Hero Week Day 1: Jeffrey R. Holland

I can't imagine the early saints hearing amazing talks from prophets and apostles and not being able to listen to or reread them later in the Ensign/Liahona magazines. For the last few years, I have listened to talks from the BYU Speeches Website. The talks that have meant the most for me have been from:

Jeffrey R. Holland

Elder Holland has a fatherly, loving, and yet fresh and youthful way of converting listeners to his way of thinking. I've always been impressed by his talks in general conference as well as talks as President at Brigham Young University. His voice, his passion, and intense nature make evident his love for the gospel and those he has responsibility for. My dad calls him "Homerun Holland", as that's exactly what you get from every talk he gives. I thank him from the bottom of my heart for showing these attributes with us, that we may emulate him in our efforts to emulate the Savior. I thank him for making me more passionate about the gospel and trying to have a positive effect on those around me. Anyone who feels a lack can be totally encompassed by the power of the gospel. Please take time to listen to a talk from Elder Holland, especially The Inconvenient Messiah (link below). If you're like me, you'll need to listen to it a few times over a few weeks to make sure you're making the necessary changes. Elder Holland: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Here are links and excepts from a few talks that changed me for the better:

The Inconvenient Messiah

The Inconvenient Messiah is a great talk. Elder Holland explains how, in our lives of the I-need-it-now society, Christ is the best example of how to delay what we want now for what we really want later. One example is how when Christ was tempted by Satan to turn stones into bread after fasting 40 days, he withstood the temptation. Here is my favorite part:

Whatever else Satan may do, he will certainly appeal to our appetites. Far better to play on natural, acknowledged needs than struggle to plant in us artificial ones. Here Jesus experiences the real and very understandable hunger for food by which he must sustain his mortal life. We would not deny anyone this relief; certainly we would not deny the Son of Man. Israel had its manna in the wilderness. This is Israel's God. He has fasted for forty days and forty nights. Why not eat? He seems ready to break his fast, or surely must soon. Why not simply turn the stones to bread and eat?

The temptation is not in the eating. He has eaten before, he will soon eat again, and he must eat for the rest of his mortal life. The temptation, at least the part I wish to focus on, is to do it this way, to get his bread--his physical satisfaction, relief for his human appetite--the easy way, by abuse of power and without a willingness to wait for the right time and the right way. It is the temptation to be the convenient Messiah. Why do things the hard way? Why walk to the shop--or bakery? Why travel all the way home? Why deny yourself satisfaction when with ever such a slight compromise you might enjoy this much-needed nourishment? But Christ will not ask selfishly for unearned bread. He will postpone gratification, indefinitely if necessary, rather than appease appetite--even ravenous appetite--with what is not his.

Called to Serve

May I share just one contemporary example of both the challenge and blessings that our “calls to serve” can bring. A wonderful sister recently said to a dear friend: “I want to tell you about the moment I ceased resenting my husband’s time and sacrifice as a bishop. It had seemed uncanny how an ‘emergency’ would arise with a ward member just when he and I were about to go out to do something special together.

“One day I poured out my frustration, and my husband agreed we should guarantee, in addition to Monday nights, one additional night a week just for us. Well, the first ‘date night’ came, and we were about to get into the car for an evening together when the telephone rang.

“ ‘This is a test,’ I smiled at him. The telephone kept ringing. ‘Remember our agreement. Remember our date. Remember me. Let the phone ring.’ In the end I wasn’t smiling.

“My poor husband looked trapped between me and a ringing telephone. I really did know that his highest loyalty was to me, and I knew he wanted that evening as much as I did. But he seemed paralyzed by the sound of that telephone.

“ ‘I’d better at least check,’ he said with sad eyes. ‘It is probably nothing at all.’

“ ‘If you do, our date is ruined,’ I cried. ‘I just know it.’

“He squeezed my hand and said, ‘Be right back,’ and he dashed in to pick up the telephone.

“Well, when my husband didn’t return to the car immediately, I knew what was happening. I got out of the car, went into the house, and went to bed. The next morning he spoke a quiet apology, I spoke an even quieter acceptance, and that was the end of it.

“Or so I thought. I found the event still bothering me several weeks later. I wasn’t blaming my husband, but I was disappointed nevertheless. The memory was still fresh when I came upon a woman in the ward I scarcely knew. Very hesitantly, she asked for the opportunity to talk. She then told of becoming infatuated with another man, who seemed to bring excitement into her life of drudgery, she with a husband who worked full-time and carried a full load of classes at the university. Their apartment was confining. She had small children who were often demanding, noisy, and exhausting. She said: ‘I was sorely tempted to leave what I saw as my wretched state and just go with this man. My situation was such that I felt I deserved better than what I had. My rationalization persuaded me to think I could walk away from my husband, my children, my temple covenants, and my Church and find happiness with a stranger.’

“She said: ‘The plan was set; the time for my escape was agreed upon. Yet, as if in a last gasp of sanity, my conscience told me to call your husband, my bishop. I say “conscience,” but I know that was a spiritual prompting directly from heaven. Almost against my will, I called. The telephone rang and rang and rang. Such was the state of my mind that I actually thought, “If the bishop doesn’t answer, that will be a sign I should go through with my plan.” The phone kept ringing, and I was about to hang up and walk straight into destruction when suddenly I heard your husband’s voice. It penetrated my soul like lightning. Suddenly I heard myself sobbing, saying, “Bishop, is that you? I am in trouble. I need help.” Your husband came with help, and I am safe today because he answered that telephone.

“ ‘I look back and realize I was tired and foolish and vulnerable. I love my husband and my children with all my heart. I can’t imagine the tragedy my life would be without them. These are still demanding times for our family. I know everyone has them. But we have addressed some of these issues, and things are looking brighter. They always do eventually.’ Then she said: ‘I don’t know you well, but I wish to thank you for supporting your husband in his calling. I don’t know what the cost for such service has been to you or to your children, but if on a difficult day there is a particularly personal cost, please know how eternally grateful I will be for the sacrifice people like you make to help rescue people like me.’ ”

Brothers and sisters, please understand that I am one who preaches emphatically a more manageable, more realistic expectation of what our bishops and other leaders can do. I especially feel that a wide range of civic, professional, and other demands which take parents, including and especially mothers, out of homes where children are being raised is among the most serious problems in contemporary society. And because I am adamant about spouses and children deserving sacred, committed time with a husband and father, nine times out of ten I would have been right alongside that wife telling her husband not to answer that telephone. But I am as grateful in my own way as that young woman was in hers that in this instance this good man followed the prompting of the Spirit and responded to his “call”—in this case, literally—his “call to serve.”