I'm here as a friend, a friend to you--and a group to whom I've spoken a time or two over the years, you and your predecessors--but a friend to Andrew Teal. And I'm a little reluctant to take away from the remarkable message and the remarkable spirit that he always brings. You have simply sampled what I have found for more than a year now and hope to enjoy for decades and decades to come. Andrew was written up in the scriptures. I don't know that he knows that, but he can go home and tell Rachel that he's canonized.

"The Lord thy God sent his angel to deliver thee from the hands of the priests of Elkenah. I dwell in the midst of them all ... now, [and I] have come down unto thee to declare unto thee the works which my hands have made, wherein my wisdom excelleth them all, for I rule in the heavens above, and in the earth beneath, [and] in all wisdom and prudence ... ; I came down in the beginning in the midst of all the intelligences [that I had] seen. "[And] now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were organized before the world was; and among all these there were many of the noble and great ones; and God saw these souls that they were good, and he stood in the midst of them, and he said: These I will make my rulers; for he stood among those that were spirits, and he saw that they were good; and he said unto me: Abraham, thou art one of them [that] was chosen before thou wast born." And I say to Andrew Teal, he is one of them. And he was chosen before he was born. We're grateful to have him now and always. And grateful to have you. There is such a place in my heart for you, whatever your chaplaincy, whatever it is, military or hospital, or care center, or university, all the many ways that you apply your faith and your service. But by definition, it seems to me, it probably should apply in other ways, but it just seems to me to apply, by definition, to a chaplaincy, that somehow your parishioners, if you will, are--again, by definition, I keep repeating--they are in need. Now, really, everybody's in need. And some people know it. And some people don't know it. But everybody is in need. The group to whom I'm sent are in need. And we always hope that they can recognize that and we can do something to help. But in your work, it seems to me that it will be very obvious why people are in need, in danger, maybe on active duty, maybe on a military front somewhere, maybe in an endangered zone, somebody in a hospital who's in crisis. And maybe it's the patient, and maybe it's the patient's loved ones, or whatever. But my guess is, you get to see people in crisis, or approaching crisis, or in the environment of a crisis, even more, and even better, and more readily than I do. And I always hope that I'm up to it when that happens, but you have to be up to it all the time, kind of all day, every day, more or less. And I'm grateful for your service. I'm grateful that the Reverend Dr. Teal is a chaplain as well as an ordained Anglican priest, and as well as a university professor. He serves me like you serve yours in need. He knows how to address a need. And that surely seems to me, under the affection that I have for Frank and all that you do for the church in your chaplaincy, is that you address people in need that I won't see, that I won't get to, that some battlefront somewhere moral, or spiritual, or emotional, somewhere, that you'll be on the front lines in a way that I won't get to be. So we do pray for you, and love you, and admire you, and see it as a very, very special service. If you won't misunderstand and write to your grandchildren now or ever and tell them that I called you to the Quorum of the Twelve, I will salute you in your apostleship. You are apostolic. And I can't help but always admire that, because I honor the office so much, respect the office so much. I'm an Apostle, I guess with a capital A. I'm in a quorum you're not in, and I've got some keys you don't have. But you're apostolic, at least traditional letter a. You are sent. You are sent with a message, which is what an apostle is. You are sent with a message, particularly, a message of Christ. Of the very virtues that Andrew has concluded with today of hope, and faith, and of love. And I pray that you'll know we feel that for you as you convey it to others and that you can always do that wholeheartedly and with whole soul, because we do feel that way about you. You can honestly say to whomever you administer, you can tell them that the presiding Brethren of the Church love them and pray for them and have sent you, quite literally, to be an instrument of that grace, and that hope, and that help, and that peace. And I thank you for your service. I thank Andrew for his. I thank Frank, for the entire organization, with his colleagues who make this work so beautifully, so successfully, so remarkably, remarkably well done. It is a joy to have you part of general conference, because that's another way--in my mind at least--that you're part of the apostolic ministry this weekend. And we salute you, men and women, and the children you have, and the people you love, and the folks that you bring a blessing to. You've blessed me. And I bless you and leave a blessing on you in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. Amen.