 Well, hello everyone and welcome to this special live Facebook live event With Jimmer for debt. My name is Gordon Treadway. I'm the co-founder of this Facebook page the road to hope and peace which is a Facebook page sponsored by the Utah or a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and We're excited and grateful that you're all here with us tonight for this special event It's it's especially a treat to have Jimmer with us tonight. He was kind enough to offer to share his time and his testimony of Spiritual things with all of us tonight. Let me just tell you just a little bit about Jimmer for debt And then we'll turn the time over to to him Jimmer to my shock is 31 years old and I don't know how that happened and he'll have to explain that too But Jimmer for debt 31 years old born and raised in upstate, New York Glen's Falls, New York, which I'm partial to upstate New York. It's produced a lot of my heroes and friends through the years and a long time ago as well At He played college basketball at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah where he was a two-time NCAA all-American Including in 2011 his senior year He was the NCAA player of the year and later was picked in the first round of the NBA by the Sacramento Kings It's a long story, but I was a season ticket holder when that happened in Sacramento, California so I got a chance to to watch Jimmer up close both in college and in the NBA he played in the NBA for five years and been since the 2016 season has been playing professionally in International basketball and his has is kind of I like to say he's the he won't say this But he's kind of the Michael Jordan of China right now. So he's got his own. He's got his own basketball shoes as well so But I think Jimmer will talk about it tonight But more important to him than all of his success on the basketball court has been his success Both spiritually and also as a family man. He's been married to his wife Whitney for I think five years now Jimmer. Am I close the club eight crazy eight years? That's how you became 31. I guess Married to his wife Whitney for eight years and they have two children his daughter Wesley and his son Taft which For those two may be wondering for the next trivia question Jimmer's middle name is Taft so So that's kind of fun But we're grateful for his example is a good Christian and as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and again Jimmer, thank you so much for being willing to take a little bit of time tonight from your home in Denver, Colorado To share a few thoughts with us. So I'll turn the time over to you. Thank you. Yeah No, thank you so much President Trump way our treadway for let me be able to do this This is an awesome page that you guys have started and you know, I'm excited to be a part of it And hopefully be able to speak to everyone out there. I hope there's a you know, I know there's a lot of missionaries Some investigators. I know there's some some youth and people in different wards Norm and in different areas as well. So I'm very excited to be able to speak with you guys and and be a part of this night with you and you know president treadway came to me A few weeks ago and just asked me if I wanted to speak and you know, I thought it was a great opportunity to be able To do that. I love being able to To talking firesides and devotion those and different things to be able to spread my knowledge And I mean, I don't have as much knowledge as a lot of people do but I have some life experience being able to Have lived all over the world and have Experienced the church all over the world and been able to do good things For people and charity work all over the world, which has been really a fun thing for me So, you know, he asked me to to speak about why do I believe in the Restored gospel of Jesus Christ and it's a great great topic. Um, but like I mentioned, I've done a lot of firesides and devotionals before but I want to take you back to the first time that I was at BYU the first time that I did a devotional or fireside at BYU and My friends and basketball teammates chris Collinsworth and nick martin l I was rooming with them in the dorms They're both from utah, you know, they both were, you know, familiar with the type of fireside that You know, they give in utah now i'm from as brother treadway said upstate new york Small town called blends falls. It's 14 000 people And I was the only member in my high school and you know, there were people coming from You know a couple hours to get to church, you know, if they wanted to there just wasn't many meeting Houses in the area So when I heard of a fireside when we went to fireside, there was literally like 15 people and it would meet at a house And it would be fun. You know, I mean, we have we have some some brownies and we have, you know, some drink and Just kind of hang out and have a speaker, but it was like 15 people So chris and nick they came to me and they're like, hey, would you like to Be a part of our fireside? You know, that would be great to be able to tell your story and be able to talk about You know yourself and where you came from and why you were out to be why you and kind of your story Now it's like perfect. Sure. Yeah, I'd love to talk about myself. That's not a problem I have a great I'll have a great time doing that. So I decided yeah, let's do it So, you know, we were talking that night and I just mentioned to him I was like, all right, so where's it going to be? How many people you think are going to be there? That type of thing and nick promptly said there's going to be like probably 300 people there So and I just like looked at him like my jaw dropped. It's like 300 people. What do you mean? Like I thought it was a fireside and they're gonna be like 30 20 30 people there He's like, no, no, no, this is a Utah fireside, you know, everyone from the area comes and You know, all the members come all the youth and we're gonna talk There's gonna be like 300 people and I had never spoken in front of that many people before So I was just like I was like, oh no, I walked away and I was like trying to get my breath a little bit And I was like, oh no, what did I get myself into? So I come back to nick and I was like, okay Got myself. I'm gonna have to do it at some point. So I decided, all right I'm gonna ask you one more time. How many people are going to be there? He's like there's probably going to be like 300 to 500 people and I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute You just went from 300 to 500 like in a second and I was gonna walk away again and like You know, collect myself again, but I figured if I left and came back I was going to move to 500 to 700. So I decided no, I'm not going to do that I'm just gonna keep with the 300 to 500. I went to the fireside, overcame my fear, was able to speak to to everyone and you know, had a great time and have been able to do very, very many, many more since then. I've hopefully gotten a little bit better in front of crowds and been able to do a lot more of these. It's been a lot of fun to be able to do it. So I overcame my fear there, but you know, I was definitely you know, a little bit flabbergasted of how many people were going to be there but I know there's a lot of people listening tonight, but you know firesides and devotionals obviously in the last couple of months have changed and I've been able to do several on Zoom with missionaries all over the world in Rome, Italy and in Germany and all in Hawaii and all different parts of the world which has been an awesome experience for me. So there it is and I'm glad to be here with you guys tonight. So you know, I'll just talk a little bit about kind of my story tonight and how I became a member and you know why I believe it's important to me in the struggles that I've had throughout this process. So like I said, I grew up in a family of five. My mom, my dad, my sister and my brother Lindsay and TJ and you know my mom actually wasn't a member of the church and she still isn't today. My dad is the member of the church and he converted when he was 18 with his brother and his sister and he's been an amazing you know example to me as well as my mother has been but my dad has been an amazing example to me about how to be a great member of the church and you know even though my mom didn't necessarily go to church all the time she used to come sometimes to the sacrament meeting she would always allow me to go to church you know she didn't have any problems with that she loved what the church taught she wanted me to go to church so I did so I used to go to church all the time but when I was younger I was a little I didn't know any of the kids in primary I didn't know any of that so before eight years old I actually like almost never went to primary I'd go to sacrament meeting and then my mom would leave and I just leave with her and I'd go home and so I did that for a while and I actually ended up not getting baptized at eight. I got baptized when I was 10 years old because at 10 years old I was like all right I felt like I needed to you know I wanted to be there at church with my dad a little bit more so I got baptized at 10 years old my dad baptized me and then from then I decided I feel like felt like I needed to try to go for the three hours with my dad so I started to do that started to go for three hours probably not every week but I tried to do as much as I possibly could and I knew the the times that I went to church and that I stayed for the three hours that I just felt really good you know I mean that's how it started when I was younger when I was a 10, 11, 12 years old I just felt good you know I mean I'd come home from from Sunday and and watch a football game and hang out and I just had some type of light about me I just you know I just knew that I had a good feeling about it so that's what kept me coming back you know to church and wanting to stay all those all those three hours and I started to realize as I got older that I wanted to live what the church believed in you know the word of wisdom is huge for me someone who the church believes that you know we don't drink alcohol we don't smoke you know go to parties we don't swear many of those things and for me that's the way that I wanted to live my life not only because my parents did but also because I was an athlete and I wanted to try to keep you know my body as healthy as I possibly could and I wanted to stay out of trouble and make sure that I was focused on my athletic career as well and the church taught us how to be healthy as a person and mentally and physically and you know not just for the church but also for you know an athletic standpoint so so that's what I started to do you know I just I didn't I didn't ever drink I didn't ever smoke I just try to stay away from parties you know I didn't swear or anything like that and you know I just wanted to be healthy and I knew that I had a sense of peace and a sense of joy when I let my heavenly father in and I felt that spirit when I went to church so as I grew up through through high school you know like I said I was the only member in the church and people knew that I was the only member in the church they knew that I was the Mormon kid and you know they they always always invited me to parties and my friends you know wanted me to to go with them and one of the things that they always tried to give me to they always tried to give me the swear they they just wanted me to say one swear word for my whole life that's all they wanted and they were like you know we would sit at the lunch table and they put down like five dollars and they'd be like Jim or swear one time and you get that five dollars and I'm like no I'm not doing it they're like okay 20 dollars I'm like no not doing it and they're like all right one million dollars I'm like let me see the money first and then we'll talk but uh no I never they always used to play games like that with me and they saw that I just wasn't going to do it and uh you know because I had it in my mind before going into I'm just not going to swear I'm not going to go to parties if I ever was at a friend's house and all of a sudden someone brought alcohol in you know and they asked me if I wanted to drink most of the times my friends would be like oh no no no he doesn't drink you know keep that away from him they would they would say that because they already knew what my answer was going to be so they started protecting me and everything which is an awesome thing that means that I have really good friends and those are the type of people even if they're not members of the church you those are the type of people that you want to surround yourself with people that are good positive influences your life that that like you for you you know because I've had you know people that do think that I'm weird you know think that I'm different teammates that thought I was different because I didn't want to do all of those things I tried to stay away from that and that's okay that's going to happen but it's okay to be different it's okay to to have a different point of view and uh you know you just make sure that you keep doing what you're supposed to be doing and try to love everyone as as much as you possibly can um so I continue to go to church and and I got a little bit stronger in my testimony as I kept going through high school but eventually you know I it led me to byu and you know I was deciding whether I wanted to go to two different schools I wasn't heavily recruited out of high school it was either sienna college which was like 40 minutes away from my hometown which was a really good basketball school at the time or it was byu which was obviously a much bigger school a little bit better basketball school but it was you know 2 000 miles away from my family and I had never been anywhere close to that but I decided I needed to go to byu so I did I packed on my bags I went to byu and obviously once I got there I learned a ton about the church I learned a ton about the gospel from the friends that I had there they were just really really good people um you know I met so many good members of the church uh so many good leaders that helped me out through that time and uh you know I honestly when I got there I was like man I mean these kids are like they're amazing they're like perfect you know and that's what I felt when I got there I was like I'm a terrible kid I feel like compared to some of these guys and uh but that was good it was it was made me want to become better maybe want to be help more people and everything and um you know so that's I did and um I learned you know obviously I wasn't there with my family I wasn't there with my dad and he had been such a good influence on me um and had helped me get to church and helped me get to seminary and all these things when you're on college you know it's on you you know it's on you to do these things by yourself um it was on me to get up and go to church um and get there early so I could pass the sacrament it was on me to help others and be kind to others or you know go to an activity and events and I'll be honest I wasn't a hundred percent at all these things but I tried the best that I possibly could and I kept getting better and better and better and as I as I attended church you know things kept getting better for me off the floor and you know I started to play really well I started to have a great career at BYU we started to do really well um you know we my senior year we were ranked top five in the country um you know we were able to make it to the sweet 16 I had a lot of national notoriety you know things were going really really well and uh but as much as you know how good I felt on the court like there was nothing better than you know it felt like there was nothing better at beating San Diego state you know on our court at our home I felt like I was on top of the world people were just yelling down and they rushed the court and surrounding me and all these things and but it still didn't have the same type of feeling that I have when I go to church and I when I hear someone speak that really touches you and really when you feel that spirit um it's a different feeling it's a feeling of peace and it's a feeling of joy and you know I always felt that and and I would compare it to how I felt on the basketball court and you know there's so many things that are going on when you're in college um there's a lot of stress that could that could happen you know especially when you're an athlete there's school you know there's basketball there's practice there's girls there's all these different things that are going on and you have to learn how to car compartmentalize these things because there's a lot of stress that goes with it but I found that if I could really really just hone into you know my heavenly father hone into going to church and feeling these feelings I felt better about everything I was able to kind of just have a piece of mind being like okay you know these things are important but what's really important you know what's really important about being a good person about helping others about trying to be a good example for the kids that are watching me play basketball there there's always people watching me and I understood that so I tried to be the best example I could possibly be in and that's what really made me feel good and that's what helped me be um you know helped me through these tough times so you know as I said at BYU obviously an amazing season had a lot of fun and then I was able to have such a good season I was going to be drafted into the NBA and that was my ultimate goal like when I was six years old I was like I'm going to make it into the NBA and I had no other plan I didn't have a plan B so I'm glad that plan A worked because I wasn't able I was I didn't know what I was going to do after that but I just had it in my mind I was going to be a basketball player and fortunately I was able to get drafted number 10th in the NBA draft in the lottery I went to the Sacramento Kings and at that point you know I was I was pretty much a celebrity I mean I had millions of fans all over the world you know people knew who I was wherever I went people were asking for pictures and autographs and I just felt like I was on top of the world and I started off with the season and started playing pretty well actually the first two weeks of the season coming off the bench having 20 minutes 25 minutes a game I was averaging about 10 points a game things were going pretty well and I was still doing good and then all of a sudden my coach got fired the coach that drafted me his name was Paul Westfall and he drafted me he believed in me and he got fired and he was gone two weeks in and all of a sudden things started to change you know my coach that came in right after him was an interim head coach he was coming into a really difficult situation we had some some teammates and guys on the team that were difficult to deal with and you know the owners were trying to sell the team the GM was about to be fired so he had no say in anything we just didn't have a great structure and all of a sudden you know I didn't I stopped playing you know there would be games where I'd play nothing no minutes at all and then there'd be games where I'd play 20 minutes and it would fluctuate and that really played with my head at that time you know because I had never been through a situation like that I never been through a situation where I was on top of the world then all of a sudden I wasn't playing and people were booing me or people were you know wondering why I wasn't playing or why I wasn't doing good and you know and people in the media people just around town you know I was hearing all of these different things and honestly at that point I got to a pretty low point in my life um you know I felt almost a little bit depressed at that point and I just wasn't myself and along top of this you know I was out in Sacramento by myself and at BYU I had met my wife today Whitney who was one year younger than me and so she was still out at BYU and so I wasn't seeing you were engaged at the time we were waiting we were planning to be married after the season so I wasn't seeing her I was out there by myself my family would come and kind of hang out with me as much as I possibly could and they could just tell that I just wasn't myself I was just down and it was it was it was difficult on me so I had talked to my family about it I talked to Whitney about it I talked to pretty much every about everyone about it you know I try to pray about it as much as I could and I just felt like I needed to speak to someone else but I didn't know who to speak to um so it was a December it was in December I remember um you know this very vividly I came home for or I got done with practice and I went into the locker room and I had a message on my cell phone at the time and I looked at the message and it was a call and I listened to the message and it was a it was a call from um Emerson Ballard and it was uh it was amazing because I had spoken to Teller Ballard before going into the NBA he wanted to check in on me see how I was doing making sure that you know if I ever need anything let me know let him know um you know but I just didn't feel like it was right for me to just call you know an apostle to talk with him at the time and and but he ended up calling me on this day in December and I was like oh my goodness I got to get in my car I got to call back so I rushed off I didn't even shower like I just grabbed my stuff and took off went into the car and uh you know I called him back and he was just like hey Jim how are you doing how are things going and and honestly I don't think he knew exactly what was coming when he asked me that question you know because I just laid ball out there for him I was like you know honestly things are not going well you know they're not going well I don't feel well um I'm just down you know I feel dark um things aren't things are you know just not going in my favor and I honestly don't know what to do about it and he's like you know that happens in in every single person's life um it doesn't just happen in basketball players' lives it lives it happens in every profession that you're going to get into in your life things aren't going to go exactly the way that they are planned um you know but you have to continue to work and you have to continue to have faith and know that Heavenly Father has a plan for us and he has um a place for us in this in this world and he has a place for us to to move forward to and you know then he then he challenged me to start reading the Book of Mormon he asked me to to read the Book of Mormon from start to finish by the time the season ended and um I had never read the Book of Mormon fully I had read many parts of the Book of Mormon I had read the Book of Mormon on many occasions but I hadn't read it from front to cover and he challenged me to do that and I did every single day I started reading the Book of Mormon from December and the season ends in April so I had I had to to finish it at that point and I started reading my scriptures every single day sometimes twice a day and things started to get better for me and it wasn't that basketball started to get better for me because that pretty much stayed the same at that point um you know I still wasn't playing a ton I was very inconsistent things you know necessarily weren't necessarily going in my favor but I was way happier I started to to think about things in a different aspect of my life um I started thinking about the important things of life again I started to think about hey you know what what do I really need to do here how can I go out and serve someone today how can I come into the locker room with a positive attitude and how can I go in there and work hard every single day knowing that my heavenly father has a plan for me whatever that is and I just had to have faith and being able to read those scriptures all of a sudden just lifted me up and I am so grateful for him to be able to have have the the you know wherewithal and have the spirit lead him to speak with me that day and uh that's how I gained a testimony of this church on like on my own like at that point I knew that the church was true I knew that the prophets and apostles that they had a they were inspired by God to be able to do work on this earth and they were they were here to help others because he helped me so much during that day so I started you know I started reading my scriptures you know and trying to do it as meaningfully as I possibly could you know trying to write things down trying to really study the scriptures to understand them and you know I've been extremely blessed blessed because of it um as we talked about my my MBA career was kind of up and down I had some really great moments in the MBA and I had some not so great moments in the MBA you know there was a lot of different things that you know were have gone into that but I continued to read my scriptures each and every single day and that's really helped me out going forward into my international career so now I move from MBA you know I I didn't have as much MBA interest and I had to decide what I was going to do after that so I decided that I was going to move to China and play basketball in China and at first that was really scary to me you know I had never been out of the country you know my wife at the time was was pregnant and we knew that and she knew we knew that she was going to be able to fly over to China very often because the fact that it was too far on the flight being pregnant at that time um so I had a tough decision to make but I felt like it was the right thing for my career and I had prayed about it so many times and it just hit me in the middle of the night I needed to go to China so I decided to do that and when I got over there um you know things were were really good you know I mean obviously my wife wasn't there and that was very difficult um so off the floor was tough but on the floor it went amazing I couldn't have asked for anything better I was able to win the MVP um you know I got a shoe deal as brother um the treadway said and and you know I was kind of getting becoming really famous over there and it was it just took me in a different path of my career that I never could have expected but one of the things that I feel like it was best for is that people knew that I was a member of the church over there and um you know when you're in China you know you can't there there is a there is a couple of branches in Shanghai that I was actually able to attend um but all over China they don't really know about the gospel um we don't have missionaries over there teaching about the gospel um we don't have you know a whole lot of church and meeting buildings everywhere we're meeting in different rooms and everything so people don't really know about the gospel over there um but they knew that I was a member so they started becoming more aware of it so people would ask me questions my teammates would ask me questions about it and in particular one of my uh one of my uh great uh uh friends and he was my translator on the court um he started to pick up on these things and he started to ask me questions um just about the church and why he's like why are you a nice guy he's like it's so weird you know when I look at you you you look so much different than all the other Americans that come over here you have like a light in your eye and I don't know what that is and they and it was awesome to me that they could pick that up even though that they didn't have necessarily um the knowledge of the gospel they understood that I had the spirit with me and I made it a point to try to have the spirit with me at all times so that you know the people around me hopefully could be uplifted and he he actually picked up on that he started to ask me about questions and a couple years later you know he was actually going to school in London and he gave me a call on on WeChat which is like our FaceTime basically and he called me on that and he's like hey Jim I just wanted to show you this and he sends a pic he shows the picture and the missionaries were right next to him and he was over there and he was getting the discussions by the missionaries over in in Great Britain and which was which was absolutely amazing um he had read up on the church he wanted to know more about the church he had taken the discussions and everything and you know hopefully he's on track at some point to become a member we'll see but it was amazing to see that Teddy was picking up on that and that's the type of influence you know that you you can have you know in this world um people you know people are always watching you people are looking and seeing um they want to see what you're doing um especially as members of the church and just people in general and you know I think it's a big deal for me and for for us to to go out and to be good people and to lead by example um you know it's uh I'll tell you another quick story um about about this um so I when I was at BYU there was a kid um that was in Louisville Kentucky and he was he was a really awesome awesome kid he was a great basketball player he loved basketball he loved the University of Louisville because he was you know from there but he started to watch BYU basketball at that time and uh he loved our team and he loved watching me play specifically um he liked that I could shoot the long-range shots he wanted to be like that he wanted to do it but he didn't know much about BYU but he started watching all of our games and he wasn't a member of the church he just wanted to start out watching all of our games and so he did and he watched our games and then he would watch the interviews afterward he would watch me he would watch my teammates he would watch how all of us you know spoke so highly of our teammates and you know that we were you know trying to be humble and good people were trying to you know congratulate other people he was just impressed with how we handled stuff off of the core interview wise because we were being we were such a good team we had a chance to be arrogant if we wanted to and uh so you know he was impressed by that so because of it he started looking up BYU he was like what is it about bring him young university oh it's a it's a church of um you know Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that's who it's affiliated with it's like oh okay that's amazing I don't want to I want to learn more about this church so we actually ended up going to church on a Sunday um by himself without his parents he went over there by himself and they got there and he you know was able to get be greeted by several several different members of the church asking him hey who are you and you know welcome to the church we love to have you and just started to talk to me he had never felt that before and never had people come up to him and really embrace it and want him to be a part of you know this this church and he was super impressed by and he felt great he felt something because but he started to go back more he started to continue to go to church um he started to go so much that he wanted the missionaries to come to his house and the missionaries um came in the discussions and uh he he was baptized and became a member of the church and he was 17 years old when this happened and uh at that point when he turned 18 he decided he wanted to go on a mission so he did he went on a mission and he got called to Littleton Colorado um and he was in uh was in church one day and he met my father-in-law Rich Wanakot who lives about 15 minutes from us he was in church with Rich and he introduced himself as a new missionaries and hey Rich I'm you know elder Rafferty and uh you know I'm from Louisville, Kentucky I'm a huge basketball fan um you know they got speaking and Rich is probably the biggest BYU basketball fan on the planet and he's my he's a huge sports fan he's also my father-in-law so he said oh I'm a huge basketball fan I'm a BYU Cougar and he's like no way you're a BYU Cougar he's like I used to love Jimmerford and I used to watch him play all the time and Rich was like huh interesting you love Jimmerford and he said well I know him he said he's my son-in-law and Elder Rafferty was like what are you serious and uh Rich called me up that night he said hey uh hey Jimmer would it be okay if you came over to uh to my house for dinner tonight you and Whitney I have a surprise for you and I said okay that would be great and uh so I did we went over there had a good meal and all sudden the missionaries came to the door and you know Elder Rafferty was there and he came and he shook my hand and he just started to cry and because of it I did of course I was like what's going on and he persisted on telling telling me this story about how you know he was so touched by myself and by my teammates that he was converted to the church and now he's on a mission trying to spread the gospel because of how he felt because he wanted other people to feel the same way that he felt and it was such an emotional night for me knowing that I was able to help someone even though I didn't know who they were and I didn't I had never spoken to him I just had tried to be a good person tried to be a good example try to live the gospel of Jesus Christ because I believed in it and because of that people gravitate towards that people gravitate towards you know the light um especially if they're seeking for it and there are a lot of people out there that are seeking for it and uh so that's that's one of the many things that I learned and uh so I continue to try to be the best person I can possibly be each and every single day and that's the thing that is that is most important to me and I'm not perfect even by a long shot um you know I I just I just know that these things are true and um so you know after you know I met with other Afri was amazing and I had such a great experience there and you know I was still over in China and everything and and I was able to you know meet reach some people in China which was awesome and I had an amazing uh amount of members that were over in China that helped me through that process and helped me meet other people and we tried to do the best that we possibly could over there and and the cooks actually they're listening online right now they're they're in pleasant throat listening so hello cooks good to see you hope you guys are well but uh they were over in China with me and now they're back so um but you know I just I was able to because of this start a foundation here in Utah and um you know this foundation is all about trying to spread kindness and we have an anti bully campaign in in in these school districts and um you know this is for me what it has been all about it's been all about trying to give back and trying to help kids become feel included try to help kids feel that kindness and if we can get kids to feel kindness and then spread that kindness then we're all doing our job and um you know that's what christ did when he was on his earth he just tried to to serve others he tried to help others anything that he could possibly do he wanted to spread that kindness and um you know that's that's what we're trying to do with our foundation today and for me it's the best feeling in the world when if when we're able to go to a family's house and say that you know our foundation has been has affected their family's lives um in a positive way and uh it's way better than any basket that I've ever made in my entire life um you know so I would just like to tell a quick story um about you know from the scriptures in the Book of Mormon about Alma the Younger and uh this is like one of my favorite stories um you know Alma the Younger um you know at first was was someone that was trying to denounce god and heavenly father um you know he he had you know he he he and his four brothers the four sons of messiah went out and um you know obviously they wanted to to debunk the church they wanted to do bad acts and you know they wanted to persecute anyone that believed you know in the gospel and you know they were they were pretty wicked people at that point and um you know at at one point he was so wicked that you know our heavenly father decided to to strike him dumb and he couldn't move and he couldn't speak for three days and he was just laying on the ground and during those three days he was able to see a vision he was able to see a vision of our heavenly father sitting on his throne and he realized at that point that he knew that what he was doing was wrong and it goes to very powerful you know very powerful chapter when he talks about this and you know so when he woke up after that three days he decided that what he needed to do is he needed to do everything in his power to to try to bring people to christ and um it was it's it's an amazing story because the thing about it is that doesn't matter where you are in your life it doesn't matter what you've done in your past doesn't matter what you're doing right now at any point at any time if you choose that you want to become a member of this church and you choose that you want to be a follower of jesus christ you can do that and there's a process set up for us the plan of happiness so that we could be happy and that we can return to our heavenly father again someday and he has it all laid out for us and alma the younger is a perfect example of that and um he's able he was able to go do great things and convert many people unto christ and unto the church and because of it he was able to you know hopefully i mean he was able to be exalted he's able to be with his heavenly father now um and the highest degree of glory which is where we all want to be someday and uh so i i just thought that that was such a powerful story in the scriptures that we can all you know take advantage of um so i just wanted to say um you know bear my testimony um to let you know that i know that this church is true i know that joseph smith restored this church in upstate new york where i'm from and um and that he um at a young age that is as a young boy was able to receive revelation that none of the churches that he was attending were true and that he needed to go and find and start this church again and uh he did and um you know i believe that the prophets and apostles today they're all inspired um they know what they're talking about it's amazing you know they're they're older they're older men you know some of them are in their 80s and even 90 years old but they know exactly what's going on with our youth today they know exactly what's going on and they know exactly what there is to come and um and they know how to handle things and it's it's amazing to listen to them each in every general conference to hear what they have to say and um you know i take that very very seriously in this last general conference when they you know were able to say that there was a temple going up in shanghai that was one of the greatest experiences that i've ever had as a member of this church playing over in shanghai china and knowing the people there and knowing what they need um and they need the the gospel more you know just as much as all of us and uh this is a great start to be able to have that um so i know that this church is true i'm grateful for it i'm grateful to be a part of it and um you know i just wanted to say these things in the name of jesus christ amen amen well listen uh jimmer that was magnificent thank you so much for those stories and for your testimony of god and jesus christ in the gospel um for those of you watching and by the way jimmer i don't know if you were nervous but we have about 1200 people following this live so a little bit more than a utah fireside a little bit more yeah it's even more this is great this is one of the things i've done then good excellent well you've played in front of a lot bigger crowds but for sure i know it can be a little bit different but for people out there who are watching if you uh we've got a few more minutes jimmer's been kind enough to offer to stay on a little bit longer and answer some questions and so if you're um if you're watching this now feel free to just uh put a comment on the road to hope and peace stream we have responders watching for your questions and we'll try to answer as many of them as uh as we can um jimmer i gotta i've got a few questions myself sure um i i really enjoyed your story about how in in high school your your friends your your buddies in high school would offer you money to swear and i know that as you probably know that goes that goes on sometimes late into our adulthood i am i remember one time in the corporate world someone offered me 500 cash and pulled the cash out if i would have a beer yeah it wasn't tempting but it was flattering right i'm just wondering as you got into real cash and around people who um who may not have at all understood your standards if that kind of temptation continued in the professional basketball world yeah for sure i mean uh it got it got it to the peak when i made it to the mba um you know especially when i was uh when i was a rookie coming from byu obviously most of the people were members um a lot of my teammates were married i probably had six teammates that were married and had kids and you know i went home and just kind of hung out with my my roommates and my my girlfriend Whitney at the time and we all had pretty much the same values you know they're and uh you kind of believe in the same thing we're all you know abiding by the honor code that's at byu so we didn't really have a ton of temptation um you know as far as the hourly there and most of the time we're pretty much in in collection but then when i got out to to be uh to sacramento it was completely different and uh you know i mean i can tell you just a quick story real quick um when i first got to to sacramento we went and we played in uh the summer league in vegas and our owners at the time were the malufs and they were the owners of the palms hotel and uh so we got to the palms hotel and that's where we stayed and the first night that we got there they said um we you know as a part of being a sacramental king on this team we want you guys to come up to the playboy mansion that's up in the very top and be able to promote our alcohol that we have because they just opened a new alcohol and uh at that point i was like oh man everyone was like super excited like on the bus they were cheering they were like yes this is going to be great and i'm sitting there like oh no what is what am i going to do you know this is i just got drafted by these bosses they're you know they they make or break me they can trade me they can cut me whatever they wanted to do um but i knew at that i knew that what i needed to do is i needed to go talk to them say hey um you know mr maluf um i just wanted to let you know you know i'll remember the church um i don't drink alcohol i don't really want to be a part of that is it okay if i just skip this one i'll do three other ones for you you know three different things you know i'll do anything else um but if is it okay if you know i don't go to this party and promote this alcohol and of course they wanted me there because i was their top draft pick you know i was the face of the franchise at that point and uh but i had the courage to go talk to them about it and they were okay with it they were cool with it they were like okay you know what you're you'll be okay that's fine uh we appreciate you asking letting us know and uh you know they let me do other things instead of it so i have many temptations like that my my my my my teammates always want to be coming out and partying with them and that's not just a high school party that they that they go and do you know they're they're doing some crazy stuff um and they're all over the place um but i just decided that that wasn't what i wanted to do i knew that um you know the most important thing to me was my gospel was the gospel my family um having the spirit with me being a good priesthood holder um those were the most important things to me and i wouldn't be able to have those things if i went partying and did all these things um so in the long run it's helped me way way more but um you know i i still have these temptations everyone does to this day um but if you stay strong and you know what the answer you are going to have before you get into the situation is if you know that's your firm hey this is not me this is not who i am you're going to be able to make that decision a lot easier than if you're on the fence about it um so that's what i always tell people and uh that's what i've tried to do so i love that thank you for that answer and and jim right we've had a we're getting a ton of questions coming in folks just keep them on where we'll do our best one of the questions i've seen come through several times is as a professional athlete um it requires you to play on sundays which could interfere with your desire to worship and so forth i remember when you were in sacramento your your dad attended church in my ward which was just about a mile from arco arena so um how have you been able to balance the challenges of a career that pulls you away from the worship and the the service that i know you'd like to do yeah that's a great question and it's not easy um you know and uh you know especially in china um you know when i was there for those three years um if i wasn't in shanghai at on sundays during that time where i didn't have practice or i didn't have a game on a sunday then i wasn't able to go to church you know there's was no other churches across the country that i knew of i'm sure there was a few others but that i knew of i just had my you know little branch that was there and i was able to go as much as i possibly could um but other than that i mean i wasn't able to go a whole lot and uh it's very difficult but that's why for me being able to rely on the scriptures was such a big thing for me um you know it didn't matter um what day it was but specifically obviously on sundays i tried to um you know take time out of my day to make sure that i read the scriptures a few times that day that i tried to listen to something good you know i tried to listen to some type of talk or i tried to listen to some type of music that was uplifting or try to just think about things that were you know think about our heavenly father think about good things um you know try to stay as as positive as i possibly could and try to think about our heavenly father and his son and his sacrifice as much as i possibly could on those days um because i wasn't able to take the sacrament a lot and you know so that's and it's not easy to do that you feel it you feel it when you don't get to have those opportunities um so to try to keep the spirit with me at those times i just tried to keep you know myself um you know in the scriptures as much as i could pray as much as i could and uh you know it really helps you know it's it's not perfect um you know obviously i'd rather be you know at church and be able to feel those feelings and hear the talks and be able to converse with people and you know feel that type of worship but if you don't have an opportunity to like i didn't it's still important to be able to remember him during those days um and you know that's how i tried to deal with it the best i could i think that's that's the way to do it because we all have to just try to stay motivated stay close to god especially in the hard times and i want to ask you a little bit more about some of the hard times um because you're you're a great example of someone who's been at the top of the mountain um in in college and in the nba i remember the day after you were drafted that they had this huge crowd at the airport to welcome you to sacramental international and uh and then six months later you're you're really you're buried at the end of the bench and the negativity came in now a lot of people are dealing with some things that they didn't plan on right now right everybody's dealing with a pandemic and and racial unrest and some of the difficulties that are going on in the country what advice would you give to someone out there who's struggling with and it could be the pandemic it could be losing a job it could be sickness how would you encourage them to keep their faith in god and in Jesus christ even in really difficult times yeah that's that's awesome i mean it's uh it's it's definitely the hardest thing that we have to do you know on this earth is be able to to get through tough times and to have faith enough to be able to push forward um as i talked about kind of a little bit you know you just have to really really believe that our heavenly father has a plan for each and every single one of us and um you know he does he has a plan for each and every single one of us and if we have that type of faith and that we take things in stride as best as you can um you're going to come out on top and you're going to be able to fulfill and reach whatever it is that our heavenly father has planned for you so for example for me um you know i was in you know i was in the mba and i thought i was going to be an mba superstar you know i thought i was going to be great and it didn't happen and you know they basically i got my last season i got cut by san Antonio and they said we don't want you anymore it's the first time i ever got cut by a basketball team in my entire life and they cut me and they were like okay so now what am i going to do you know i was a little bit down i was like all right i got to find a new path um and you know i decided to go to china and i said to myself you know what there's one of two things that i could do here i can go to china i can mope i can wine i could not you know worry about anything i go over there just collect a paycheck and get home as quickly as i possibly could or i could go over there and immerse myself in the culture i could be kind i could be good to my teammates i could be try to become the best basketball player that i could possibly be and be one of the best basketball players to ever go over in china and play i could go one of those two roads and i tried to go the the road of trying to be the best basketball player the best person and because of that i've reached so many more benefits um in my life that i would have probably staying in the nba um on the court off the court um you know you know all the stuff that i've been able to to do and all the people that i've been able to reach worldwide all the fans that i have now worldwide um you know because of that i've been able to have so many great blessings and it was all because i had the mindset of hey you know this didn't go the exact way that i wanted to but that's okay it's time to pick a new route and do the best that i possibly can at that and you have to try to control the things that you can control you can't always control how much you play you can't always control if you get cut from a team or not you can't always control if you get fired or not there's there's a lot of things that you can't control but what you can't control is you can control your attitude you control your work ethic and you control whether you're happy or not and that's what i tried to focus on those three things and if i did those every single day the best of my ability i knew that i was going to to eventually be successful and i feel like i've become more successful than i ever could have before because i was able to remember those things i love that advice uh handle the things we can control and make the most of those and a professional athlete certainly learns that probably as well as anybody else you have to learn that right yeah for sure um someone asked the question did you uh did your teammates in the nba ever about ever get curious about your religious beliefs and treat you differently both positively or maybe negatively because of it definitely um they all knew that was from uiu they all knew i was a member of the church um some of them thought i was extremely weird um some of them thought you know some of them thought like i i didn't want to be friends with them because i wouldn't go out and drink with them or go out and party with them tonight some people took that as almost like a disrespectful thing like oh man everybody else is coming out but you're not going to come out why you don't you want to be a part of the team um you know there was there was a handful of guys that were like that but then there were a handful of guys that were like man i wish i could do what you're doing um i wish that i could you know stop drinking cold turkey and and just you know be able to you know not go out and party and but you know they're sometimes at that point they're addicted they can't really help and i'm like well you could probably do it if you want to you know i'll teach you how and you can just hang out with me you know and everything but uh it i definitely you know had my fair share of people that that didn't respect me for it but at the same time you know for me it was just important to make sure that i was always authentic that i that i was who i was um i didn't want to change who i was um for anybody and i wanted to make sure that um you know i was always a positive influence i was trying to come in practice every day as a good person um you know and be uplifting and do all that i could um because you know that's that's what i could do and you know i try to do that every day that's great i i've got to ask you a question about motivation and who who's motivated you in your life i know that could be why you i'm sure the coach jim hamlin you remember oh ham bone i'm sure he's a great motivator he's on watching right now but my god ham bone he's the man ham bone how are you i graduated so don't put me any more classes there you go he helped me throughout the whole thing yeah ham bone is is one in a million but as you think about motivators who's who have been great motivators for you in your life yeah that's a great question um you know my brother was always a great motivator for me you know he always tried to make sure that i was trying to reach my potential he saw it at a young age that i he thought i could be a really good basketball player um and you know he really worked with me every single day to to become better and because of that i saw myself getting better and then i had an internal motivation that like i wanted to do this because you know this was my goal and but he helped me believe in myself and then you know my dad was the person that you know motivated me to be a better person you know he was a guy that you know he was he's still a member of this church he's had every single calling you could possibly have in this church except for bishop because our my mom isn't a member but he's had every single calling he helped grow the church in our area literally grow it from a cornfield where they used to meet to having a church building and doing all these things and uh which that motivated me to be a good person because he believes in it so much and he knows that it's true and i saw that every day and i saw people come to him for problems and uh so that motivated me to be to be a good person then when i got to college coach rose um my college coach just motivated me like crazy um you know he was on me from day one like he he saw something in me and he did not take it easy on me ever and my first year at BYU was was was a little bit tough um you know he didn't play me necessarily as much as i wanted to right away um but he always was in my ear he was always pushing me um because he knew that i could be really good and uh if you would have taken it easy on me and just let me do what i wanted to do right from a young age i wouldn't be where i am today um so he for sure motivated me and helped me get to to to where i am and and so i'm grateful for him for that um we got the question here i think it's pretty interesting you know someone wants to know can you describe the work ethic and dedication it takes to be a professional athlete and maybe how that plays a part in your own spiritual growth in life yeah no that's a great question yeah it's uh it's really a different level it's a different level of work um you know as far as uh as a professional athlete goes um there are a lot of amazing athletes out there there really are and they're basketball players i mean there's hundreds of thousands of great basketball players out there and um all over the world it's a world game now it's a global game and uh to be one of the 350 400 guys that are in the NBA um you have to have a different mindset and uh that's what i always had i felt like for me it didn't necessarily start with my skill set it started with my mental capacity um you know i true like i said i did not have a plan b i truly believed that i was going to make the NBA and i made my goals every single day all you know every single year to see myself moving in a direction to get to where i wanted to be it's being in the NBA um you know so i would put it up i i'd write my goals down and i'd look at them every single day and i'd say all right this is what i need to do if i can accomplish this i'm one step closer to making it to the NBA um and you know i would work for it every single day um you know relentlessly um i'd go out and shoot i'd go out and play and go out and uh i'd condition i'd lift i'd run um i'd do all these things um and i i i i heard a speaker the other day on a podcast talk about he's not even a he's not an athlete at all he's like he's ceo of a company and he said the greatest people at their um at their profession what they do is when times get tough and when you feel like you don't want to do something you push harder that day you push harder than you think that you possibly could and the great ones do it the great ones are like all right i don't feel good today um you know i bet i just need to take a day off you know i just need to to to go out and just have a real light day most of the people in this world that's what they're going to do but the great ones they say no no i feel this i feel that i'm not doing well i feel them that i have low energy today it's time to ramp this up because i know if i do that that most of the people aren't doing that and uh so that's that's the type of mentality you have for me at least as a professional athlete um you know every single day like this this is a pandemic has been a perfect example um you know for the last five months you know i've been home in denver and uh i've been just working out i have a key to the gym at the stake center and my my stake president told me that i can get into the gym if i go in by myself and wipe it down afterwards so i go to the gym by myself i've been going for five months by myself every day just me and a ball playing basketball trying to get better and that's really really difficult to do by yourself for five months without anybody else in the gym and to really feel like you're getting better as an athlete um so yeah those are the type of things that the best players and the best professions the best professionals and whatever they they're doing that's what they do they push hard um they have the same consistent work ethic every single day trying to get better and because of that i feel like mentally i've been able to be be good spiritually because of the fact that you know i have i have a strong mental capacity to do what i believe in and um you know so and i believe in the i believe in the gospel i believe in this church i believe in in doing good things and doing good works and because of that have that mentality i want to try to go out and physically do something good for someone every day and uh whether it's something really really simple or something more grand and if you have that in your head and you go out there and you really act upon it it really helps you spiritually as well and that's kind of moved from the athletic role to the spiritual world so it's um it's fun how it's been able to do that that's awesome that's really great um you've been super generous with your time jimmer you have time for two more questions sure of course um the first thing though if you're tired of shooting alone come on out here to utah county i've got a key to the gym yeah we can shoot together i know i love it you can be my rebounder there you go i'll rebound for me you know you don't want to rebound for me that's all you do that's good conditioning there you go that's right so this this question is you know in our in our country right now we're dealing with a lot of um racial unrest and uncertainty and communication is struggling and some of my friends my african-american friends have told me over the that it's it's hard because they they feel like they're black people living in a white world your perspective i think could could really help us because in the nba you were a white man in a black world especially in the locker room what lessons did you learn from that experience and as you continue to learn that you think you could share with the rest of us that we could maybe all learn from and do better with i think for for me i talked about this with my family a lot i'll move up with my wife obviously we all watch the news and see what's going on and i think i always think it's really unfortunate obviously um you know for me i've been in i've been with all different races um all over the world you're you know all over europe been all over asia i've been all over the united states um you know dealt with every single race and uh for me what i find is that everyone is mostly everyone is trying to always reach a common goal and everyone is all mostly trying to be good people and at heart you have to believe that these most of everyone is trying to do good things um we all have different backgrounds we all have different uh you know political beliefs we all have different um you know uh adversities that we go through we all have different things but if we can come together and just talk to one another and get to know our neighbor literally just be able to as the as the command would say love my neighbor and if we can just get to know the people that are next to us it doesn't matter which race they are if you get to know them then you're going to become familiar with that person you're going to become familiar with their background you're going to see where they're coming from and you're going to be able to have a greater perspective of what's going on and then you're going to be able to make a change together and uh i think that's the biggest thing that we're going through a lot of times we're seeing you know what's going on in the world but we don't know the actual person you know we don't know the people that are going through this um in any different race so if we can reach out to them and talk to them and get all sides of the story i think that's how you really become or you are really able to serve one another and to be able to love my neighbor and be able to come together um and become united so that's that's always been my advice and i i always say you got to control what you control yourself do good things be a good person help everyone around you and be inclusive no matter who they are include everyone be able to to make an effort to be able to to go and and talk to someone that may be very different than you are to get to know them to to see who they are and see where they're coming from because then you'll be able to reach some common ground and you'll be able to love that person um so i think it's really important today's day and age to do that and uh it's something that i try to do and and my family talks about what we try to do on uh um you know as much as we possibly can thank you thank you for sharing that i knew you'd have insight that would be helpful all right last question is the one i've probably gotten the most of tonight and that is what is going on with you what uh what's next for jimmer for depth yeah great question um so more than likely i haven't signed an official deal yet but more than likely i'll be going back to china um you know and to the same team that i played for before in shanghai it looks like they want me back which is awesome um i'm excited about it um you know those are there i had some of my best years there and uh you know professionally and off the court and um you know like i said i haven't signed officially yet but hopefully it will be very very soon and um from there um hopefully to get back out to shanghai and be able to see the people again and be able to hopefully make an impact both on and off the court so uh we'll see exactly you know how it goes but um you know i'm excited for that opportunity and and you know hoping we can get over there safely and be able to have a great season awesome well we've we've loved listening to you tonight we've loved following your career all of us i'm sure most of those who are on on this live stream tonight uh i know we've all benefited from from your your experiences your stories and your wisdom that you've shared with us and uh and most of all we've benefited from your faith and your willingness to share your testimony with us tonight so jimmer from the bottom of my heart on behalf of all of the missionaries in the utah or a mission at least i know we were just thrilled and grateful that you were there you're willing to come on with this tonight i also want to thank everyone else who um who participated who made this happen for those behind the scenes who were responding to questions and helping people who were on we had over 1200 people i think was was the highest mark that i saw so a lot of people following us tonight we uh we hope that you enjoyed this uh presentation on the road to hope and peace and we hope if this was your first time to our site that you'll like our page you'll follow our page and uh and you'll share our content with your friends and your neighbors and those who would benefit from our message of hope and peace and faith in these difficult times so jimmer we uh again thank you one last time you're a great man and we wish you all the best if there's anything we can do for you here we'll let us know yeah thank you so much i appreciate it um you know brother treadway and thank you for everyone for listening and you know maybe i'll be out there in utah soon but thanks a lot we'll talk to you guys soon all right thanks a lot have a great night thanks you too all right bye bye