Elder Jeffrey R. Holland: Miracle of Going on a Mission

In honor of Elder Holland's birthday today, I share the 

miracle of his going on a mission:

"I grew up with the interesting cross-section of a father really quite new and sometimes even uncomfortable in the Church, whose family—what few we knew—were not members, and a mother who came from a long tradition of Latter-day Saints with their pioneer stories and all the values of home and family."

When Elder Holland was 16, he met Pat in school who recalled, 

“I remember writing home to my cousin about how I had just met the smartest boy in school, who was also a terrible tease, and even though I couldn’t stand him at the time, I had the strangest feeling, even then, that, when I was older, I would marry him.”

Of this time, Elder Holland said,

“No one in my family had ever gone on a mission. but when I met Pat and we became reasonably serious, I could see that she was very firm about the fact that I should go.”

His own desire to go grew and although he was only 19, and missionaries at the time were sent out at 20, he was encouraged to submit his papers early hoping for an exception to be made. However, the church had the same idea as it was President David O. McKay who lowered the mission age from 20 to 19 at the time. 

Elder Quentin L. Cook remembers,

"I can remember the excitement in 1960 when the age for young men serving was reduced from 20 years of age to 19. I arrived in the British Mission as a newly called 20-year-old. The first 19-year-old in our mission was Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, an incredible addition. He was a few months shy of being 20."

Of his mission, Elder Holland said,

"As an experience outside those I’ve had with my parents or my wife and children, my mission was unquestionably the single most important, most pivotal, most persuasive experience in my life. Now that’s a cliche, I know,” Brother Holland adds, “but I think perhaps a mission matters more to some than others, and for me, it meant everything. If I had been hit by a Mack truck, I don’t think it could have been any more stunning or more permanent in its effect. It either substantiated or dramatically changed—in a good way—every goal, feeling, or aspiration I had ever had.”