Children and LDS President Dallin Oaks honor Jeffrey Holland as an ‘apostle of hope, love and learning’

Latter-day Saints gathered by the thousands in the Tabernacle in Salt Lake City and by the millions around their digital screens across the globe to view Wednesday’s funeral for Jeffrey R. Holland, who was remembered as an endearing husband and father, and as an enduring “apostle of hope, love and learning.”

Church leaders and family members of Holland, who died Dec. 27 at age 85 after serving more than 31 years as an apostle for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, spoke about his life and legacy — in both his spiritual and professional career.

Fellow apostle Quentin L. Cook, who noted he teamed up with Holland 65 years as a missionary companion in England, conducted the service and remarked that his friend’s death saddened the church and its leaders.

“While we rejoice in knowing that he is reunited with his dear wife, Pat, who preceded him in death in 2023,” Cook said, “his passing leaves us with a sense of loss.”

Holland’s three children then spoke about their dad, and the treasured moments and memories they shared with him.

His youngest son, David F. Holland, referred to his father as his hero.

He recounted a story of when he watched his father methodically assist an older couple as their car dangerously slid off a mountainside road.

As the car slipped into a vulnerable position, David said his dad quickly reassured the couple, jumped into the driver’s seat and calmly reversed the vehicle to safety, bringing it back to them like a “valet.”

The younger Holland also acknowledged that he grew to recognize the mortal limitations of his hero. He described his father’s ineptitude, for instance, when it came to carpentry and how his family’s humor brought them all closer.

“Whenever my father tried his hand at carpentry, including the simple act of hanging a shelf, inevitable family teasing ensued,” David said, smiling. “We acquired the habit, whenever he picked up a hammer, of quoting to him Doctrine and Covenants 24:9 [from Latter-day Saint scripture]. ‘In temporal labors, thou shalt not have strength, for this is not thy calling.’”

Holland’s daughter, Mary Alice Holland McCann, called her father an “apostle of hope.”

“He believed in the redemption of Jesus Christ, and that through him and because of him, all things would be made right,” she said, “if not today, tomorrow, if not tomorrow, next month, or next year. And if not in this life, then in the next.”

She shared stories of his compassion.

One time, when she was young, she feared sleeping alone at night. She said her father got on the floor beside her bed and promised to stay with her until she fell asleep.

“I asked him, ‘How will you know when I’m asleep?’” she recalled. “He said, ‘I know you. I know everything about you. I know simply by the way that you breathe, when you are asleep and when you are peaceful.”

McCann also entreated Holland’s grandkids to stay strong to the Latter-day Saint gospel, as her parents did for so many years.

“Now it is time for each of us to pick up their baton,” McCann said, “and to carry on the fire of faith that they flamed within each of us.”

Holland’s eldest son, Matthew S. Holland, a general authority Seventy, described his father as an “irresistible force for righteousness,” even amid the many health challenges the apostle had faced in recent years.

He commented that his father never complained to God about his medical conditions and continually made it a focus to share his faith with others around him, even with the nurses and doctors who treated him.

“In 30 straight months of kidney failure and nightly dialysis, leg-crippling neuropathy, searing shoulder pain from arthritis, and difficulty in breathing, I never once heard him cry out that he felt unjustly dealt with by God,” Matthew said. “Instead, I heard him regularly thank God and admonish trusting in God more frequently and fervently than ever before.”

Church President Dallin H. Oaks, who ascended to the faith’s top post 11 weeks ago, described Jeffrey Holland as his “teacher” in a relationship spanning more than five decades.

In Oaks’ first few years as president of church-owned Brigham Young University, he said, he and Holland collaborated to allow female professors to teach the Provo school’s Book of Mormon course. He said that change and others could not have happened without Holland’s educational experience and leadership as dean of BYU’s College of Religious Education.

Holland later succeeded Oaks as BYU president.

Oaks said that despite his seniority over Holland — at BYU and in the church’s leadership hierarchy — he learned much from this “apostle of love and learning.”

In recent addresses, Holland often relayed how much he missed being with his wife, Pat.

“I think about her all the time, all the time,” he said in a 2024 church-produced podcast. “To this day, to this night, I will turn over in bed and reach and wonder why she is not there.”

He said he was comforted in knowing that it would be “only a little while before we get reunited.”

On Thursday, Holland will be buried in his hometown of St. George next to her.