President Jeffrey R. Holland: Teacher, Disciple, Witness

An Obedient Boy

Jeffrey Roy Holland was born December 3, 1940, in St. George, Utah, USA—then a rural, largely unknown town in the southwest corner of the state.

“I had an idyllic childhood,” he said. “I grew up with more security and unrestrained love than I can imagine a child having.”

His mother, Alice, descended from hardy pioneers who settled the St. George area. His father, Frank, was the kind of pioneer some would call a self-made man. He became active and influential in the city’s affairs.

From their father, said Deborah Holland Millett, her two brothers, Jeff and Dennis, inherited Irish charm and wit. From their mother, she added, Jeff learned to “give selflessly forever, without any thought or expectation of return.”

His mother described Jeff as an obedient boy. “He was always at church, and he always took care of his priesthood duties,” she said.

When he was young, she once gave him permission to attend a party on the condition that he return home by 10:00 p.m. That night during the party, he looked at a clock to check the time. When he realized that he had only 15 minutes before he had to be home, he ran all the way so he could return on time. That dedication to keeping his word became an integral part of his character.

For Jeff, sports became “the central joy of my life while I was growing up.” He was a member of Dixie High School’s state championship football and basketball teams in 1958. He also played baseball and ran track. Later, he became co-captain of the Dixie College (now Utah Tech University) basketball team, which won a conference championship.

After high school, he was called to serve in the British Mission. He looks back on that service as “the major spiritual turning point of my life—the beginning of my beginnings” in mature gospel growth. His second mission president, Elder Marion D. Hanks of the Seventy, “taught me to love the scriptures, especially the Book of Mormon,” President Holland recalled. “He had a profound influence on my life.”

Before his mission, President Holland had intended to become a medical doctor. But, he said, “I came home from my mission believing that God intended me to be a teacher.”

Many years later, after his call to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, his brother, Dennis, said the call was no surprise. “All Jeff ever wanted to do was teach the gospel to students in a classroom,” he said. “I was always sure that the Lord had the same goal in mind for him, but that the size of the classroom and the number of students were on a much grander scale than he was envisioning.”

“A Perfect Companion”

Through playing sports, Jeff came to know Patricia Terry, a cheerleader at their high school. They dated during their last two years in high school and, after his mission, renewed their friendship.

Jeffrey and Patricia Holland were married in the St. George Temple on June 7, 1963. He always counted her faith, spirituality, and great charity among the strengthening influences in his life. “Her faith has always been as pure and as powerful and as strong as any person’s I’ve ever known,” he said.

Others noticed their synergistic spiritual strength as a couple.

President James E. Faust (1920–2007), Second Counselor in the First Presidency, was a close personal friend. He once commented that President Holland had “a deep spirituality coupled with an exceptional sensitivity” that enabled him to see or feel things others might not perceive. President Holland was “always building people and lifting people and drawing people to him. He has the marvelous capacity to make people feel that they are his very best friends.”

President Faust added: “Elder Holland comes in a pair. Sister Holland is a perfect companion for him. They’re an exemplary couple.”

As Jeff neared graduation from Brigham Young University in 1965, he received an opportunity to teach half-time at the university the following year while he worked on a master’s degree. After that year of teaching, he accepted a position in the Church Educational System to teach at institutes of religion in the Hayward, California, USA, area. The following year, he was appointed director of the institute in Seattle, Washington, USA, where he had success drawing in young people.

While teaching, he quickly realized that a lasting career in education would require a doctoral degree. This led to moving his family to New Haven, Connecticut, so he could attend Yale University. Often in later years he would cite lessons learned from his time at Yale—and most of those lessons were not academic. As a master educator and inspired teacher, he would use those life lessons to teach gospel principles.

In a general conference talk in October 1999, President Holland recalled the painful beginning of that trip to Connecticut 30 years earlier. The Hollands had started out from St. George in an old car, with almost no money, two small children (one three months old), and everything they owned packed into a small trailer. Twice the car broke down in the same spot, just 34 miles out of St. George. Twice he had to walk to a nearby town for help before learning that the car wasn’t going to make the trip.

Looking back, President Holland imagined what he might have said to his discouraged, dejected younger self trudging along the highway: “Don’t you quit. … You keep trying. There is help and happiness ahead. … It will be all right in the end. Trust God and believe in good things to come.”

Then he assured those who struggle, seeking the Lord’s help or blessings and wondering whether they might ever receive them: “Some blessings come soon, some come late, and some don’t come until heaven; but for those who embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ, they come. Of that I personally attest.”

President Holland saw the time he and Sister Holland spent at Yale as a period of intense learning—both academic and ecclesiastical. Shortly after their arrival in New England, he was called to serve in a stake presidency. Pat, who had served as Relief Society president in their student ward, was called as Relief Society president in their new ward as well. What Jeffrey learned during this period would be of great use later as he served in two more stake presidencies and then as a regional representative.

“What I really got was an education in Church government,” he said.

After the Hollands’ return to Utah in 1972, he was called to serve as head of the Church’s new Melchizedek Priesthood Mutual Improvement Association, where he worked closely with Elder James E. Faust and Elder L. Tom Perry of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, along with Elder Hanks. In 1974, Brother Holland was appointed dean of Religious Education at Brigham Young University. Two years later, he was appointed Church Commissioner of Education. In this role he was asked in 1980 to head a search committee to select a successor to Dallin H. Oaks, then president of BYU.

When Brother Holland was called into a meeting with the First Presidency a few days later, he assumed that the meeting had to do with his search committee assignment. He was stunned when he was asked to succeed President Oaks as the next president of BYU.

The university was “a cherished place for me,” President Holland said later, because of the spirit he always felt there and the way BYU had touched his life.

Faculty, staff, and students quickly embraced the Hollands. Sister Holland’s experience in the gospel, along with her charitable spirit, proved to be great helps during the years the Hollands worked as a team at BYU. In what affectionately became known on campus as the “Jeff and Pat Show,” they offered at the beginning of each school year warm and sound spiritual counsel that touched many lives. Some of those BYU addresses became landmarks in the geography of his gospel teaching.

In an interview after his first year as president of BYU, he spoke of discovering many good facets of the school that could be polished like a precious gem. But he noted that the polishing had to be done with an eye to excellence on a broad front. Moral excellence, he said, must be an integral part of education. Perhaps no other university president could say that part of his school’s mission was to contribute toward “the exaltation and eternal life of the men and women who come here.” Years later, he would say that the greatness of BYU was not in its fine physical plant or its stature in academics or collegiate sports but rather in its people.

President Holland faced tests and challenges while leading BYU. He was called to spearhead a 100-million-dollar fundraising campaign for the university, and he was a frequent target of vilification and criticism by opponents of the BYU Jerusalem Center when it was being built in the latter half of the 1980s. But the project brought him “sweet association” with President Howard W. Hunter (1907–1995), then President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and again with Elder Faust. The spiritual tutoring he received was invaluable.

Called to the Twelve

When Jeffrey Holland’s turn came to be released as president of BYU, he was called on April 1, 1989, to the First Quorum of the Seventy. Five years later, on June 23, 1994, he was called to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. That call left him with a deep sense of awe and gratitude.

“Obviously my greatest thrill and the most joyful of all realizations is that I have the opportunity, as Nephi phrased it, to ‘talk of Christ, … rejoice in Christ, … preach of Christ, [and] prophesy of Christ’ (2 Ne. 25:26) wherever I may be and with whomever I may find myself until the last breath of my life is gone,” he said during the Church’s general conference of October 1994. “Surely there could be no higher purpose or greater privilege than that of ‘special [witness] of the name of Christ in all the world’ (D&C 107:23).”

One of the learning experiences that came to President Holland in his calling was a unique assignment that he shared with President Dallin H. Oaks.

In August 2002, on special assignment from the First Presidency, then-Elder Holland took his apostolic witness to Chile, where, for two years, he provided leadership and training. Then-Elder Oaks was simultaneously assigned to the Philippines.

“Elder Holland’s primary emphasis was to provide an example of leading in the Lord’s way,” one historical account notes. “He helped train new leaders and oversaw the reorganization, discontinuation, and merging of hundreds of wards and dozens of stakes. This reorganization and training were needed because of the rapid growth of the Church in the country. His leadership helped to strengthen the units and prepare the Church in Chile for the future.”

He also made some important connections for the Church by befriending Chilean government leaders, including the nation’s president and his wife, with whom the Church carried out humanitarian projects. When his Chilean assignment ended, he had difficulty saying goodbye.

“This moment—this conference—is very difficult for me,” he began in a farewell address at a regional conference on July 11, 2004. Using Spanish he had struggled to learn over two years, he told Chilean Saints: “I did not know I would come to love you so much. … You will always be in my heart.”

Then he shared in English, through the help of an interpreter, his vision for the future of the Church in their country, “given not as a visitor,” he said, for “I am Chilean.” He spoke of a “miracle” to be found “in the homes” of Chile’s future—a future filled with spiritual strength as righteous Chilean priesthood holders, sisters, and youth weave obedience to gospel principles into the fabric of their lives.

“We are not in the Church for ourselves,” he added. “We are in it for those who come after us.”

Family Life

President Holland’s buoyant, positive, open personality manifested itself in everything he did, but he managed to keep his family life largely private. Stories and comments from his children, however, show that in the family setting he was also an accomplished teacher.

The Hollands have three children: Matthew, Mary Alice (McCann), and David. All were grown by the time their father was called as an Apostle. Mary Alice and David both recall their father’s willingness, during their growing-up years, to sacrifice for his children. Mary Alice said he always carefully planned daddy-daughter dates that he knew she would enjoy, even though the activities were not his favorites. David remembered the time his father took several days out of his busy schedule for a one-on-one trip with his younger son.

Always, his knowledge and testimony of Heavenly Father and His plan were part of teaching in the family.

Matthew told a story of an experience with his father that taught him about revelation. On an outing, they became lost on a back road on the way home. It was growing dark when they came to a fork in the road, and they could not remember which was the correct way to go. President Holland suggested that his son pray. Afterward, he asked Matt which way he thought they should travel. Matt answered that they should travel left, and President Holland said he felt the same.

Following that agreed-upon direction, they came to a dead end within 10 minutes and were forced to return to the fork, where they went right instead. Thinking it over, Matt asked his father why the Lord would give them an answer that led them down the wrong road. His father replied that perhaps it was the quickest way the Lord could tell them which road was the wrong one. The second road was not familiar to them, but they could proceed confidently, knowing it was the right one.

Among Matt’s fondest memories were times the family spent at the dinner table.

“Every night was a kind of family home evening filled with laughter, compliments, encouragement, interesting conversation, testimony, teaching, and expressions of love,” he said. “You always knew Dad was happiest when he was at home with his family.”

President Holland and his family later had cause to mourn when Sister Holland passed away on July 20, 2023. During her funeral, President Holland called her “the greatest woman I have ever known.” He added, “She was everything a companion could be in this world, and I thank God that we will have each other in the next.”

An Apostolic Witness

President Holland’s warm addresses as a General Authority are known and cherished by Church members. His strong testimony of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the Savior’s love punctuate each one.

“Reliance upon the merciful nature of God is at the very center of the gospel Christ taught,” he said. “I testify that the Savior’s Atonement lifts from us not only the burden of our sins but also the burden of our disappointments and sorrows, our heartaches and our despair.”

On another occasion, he counseled, “May we declare ourselves to be more fully disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, not in word only and not only in the flush of comfortable times but in deed and in courage and in faith, including when the path is lonely and when our cross is difficult to bear.”

He also testified: “Our only hope for true perfection is in receiving it as a gift from heaven—we can’t ‘earn’ it. Thus, the grace of Christ offers us not only salvation from sorrow and sin and death but also salvation from our own persistent self-criticism.”

President Holland’s focus was always on helping his listeners understand the central role of the Savior in our Father’s plan: “If Jesus—His name, His doctrine, His example, His divinity—can be at the center of our worship, we will be reinforcing the great truth Alma once taught: ‘There be many things to come; [but] behold, there is one thing which is of more importance than they all— … the Redeemer [who] liveth and cometh among his people’ [Alma 7:7].”

His testimony of Jesus Christ was inextricably linked to his testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. The power of that book helped shape his teachings and his life:

“In [my] role as witness I wish to declare that the spiritual experiences and holy affirmations I have had regarding the Savior and his restored church first came to me as a young man when I read the Book of Mormon. …

“… The truthfulness of the Book of Mormon—its origins, its doctrines, and the circumstances of its coming forth—is central to the truthfulness of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. …

“… The Book of Mormon affirms our yet higher and more sublime belief that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, the Savior and Redeemer of the world.”

Though his voice has been stilled, anyone who has ever heard or read President Jeffrey R. Holland’s witness of the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, will never forget it—just as they will never forget his powerful talks.