President Jeffrey R. Holland, president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, died Saturday, Dec. 27, at 3:15 a.m. MST, at age 85, from complications associated with kidney disease.
Known for his words and the way he expressed them, President Holland will be remembered for the love he shared in nations around the world, where he taught and testified of the reality of Jesus Christ. An educator by profession, he inspired generations with his general conference talks, devotional addresses, missionary messages and social media posts. In almost every corner of the globe, he declared that the “gospel of Jesus Christ is personally precious, everlastingly hopeful and eternally true.”
Along the way, he made friends — best friends — everywhere he went, sharing unmatched empathy and offering hope and encouragement.
In addition to almost three decades of service as an Apostle, President Holland served as a General Authority Seventy, the ninth president of Brigham Young University, commissioner of the Church Educational System and dean of the BYU College of Religious Education.
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is interviewed in his office in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2018. | Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News
He and his late wife, Sister Patricia Terry Holland, who died July, 20, 2023, celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary in June 2023 and have three children, 13 grandchildren and many great-grandchildren.
After taking time away from Church assignments to focus on recovering his health, President Holland sat for a media interview on June 24, 2023. He spoke of his medical challenges — neuropathy that limited his mobility, a kidney condition that required routine dialysis to sustain his life, and a recent bout with COVID-19 that he should not have survived but did.
It happened because of prayer, he said.
On his behalf, the Lord heard and answered the prayer of a child in Kansas and the petition of Latter-day Saints in Zimbabwe and “someone praying in the Japanese language that I do not even understand, but that they do, and God does,” President Holland said. “Those prayers are a reminder of the grace of a worldwide Church membership and proof that God often answers prayers through other people.”
With a determination that epitomized his resolve to teach and testify, President Holland added: “I’m staggering toward the finish line. I refuse to get off the track. I’m still in the race. And I’m grateful to the Saints for those prayers.”
Months later, after burying his beloved wife, President Holland endured another extended and serious illness that took him to the “edge of eternity.” His recovery, Elder Dale G. Renlund later wrote on social media, “was a miracle. It was divine intervention.”
During April 2024 general conference, President Holland recalled the illness. “I cannot speak fully of that experience here, but I can say that part of what I received was an admonition to return to my ministry with more urgency, more consecration, more focus on the Savior [and] more faith in His word.”
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, a member of the Church’s Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, visits the Orson Hyde Memorial Garden in Jerusalem, October 27, 2016. | The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Elder Jeffrey R. Holland and sister Patricia Holland. | The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles | The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles greets member in Harare, Zimbabwe. | The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Elder Jeffrey R. Holland and his wife Patricia wave as they leave the stand following the Sunday afternoon session of the 183rd Semiannual General Conference for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Sunday, Oct. 6, 2013 inside the Conference Center. | Scott G Winterton, Deseret News Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles arrives at the site of the future Urdaneta Philippines Temple on Jan. 16, 2019. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland throws out the ceremonial first pitch as his wife, Patricia, looks on at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, California, on June 28, 2013. | Photo by Erik Isakson President Jeffrey R. Holland stands with his wife, Sister Patricia Holland. | Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News Elder Holland enjoys a lighter moment during his visit to the House of Commons at the Palace of Westminster in London on Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2018. | Simon D. Jones, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Elder Jeffrey R. Holland and Sister Patricia Holland their three children, Matthew, Mary and David. | The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints The recipient of an honorary doctorate, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland is hooded by Snow College President Scott L. Wyatt, right, and Eddie Cox, chairman of the school’s board of trustees. Elder Holland was the commencement speaker. | Greg Dart, Snow College Elder Jeffrey R. Holland greets missionaries at the Brazil MTC in May 2016. | The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Elder Jeffrey R. Holland visits members of the Manama Bahrain District. | The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has an emotional talk with Cadet Brody Low at the United States Military Academy at West Point in West Point, N.Y., on Friday, March 18, 2022. Holland meet with Latter-day Saint West Point cadets in the Cadet Mess Hall of Washington Hall. | Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and his wife Sister Patricia Holland tour the Benbow family farm in Castle Frome, England on Thursday, Oct. 28, 2021. Holland’s 4th great-grand parents owned the farm and converted to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1840 through Wilford Woodruff. | Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and wife, Sister Patricia Holland, ride as grand marshall at the Bountiful Handcart Days Parade on July 23, 1999. | Gary M. McKellar, Deseret News Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, then-president of Brigham Young University, gives an address during Education Week on Aug. 25, 1981. | Mark A. Philbrick, BYU Photo Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, left, and Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf, both members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, greet each other prior to the church’s 192nd Annual General Conference at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City on Saturday, April 2, 2022. | Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News Elder Jeffrey R. Holland and Sister Patricia Holland and their children and grandchildren in a family portrait outside the Kirtland Temple. The family photo is used in the LDS Church’s current temple-tour video. | The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Holland family President Henry B. Eyring and Elder Jeffrey R. Holland enjoy a moment at the monument dedicated to Wilford Woodruff, located less than a mile from the original site of the Woodruff family home and mill in Farmington, Connecticut. The Church leaders toured the historical sites prior to the dedication of the Hartford Connecticut Temple. | Rachel Sterzer, Church News Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Elder Henry B. Eyring and Elder Jeffrey R. Holland (right) greet President Thomas S. Monson before the beginning of the Saturday morning session of the 177th semi annual conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints October 6, 2007. Elder Eyring was named second counselor in the First Presidency during the session. | Keith Johnson, Deseret News BYU President Jeffrey R. Holland, left, and President Thomas S. Monson, president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, lead the procession of graduates at the Provo university on April 22, 1988. | Robert Hood, Deseret News Archives President Russell M. Nelson, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, center, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, right, along with District President Dennis Brimhall walk at the BYU Jerusalem Center in Jerusalem on Saturday, April 14, 2018. | Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, then president of BYU, hugs senior Mark Bellini prior to playing Oregon State game on Nov 15, 1986. | Mark Philbrick, BYU Photo BYU President Jeffrey Holland conducts a family devotional and scripture study in November 1980. | BYU Photo Sister Patricia T. Holland sits in her office on campus, with BYU President Jeffrey Holland, in July 1984. | BYU Photo BYU President Jeffrey R. Holland and his wife, Patricia Holland, speak at a campus devotional in September 1984. | BYU Photo Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles holds up the Book of Mormon studied by the Prophet Joseph Smith, during a general conference address on October 2009 general conference. | The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, speaks at the groundbreaking service for the Red Cliffs Utah Temple in St. George, Utah, Saturday, Nov. 7, 2020. Seated behind Holland are, from left, Sister Debbie Christensen, and Elder Craig C. Christensen, Utah Area President. | Nick Adams, for the Deseret News Jeffrey R. Holland and his wife, Patricia Holland, visit with President Gerald R. Ford, the 38th president of the United States, during his visit to Brigham Young University, March 19, 1987. | The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Apostle Elder Jeffrey R. Holland speaks in a worldwide broadcast to young single adults of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, joined by Elder Donald L. Hailstorm of the Seventy, on campus of Utah Valley University, Tuesday, March 8, 2016. | August Miller, UVU Marketing Elder Jeffrey R. Holland shares a light moment with the Rev. Dr. Andrew Teal during a public conversation on Latter-day Saint beliefs and doctrine at the University Church of St. Mary the Virgin at the University of Oxford on Thursday, Nov. 22, 2018. | Simon D. Jones, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Russell M. Nelson, President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, left, and Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, look over the view at the BYU Jerusalem Center in Jerusalem on Saturday, April 14, 2018. Nelson and Holland were on a global tour of eight countries. | Credit: Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles; his wife, Sister Patricia Holland; and their children David F. Holland, Matthew S. Holland and Mary Alice Holland McCann recreate an old family photo as shown on RootsTech Connect Family Discovery Day. | Screenshot from ChurchofJesusChrist.org Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles married Sister Patricia Terry Holland on June 7, 1963, in the St. George Temple. | The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints A photo of Jeffrey R. Holland as a child, circa 1941. | The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Elder Jeffrey R. Holland reads to a grandson. | The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, far right, serving as missionary in England at age 19, circa 1960-61. | The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Young Jeffrey R. Holland, front, with his family circa 1944. | The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
‘Southern Utah boy through and through’
Jeffrey Roy Holland was born in St. George, Utah, on Dec. 3, 1940, to Frank D. and Alice Bentley Holland.
A “southern Utah boy through and through,” President Holland grew up with “red sand in my shoes and lava in my bones.”
Before participating in the dedication of the Cedar City Utah Temple in December 2017, he said his “identity is inseparable with the geology and terrain of southern Utah. That colorful corner of the Lord’s Creation means everything to me. I was born there. I was raised there. … And, yes, my burial plot is there.”
His life was a nod, he said, to the early settlers who built their homes and lives on the alkali soil of southern Utah, where hot, dusty wind always seemed to blow. They faced mosquito-borne illnesses, contended with rattlesnakes and fought back annual floods. They were a people who had to “make something out of nothing” and who emphasized pioneer values that personified honesty and integrity.
President Jeffrey R. Holland, then acting president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, visits with his son, Elder Matthew S. Holland, a General Authority Seventy, outside the St. George Utah Temple on Saturday Dec. 9, 2023. | Nick Adams, for the Deseret News
“That meant hard work, that meant no free passes, that meant whatever you got you earned,” President Holland said after receiving the Rural Legacy Leader award during the One Utah Summit at Southern Utah University on Oct. 5, 2021.
President Holland’s life is a reflection of that work ethic and how it can bless generations. For example, born to a father who had a seventh-grade education, President Holland would preside over a university of 30,000 students. “By the sweat of your brow, you can do a lot,” explained President Holland of the value of hard work he learned from his father and the community.
President and Sister Holland and their children — Elder Matthew S. Holland, a General Authority Seventy; Mary Alice Holland McCann; and David F. Holland — celebrated the family’s southern Utah heritage during RootsTech Family Discovery Day in February 2021.
Allowing the global Church to glimpse their family interactions, President and Sister Holland sat with their children on the grounds of the old red-brick Woodward School in St. George and spoke about the day they met.
A 10th grader at the time, young Jeff heard that a beautiful young woman named Patricia Terry from Enterprise, Utah, had recently moved to St. George. The two were soon acquainted. “I didn’t think I stood a chance to know her or date her,” President Holland said. “She was the center of everyone’s attention, and I was really quite shy.”
Without hesitation, Sister Holland clarified: “You were never shy.”
A few months after they met, Sister Holland said, she wrote a letter to her cousin in Enterprise about a popular, “overly confident, obnoxious” boy named Jeff Holland — a student leader and varsity athlete in high school. “I don’t like him at all,” she remembers writing. “But I have this deep feeling that someday I’m going to marry him.”
High school yearbook photos of Jeffrey R. Holland and Patricia Terry. The two started dating in high school and were married on June 7, 1963. | The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
During the RootsTech video presentation, the Hollands also visited the St. George Tabernacle — where President Holland was blessed as a baby, attended Primary, passed the sacrament for the first time after receiving the Aaronic Priesthood and being ordained a deacon, and stood at the pulpit to report after his mission to England.
While standing in that same tabernacle, which he rededicated in 2018, President Holland told the viewers: “If the Savior of the world can use little old Jeff Holland from little old St. George, Utah, to accomplish His work, He can and certainly will use you. …
“As you do serve, I promise you will find your own place in the family of God. The reality of your connection to Him and to others will sink deep into your heart and into your mind. That knowledge will change you, perhaps dramatically change you, as you become ever closer to Him and ever more like Him.”
‘Green and scepter’d isle’
Born into a family with “absolutely no missionary tradition,” President Holland “did not know anything” about what it meant to serve the Lord full time. But Sister Holland encouraged him to serve, and her “expectation became my own.”
The young Elder Holland arrived in the mission field wearing a “green, avocado, corduroy suit, with a burnt umber vest.”
“That’s a suit that I had. And we didn’t have a lot of money. So I took it,” he explained in a Church News interview.
The change that came over him in 24 months, “from the day I got there to the day that I left, had to be more dramatic than any other missionary I know,” he said.
He drew strength from England’s rolling green landscapes — a land that became his “spiritual home.”
Referencing the phrase penned by William Shakespeare to praise England, President Holland said: “Physically, I was born in the United States. But spiritually, I was born on this green and scepter’d isle.”
President M. Russell Ballard, Elder Quentin L. Cook and Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with wives Sister Mary Cook and Sister Pat Holland tour an area near the River Ribble in England on Wednesday Oct. 27, 2021. Many converts to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were baptized in the river through early missionary efforts. | Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News
Returning to England in 2021, President Holland said he delighted at breathing Great Britain’s cool, damp air and at the sight of vintage red telephone booths and mailboxes. He and Sister Holland stopped after arriving in the country to have their photograph taken in front of one such red mailbox — the kind where a young Elder Holland sent letters home as a missionary.
“There may have been a day … that I have not thought about my mission,” said President Holland. “I just don’t know what day that would be.”
Among the miracles that happened in the mission field was the influence of mission leaders and the beginning of a lifelong friendship with Elder Quentin L. Cook. Arriving in the mission field in 1960, the pair would eventually serve as missionary companions.
They both recalled visiting the mission home on Exhibition Road, holding baptismal services in the Hyde Park Chapel and learning from their mission presidents, T. Bowring Woodbury and Elder Marion D. Hanks, who had served as a general authority on the First Council of the Seventy for almost a decade before becoming mission president.
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland in Guildford, Surrey, England, while serving as a missionary in England in 1961–1962. | The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Both young missionaries had been raised by faithful, active mothers and by fathers who did not fully participate. And both would, over the years, use the word “seminal” to describe their missions. “That is the only word that really describes it,” Elder Cook said. “It was really that important.”
Sister Holland said President Holland entered the mission field after years of receiving the love, support and accolades of the St. George community for his roles in student government and athletics. “After his mission,” she said, “he gave that back. … He came back with so much love for St. George and appreciation for the community.”
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, left, and Elder Quentin L. Cook, mission companions in England in the early 1960s, talk about the anniversary and continued missionary work in Great Britain, in the Church Administration Building in Salt Lake City. | Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News
A man of faith
President and Sister Holland married for eternity in 1963 in the St. George Utah Temple. After studying piano and voice with a faculty member of Juilliard School of Music in New York City, Sister Holland put her ambitions aside to support him. Together they journeyed to Provo, Utah — where he received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English and religious education, respectively — and then across the country — where he earned master’s and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in American studies from Yale University.
During an interview in the Holland home in 2018 with Sister Holland, President Holland slipped away from his office and sat in the corner on the piano bench. “I’m just here to cheer,” he said. But despite his desire to fade into the background during his wife’s interview, he could not help himself — jumping in frequently to talk about and praise the “greatest woman I have ever known.”
The couple dreamed of parenting a large family, and they were devastated when children did not come to their home as quickly — or in the numbers — they had hoped for.
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland and Sister Patricia Holland and their children and grandchildren pause for a family portrait outside the Kirtland Temple. | The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Holland family
President Holland spoke about his marriage in the written tribute that his son, Elder Matthew S. Holland, read at Sister Holland’s funeral. Referencing her faith that persisted through the fires of affliction, President Holland noted that the couple faced no trial greater than “the late-term miscarriage of our last child” — a child they “had long hoped and prayed for, whose premature passing ultimately deepened our understanding of our Redeemer’s love.”
The Hollands cherished their role as parents.
Mary Alice Holland McCann once described an evening in which President Holland took his children in the car to pick up guests after the family planned a dinner for “really special people.” The Holland children grew up with their parents always knowing special people. However, on that day President Holland returned to the house with just his children in tow, telling them: “You’re our ‘special people.’ In fact, you are the most important people we know.”
Equally yoked, President and Sister Holland parented together, and he supported her while she served in the Young Women general presidency at the same time he was president of BYU — where they offered memorable BYU devotionals that became known as “the Jeff and Pat show.”
BYU President Jeffrey R. Holland and Sister Patricia Holland speak during a campus devotional in September 1984. | BYU Photo
During those years, he also served as president of the American Association of Presidents of Independent Colleges and Universities, on the board of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities and as a member of the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Presidents Commission. For his work in improving understanding between Christians and Jews, he was awarded the Torch of Liberty award by the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith. And in 1984, BYU won a national football championship.
It was also during his tenure that the university established the BYU Jerusalem Center.
President Holland recalled identifying a little piece of property in Israel where the center could be built and showing it to then-President N. Eldon Tanner of the First Presidency. President Tanner looked at the property, and President Holland knew immediately he was not interested in it. Instead, President Tanner started to walk. He walked up a gully and onto the brow of a hill, looking out over the Old City. “And he turned to the group and said: ‘This is the piece. Get this piece,’” recalled President Holland. “Well, he could have said, ‘If you were in London, get Buckingham Palace.’”
Dozens of miracles had to be accomplished to acquire the property and build the center, but President Holland — and those who supported him — persisted. In a 2021 Church News podcast interview, Sister Holland said her husband is a man of faith. “He would never say it cannot happen if he thought it was the right thing to do, no matter how hard it was.”
President Holland would later recount on his social media accounts that it often is the difficult, demanding times that are the growth and defining periods. “On days when we feel we have been pushed to our limit, we are reminded that we won’t be pushed beyond our faith,” he wrote in June 2023. “We won’t discover just how much strength we do have until it is tested, refined and tested again.”
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and his wife, Sister Patricia Holland, pose at their home in Salt Lake City on Thursday, April 14, 2022. | Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News
‘The sweetest things we feel is the brotherhood’
Besides his family, no relationship meant more to President Holland than his association with other leaders in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Gathering with every member of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles for the Rome Italy Temple dedication in March 2019, President Holland said being with his Brethren “gets sweeter and sweeter and sweeter.”
“Among the sweetest things we feel is the brotherhood,” President Holland said. “It is almost impossible to convey the love we have for each other and what we would do for each other in defense of this work.”
Elder Ulisses Soares said President Holland can touch hearts like no other. After being called to serve in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Elder Soares said the first call he received was from President Holland, “giving me comfort and peace. He knew how I would be feeling. He just gave me a call and made me feel welcomed, and he loved and embraced me through his words.”
President Russell M. Nelson, President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, left, and Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, look over the view at the BYU Jerusalem Center in Jerusalem on Saturday, April 14, 2018. | Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News
While accompanying the late President Russell M. Nelson and his wife, Sister Wendy W. Nelson, on the Nelsons’ first global ministry in April 2018, President and Sister Holland literally circled the globe, “flying east until we finally ended up in the West,” he said.
At the end of the exhausting trip, President Holland expressed only gratitude. “As we come to the close of something that will never come again, … we want you to know how grateful we are and that we count our blessings and do not take them for granted,” he said.
This is the Church of happily ever after, President Holland would later tell the Church News. “This is peace and cheer and good tidings. This is the good news, and that has been our privilege. We’ve had the chance to spend our lives doing the most important thing in life.”
Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints bends down to kiss President Jeffrey R. Holland, then acting president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, on the head as they exit after the Saturday morning session at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City on Saturday, April 6, 2024. | Scott G Winterton, Deseret News
In January 2023, President and Sister Holland spoke at a worldwide devotional for young adults, passing the baton to them and asking them to “shine the brightness of your hope” on a world filled with heavy challenges.
“Refuse to accept the world for what it appears to be,” he said. “Shine the brightness of your hope on it and make it what it ought to be.”
Hope is not just the message and the manner of the naturally optimistic; “it is the privilege of everyone who believes,” he said.
Closing, President Holland blessed the young adults “that the simple but exquisite power inherent in the principles of salvation — such as faith and hope and charity — will always be evident and efficacious in your life. I bless you to know, as I most assuredly do, that the gospel of Jesus Christ is personally precious, everlastingly hopeful and eternally true.
“I testify with apostolic authority that it is so, and as such is the only unfailing answer to life’s many challenges — yours and mine — the only way to be exalted in the grandeur of eternity.”
