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Episode 204: President Jeffrey R. Holland on the gospel of Jesus Christ and life’s challenges, with guest host Sister Sheri Dew

The Church News podcast features President Holland and guest host Sister Sheri Dew talking about his responsibilities as president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, the joy of temple worship and Latter-day Saint youth

For President Jeffrey R. Holland, acting president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, the past year has been perhaps the most challenging of his life. President Holland, 83, faced an extended illness; spoke at the funeral of his predecessor, President M. Russell Ballard; and dealt with the passing of his wife of 60 years, Sister Patricia Terry Holland.

Speaking during the April 2024 general conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, President Holland said he felt he had received “an admonition to return to my ministry with more urgency, more consecration, more focus on the Savior, more faith in His word.”

In this special episode of the Church News podcast, President Holland and guest host Sheri Dew, executive vice president of Deseret Management Corp. and a former member of the Relief Society general presidency, discuss how the gospel can help provide comfort in trials and bring joy in triumphs.

Listen to the Church News podcast on Apple Podcasts, Amazon, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get podcasts.

Transcript:

President Jeffrey R. Holland: But I have always had faith. I know other people have not. I know other people are still battling to find it and keep it, and I can only say that I have always had faith. I cannot remember a time that I did not have serious questions, also. But, Sheri, I know that this is true. It is a God-given truth that that 14-year-old boy walked out of that grove having encountered divinity. I live by the Book of Mormon. It is the most profound book in my life. So, my declaration is: Keep the faith you have. But if there is faith you don’t have, great; join the human race, but keep the faith you have. Answers will come, and gifts will be given, and we will sort it out, and we will make it.

Jon Ryan Jensen:This is Jon Ryan Jensen, editor of the Church News. Welcome to the Church News podcast. Today, we are taking you on a journey of connection as we discuss news and events of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. President Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles is coming off of what was perhaps the most challenging year of his life. At 83 years old, the acting president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles has battled past an extended illness, spoken at the funeral of a dear friend and fellow quorum member in the late President M. Russell Ballard, and dealt gracefully with the passing of his sweet wife of 60 years, Sister Patricia Holland. President Holland joins this episode of the Church News podcast to speak with guest host Sister Sheri Dew, executive vice president of the Deseret Management Corp. and a former member of the Relief Society general presidency. Speaking at general conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in April of 2024, President Holland said he felt he had received “an admonition to return to my ministry with more urgency, more consecration, more focus on the Savior, more faith in His word.” In this podcast, President Holland honors his commitment to comply with that admonition and shares his testimony of Jesus Christ and His restored gospel.

02:27

Sheri Dew: Well, President, we are delighted to have a chance to visit today. Thank you so much. This is not what you needed at the end of a vacation, right? But thank you.

President Jeffrey R. Holland: Yeah, vacation. Somebody said, “How was your summer?” And the answer is, “We love July. Both days.” It was terrific.

Sheri Dew: Well, thank you for making time for this conversation. Let’s just dive right in. It’s been nearly nine months now that you have been serving as the acting president of the Twelve. One of your colleagues said to me, not very long ago, one of your colleagues of the Twelve said, “Now, the only way to understand what it is like to be a member of the Twelve is to be a member of the Twelve,” which makes total sense. Yeah, it makes sense. But I am wondering if you can give us a little bit of a sense of what it is like to lead this very unique group, completely consecrated, ordained group of disciples?

03:17

President Jeffrey R. Holland: Well, you have phrased it in a way that almost answers the question. These are 11 of the most remarkable, gifted, spiritual, kind men that any of us would ever meet, that I have ever met, and that I get to be with them every day, one way or the other — full quorum some days, and individual meetings other days. You know, you pinch yourself. You pinch yourself. I don’t know, life at some other corporation might be wonderful. There are other institutions, I am sure, that just have a layer of good people in every position. But we are talking here about ordinations and consecrations and endowments and privileges and a great desire to help. Let me say one more thing about it. These men did not plan on this. You don’t seek this job, and you don’t get it by seeking it. And they might have had other plans. They might have lived a long, hard life, earning a little bit, to take a spouse and have a vacation, go somewhere for a day or two, or do something fun with the grandkids. And the Lord comes in and says, “Not yet, not now, not this.” And so a lifetime call. Every year, all year, we get a couple of weeks in July and 10 days in December. We are having a wonderful view of a 90-year-old doing this, a 100-year-old, a 91-year-old. This is a most remarkable group of men, and I love every single thing about them, as well as loving every one of them.

05:06

Sheri Dew: And I love that answer. I love hearing that that’s what it feels like from inside. What’s different about being the president of the Twelve than a member of the Twelve? How does that shift?

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles answers a question about the beliefs and doctrines of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints during a public conversation with the Rev. Dr. Andrew Teal, chaplain and lecturer in theology at Pembroke College at the University of Oxford, in the Clore Old Library at the University Church of St. Mary the Virgin on Thursday, Nov. 22, 2018. | Simon D. Jones

05:17

President Jeffrey R. Holland: Just be careful what you say, because they are very smart, and they are very gifted, and you don’t want to get in the way. You love them and give them resources and give them encouragement and a little direction, if anybody is seeking direction or needs it. But for the most part, you let them be what God ordained them to be. You let them be Apostles. You let them be sons of God. And if the relationship can be between them and heaven, if it can be between them and a Father, and I don’t get in the way and take myself too seriously and say, “Hey, you know, I am going to interrupt this.” I will always love them, and I will always care, and I will always guide as I can, but I am smart enough to know that they have gifts that I don’t have, and they will teach ways that I would not be able to teach, and I would not block that or interfere with that, or minimize that for anything in the world. I would just say turn it on and have Twelve voices doing all we could do, and not some effort to say, “Well, it is going to be one kind of filtered through the president.” I don’t think that is any idea. I am a president without counselors. This is not a traditional presidency, so I don’t think anybody has assumed that it is going to be like a bishopric or a stake presidency. I have 11 counselors. And we all have equal voices, and I love and respect them too much to interfere with their inspiration and the revelatory process that God has always given Apostles.

07:02

Sheri Dew: And you must in this spot, then, come to appreciate that they all have different gifts, I am sure a lot of overlapping gifts, but some really distinctive ones, right?

07:11

President Jeffrey R. Holland: Sure, sure. Absolutely. They have all had different backgrounds. We are getting more and more cross-cultural backgrounds, as well as heritage and languages and where they served missions and where they grew up. So, you know, more and more, it will be a sweet complexity to the Quorum, and we just bask in it and welcome it and encourage it, and hope nobody would be shy or reluctant to get in the way. I always listen. I always go around the circle. I want to hear from every single Apostle. We are not in any rush. We are not going anywhere. We’ve got plenty of time. And I want to hear from everyone. And I am assuming they appreciate that, that they have a voice, and truly an equal voice, and it is at least as good or better than mine. And often, when we get through 11 from Elder Kearon up to Elder Uchtdorf, I just cut it off right there and say, “We have had a magnificent review of the week or of the day.” And I don’t need to say anything. They are Apostles.

Sheri Dew: It’s beautiful to think about it from the point of view of a member of the Church. And everything you just said, President, could be a direction for every leader in the Church, really.

President Jeffrey R. Holland: Supposedly, we ought to be good, we ought to set an example. So we are trying.

President M. Russell Ballard, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland and Elder Quentin L. Cook of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, pose for a photo in London, England on Saturday Oct. 30, 2021. | Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News

Sheri Dew: You’ve been out among the Saints a fair amount in the last year, since you became president of the Twelve, and often in multistake leadership meetings or priesthood leadership meetings and so forth. Curious to know, when you’re out with the people and you’re hearing their questions and answering their questions: So what gives you the greatest hope for the future, meaning the Church in the future, and concerns for the Church in the future, either one, either or both of those?

09:09

President Jeffrey R. Holland: I have the same answer for both. The future of the Church and the delight of the Church, the hope of the Church, is its young people. And my greatest concern, my greatest worry, and the thing that keeps me awake at night is our young people. So that is the next generation, as it were, in the Church, and that is a constantly turning over generation, but I love them dearly. I chose a profession — I might have done some other things — but I chose to teach young people. And I have been with them for, I don’t know, 60 years or 70 or something. So I love them, and I think about them. I want them to grow up in the gospel. I want them to go to the temple. I want them to go on missions as they choose. I want them to marry in the temple. All in due time and all as they are inspired to do. But I want for them what you want for them, and what their parents want for them, what President Nelson wants for them. And so when they are doing that, I am ecstatic. I am thrilled beyond expression. When they are not doing that or too troubled, then I worry and lie awake a little, and my stomach churns. So we are all kind of the same on that. But I would say here, when we have to create 36 missions in one year just to accommodate the missionaries who want to go. Don’t tell me that young people are not serving and loving and growing into the beauty of the gospel. Go to the temple and see if you can get a turn at the baptismal font. The waiting list is out onto the street. My granddaughter would go to the temple to try to get two names, maybe three, on a good day three, but on a regular day two, do two baptisms from the dead and then go to high school. And how many thousands are doing that? And we have got to stress more — we have got to say more — about going to the temple. We have often said, “Where are you going on your mission?” you know. And “Where would you like to go on your mission?” And “Where’d your dad go, or mother on a mission?” And that is all fine for interest, but that’s after an endowment. That is after going to the temple. We cannot let the temple experience be an add-on, a kind of, “Oh yes, I forgot,” and touch base is the temple before you go off on your mission.” Well, they are different. A mission is different than an endowment experience, and we’ve got a tradition of looking forward to missions. I am the chief advocate for that, but we’ve all got to teach better and sooner the wonder of the temple before a mission, that that is how you prepare, not only for a mission, but for life. Life is unfolding after the temple, and one of those things is a mission, and then marriage and then growing up. So, young people: I think they are magnificent. And we are in an absolutely magnificent period now. The demographics of the country of the U.S. and for the most part of the world is declining, so we have a smaller pool to draw from, broadly speaking, but for us in the Church, and not just missions and not just temples, but virtually everything we are doing in the Church is increasing. So that is, I don’t know, to my little narrow head, that seems like a kind of a double win. We are going against a smaller pool, and we’re getting more success from that wonderful, wonderful community of young Latter-day Saints. It is magnificent. I could go on all night about this, but I should not.

Sheri Dew: I love it, and it is remarkable to contemplate. I mean, I have been going to the temple a lot for many decades now, and I always go early in the morning, and it’s fascinating to see the lines out the door. They are killer. They are just amazing.

President Jeffrey R. Holland: And these are kids that usually don’t want to get up in the morning, at least I did not, but boy, they will go and go to the temple, and it sets the tone for their day, and that’s a great omen for the future of the Church.

13:33

Sheri Dew: OK, now President, one of the things that we do hear and see — and I’d love your reaction on this — is that, I mean, it’s true that we’re living in a pretty complex world, and it’s increasingly contentious. And so when some of our youth and young adults talk about feeling some anxiety, when they talk about some other mental health challenges, though, that is understandable. That is reasonable. So if you had a group of young adults with you right now and they were telling you some of their worries, how would you tell them to cope with that?

14:05

President Jeffrey R. Holland: Well, it might differ worry to worry, but some general things that I would say is: No. 1, don’t feel guilty. I would just let anybody, not just young people, but anybody — senior citizens — talk. They could talk, and they could kind of say, “This is how I am feeling, and this is what I am getting off my chest. That does not solve it all, but that is about half the problem, is they can say, “Well, I guess other people know about this. Other people have been there.” It is one of the reasons I talked about it once in general conference, and I probably have never had more response to a conference talk than that one — to just say, “I did not think I would ever hear that kind of what?

Sheri Dew: Acknowledgement.

President Jeffrey R. Holland: “Acknowledgement, even hope in that regard, from the pulpit.” And my gosh, general authorities are not immune from that. We have to get up and eat our Wheaties in the morning and face life and do what men and women do, at every age. So to be able to talk about it, be able to acknowledge it, is a lot of the factor. And then I would say a little more about this being a common, a frequent diagnosis — sometimes serious and sometimes just kind of a blue Monday. But anything along that scale, and that a lot of people understand. A lot of people can help. Professionals can help. I worry when professionals are available, and I believe in professional help, good professional help. I worry when we have that available and maybe not enough are willing to use it. Again, it is the guilt, or it is “I don’t dare walk into that clinic, because somebody is going to think, ‘Well, he has got a problem or she has got a problem.’” Well, nobody asked me that when they rushed me to the hospital with kidney problems, nobody thought that was a compromise of my moral standing, and it should not be to talk about emotional problems. But we are all in it together, and everybody’s doing the best he or she can. And you walk out of a place like that, I think, fortified.

Sheri Dew: President, you were in California just a few weeks ago, I believe it was in June of this year, and you made quite a point of — this was a multistake leadership meeting — and you made a point of trying to encourage those presidents, so all of these priesthood leaders and sister leaders, of saying, “Listen, you’ve got to learn to lean on Heavenly Father.” And here is exactly what you said: “Your little challenge is nothing compared to keeping the planets in their orbits. I promise you, He is up to it. He can do it.” Now, President, you’ve known this for your whole life, basically, but I am wondering what you have learned about this truth during the last very challenging year, about leaning on Heavenly Father.

17:03

President Jeffrey R. Holland: Well, this has been the most difficult year of my life, obviously — lose my wife, lose my health, be written off for dead. That is a tender, tender subject for me. When my little family just refused to let me go, came to the hospital every day for four weeks and nothing was working. I was kept alive by faith. I was kept alive by blessings, by prayer. And that is something we talk about every day and take too much for granted. We say a little prayer at night, or I hope we say a prayer in the morning, and I hope we bless the food and all, but boy, that can get to be routine if we are not careful. We must not take that for granted. That’s the way miracles happen, in or out of this Church. It is people’s prayers and people’s faith and the power of the priesthood and administration. It really happens. It really works. And sometimes it does not happen the way we want, but every one of those is heard, every one of those is acknowledged. And as someone said once, “You can have what you want or something better,” So it is heard and it is expressed, and it is recorded by those wonderful angels in the manuscripts of heaven, and sometimes it is answered the way you want. Sometimes you do get what you want. And that can coincide with what the Lord wants for you. I did not know whether we would need the scriptures today, but one of my favorite scriptures.

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and his wife Sister Patricia Holland tour the Benbow family farm in Castle Frome, England on Thursday, Oct. 28, 2021. Holland’s 4th great-grand parents owned the farm and converted to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1840 through Wilford Woodruff. | Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News

Sheri Dew: We always need the scriptures.

President Jeffrey R. Holland: Well, I think we do. One of my favorite scriptures is: This is the brother of Jared who needs help. The Lord has just created sleek boats designed, nobody has ever heard of, nobody has ever dreamed, let alone created one. That is what the Lord has created. And so He comes to the brother of Jared, and says, “Well, what are you going to contribute?” And he said, “I’ve got some rocks here.” Boy, that is impressive. But he needs help, even if it is with the rocks. And he says, “O Lord, look upon me in pity, and turn away thine anger from this thy people, and suffer not that they shall go forth across this raging deep in darkness; but behold these things” — He calls them things as these handsome rocks here, — “these things which I have molten out of the rock. And I know, O Lord, that thou hast all power, and can do whatsoever thou wilt for the benefit of man” (Ether 3:3-4). “Thou hast all power, and can do whatsoever thou wilt for the benefit of man.” We ought to inscribe that across our forehead. We ought to put it on the mirror in the bathroom. You can do everything, and it will be for the benefit of man. “Therefore touch these stones, O Lord, with thy finger, and prepare them that they may shine forth in darkness; and they shall shine forth unto us in the vessels which we have prepared, that we may have light while we shall cross the sea. Behold, O Lord, thou canst do this. We know that thou art able to show forth great power, which looks small unto the understanding of men” (Ether 3:4-5). It is all about His power. And it is all about His blessings. And He can do it. And He does do it. And I guess that would be part of my answer to your question. What do you say to people when they struggle? What do you say to people who don’t have as much strength in their testimony as they might have, or they had a bad experience, or they lost a spouse, or they did not get a spouse, or they came home from their mission early with illness, or whatever? It can be remedied. There’s power, and it can be distributed, and it can be remedied. And that is my little piece of encouragement to the Church.

21:47

Sheri Dew: In that regard, President, let’s just build on that. You have been as expressive as any Church leader I can ever remember in expressing your absolute adoration for your dear wife, Pat. Now that she has been cheering you on from the other side of the veil for the past year, I am wondering if that has given you any different insights about her, your marriage, the future, eternity. Do you think about that differently than you used to?

22:16

President Jeffrey R. Holland: Yeah, I do. Yes, yes. I think about her all the time, all the time. To this day, to this night, I will turn over in bed and reach and wonder why she is not there. That has gone on for more than 365 days, where we are starting on the second round. And I wonder why she is not in bed, or I hear a noise in the other room, and I think that, “Well, that’s her.” I think about her all the time. And the reason I think I am cheerful; I am not grieving as much as that immediate first chaos of loss. I am not grieving in that way as much. I am really quite happy. But it is because I think I am just not very far away from being with her again. If I were 20 years old, I don’t know what I would do. But at my age and at my circumstance, I know it is just not too long before I am with her, and so I whistle while I go to work. I think lovingly and adoringly of her. I change my screen saver on my phone about every month to put a new photo of her up, and I just kind of feel like she is with me. And most often when I have been sleeping or deep or away, or one foot in that world, then I just really think she is nearby, and I cherish that. I surely feel for a younger man with a family who loses a spouse. But we do. It happens. But I have come to realize — and I am so laden with guilt about what I did not do in my busy life. I have been busy all my life. And I could have been home a little more. I could have worked from home a little more. So I feel guilt about what I did not do for her, but one of the things that I did not do for her was understand how absolutely, uniquely remarkable she was.

24:41

Sheri Dew: I want to follow on that, because it’s something I wanted to ask you for probably decades. So here you are smitten with this young Patricia Terry. She is adorable, she is talented. But when did you start to realize, “Oh, she is not normal. This is an extraordinary woman,” above what maybe you even knew in your early 20s or late teens? When did you know that “Wow, she’s amazing.”

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and his wife Sister Patricia Holland pose at his home in Salt Lake City on Thursday, April 14, 2022. | Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News

25:12

President Jeffrey R. Holland: I don’t know. All along the way, I guess. It started out so neighborly, platonic. I mean, two kids growing up in high school, you know? And it grew into President Nelson’s remarkable tribute at her funeral. Somewhere along the way, I knew that. I suppose, well, I was going to say when we went to BYU was when she just pitched in and did things she did not want to do and spoke to thousands that she did not want to speak to, but was adored and loved and quoted and quoted, and they blow past me to get to her. You know, just “Out of the way, Jeff.” And she would stay and talk. She would stay and talk after a devotional for half an hour, for 45 minutes. Another quality she had is when you had her, you had all of her. I have tried to pull her away from a little conversation, just say, “Honey, there’s another meeting. I have got to be interviewed. We’ve got to catch the car. Come on.” And she will not budge. She will not budge, because some little 70-year-old woman is talking to her, and she said to herself and to me, “If you think I am going to leave this woman here, with my jerking out here and running after a car, you are crazy. I am talking to her, and I will talk until she is finished.” And those kinds of qualities, what she did at the university, the way the students loved her, the emergence of the “Pat and Jeff Show.” That is when I started to say, “Whoa, you know, what have I got here?” And I hope that I honored it. But even before that, when we went to graduate school. We went to graduate school on nothing. We had no money. I think we had, I don’t know, we had $300 between us or something, and a car that kept breaking down. Everybody in the Church has owned that car, a car that would not run. And I was in the stake presidency, and she was the Relief Society president. And if I had the car, she did not. And if she had the car, I did not. And this is a stake that covered all of Connecticut, half of Massachusetts, two thirds of Rhode Island, two pieces of New York, a corner of Vermont. And we are supposed to get around, you know? And well, we did. Somehow. She did. She did. So maybe that is earlier than BYU. Maybe it was the graduate school years. I don’t know when it was, but it was early. But she was remarkable in this little girl from Enterprise, Utah, who just marched onto the stage of life, and she could do everything. I think we had a good marriage. I think we had a wonderful marriage.

Sheri Dew: And have a wonderful marriage. Let’s put it in present tense.

President Jeffrey R. Holland: And I would — that is why I am happy that it is only a little while before we get reunited. And that is a promise in the gospel that I want everybody to know; young, middle age, older, everybody. I want them to know that there is, what was it that the little nun said, “In the work of God, all the rules are fair, and there are wonderful surprises.”

28:41

Sheri Dew: That’s beautiful to think about. President, I want to hark back to something you said earlier. Now, the reality is there are some complex issues, some compelling issues that cause some members concern, and we could list them.

President Jeffrey R. Holland: Sure.

Sheri Dew: The different things.

President Jeffrey R. Holland: We have had them for a long time.

Sheri Dew: Yep, we have. If you’re sitting with a member who is really troubled about something — enough so that maybe it’s threatening their testimony, or they’re wanting to still be a member, or not knowing how to go forward — how would you counsel them to handle their concern about an issue, any given issue?

29:19

President Jeffrey R. Holland: Well, that is a great comment. I have always had faith. I know other people have not. I know other people are still battling to find it and keep it. And I can only say that I have always had faith. I cannot remember a time that I did not believe. I cannot remember a time that I did not have serious questions.

Sheri Dew

Also.

President Jeffrey R. Holland: Wrenching questions, also. Serious, serious questions. But, Sheri, I know that this is true. It is a God-given truth that that 14-year-old boy walked out of that grove having encountered divinity. I live by the Book of Mormon. I live by the words of the Book of Mormon. That does not mean there is not a semicolon I would change, or a verb that could be removed, that has nothing to do with it. It is the most profound book in my life. I went to school reading classics, as it were. Some things more than once. But not very often. The number of books that you could ask me that I have bothered to read more than once could be on one hand. Well, I have read the Book of Mormon 100 times and loved it, and cry with the kids and love and laugh with the kids, and I have fun, maybe too much fun, teaching. But I come away every day and every time and in every circumstance with the reaffirmation that this is God’s very truth. Now, that is where I start. If somebody cannot start there, then we will have to work around it. We will have to visit. We will have to go back and see where we begin. But that is where I start. So my declaration is: Keep the faith you have. If there is faith you don’t have, great, join the human race. But keep the faith you have. Don’t throw the baby out with the bath because somebody had a challenge in Church history. But I am saying the substance and the power and the significance of what we do know that is true.

Elder Holland wearing a suit coat and tie and speaking at a pulpit. | The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

What we do have is 535 pages of content that you can touch it and feel it and bite it and tear it and open it and mark it. And a lot of other churches, a lot of other people, have had epiphanies. A lot of other people have talked about visions — and they probably had them, for all I know — but all I know is this one left a book. And I don’t know of a book that has been examined more or held up for either righteousness or ridicule any more than that book — every page, every verse, whether you read it, or whether you dislike it. Whatever. There it is, and we have to deal with it. And I am in the Church initially because of that book. At least I had conviction for the first time because of that book. So, Joseph Smith with a vision, and Moroni delivering a book, actual plates, and the book that prompted, and angelic visitors coming to restore priesthood power. Those are givens for me, and I don’t have much to say to anybody who says, “Well, I don’t believe that.” Then I cannot go on to talk about much else. We will have to go back and start about something more basic. I will have to help them get there. We will have to read. What I will do is we will open it and read any page — pick a page — and come to that faith. But I would say that it is the “Lord, I believe. Bless thou my unbelief.” Everybody’s got challenges, everybody’s got problems, everybody’s got questions. Why on earth do we act like we are the first ones to ever think that, we’re the first ones that ever had a question about race, or the historic things that we have wrestled with within the Church. You have LGBTQ issues that are as wrenching and as difficult and as overwhelming in its pain as anything. Well, we have always had issues like that, or some other issue or on and on and on and on. I just say: Start with what you’ve got, cling to what you have, believe in what’s been given, and then go on from there. And answers will come, and gifts will be given, and we will sort it out, and we will make it. But it is not easy. And some of it is just really downright wrenchingly painful.

34:17

Sheri Dew: Let’s pursue your mention of one of these areas of difficulty, or at least a topic that can cause wrenching questions and searching and seeking questions — that being the issues about LGBTQ. You gave an address three, in fact three years ago this month, at BYU. It was at their annual university conference with faculty and staff. You talked about how much you loved BYU, its important mission. I love the story of the first time you noticed the block Y on the mountain east of campus, and how much it affected you. And your deep love for that university was so clear. And among other things that you taught — which there were many things you taught in that message — you touched on some LGBTQ issues as related to campus. The responses to that message were varied. What were you hoping to accomplish in that message? What did you hope came through?

35:19

President Jeffrey R. Holland: What I hoped that would come through is a message to the leadership of an institution. It was the annual University Leadership Conference about how you direct and manage an institution. And I was teaching what I hoped would come through. And that is loyalty to and devotion to and adhering to a never yielding from the mission of Brigham Young University. That is what I hoped would come through. And I did not want it to veer here. I did not want it to veer there. I did not want it to veer up, down, in or out. I wanted to go right down the middle of the doctrinal highway. So, I say, “Lord, I believe. Bless thou my unbelief.” Let’s talk about how we make the university, or keep the university, loyal. Now, if anybody was hurt, and I know some were in that exchange, then I was hurt. If they were hurt, I was hurt. And I have wept. I have wept for those three years. I don’t think anybody has had more people in an office, in a chair, weeping with them than I have in that administration building, with kids who were struggling with gender issues. No one can say that I do not love them. But I am also and was then responsible for the direction of a university. I just wanted to get the supporting doctrine of the Church across. So, anybody else’s pain is my pain out there. I want to say secondly, in that regard, that every student that comes there is safe. We are going to have a safe place for them to talk, for them to be open. Everybody’s safe there. Everybody’s loved there. They are loved by God, and they are loved by us. They are loved by me. They are loved by Shane Reese. Well, I am glad you would raise that, because I want to just leave that much and go on. But I am very unhappy if anybody was hurt. Because that is then my hurt deeply, given the hours and hours and hours that I have spent with kids who struggle with gay issues. So, we will keep trying. We will keep trying to do better.

37:51

Sheri Dew: Thank you, President. Thank you for being willing to refer to it and reflect back and to teach us in the process. I want to ask you one more BYU-related question. Think back to your time as president of BYU, and you were a pretty young president of BYU.

President Jeffrey R. Holland: Thirty-nine.

Sheri Dew: Wow. It is just incredible to contemplate. But think back, there must be — you could write a book. I know somebody who could publish a book — but you could write a book about everything you learned as president of BYU. But I’m wondering if you’d reflect back on a lesson or two that you learned that’s actually now helped you in your apostolic ministry.

Then-Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and his late wife, Sister Patricia Holland, greet Latter-day Saints gathered for a member meeting in Helsinki, Finland, on Nov. 13, 2022.
Then-Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and his late wife, Sister Patricia Holland, greet Latter-day Saints gathered for a member meeting in Helsinki, Finland, on Nov. 13, 2022. | The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

38:31

President Jeffrey R. Holland: Well, nine years of intense life is a lot of lessons. One, Sheri, is — and it is actually related a little bit to what we have been saying — one of them is that I learned that people can have differing opinions. They can have different opinions and have had different experience, and they come from different places. But if we can be civil, if we can be loving and patient and not jump to conclusions. I have learned that great, great faculty members, terrific students, great bishops from the community, great Relief Society presidents from the community, on and on. I have learned that a whole world of people can come together, put a lot of different opinions on the table, feel pretty strongly about them, even to the point of occasional raised voices and little pounding on the table. I love, I am a kind of a table pounder. But when you are through, you are brothers and sisters. You are gospel bound and gospel tied. And nothing matters as much as love. And the second thing that matters is the truth. And so somebody who is making love a given and truth the search: Boy, that is a great way to live. That is a great way to live. I could recommend being president of BYU to anybody. Love as a foundation. But no suggestion that we can disregard the truth. That is as unacceptable as not loving is unacceptable.

40:26

Sheri Dew: That’s a beautiful distinction. We’ve kept you a long time. I have got just a couple of things I’d like to conclude with. One of them kind of circles back to an early part of our discussion. And you said it, I mean, there can’t be that many general authorities who’ve spent more time with our youth and young adults. And when you look to the future and to the future for yourself, for the Church, but maybe especially for the rising generation, what are your fondest hopes?

40:57

President Jeffrey R. Holland: That they will be happy and confident. They don’t need to be afraid. I am always worried if I come to a group and you can see or hear or feel a fear written across their face or coming out of their lips. God is in charge of this. He is our Father. This is His plan. We are His children. We don’t need to fear. This is not going to collapse. This is not going to explode. We have had answers to our needs from the day that Adam and Eve marched out of the garden and said, “Let’s go and give it our best shot.” I just don’t want them to be fearful. And in that regard, I just pray that happiness will always be at the end of the road, and my feeling is, and my experience is, that the only way to be happy is to keep the commandments and love the Lord and love each other. Those basic, basic commandments. I don’t know. I am not smart enough to come up with anything else. I don’t know anything else. I just say that this is not a silly happiness. This is not a giddy happiness. This is solid confidence that lets you get up and go to work the next day and know that it is going to be OK. Give it your best and it is going to be OK. It will be all right. I would like everybody to know that.

42:33

Sheri Dew: That probably leads to the last question I’ve had in my mind, and that is, you’ve said a lot and written a lot about the Lord Jesus Christ and about His various names. And you’ve said before that Alpha and Omega might be your favorite names. Love to know why, and perhaps also, what do you wish each of us really understood about the Savior? I know that’s a big question.

43:03

President Jeffrey R. Holland: I love the names for the Savior. I love them. When President Nelson told us to learn a few of those names, I had just went crazy. I loved the names for the Savior, and I have said that Alpha and Omega is among the sweetest that I have. There are others, the Bright and Morning Star, and there are some other names. But Alpha and Omega is wonderful, because what it says is He is for me for everything. He is the beginning, and He is with me right now, and He is the end. It is His gift. It is His atoning gift, especially the gift of life and of happiness and marriage and the things we have, the highs and the lows. He knows all about it. He is Alpha and Omega. I don’t know how to say it better than to say that He is everything. From the time we started — and we know that from premortal teachings — from the time we started till the time we finish, it will be His beautiful face, to see His hands and His feet, at which we will fall, from start to finish. And I am not leaving, I am not leaving, I am not walking away from that. It is wholesale. We get Him all. We get all of Him. And that is a real gift. It is interesting that because we could say beginning and ending, that is the same thing, He is the beginning and the ending. He is the start and the finish. There are other parallel languages, but Alpha and Omega is interesting because it is Greek. It is the Greek alphabet — the first letter and the last letter. And I have wondered if it was not just an aside from the Savior to the learned of the community, because I have spent my time in education. I wonder if it was not a little comment to those that are studying Greek, to say, “Yeah, I know some Greek.” I am as complete in that culture as I am in Aramaic or Judaic culture, and it is everything from beginning to end. You read too much, Sheri. You should get in the book business. You read too much. Because I don’t know that anybody remembers that I said Alpha and Omega, but I did.

46:06

Sheri Dew: Well, I have probably read everything you’ve ever taught, and President, let me just say that one of your gifts, from my point of view, is this extraordinary ability to teach and to make the gospel real, with real relevance and real impact. And you’ve done it again today. Thank you.

President Jeffrey R. Holland: Thank you.

Sheri Dew: Thank you. Thank you.

President Jeffrey R. Holland: My privilege.

Sheri Dew: For spending this time.

President Jeffrey R. Holland: My privilege in every way. I love you, Sheri. I love you doing this, and I hope it helps somebody in some way, because it is all true. It is all true, and I am not leaving.

President Henry B. Eyring and Elder Jeffrey R. Holland enjoy a moment at the monument dedicated to Wilford Woodruff, located less than a mile from the original site of the Woodruff family home and mill in Farmington, Connecticut. The Church leaders toured the historical sites prior to the dedication of the Hartford Connecticut Temple. | Rachel Sterzer

46:56

Jon Ryan Jensen: Thank you for listening to the Church News podcast. I’m your host, Church News editor Jon Ryan Jensen. I hope you learned something today about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and had your faith in the Savior increase by looking through the Church News window as a living record of the Restoration. Please subscribe, rate and review this podcast so it can be accessible to more people. And if you enjoyed the messages we shared today, please share the podcast with others. Thanks to our guests; to my producer, KellieAnn Halvorsen; and to others who make this podcast possible. Join us every week for a new episode. Find us on your favorite podcasting channels or with other news and updates about the Church on TheChurchNews.com or on the Church News app.

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