General Primary President Camille N. Johnson gives examples from her life on how to become "bound securely to the Savior" so that we can withstand the storms of life.
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On December 3, 2021, only two states in the United States had blizzard warnings: they were Alaska and Hawaii. Yes, Hawaii had a blizzard warning.
The winter weather system known as a Kona low prompted emergency alerts throughout the Hawaiian Islands. There were strong winds with gusts up to eighty miles per hour recorded atop Mauna Kea, a 14,000-foot peak on which a foot of snow fell, making “it technically possible to ski and surf in the same hour” on the Big Island.1 Lower elevations saw winds of more than fifty miles per hour. And the rains were heavy. Maui reported rain at a pace of one inch per hour. The Kona low brought “near-shore waves of up to 30 feet.”2
Imagine yourself the owner of a boat moored just off the coast of Maui on December 3-there are a few clouds in the sky, but you know the storm is coming. What would you do to secure and protect your boat to keep it firmly attached to the mooring or to a dock so that it doesn’t sink or run aground?
Of course you would check to make sure that your boat was securely attached to the mooring buoy, which is secured to an anchor on the sea bottom, with appropriate swivels on the chain so that the boat can move in the wind. Or in the case of a dock, you would be certain your boat was secured at several points with ropes in good repair and with stable cleats.
Also very important to protecting your boat is to remove windage. Experts say that removing windage is critical to protecting a boat in a storm. What does it mean to “remove windage”? Essentially it is removing anything that the wind can grab. And its importance is paramount because it reduces the load on whatever is keeping you safe-in this case, the mooring lines or the ropes and cleats.
Reducing windage is key to lessening the stress on the boat itself and also on its attachment points so that the boat remains secure to the mooring and anchor or to the dock. So sails must be secured, bimini tops removed, and inflatable dinghies deflated and tied down. Flags, cushions, lights-everything that can be removed or lashed down should be to reduce windage and protect the boat through the storm.
These pictures were taken after the Kona low hit Maui. [Several photos of a wrecked boat were shown.] This grand boat lost its connection to its mooring and was carried ashore by the wind and the waves, slamming into the rocky coastline. Can you see the windage? If you look carefully, it appears there were sails and flags still on the boat.
Perhaps you have heard the phrase “batten down the hatches,” which is a nautical phrase from the early nineteenth century. When a storm is coming, the captain orders the crew to nail thin strips of wood, known as battens, to hold the waterproof tarps in place to protect the hatchways and doorways of the ship.3 Battening down the hatches has come to mean preparing for a storm or preparing for trouble. And of course one of the ways we do that is to reduce windage-to reduce the resistance that may jeopardize our attachment point to the dock or the mooring buoy.
Dear friends, students, and faculty, do you have windage you need to remove? Do you need to reduce resistance so that you may weather the storms that are inevitably coming or bearing down on you now? Removing your personal windage will help keep you safe. Windage adds load. Eliminating windage reduces load; it reduces load on the attachment point, which will keep you safe.
And to what should you be attached so that you will be safe? What is your dock, your mooring, your anchor? It is your relationship with the Savior Jesus Christ.
As Elder Jeffrey R. Holland has so beautifully expressed:
When life is in commotion and nothing seems sure or stable, when people and things are driven about by every wind of doctrine and every wave of society’s whims, when nothing seems deep-rooted or solid or permanent, how dearly we need something firm, steadfast, and immovable. How dearly we need a rock to hold on to. Jesus is that Rock.4
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