PROVO — A few students camped out overnight. Others arrived at the Marriott Center on the Brigham Young University campus at sunrise, a full four hours before LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley was to speak Tuesday at a devotional.

The reward for early birds? The right to dash to front row seats in the cherished northwest end of arena, where devotional speakers enter and exit the podium. And sure enough, after his speech, the 96-year-old leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints stopped several times to smile at and salute students in those seats.

Mikayla Bartell, an 18-year-old freshman from Redmond, Wash., and her mother, who joined the church 11 years ago, are the only LDS Church members in her family.

Bartell had never seen President Hinckley in person, so she arrived at the Marriott Center at the same time the sun did — about 7 a.m.

"He waved his cane at us," she said. "It was so exciting."

The doors opened at 9 a.m., and the building filled with 20,049 students, staff and faculty. They were reverent during President Hinckley's speech, an eclectic mix of nine "brief cameos or vignettes" he titled "Experiences Worth Remembering."

With the timing of an experienced comedian, he quickly drew three sustained laughs with a simple, brief reference to Halloween and a pause accompanied by a wry grin and a short tug at his somewhat orange tie, a subtle nod to the costume-rich holiday.

President Hinckley recalled four experiences and five stories that influenced his thinking and behavior.

The experiences ranged from visits to soldiers during the Vietnam War and to the tombs of Napoleon and Lenin to a discussion with former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, and they touched on the power of missionary work, the eternal nature of life and the need for kindness, brotherhood and unity.

He referred to visits to military cemeteries and said, "As I have visited these various cemeteries I have reflected first on the terrible cost of war. What a fruitless thing it so often is, and what a terrible price it exacts."

The stories included a favorite joke about getting into heaven, a cherished poem about Abraham Lincoln and a strong appreciation for the Enlightenment and the U.S. Constitution.

"There came the American Revolutionary War, resulting in the birth of a nation whose Constitution declared that government should not reach its grasping hand into matters of religion," he said. "A new day had dawned, a glorious day. Here there was no longer a state church. No one faith was favored above another."

President Hinckley urged listeners to follow his example.