0:57.6

But first, maybe you can just introduce yourself to a Sam.

1:00.7

Let us know where you grew up.

1:03.0

I know you served a mission.

1:04.6

You're a recent graduate of BYU.

1:07.2

You could let our listeners know what you graduated and stuff like that. Sure. Sure. Yeah. So I was born

1:14.3

here in Salt Lake City, but grew up between southwestern Virginia and Ephraim, Utah, went to Manthai High School,

1:22.0

graduated there from Manthai in 2017. Then I served a mission in Boston, Spanish speaking Boston,

1:29.3

which is a place that I love and people that I love dearly.

...

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