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Memories of President Jeffrey R. Holland

Memories of President Jeffrey R. Holland

Last updated on: December 27, 2025 at 6:38 pm by Dan Peterson

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Memories of President Jeffrey R. Holland 2025-12-27T18:38:49-07:00 Dan Peterson

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The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles on 5 December 2025. Front row, left to right: President Jeffrey R. Holland, Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Elder David A. Bednar, Elder Quentin L. Cook and Elder Neil L. Andersen. Back row, left to right: Elder Ronald A. Rasband, Elder Gary E. Stevenson, Elder Dale G. Renlund, Elder Gerrit W. Gong, Elder Ulisses Soares, Elder Patrick Kearon and Elder Gérald Caussé.

When I learned on Christmas Eve that President Jeffrey R. Holland had gone into the hospital, I knew that his medical condition was serious. So I wasn’t really surprised when the news arrived this morning of his passing. Still it hits hard. It’s a real loss.

After October 2022, a serious illness almost claimed him. He had a stunning near-death experience during that time — see his accounts here and here — and he returned from it with an even more urgent witness of Jesus Christ.

We will all miss his powerful apostolic witness, his stirring testimony of Jesus Christ, his ardent advocacy of the Book of Mormon, his brilliance, his eloquent writing, his inspiring oratorical skills, his sense of humor. Many, including me, will miss his geniality, his remarkable memory, his kindness and personal friendliness.

“President Jeffrey R. Holland — Latter-day Saint apostle, defender of the faith and ‘pastoral genius’ — dies at age 85: A powerful orator who delivered sermons with conviction and tenderness, he used the ‘miracle’ of his final years to bear witness of Jesus Christ”

“‘A towering figure’: Reactions and tributes pour in after the death of President Jeffrey R. Holland: Leaders and Latter-day Saints share their love and gratitude for, and the influence of, a man who served for 31 years as an apostle of Jesus Christ”

I won’t try to compete with the articles and tributes that have already begun to appear regarding this impressive man, but — I’m on the road at the moment — I want to quickly add at least a few inadequate personal notes:

I first met President Holland — to me, he has always been “President Holland,” from the beginning — when I was a new member of the faculty at Brigham Young University. And it wasn’t a very auspicious start.

I had been invited to speak to a small group called “Students for Human Rights,” or something to that effect, about human rights in the Middle East. So, for about forty-five of the fifty minutes allotted to me, I discussed the sorry state of human rights across the region, which continues to be sorry pretty much to this day. At the end, I devoted roughly five minutes to the situation in Israel at the time, saying that Israel had a far better record than did the countries surrounding it, but that it was still definitely not perfect.

Brigham Young University’s Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies (LDS Media Library)

Brigham Young University’s Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies was under construction at the time and was still the focus of loud controversy in Israel and even beyond, because of fears that it wasn’t really going to be an academic institution but, rather, a sneaky missionary project. There remained a possibility that it would be blocked. I pointed out the obvious, which was that, in a country with full religious freedom, whether or not the Center was for proselyting would be a matter of complete indifference to the government.

I saw nothing controversial in what I said about Israel. However, unbeknownst to me, there was a “stringer” for the Associated Press in the audience, and an article soon appeared in the Salt Lake Tribune and elsewhere that made it look as if I had devoted the entirety of my remarks to denouncing Israel as unfree and religiously oppressive.

University leaders were concerned that what I had (allegedly) said might threaten the completion of the Jerusalem Center, and I was soon privileged to meet several senior members of the administration. I recall actually sitting in the office of one of them, a physics professor, as he watched over my shoulder while I wrote a kind of recantation to the Tribune. At one point, when he seemed distracted for a moment, I muttered under my breath E pur si muove. “What did you say?” he asked. “Nothing,” I quickly replied.

I made my letter to the editor as unyielding and accurate as I could while still satisfying my taskmaster, but this was not a good position to be in for a junior, junior new hire. I was very vulnerable. Not only did I not yet have tenure (or its rough BYU equivalent, “continuing status”), I hadn’t even finished my dissertation.

Later, I was told by a high-ranking friend that my name had come up in one of the leading councils at the University, and that someone had described me to President Holland as a “loose cannon.”

Within a day or two, I found myself standing right next to President Holland, whom I had never before met. We were both browsing in the BYU bookstore. I introduced myself to him and said, “President Holland, I am not a loose cannon.” I explained and justified what I had told the student group, observing that what I had said was self-evidently true, and describing myself as very much a moderate on Middle Eastern political matters, much more sympathetic to Israel than the overwhelming majority of my fellow non-Israeli Arabists.

We became friends that day. I don’t want to overdo it — we were never poker buddies, we didn’t meet every Wednesday for lunch — but we remained friendly thereafter. A large part of that friendship was due to his remarkable memory for people and personal details. And to his genuine warmth and lack of pretense. Communications from him were always to “Dan,” from “Jeff.” (Elder Neal A. Maxwell had been the same way. “Hello, Dan? This is Neal.” I remember thinking once that I would never, ever, worlds without end, call him “Neal.”)

The First Presidency and the Twelve have their offices in the Church Administration Building at 47 East South Temple in Salt Lake City. (LDS.org public domain photo)

On one occasion, Elder Holland asked me to drop something off at his office. (I can’t recall what it was.) My wife and I were headed up through Salt Lake City to visit her parents in Bountiful. So I dressed up in a jacket and tie for the delivery, while she drove. When I reached his office, he asked (by name) where my wife was. I said that she was down in the car, that she wasn’t dressed appropriately for the Church Administration Building. “Oh,” he replied, “she should have come up. We’re just plain folks.”

Elder Holland was enthusiastic about BYU’s Islamic Translation Series, as Elder Maxwell had been. He even spoke at one of our events, in Beverly Hills, to a sizable audience of diplomats invited from Muslim countries. And he often carried copies of our published volumes with him to hand out as gifts when he traveled in the Middle East or in the Islamic world more generally. I was deeply gratified that, beyond being intrinsically worthwhile, they could be used in that way.

When, in 2012, I was ejected from the Neal A. Maxwell Institute at BYU in what, to me, was an unexpected coup, I was as low as I’ve ever been in my life. (My brother, my only sibling and the last remaining member of the small immediate family in which I had grown up — and to whom I was very close — had unexpectedly died shortly before.) So it was a helpful surprise one day to receive a very kind email from Elder Holland, expressing his “best wishes.” I won’t quote all that he said, but this will suggest the flavor of it: “University matters have to be university matters but personal friendships continue. Hope you are well.”

Three of the attendees chatting outside the theater just prior to the premiere of Six Days in August back in 2024.

The last occasion on which my wife and I spent time with President Holland was probably about a year ago, in the Church Administration Building in Salt Lake City. For calendar reasons, he had been unable to attend the premiere of the Interpreter Foundation’s dramatic film Six Days in August. He wanted to see it, but his mobility issues and his public visibility and his schedule posed real challenges. Could we possibly do a private showing for him, as well as for a few of his family and his office staff? Would that be too inconvenient, too much of an imposition? It was, of course, a privilege. We had a wonderful time that my wife and I will never forget.

How we will miss him! But how happy he must be now, to be reunited with his beloved wife, Pat.

Posted from St. George, Utah, his hometown

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