Opinion
My boss, my friend and a mighty man of God
A personal retrospective on the life of President Jeffrey R. Holland
Beky Beaton / Lehi Free Press
I first met President Jeffrey R. Holland – what he always was to me – shortly after my arrival at BYU in 1986 to begin a hybrid appointment as an administrator at The Daily Universe, BYU’s student newspaper, along with a half-time teaching responsibility in the Department of Communications.
At the newspaper, I joined a small group of media professionals hired from the industry and brought in to supervise and help direct the efforts at the publication, which was otherwise fully staffed by students and operated as a laboratory to help sharpen the skills of the next generation of communicators.
My faculty responsibilities included teaching three courses per semester from the so-called “practical” list such as newswriting, editing, publication design and more.
The students in those classes submitted work for publication in the newspaper as part of their assignments. Once they had passed some of the core courses, they were eligible to apply for the senior staff positions that were paid student work opportunities. I was their Editorial Director.
As the head of the university at the time, President Holland was our ultimate boss. He was keenly interested in the newspaper operation and would summon the administrative cadre from time to time to discuss how things were going and potential improvements we might make.
I also had the opportunity for one-on-one visits with him when I was involved in efforts at the university to revise and promote the general education requirements and to incorporate communication classes in every discipline. He firmly endorsed the success of that endeavor.
Of course, I was also a participant in staff conferences and social events as well. At these, I interacted with President Holland’s wife, Patricia Holland, and noticed the deference and high esteem with which he treated her, a great example to me.
President Holland addressed the university community multiple times a year and demonstrated his empathetic approach to even the most difficult topics which became one of the hallmarks of his later, more public ministry.
He was a master at understanding and reaching out to youth and young adults of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This talent was amplified and multiplied following his call to the Seventy in 1989 and subsequent call to the Apostleship in 1994.
He left BYU to take up the first of those, but we continued to correspond occasionally about topics of mutual interest until he joined the Quorum of the Twelve. At that point, I felt the weight of his responsibilities was too great to impose further on his time.
However, there was one exception. When he received his appointment as the Church representative in Chile, I had a son serving a mission there. I wrote to inform him of that and there was a later interaction between them which further strengthened our family’s high opinion of him and his teaching abilities.
The last time I saw President Holland in person was 10 years ago, when he officiated at the temple wedding of a prominent local athlete who had used his position in the public eye to spread the message of the Gospel in many different ways, beginning when he was just a teenager.
I was privileged to be there because I was a family friend. I had no opportunity for a private conversation with President Holland on that occasion, but a knowing glance from him acknowledged our then-nearly 30 years of association.
I was completely unaware that he was to be the sealer for the ceremony, but I noticed as we were coming up the stairs into the sealing room that there was what appeared to be a large group of temple workers lining the hall.
Once we were all seated and they’d brought the bridal couple in – before the sealer, also somewhat unusual – the doors opened and in strode Elder Holland. That immediately explained both observations.
Elder Holland said that performing a sealing was not something he “gets to do very often these days.” It used to be fairly common for the apostles, he said; now the church is simply too big, but he cherished the opportunity.
He thanked the bridal couple for the example they were setting by being married in the temple and said it would bless not only their immediate associates but also the youth of the entire church – no doubt a reference to their elevated position in the collective public consciousness.
He said he had no domestic advice to offer, though he mentioned a couple of things, most notably counseling the bride that if her husband left his clothes on the floor that Sister Holland was still dealing with that after 52 years and basically to not fuss over the little things that don’t matter.
He also said he’d received the couple’s permission to talk to us about the Gospel, particularly in reference to the Temple, and proceeded to give this small group of disciples a 30-minute lesson on the endowment, the symbolism of the Temple and the Atonement of Jesus Christ.
It was all vintage Elder Holland, full of humor, humility and very down-to-earth, yet very specific and direct in its content. The power of his spirit and office filled the room and left everyone there profoundly grateful for his personal teachings.
I had mixed feelings as I learned of his passing: joy that his suffering was now ended and that he was with his beloved Pat again, but deep sorrow at the loss of one of the greatest Gospel educators and advocates for the rising generation that I have ever known or seen.
My life was changed forever by my association with him, not just when it was personal, but perhaps even more so by his later ministerial efforts and how his messages resonated not just with me, but especially with my children and grandchildren.
President Jeffrey R. Holland is one of the noble and great ones, and the legacy of his life and teachings will echo through all future ages.
