I met Gordon B. Hinckley once when I was a missionary in Japan in the mid 1970s. After speaking to the missionaries at a special conference, he offered to call our parents when he returned home to America to wish them Merry Christmas and to pass on brief messages. (In those days missionaries never called their families or friends during their entire missions.) I went up afterwards to talk to him and told him that my parents weren’t LDS and didn’t really like the Church. I gave him my parents’ names and phone number and some money to cover the expenses. He was very kind to me.

A few weeks later a letter arrived from Elder Hinckley in which he said he had had a nice talk with my parents and that they were doing fine. He returned my money in the envelope and told me to use it for my mission. From this trip alone this busy apostle had made many hundreds of personal phone calls to people just to be kind and helpful, and who knows how many personal letters he wrote. My parents wrote me to say they had had a nice call from an “Elder Hinckley” who talked with them about meeting me in Japan.

My experience with the prophets and apostles is that they are among the sweetest, kindest, humblest, and most hardworking people on earth.

Gordon B. Hinckley was a great and good man, tireless in his testimony of Christ and faithful in his work for the Gospel. He was certainly a man who knew Christ, and it radiated from him almost as a real light.

Source: An Experience with Gordon B. Hinckley by Paul McNabb

(”The War We Are Winning,” Ensign, November 1986, pp. 43-44.)

Additional Resources

Mormontemples.com

She died in the early harvest season of her life. Her youngest child was ten, old enough that Mother had come into a freedom she had not known for many years. She was on a journey in Europe when she felt the pain that frightened her. Six months later she was gone.

I recall the gray November day of her funeral. We put on a front of bravery and fought back the tears. But inside, the wounds were deep and painful. That experience, at a sensitive season of my life, has, I hope given me a deeper understanding of all who lose a mother.

I was called on a mission shortly after that. It was in the depths of the Great Depression. Few missionaries were called at the time because of distressing financial circumstances all over the world. I had saved a few dollars, my brother worked and contributed generously, and my father carried the major burden. But something else made it all possible. We discovered that my mother, with prescient foresight, had nurtured a savings account with the small coins she received in change when buying groceries. This money provided the balance needed for my expenses in what was then the costliest mission in the world.

For me, the money was sacred. I felt it been consecrated not so much for me as for the Lord. I hope I was careful in its expenditure.

I experienced times of discouragement on my mission, as does every missionary. On an occasion or two, when the clouds were particularly dark, I felt in a very real but indescribable way the protecting, guiding, encouraging influence of my mother. She seemed very close. I tried then, as I have tried since, to so conduct my life and perform my duty as to bring honor to her name. I am the first to concede that I may not always have done so, and the thought of living beneath my mother’s expectations has been painful, and has afforded a discipline that otherwise might have been lacking.”

(The Wondrous Power of a Mother, booklet, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1989, pp. 1-2.)

(Oahu Hawaii Regional Conference, February 18, 1996.)

Glenn Beck openly shares his testimony and the story of his conversion to the Mormon faith.

Source: Glenn Beck on LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley

President Gordon B. Hinckley, who led The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints through twelve years of global expansion, has died at the age of 97.

President Hinckley was the 15th president in the 177-year history of the Church and had served as its president since 12 March 1995.

Video produced by the Public Affairs department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Source: The Life of President Gordon B. Hinckley: 1910 – 2008

President Hinckley was fond of this quote by Jenkin Lloyd Jones:

Life is like an old-time rail journey–delays, sidetracks, smoke, dust, cinders, and jolts, interspersed only occasionally by beautiful vistas and thrilling bursts of speed. The trick is to thank the Lord for letting you have the ride.

Source: Our Journey Together

Via: LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley

Flake, Lawrence R., Prophets and Apostles of the Last Dispensation, BYU Religious Studies Center: Provo, 2001, pp 241-242.

We took up all the carpets and dragged them to the backyard, where they were hung over the clothesline, one by one. Each of us boys would have a carpet beater, a device made of light steel rods with a wooden handle. As we beat the carpet, the dust would fly, and we would keep going until there was no dust left. We detested that work, but when all of it was done and everything was back in place, the result was wonderful. The house was clean; our spirits were renewed. The whole world looked better.

Spring cleaning, metaphorically speaking, is exactly what some of us need to do with our lives. Isaiah said: ‘Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil….Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool’ (Isaiah 1:16-18).”

(Gordon B. Hinckley, Standing for Something, New York: Three Rivers Press, 2000, p. 49.)