“President Jeffrey R. Holland left a huge mark, loving personal memories of his influence and his unforgettable testimony of God on all that he touched,” said President Dallin H. Oaks during the funeral for the man fondly remembered as a teacher, father and an Apostle of love, learning and hope.
The President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints presided at the funeral services on Wednesday, December 31, 2025, in the Tabernacle on Temple Square in Salt Lake City for President Holland, who was President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles when he died on Saturday, December 27.
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“My father was an irresistible force for righteousness. His unique gifts for friendship, intellect, language, and mirth disarmed and drew in virtually anyone who came within his orbit.” — Elder Matthew S. Holland
President Henry B. Eyring and President D. Todd Christofferson of the First Presidency gave the prayers, and Elder Quentin L. Cook, a fellow Apostle and former mission companion of President Holland, conducted the services.
“He was a dedicated advocate for faith and education,” said Elder Cook. “He had the extraordinary ability to connect with people,” he added. “Whenever you were with Jeff Holland, you felt special, loved and valued. We will miss his loving kindness, his infectious smile and his powerful witness of Jesus Christ.”
‘An Apostle of Love and Learning’
“I grieve the passing of President Jeffrey R. Holland. … [He] was my dear friend and an Apostle of love and learning. … We had a long and loving association in the work of the Lord,” said President Oaks.
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During the 50 years of their professional and religious association, he and President Holland, who both served as president of Brigham Young University, had often switched roles and titles of president and teacher. “In our most recent callings, I became his president. But throughout, he has continued to be my teacher,” he said.
President Oaks shared several comments shared from social media about the influence of President Holland’s life and teachings. He quoted a missionary who said a less-active woman he met remembered that her institute teacher many years ago “was a man named Jeffrey Holland, and whenever he spoke, she felt loved, the Spirit, and knew everything he said was true. She said, ‘I don’t know whatever happened to him, but he was the best.’”
“Yes, Sister, he still is,” said President Oaks. “That fact stands out from among the scores of internet comments I have read in response to the notice of his death.”
He concluded with his testimony of Jesus Christ “who is our Savior and Redeemer, who is the only begotten son of God, our eternal Heavenly Father, and the head of this Church.”
President Holland’s three children shared examples of a loving, committed father who showed by word and deed an unwavering testimony of Jesus Christ, His gospel and His church.
‘An Irresistible Force for Righteousness’
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Elder Matthew S. Holland, son and General Authority Seventy, speaks at the funeral for President Jeffrey R. Holland, President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in the Tabernacle on Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah, on Wednesday, December 31, 2025.© 2025 by Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved.Download Photo
“My father was an irresistible force for righteousness,” said Elder Matthew S. Holland, a General Authority Seventy. “His unique gifts for friendship, intellect, language and mirth disarmed and drew in virtually anyone who came within his orbit.”
President Holland determinedly channeled all his gifts, time and work ethic into bringing people to Jesus Christ and His church, said his son. He recounted how his father, at one of his most painful and weakest moments, spiritually counseled with one of his nurses.
“Again and again, In the past two and a half years, I watched President Holland push past all of his own intense personal, physical challenges to bring love, laughter and the light of Jesus Christ to others in life-altering ways. This final and perhaps most admirable chapter of his life was a master class in being a disciple of Jesus Christ ‘at all times and in all things, and in all places’” (Mosiah 18:9).
His father’s health challenges also showed that “even prophets and apostles are not spared difficulty and disappointment in this life.
“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,” Elder Holland said. “Instead, I heard him thank God, and admonished trusting in God, more frequently and fervently than ever before.”
Elder Holland said that the greatest source of his father’s righteous influence was his faith in Jesus Christ. “Such faith is what we all need and what he wanted to share,” he said.
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‘An Even Better Father’
People often share with him how his father’s talks have impacted their lives, said Brother David F. Holland, and he said he never tires of hearing them. “As for so many others, his public messages also powerfully rescued my faith, and healed my wounds, and renewed my hope, and gifted me a redemptive vision of Christ’s love.”
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David F. Holland, son, speaks at the funeral for President Jeffrey R. Holland, President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in the Tabernacle on Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah, on Wednesday, December 31, 2025.2025 by Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved.Download Photo
Brother Holland said that many of his father’s talks rested on the image of father running to embrace his child, which symbolized both his father’s approach to parenthood and his testimony of God’s character.
“Many of those within the sound of my voice today know him as a gifted orator, an elegant writer, a deft leader and a devoted minister. And He was all of these things, to a remarkable, even astonishing, degree. And he was an even better father, whose recurring image of the parent who runs to his children was not just a beautiful illustration for a sermon: It was the very spirit and substance of the dad I knew.”
He said whenever their parents unfailingly ran to their children’s needs, they also pointed them to an even greater source of strength, “a Heavenly Father whose defining quality is His love for His children.”
“My dad desperately wanted us to trust the God he knew so well, and served so faithfully, and loved so much. He taught us to find that succoring God in the life and love of Jesus Christ,” he said.
‘An Apostle of Hope’
Sister Mary Alice H. McCann, President Holland’s daughter, said that her father left her something even greater than his loving, comforting physical presence: a testimony of and a relationship with Jesus Christ.
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Mary Alice H. McCann, daughter, speaks at the funeral for President Jeffrey R. Holland, President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in the Tabernacle on Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah, on Wednesday, December 31, 2025.2025 by Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved.Download Photo
“My father loved the gospel of Jesus Christ and the Church that administers that gospel on this earth with all the blazing fire of his being,” she said.
“If my mother loved a testimony of the gospel into our hearts, he burned it into our souls. His passion for the Church of Jesus Christ was deep in the marrow of his bones.
“When he held my face in his hands, locked my gaze with his Irish blue eyes and testified to me of the love of the Savior, I simply had no choice but to believe. His conviction was contagious.
“Jeffrey R. Holland was an Apostle of hope,” said Sister McCann. “He believed in the redemption of Jesus Christ and that through Him and because of Him all things would be made right — if not today, tomorrow; if not tomorrow, next month or next year; and if not in this life, then in the next.”
She added, “My dad was able to ‘succor the weak, lift up the hands which hang down, and [strengthen] the feeble knees,’ but it was not because he could do the lifting and the strengthening. It was because he knew the sustaining powers of the Redeemer of the World, and his passion was to give that knowledge to all who are faint of heart” (Doctrine and Covenants 81:5).
The congregation sang “I Stand All Amazed,” and other music was provided by The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square, who sang “Consider the Lilies of the Field,” “Come Unto Him” and “More Holiness Give Me.”
A private viewing was held Tuesday, December 30, in the Relief Society Room of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building on Temple Square.
Interment will be on Thursday, January 1, 2026, in the city cemetery of President Holland’s hometown of St. George, Utah. He will be buried next to his wife, Patricia, who died in 2023.
The recording of the funeral services is available on demand in 35 languages at ChurchofJesusChrist.org and on YouTube in 10 languages.
Those wishing to send condolences can email them to [email protected].
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