Elder Steve Oveson Elder Stephen Oveson, member of the Second Quorum of the Seventy, and former Chairman of the Entrepreneur Founders Board of Directors was the guest speaker at Thursday's dinner. Elder Oveson, member of the Area Presidency in Chile, directed his remarks to the founders concerning two issues: 1. "Look for young people you can help, and help them." 2. "Answer the call and become missionaries; that experience will benefit your lives." "To every couple, I recommend serving a mission together. It is one of the few callings where both of you are set apart. We need to be ready to go wherever and do whatever the Lord wants us to do. Reach out as entrepreneurs and help other people. It is a wonderful work we are engaged in and we are all involved. This is our church, we each have to do our part. It doesn't make any difference what call you have, do it! Make yourself available, always be ready and worthy to say yes. If you do that, then life is pretty easy. The Lord will make up the difference. It is only scary when you are not worthy and ready. It doesn't really matter if you make a lot of money. What matters is if you are square with the Lord." Oveson shared his love of BYU (where he met his wife Dixie), the Entrepreneur Founders, and the Center for Entrepreneurship. He shared a special experience he recently had reorganizing a stake in Ovalle, Chile and finding a new stake president. Following inspiration, the Spirit led him through an exhaustive search to find the worthy gentleman in the stake, who would become the new president. That gentleman had already felt and known he would be called, and had already prepared who he would like to be his counselors. Oveson was deeply touched by the Spirit through this experience. He has set the example for all founders! Val Hale - BYU Athletic Director Val Hale, BYU Athletic Director, stated Friday morning that it was a great time in the history of BYU athletics. Sear's Cup ranked BYU's athletic program 12th overall nationally in all-around performance. Vale also mentioned he would strictly enforce the no profanity policy (used by a few pro-football teams), and players' attendance in classes, or they will miss practice and games. He said that BYU had a few very great candidates that will do a great job filling in LaVell Edwards place, when that time comes. Since BYU's basketball program will not lose anyone next year, and they have top recruiting ratings, Hale was hopeful for BYU basketball to be nationally ranked next year. The athletic department is raising $100 million to repair/replace athletic facilities. Hale mentioned that the new baseball stadium, Miller Park, that will break ground on May 13 will be ready to go next year. Men's BYU baseball is ranked 1st in the Mountain West conference and this is the first season of women's softball - growing in demand. Hale explained that BYU has plans for a new indoor practice/administration complex that would provide, among other things, a full size indoor football field on artificial turf. This would be advantageous for BYU when playing against opponents used to practicing and playing on turf. Other plans are to upgrade to 6 tennis courts and a 50 meter pool for competitions and tournament usage. Robert Millet & James Christensen - The Parables Robert Millet is Dean of Religious Education at Brigham Young University, as well as author of the new book The Parables. Millet explained that it is very interesting to try to write a parable - to take a point, make it quickly, powerfully and make it work. The art of parables is dying out today. He focused on the challenges of The Parables, such as the audience focus - LDS or not? How preachy should we be? Which translation of the Bible should we use? Should we include modern-day revelation? Another interesting challenge was the varying lengths to explain the parable of the Prodigal Son in only 200 words, but to expand to 900 words for the parable of the Lost Coin. Millet mentioned that his intent was to reach out to the Christian market, without watering down or diluting the importance of the Savior. James Christensen is the illustrator of The Parables. He captured the audience of Founders and guests with his beautiful paintings and lively character. "My stuff is labeled as fantasy. In order to teach people, you have to capture their hearts and minds first. I try to do that through paintings." Christensen explained that art offers different points of view for the same painting, depending on your lifestyle. For example, his painting of a woman in a box was viewed by one upset lady as the perfect example of a male dominant society, while another exhausted mother saw it as a get away from diapers and other hassels. Christensen said it takes him about three months to paint a picture. He has studied art and learned to appreciate it from a young age. His talent is portrayed beautifully in The Parables. Dean Sheldon Smith - BYU Hawaii Founders Retreat Dean Sheldon Smith, dean of the school of business of BYU-Hawaii, reported on the success and challenges of growing entrepreneurship in Hawaii. He reported on the success and hope of having an annual Founders Seminar for students. The attendance was great. The experience and counsel of the founders was fabulous. Dean Smith asked, "When can we do this again?" Denise Woodbury, associate professor of international business at BYU-Hawaii, wrote, "You can't believe how many messages I have already had from my students about the conference. They are telling me how much they learned and how much fun they had. You've also made the 147 Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) very happy; the young men going to China have had a hard time finding a sponsor ... and the project is definitely worth doing." (The Founders who went to Hawaii contributed $3,000 towards this China project.) Don Livingstone, director of the Center for Entrepreneurship, reports a "thumbs up" (below) to the Founders Winter Retreat in Lanai and the seminar at BYU-Hawaii two months ago. Roughly 20 percent of the entire student body came at some time during the day to the Founder's Seminar on "Starting and Growing Your Business" on campus. The founders shared their resources with the students and faculty throughout the campus. The feedback from students was exceptional. Prior to the BYU-Hawaii seminar, the Founders enjoyed four wonderful days on Lanai at a world-class resort. A great variety of activities were possible, including golf, whale watching, lazying in the sun and snorkeling among a school of hundreds of dolphins in the bay right in front of the hotel. Also, the Simcox's introduced most to a fun card game called "Scum." Richard Dutcher - God's Army Richard Dutcher, producer of the new movie, God's Army also spoke at the Spring Founders Conference. This movie is not produced or sponsored by the church, and it is not a Hollywood story of Mormons. Dutcher simply said that something like this hasn't been done before. God's Army hit movie theatres in March and "shows us what flesh-and-blood Mormons are really like." The movie pushes us through the front door of an apartment full of missionaries in present-day Los Angeles. Dutcher recounted people people stopping him on the street and remarking, "I'm not a member of your church, but I've seen your movie twice." God's Army will soon go into limited national distribution.