Gordon B. Hinckley

As I sit here watching President Gordon B. Hinckley’s funeral, I am being reminded of all the reasons that I love him. He is the man that I have known as the latter day Prophet for most of my life. It is he who gave the counsel that helped me through my teenage years. It is his signature on my mission call, and on my completion form. I have loved watching as he has shown the world who we are as a church. I loved the grandfatherly feeling that he had each time he spoke. I loved his ambition for life, and the obvious love he had for the savior, for his sweet wife, for his family, for each member of the church, and for really the whole world. He will be greatly missed. And yet with all of this, I still find an undeniable peace with his death, as he is once again with his sweetheart. We thank thee, oh God, for a Prophet.

(These are two of my favorite quotes)

"Anyone who imagines that bliss is normal is going to waste a lot of time running around shouting that he has been robbed. The fact is that most putts don’t drop, most beef is tough, most children grow up to be just like people, most successful marriages require a high degree of mutual toleration, and most jobs are more often dull than otherwise. Life is just 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."

-President Gordon B. Hinckley

“I don’t want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully tailored clothes, my hair expertly coifed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails. I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp. I want to be there with grass stains on my shoes from mowing Sister Scheneck’s lawn. I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbor’s children. I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone’s garden. I want to be there with children’s sticky kisses on my cheeks and tears of a friend on my shoulder. I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived.”

- Sister Marjorie Pay Hinckley