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[00:00:00] As All In comes to a close over the next two weeks, I wanna make sure you know two things. First, these episodes aren't going anywhere. Every conversation we've had on All In will stay right here so that you can revisit your favorites and listen to episodes you may have missed over the years. Second, this isn't the end of conversations like the ones we've had on this show.

The team at Deseret Book is working on something new, and while I can't tell you much yet, I can tell you that it is being made by people who care about the same things you love about this show. Honest, heartfelt conversations that strengthen faith in Jesus Christ, the kind you've come to expect from All In.

So please stay subscribed here and continue to follow All In on Instagram so that you can hear the latest about this upcoming show first. I loved President Jeffrey R. Holland. As I wrote on my Instagram at the time of his passing, I don't have one of the cool stories of interacting with or meeting President Holland.

I always dreamed of interviewing him, but never had the opportunity beyond a two-minute conversation at a media press junket for Meet the Mormons years ago. Instead, my story is ordinary and no different than millions of others. I loved him and his sweet wife, and that is what I'll tell my Jane someday when she asks me why her middle name is Holland.

I'll tell her about how both President and Sister Holland somehow managed to speak as if they were speaking just to you. When she feels like she wants to give up, I'll remind her not to quit and to keep walking. I'll teach her that we never check our religion at the door. I'll teach her that right before the best things in life, there's often opposition.

I'll teach her that once we've had an encounter with the Son of the living God and dropped our nets to follow Him, we can't go back. And I'll teach her that the future holds everything for us, so we can't look back for too long. When she's a young woman trying to find her place in the world, I'll give her Patricia Holland's A Quiet Heart.

And when she's a young mom, I'll send her Behold Thy Mother on a particularly rough day. President and Sister Holland will become a part of her just as they've become a part of me, neither of us having actually known them, but our lives will be better because of the lives they lived, end quote. As a result of this love and admiration, I was thrilled to learn that a biography has been written and will be available in stores in December about the life of President Jeffrey R.

Holland. I was even more thrilled to get to read an advance copy, which has allowed me to come to know and love the Hollands even more than I did before. Matthew J. Grow is the author of the biography Jeffrey R. Holland: A Witness for Christ and the managing director of the Church History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

In that capacity, he leads a team of history [00:03:00] professionals who collect documents and artifacts, preserve them, and promote understanding of the church's past through a publishing program, a research library, a museum, and many historic sites. Matthew also serves as a general editor of the Joseph Smith Papers and Saints: The Story of the Church of Jesus Christ in the Latter Days.

He is published widely on Latter-day Saint history and American religious history. Matthew received his PhD in American history from the University of Notre Dame. He and his wife Alyssa are the parents of four children.

This is All In, an LDS Living podcast where we ask the question, what does it really mean to be all in the gospel of Jesus Christ? I'm Morgan Pearson, and I am so honored to have Matthew Grow on the line with me today. Matthew, welcome. Thank you. Great to be here Well, I just, I told Matthew right before we started recording that it is my dream to someday write someone's biography, and I think, Matt, you wrote the biography for one of the most loved people in the church in our, in our time period.

I cannot imagine how daunting that task had to feel. I'm curious, first of all, when, when President Holland reached out to you, what was your reaction? Well, I d- I didn't know President Holland very well. I'd been in some meetings with him and, and that sort of thing. And initially, he had reached out with the intent to do some oral histories to support someone who might write a biography.

And we had tried to schedule th-this, this was in the early months of, of twenty twenty-three, and he and Sister Holland kept getting sick and, and just health challenges. So we never were able to record anything before Sister Holland died in July twenty twenty-three. And immediately after that, he goes into his own health crisis, where he's really teetering on the edge of death for a month and a half.

And as soon as he comes out of that, he invites me over to his apartment with his children and asks if I would write the biography. I, I was, I was, I was really surprised, you know, just because we didn't know each other well. I'd never worked on a living person before. All my own research and writing is on people in the eighteen hundreds.

But what an amazing opportunity. I mean, like you said, President Holland was so loved by the, by the church, and so it's just been a, a, a tremendous opportunity for me. I wanna follow up on that. I thought it was so interesting in your introduction, you talked about how you had only written biographies for people that had been deceased for many years, and that this was the first time you had worked on something with someone living.

And I loved how you talked about [00:06:00] how President Holland being able to offer feedback and being able to visit with him changed your experience. So could you elaborate on that a bit, just how writing a biography with someone who was an active participant changed, changed your, your experience? Oh, it w- it's just so different, right?

To work on someone who you only know through scraps of paper. Just, just whatever records happened to be retained over time. So after I, after I have written biographies in the past of people like Parley Pratt, at the end of the day, I always wondered, how close did I get? Did I really capture- What made Parley Pratt Parley Pratt, right?

Did I really capture the m- the, the individual? And with, with President Holland, it's just such a different experience to sit across from someone, to get a sense of, of their manners. I, I was able to spend, uh, dozens and dozens of hours, uh, interviewing President Holland. So you just have a depth of, of familiarity and, and, and s- so at the end of this biography, I felt like I was really able to capture him better th- than, than these questions I've had in the past.

It's just so different. And, and of course, uh, it's, it's also different in that they can respond to follow-up questions, they can read what you've written, say, "No, that's not quite right. That's..." You can talk with their friends, you can talk with their family. So it's not just talking with them, but talking with the whole world of people they, um, associated with, right?

And as you're able to gather all that information, uh, uh, I think for me, I just had much more confidence that I was really understanding who he was. Not to mention, I'm sure, living in the same world helps- Yeah ... a bit. Right. Yeah. Sometimes in the 1800s, you don't know what kinda cultural references they're making or- Right

uh, it's, it's just different. Yeah, that's right, living at, in, in the same time, in the same world. Although, you know, he's, he's quite a bit older than me Right ... as, as well, so th- th- there was still some research into, wait, w- what was that phrase, or what was that reference or, or that sort of thing. That's so, so interesting.

I, I wanna talk a bit about this, you mentioned dozens and dozens of hours interviewing President Holland. I wondered from kind of a personal place for you- Yeah ... having spent that kind of time with him, which is something that I think a lot of people listening think, "Oh, that would be so neat," what stands out to you, or what do you remember most about that time that you were able to spend together, and how do you feel like it changed you as a person?

Hmm. That's a great question. President Holland I, I think had a deep desire to make people feel better, to help people feel connected, uh, with him, with the gospel. And so y- you couldn't be in a room with President [00:09:00] Holland without feeling that he cared about you as a person, that he remembered the details of your lives, that he asked you questions as, as well.

There was just this sense of ... And I, I think it was just really part of who he, who he was, who he is, th- this sense of, I wanna bless those around me, I wanna be connected with them, I want to help them feel good. And so, you know, another thing that just struck me about the interviews with President Holland was he was so open.

I mean, and you get this sense from him at the pulpit, right? This kind of openness that he has. But he was, he was very open with me in the interviews and thinking about his life and, and remembering, you know, different threads through his life. And, and there was a sense of openness, of vulnerability, of really wanting to share his life.

I, I think that that ability to make people around you feel like they're important- Yeah ... is such a gift, and I think especially because it requires so much presence- Yeah ... when life is busy for everybody. And no doubt President Holland had an, a crazy busy life. But it does seem like he, he blessed so many people by his ability to, to see the people in his path, which is something that, you know, we talk about the Savior being good at.

He did just have this real gift for ... A- and, and it was a gift that he developed as well, right? A gift for remembering people's names, for remembering the details of their lives, for just, you know, you couldn't be with him for five minutes and, and him not wanting to give you a compliment, right? And but just that, just that constant sense.

And, and I think it was an innate gift, right? But, but he also had to develop that through time I know, Matt, that biographers take different approaches to writing a biography, and I imagine this one was probably different than the other ones you've written for the reasons we've talked about before. But can you talk a bit about your process from- Mm

information gathering to actually-- well, from information gathering to interviews, to then actually sitting down to write? Yeah. So when I, when I started the biography, I really knew very little about President Holland's life, just really the bare outlines. And we started immediately with, with interviews.

And he, he was just such a great interview subject because you could, you know, sort of begin with his childhood and, and, and ask a question and, and twenty minutes later, you better have another question ready. But y- you know, it wasn't difficult to get information out. He's just a born storyteller and, and he just has a beautiful way with words.

And you see that in his conference talks, right? That's how most of us see that way with words. But they would just spill out of him, too, right? And so they- they'd get better if you polished them for a conference [00:12:00] talk, but, but his first drafts are pretty amazing, just, just kind of in the conversations, the interviews we would have.

So really the process was just to try to gather as much information as I could from President Holland, but also I probably did fifty or sixty other interviews with people. And then to gather as much information I could from the, the written records of his life. And we had good records dating back to when he's a teenager, good records from his mission and, and letters and journals and all sorts of things.

So, so, so you try to match up the written records with what you're learning, uh, in, in the oral histories. And, and the oral histories are interesting because you, you really get a sense of what moments he felt like defined his life. And, and that doesn't come out as much as the written records, right? As we're just living those moments, we may not realize how important they are until later.

So my own method is that as, as I gathered the information, I had some great research assistants who were also helping, as I gathered the information and did the interviews, I would try to write all of basically from the beginning, right? So it wasn't like I gathered all the information, then a year and a half later, I started to write.

Uh, I find that writing as you go sharpens everything. It leads you immediately to the, the, the questions that are unanswered and, and just helps shape the process. One, one of the, I, I think the other choices a biographer makes is how much do you stay with the person in the moment in their life And how much are you sort of looking forward to what they become?

And initially, I thought, you know, I'm just gonna stay with President Holland in the moment, right? He doesn't know what he's becoming yet. And I think that's mostly what I did. But as, as we got closer to the end, both his own sensibilities a-and my sensibilities, we, we added more of the looking forward just a little bit to saying, you know, this experience when he was young helped shape what he later becomes in this way.

Or this experience when he's young, you can see this teaching from this general conference talk. So there's some of that flashing forward as you try to connect his life, the, the different threads through time I will give listeners one example of the way that you do this- Okay ... because I do think, I think it's a powerful, it's a powerful way that you have structured the book- Mm-hmm

in that it's like here is this person that you've heard speak from a pulpit, and he's taught this, but it was this experience years before that maybe influenced that. Mm-hmm. So one thing that you focus on a lot is President Holland's relationship with his father. And I don't know, you said you didn't know much about President Holland's life before you started.

I did not have any idea how complex that relationship was, and also how much it seems to have [00:15:00] influenced President Holland throughout his life. Could you share a little bit about that with, with listeners? And I'm curious, were you surprised about that as well? And then what do you feel like you kind of dr- draw that correlation between the things that President Holland taught and this relationship with his dad?

So maybe you could share a little bit about that. Yeah. It's, uh, it's really a great story. Frank Holland, he grows up relatively poor, hardscrabble life in Salt Lake City, Park City, kind of those areas of northern Utah. He ends up joining the church and marrying Alice Bentley. He's gone to this-- he's gone to southern Utah as in, in the Great Depression as part of the Civilian Conservation Corps.

He meets Alice Bentley, who comes from a very rock solid Latter-day Saint family. And Frank loves the gospel, and Frank has a really outgoing personality, but he struggles with aspects of the gospel, too. The Word of Wisdom is just a challenge for him throughout his life. He can be very sensitive, oversensitive when there's some sort of offense that he might take.

And President Holland, as, uh, you know, so young Jeff Holland grows up in this home where his mom is always at church, always a believer in the gospel, and his dad is in and out of the church, and his dad is struggling in s- in some ways, but also a great father in many ways. Uh, and, and, and President Holland would always want to say yes, he had his struggles, but he says some Little League in St.

George because I wanted to play baseball, right? So there's these beautiful threads to that relationship. And, uh, you can s- you can see, um, them come together as Jeff Holland leaves on his mission And he's 19. There's some tension as he leaves because this is a moment when Frank isn't going to church, and Jeff wants him to go to church, encourages him, and, uh, there's, there's tension between them when he leaves.

But pretty soon, in large part because of the letters that young Elder Holland is writing home, Frank becomes active in the gospel again. And pretty soon after that, someone recommends him to be the treasurer as a missionary for the church's building program in England. And so more than halfway through h- uh, through Jeff Holland's mission, Frank and Alice, and Jeff's six-year-old sister show up in England as missionaries, and Frank is called to the stake presidency, and, and so it's, it's this, it's this moment of, of reconciliation, and you do see the, these threads of that relationship throughout his life.

W- when ab- about a year before President Holland [00:18:00] dies, he goes to the Dominican Republic, and he tells this story of how when Jeff Holland is nine or ten years old, he's at home and three men come to the home, and it's the bishop and the Sunday school president and maybe the elders quorum president. They knock on the door.

Frank Holland answers the door and says, "Hey, what, what do you want?" And he's got his cigarette in hand as he answers the door, and, uh, they come in and, and say, "Frank, we'd like to call you to be the Sunday school teacher for the, the nine, uh, the nine and ten-year-olds." And Jeff is sort of watching this happen, and Alice is listening in from the kitchen, and Frank says, "But I smoke."

And the bishop says, "That's your problem, Frank. That's not, that's not our problem. We, w- we, we came to invite you to teach Sunday school." And Frank says, uh, and throws the cigarettes in, in, in, in the fireplace and says, uh, you know, "I'll do it." And for Jeff, he realizes that His father probably wouldn't accept any other calling in the ward, but this was his class.

This was the love of a father saying, "I'll do that for my son." And, and all those years later, as he's telling this story to saints in the Dominican Republic, I mean, President Holland is in tears, and his point is, don't give up on people, right? Uh, there's, there's good in people, even if they're not participating fully in the church or they're struggling with this or with that, don't give up on them.

Use the Spirit to help them come further along the gospel path. One of the, one of the things that I just love about this relationship is, uh, Frank Holland dies in nineteen seventy-six, relatively, relatively young. Alice, his wife, is gonna live another twenty-five years or so, and his son Jeff gives a beautiful sermon at his funeral and talks about the parable of the talents, right?

We're all given some talents when we come, some less talents, some more talents, and, and his point is that, you know, his father came from this pretty tough background, but he was able to expand and multiply the talents he was given so much I loved reading about the, the comments that, that President Holland made at the funeral.

Mm. And your writing around that is so beautiful. So everybody should- Mm ... go read that. But I, I think it's so interesting to realize that these people who we see as older men serving in the Quorum of the Twelve or the First Presidency, I think sometimes we forget that at one point they were little boys or little girls- Right

that, uh, in, in general auxiliary presidencies. And I, um, s- as you were talking, I was thinking about the [00:21:00] story about President Eyring- Mm ... and how right before his mom died, she said something to the effect of that she was proud of him or that he was a good son, and his granddaughter was my boss when I started at Deseret News- Mm

and she said that her grandpa still couldn't get c- couldn't get through that story without getting emotional. Yeah. And so within all of us, I think there's this desire to please our parents, to make our parents proud, and then there's also, like you see throughout the book with, with President Holland, he wanted so badly for his family to enjoy all the blessings of the gospel, whether it was his dad or his brother.

After President Holland's father, Frank, passes away, you write a bit about his brother, Dennis. Um, elder, President Holland's brother had been inactive at that point, and you make a comment, and I wanted to touch on it quickly, that President Holland said that he was worried that his inadequacies were contributing to either his dad struggling with the gospel throughout his life, thinking, well, if, if he's some hotshot in the church and he's this imperfect, and then also worrying that his imperfections were contributing to Dennis's perspective of the church.

Mm-hmm. What do you think President Holland viewed as his flaws? Hmm. Well, I, I think all of us probably feel more guilt for the situations of others than, uh, is actually true, right? So I, I, I think, uh, I think in that instance, he was just worried had he not, had he provoked some of this tension with, with his father, had he not been as understanding as he could've been, had he been too impatient with, with his fa- with his d- dad's own path in life.

So th- that's, th- that's sort of my guess, th- that kind of interpersonal dad-son relationship. He knew that there'd been tension, and usually when there's tension, there's, it's coming from both people. As is the case with most of us Right. I think, I think family relationships in particular tend to be a little bit more complicated than they appear to be on the outside.

Another thing that I, I thought was interesting w- especially because a few months ago, for some reason, I went down this Marion D. Hanks rabbit hole, and I just think he's a fascinating character in church history. Yeah. But you make it a point to highlight- Yeah ... his influence on President Holland. He was President Holland's second mission president, and you say that his influence on President Holland could not be overstated.

What is your impression of what made Elder Hanks such a strong [00:24:00] mentor in President Holland's life? And I, I think that the interesting thing is to watch the way that that relationship evolves- Mm-hmm ... as President Holland goes from missionary to then being involved in church education and working with Elder Hanks in that capacity, to then becoming a leader in the church himself, and, and Elder Hanks is kinda there through it all.

So I wonder, what do you feel like we can all learn about stewardship, um- Mm-hmm ... and kind of mentoring from that? Well, I, I, I do think that one of the things I tried to highlight in the biography was the importance of good mentors, um, and the importance of being a good mentor to others. Uh, so many people considered President Holland a mentor, and so it was important for me to explore the, those men who had mentored, uh, him.

And I think he sees in Marion D. Hanks, uh, uh, sort of a kindred spirit, uh, someone with similar gifts to his own who took a real interest in him. So, uh, Marion D. Hanks is his second mission president, and Marion D. Hanks is already a member of the Quorum of the Seventy when he's called as a mission president.

He's already a renowned teacher in the church. I mean, many, many viewed him as just one of the finest gospel teachers of, of his generation. And of course, that's what President Holland is going to become. And so I, I, I f-- I think he's drawn to President Hanks' teaching ability, his love of the Book of Mormon, his, his, his love of and mentorship for young people.

One, one sort of, uh, just little s-- little footnote is that when President Holland reviewed my chapters, he would sometimes, not very often, but he would sometimes write in a sentence that he wanted me to put in the book. And the sentence that says that Marion Hanks' influence could not be overstated actually came right from President Holland's pen.

And s-- and, and I think it was true. I think he saw in, in Marion Hanks a kind of a second father figure, and i-it-- so much to the fact that when his, when his third child is born, he names him partly after Marion Duff Hanks. And on this question of mentorship, Marion Hanks keeps track of Jeff Holland. H- he writes him.

He has this continuing interest in his life. When Jeff Holland comes back from his mission, he spends a year at, at Dixie College. He'd gone to Dixie College for a year before his mission, then he wants to go to BYU, and Marion Hanks writes him a letter of recommendation, and the letter says something to the effect that, "You should admit this student inasmuch as I think he's gonna be president of your university someday."

Right? And of course, that- That's so crazy ... that comes to pass. But one, one of the moments that I, I really enjoyed [00:27:00] about the, uh, one of the real insights into President Holland came from a letter that he wrote to, uh, Marion Hanks. And this is when President Holland is teaching institute in Seattle, and he's had-- and he's, and he's also the bishop of a student ward there.

And he's had a, a young man come to the ward. He's engaged to a Latter-day Saint. He's a recent convert to the church, and he's scheduled to go to Vietnam And, and, and he does that, and within a month or two, he dies. And President Holland writes this letter to Marion D. Hank saying, "I don't know who else to write to, but I'm just torn apart at the death of this young man.

Why did he have to be taken in the, in, in the prime of his life when everything was before him?" And so he's struggling with just those big questions of, why did this horrible thing have to happen to someone with so much goodness and so much promise and, and what are we doing in Vietnam anyway, right?

A-and, and President Holland basically said, you know, for him, his trajectory on, on, on the war followed a lot of other Americans, where there was a lot of rah-rah patriotism at the beginning and at the end, disillusionment and, you know, what are we doing there? But he says it so powerfully in this letter and with this experience, and, and this is one of the ways in which using both the memory, uh, in oral histories and the written record is so useful.

Because when I talked, done oral histories with President Holland, he'd mention, "Oh, there was this young man and, you know, that-- and his death really got me thinking differently about the Vietnam War." But, you know, a memory from sixty years later isn't the same as the letter he wrote that morning that he had heard of the death, and the emotion that comes through and the specificity.

So it, it was great to be able to have, have both of those. But, uh, if I can just mention one other Marion Hank story, because I, I do think that the, this relationship was so important to him Soon after, uh, President Holland is called as a member of the Seventy in nineteen eighty-nine, he, he, he's feeling overwhelmed, anxious, inadequate, depressed, and he goes to, uh, there's a room in the Salt Lake Temple where the presidency of the Seventy has an office.

And he's, he's, he's worried about lots of different things, and he's, he's, he's already spent a couple of hours in the temple that morning trying to, trying to calm himself, trying to feel more confident about his calling. And he-- so he goes to this room where the presidency of the Seventy, and he's a member of the Seventy, so he can go to this room, and he picks up, uh, a temple combination from a desk, and he, and he opens it.

It's marked. He opens it, he finds, and, and he reads in the Doctrine and Covenants a passage that basically says, "Don't worry. I'm God, I'm in charge. I'm gonna take care [00:30:00] of you." And, and he just has this profound spiritual experience. And then he notices that the, the, the page, the whatever is marking the scriptures, the scrap of paper, is in the handwriting of Marion D.

Hanks. And so it's just kind of this full circle moment where, you know, an additional confirmation, God's aware of him, things are going to be okay. And I found a reference to this experience in a journal that President Holland had kept. He w-- he kept journals only intermittently, so you kind of have to piece some things together.

And I said, "President Holland, uh, you talk about this experience. It sounds like a really important experience. What, what do you remember?" And, and that prompted his memory. He was able to remember some things, and I said, "Uh, I'm still a little bit confused as to when this happened," because the journal entry wasn't clear.

And this actually happened, this conversation, like two weeks before President Holland died. It was my last interview with him. And he said, "Matt, go get my scriptures, my big set of scriptures." And so I did, and we opened to that passage of scripture, and he'd written in the margin, "April eighteenth, nineteen eighty-nine, Salt Lake Temple."

You know, he'd recorded that experience right there in his scriptures. And so, uh, sometimes it takes written record, the, the memory to, to piece these things together. But, but Marion D. Hanks was the just this great mentor to him. And of course, President Holland saw-- recognized that his mentor wasn't perfect, that, that there were challenges there at times, but, but he just loved him really profoundly.

Those are such great stories, and one, one thing that I love about the story about Elder Hanks writing the letter of recommendation for President Holland to be admitted- Yeah ... into BYU is that you write that, uh, when he got called, I believe it was when he was, was asked to be president of BYU, he was feeling overwhelmed and, and then he finds that letter and and it says, "In as much as he will probably be the president of the school someday."

And just that ... I, I think having anybody believe in us is just so important. We've talked about that on this podcast before, but it ... You did do such a good job of showing mentors throughout President Holland's life. One very strong presence in the book is Pat Holland. Mm. President Holland meets Pat when he is very young, even younger than I thought, and then she is there, you know, throughout his life up until those last couple of years where he kind of Somehow escapes death and, and gives us a couple more years.

But- Mm ... I wondered, I love the way that President Holland consistently praises Pat and shows her presence throughout. [00:33:00] Sometimes it, it would almost feel like he was making a point to make sure that people knew she's still there, and she's still this hugely- Yeah ... important part of this story. How did observing their relationship up close and getting to talk to President Holland about it affect your perspective on marriage?

It's a great question. And maybe the, the, the core regret I have about the book is that, that we started right after Sister Holland died. Uh, so I never had a chance to meet Sister Holland except through her letters, her journals, memories of other people, and she was just such a profound influence on his life.

And I think both of us wanted to make sure that she was a- appropriately highlighted in, in all, on all the pages. And just to mention one of those pivotal moments, after he graduates from high school and, and spends a year at college, it's r- And they've been dating now for, for some time, it's really her influence to say, "I think you should serve a mission," that really sets him down the track and changes everything about his life.

You know, I think th- they were just such a remarkable team. When he was president of BYU, he wanted to make it a point to make sure that she was a visible part of his administration. And, and throughout their time there, they would do joint devotionals where they would both speak at the pulpit and, and they were part humor show, part, part parental advice for the students, part witnesses of, of the Savior and the gospel.

And if ... One of my, one of my recommendations for people who wanna hear President Holland's voice more is to go and listen to those BYU devotionals. They're on this BYU Speeches site. They're just, they're just classics. And one of them, they, they talk about sort of the art of compromise in, in marriage, right?

And in some ways they were very different personalities. He was so outgoing. I mean, he thrived on being with, with other people I mean, if, w- I think one way to think about this is if they both were at a gathering with other people, Jeff Holland would be energized and Pat Holland would be exhausted after- The classic, the classic extrovert, introvert- Yeah

dynamic. Yeah. A- absolutely. And she kept him grounded and, and there was just-- and, and just a real joint faith between the two. He often spoke about her as i- in their early married and, and, and as they raised their families as, as a voice of revelation for the family, that, that she just had a deep spirituality.

Of course, he did too, but, but it was different in some ways and, [00:36:00] and, and, and they trusted in those spiritual feelings. So I think seeing a portrait of, of a marriage, and of course, all marriages have their compromises and their tensions and their negotiations over, uh, how are we gonna get these things done?

How are we gonna raise these kids? And but just this sense of... And I think for me, the takeaway, just this sense of complete and total loyalty and dedication to each other, to their family, and to the gospel I don't, I don't think I appreciated, Matt, that Sister Holland had health challenges throughout her life.

I didn't know that she had endometriosis, and I think that her resilience physically was really inspiring to me to see- Mm-hmm ... throughout the book. I never had the opportunity, I think I shook President Holland's hand, like, once, but I always wanted to meet them. I always thought they just seemed like such great people, to the point, Matt, that my, my daughter's middle name is Holland

But I, I did know Ardeth Kapp, who shows up- Mm-hmm ... in the book a couple of times. Yeah. I love Ardeth, and I feel like through her I got just a little, tiny taste of how special Sister Holland must have been- Yeah ... because they were such good friends. One thing that struck me is the honesty of this biography, and I think that's important.

I think transparency is huge, especially to our generation, and it becomes clear- Yeah ... that all of these church leaders were very human. Did you or President Holland worry at all about including names in not so positive interactions where it's, like, either that person could still be alive, or they definitely have kids that are still alive?

Oh, absolutely. Right, and, and, and we were just talking about Sister Holland, too. One of the challenges of writing a biography about people living in the present moment is how do we respect people's privacy, right? Sister Holland was an intensely private person, right? And so we thought a lot about how to balance telling an open, complete story with people's privacies and people's expectations of privacy, right?

So w- I mean, one way this plays out is that President Holland received lots and lots and lots of letters And I've, I've read many, many, many of those letters. And of course, none of those people thought they were writing to not just President Holland, but someone else reading the mail as well, right? So, uh, and of course, we wouldn't use those people's names, and we would, we would just try to, uh, capture the, the correspondence.

If we ever quoted from something, we might say, "Oh, a correspondent said this," without revealing people's names. So [00:39:00] it is just-- and of course, you wouldn't do that if someone had been dead 100 years. In terms of interactions with church leaders, I think the principles that we tried to follow were we wanted to tell an honest story.

President Holland wanted people to be able to see his life, take lessons from it, and you can't do that unless you're telling a real story. And at the same time, the, the second principle is that our impulse should be towards generosity and towards trying to, in, in any kind of a challenging situation, uh, to paint a full portrait of other peoples as much as possible, get the nuance there, get the motivations there, um, 'cause they're probably mostly acting from a place of, of, of goodness and just a difference of opinion or, or something like that.

So we, we did try to balance the sense of we wanna tell a, a, a true story, we want to respect people's privacy, and we want to be generous in, in terms of their motivations and, and, and impulses. So just we, we, we tried to balance all of those, all of those aspects, all of those principles. I loved, uh, uh, this is just one example of that, but I think we all think of President Hinckley as this model of optimism and, and everybody loves President Hinckley.

And you see later in, in President Holland's life that he- Yeah ... and President Hinckley had a great relationship. But when President Holland goes to ask permission to go on his mission a year earlier, he has this interaction with a very young Elder Hinckley, who is, I believe, assistant to the Quorum of the Twelve at that point.

Yeah. Is that right? Yes. Yeah. And he's just grumpy. And I think that that is ... I mean, we all have days where it's like, "I'm just not in the mood." Uh, and- Yeah ... yet he still recommends, you know, Elder Holland as a, as a missionary, President Holland. In interviewing so many people who were so close to President Holland- And, and, and may- maybe there, I'll just say, Morgan- Yeah

what, what I try to do in, in interactions like that is to just cap ... I mean, particularly in that moment, 'cause you have, you have this young 19-year-old going from St. George to the church administration building. The, the question is, he's only 19, you have to be 20 to serve a mission, so he's gonna go see if there's any exception.

And, and I wanted to capture this sense of, you know, this, this is a nervous young man going into, uh, an intim- an intimidating situation. And, and he, and he walks in and, and young Elder Hinckley is, is surrounded by books and papers, and he's just buried in work, right? He's kind of a one-man missionary department.

And he's just, you know, there's, there's some real, you know ... And, and he may not have captured Elder Hinckley on his best day. And at the same time, Elder Hinckley wasn't always the warmest personality, right? Uh, [00:42:00] that's not the way he showed his love for people, right? And so, uh, I, I do love that moment. One of the, one of the great things about that moment was President Holland told this story to me, and I'm

it's a story that I'm sure he's told over the years lots of times. And We did some archival research, and, uh, we discovered that Elder Hinckley had r- filled out a form when Jeff Holland visited him asking this question. And the form basically said, "This is an interview of a general authority for s- prospective missionary," and there's 10 or 15 questions.

Is, is he in good health? Is he, you know... One of ... And, and it's pretty a simple yes or no, you know, and, uh, the answers are what you'd expect. And at the end of the form, it says, you know, "Evaluate this person's testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ." And Elder Hinckley writes, "Fair," on the form. And so it was, it was, it was kind of an interesting moment to say, "President Holland, would you like to see the form that Elder Hinckley filled out for you as a, as a 19-year-old?"

And I think he would've said that that evaluation of his testimony was, was accurate, that he had a lot of growing, and he tells these beautiful stories of serving in England and of that really being the place where he comes to a testimony of the Book of Mormon and, and, and of Jesus Christ and his gospel.

And I just think there's such a beautiful principle in that. I mean, earlier you mentioned often we don't think of these prophets and apostles as young men and general authors, these young women, these, these moments of, uh, critical moments of developing their testimony. And so I, I, I do love that interaction with, with Elder Hinckley and that form he fills out 'cause it t- I think it teaches this really important principle.

Most missionaries leave today with testimonies that aren't as strong as they come home with, right? And, and we, we get a testimony in, in the doing, in the, in the studying that happens, like happened for him, outdoing. Absolutely. In... You mentioned that you did around 60 interviews with other people who were close to President Holland.

Rather than, I thought it was interesting to think About the insights that you had to have gained into who he was- Mm ... outside of the pulpit, 'cause I think that's what so many of us loved President Holland for- Yeah ... where it was this, like you said, way with words that he had and the way that he made people feel loved even just standing at the pulpit.

But what stood out to you in those interviews- Mm ... with the people that had surrounded President Holland throughout his life as the things that made him so well-loved? Yeah. A- and I, I think, I think one sort of big impression I had was that there w- there really wasn't a gap between [00:45:00] who he was at the pulpit and who he was in more private settings.

Uh, that sense of openness, that, that humor, that love of the gospel, the... I, I... Who he was at the pulpit was who he was in private. And so many of the people I interviewed said something along the lines of everyone felt like he was their best friend, right? He, he, he had that gift of, of doing that for people.

So some people might say like you know, "I, he just had a way of making me feel like he was his best friend." And then they'd say, "And then I came to recognize he did that with everyone." Right? He just, he just had this, this gift with people that was tied for him with his devotion to the gospel. And I th- I think those were, those were sort of the, the, the two keys, this, this sense of wanting to connect with people with the intent that maybe he could help them along the path a little bit I loved reading about his relationships with other church leaders that we've been familiar with.

One that I loved was he talks about when President Ballard, when he first met President Ballard, and he prayed to know how to best interact with him, and what he knew of him was that he was like a businessman. And President Holland was not a businessman, and so he says this prayer, and he has this, receives this revelation that, that President Ballard will become one of his best friends.

And then you see that throughout the rest- Right ... of the book, that President Ballard is the one that's there in the hospital, President Ballard is the one that says that he doesn't think he can continue to do his calling without President Holland there. And I think that is a neat thing to see throughout the book.

Were you nervous, Matt, when you gave President Holland the first half of the manuscript to read, and what was it like to get his feedback? Yeah. So I was nervous. And so I began doing interviews in September of twenty twenty-three, and probably within three or four months, President Holland said, "You know, I think you better write a chapter so we can see if we're on the same page, if we're going in the right direction."

And I've written and contributed to lots of books, but really I'd only written one book as a solo author, and that was the first book I wrote, that was kind of my PhD dissertation turned into a book. Since then, I've co-authored books or I've wor- I, I've worked at the Church History Department for a number of years, and we tend to be very collaborative in our books.

So on the Joe Smith Papers, you might have five people working on the book as authors, and then other editors involved as well. So there was kind of a sense of, you know, I'm the solo author here, a sense of a vulnerability in terms of President Holland is a master. He's masterful with language, and his kids were gonna read the first chapter as well, and his three children have all written books.

They're all [00:48:00] really great communicators. So I th- I thought, "Oh, this is just terrific. This is, this is you know, can I, can I, can I get someone else to- ... without such high standards to, to do this?" But it's a really interesting experience. I wrote the first chapter, and much of it is, uh, the, the first chapter as it's published.

But it was like fifteen pages long, and I gave it to him. And whe- whenever I gave President Holland a chapter, he would, he would turn it around in like a day, maybe two days. I mean, he was really engaged with the project. And so he called me over and he gave me the chapter, and the first five pages had more writing on it than you can imagine.

And, and he had, he had rewritten the whole, like, four s- first four or five pages. And then he said, "Matt-" After those first four or five pages, I realized if we're gonna do this, you have to be the author and I can't be the author. And I said, "President, if you want, if you wanna write an autobiography I'll be in the background and help you do that.

If you wanna write a biography, yeah, you can't rewrite it . And so, you know, but, uh, but he was always great at, you know, pointing out things that weren't quite right. It's occasionally inserting a sentence or a perspective or saying, "Eh, that story is, is a little too personal. I shared it with you, but let's pull back just a little bit."

So there were various types of feedback that he gave, and he did read about the first, uh, about 60% of the book, and had he lived another two or three months, uh, he would've read the entire book. But he was always so complimentary, and he also ... He had a phrase that he would share with me sometimes. He's like, "Matt, this is great.

You got the facts, you got the narrative, but it doesn't quite sing." And I said, "Okay, what does that mean to you, President?" And I, I worked with a, a great editor at Deseret Book who helped insert, I think some of that, that language that he was hoping for, and helped to his ear to, to make it sing, uh, a little bit more.

So every book is a collaboration. You'll find words of President Holland in the book. You'll find words from Tracy Keck, the editor at Deseret Book. You'll find words, uh, from some of the research assistants who helped me. Ultimately, I'm, I'm responsible, but it, it was a great team, great collaboration, and just a, a great opportunity for me to really learn more about language and writing, too, as, as I worked with President Holland, 'cause he just had, he had such an ear for language, such a gift for language.

I think that would be the thing that would make it so intimidating is- Yeah ... you're like, "This is somebody who's so good with words." I love, I love that you, you highlighted Tracy Keck because Tracy is [00:51:00] wonderful, so shout out- Yeah ... shout out to Tracy. When I started working at the Church History Department about 15 years ago, the first year I was here, the church historian was Elder Marlon K.

Jensen, and President Holland was one of the apostolic advisors to the Church History Department, the Quorum of the Twelve, and he had a couple upcoming talks. One was like a July 24 celebration, and one was a talk at Utah State about Joseph Smith. And President Holland, you know, had come to Elder Jensen and said, "You know, I've, I've got so many talks to prepare for.

Is there someone who could kind of help me with, with these talks, with the history sections of these talks?" And so Elder Jensen gave me that assignment, and I was just like, "Are you kidding me? This guy's the best writer in the church. How could I possibly try to provide some material for that voice?" And, and I'm a little hesitant to share that story because I, I don't wanna give the wrong impression.

W-when, when ... For general conference- That's all President Holland. He would go through draft after draft after draft, seek feedback from others. But occasionally for kind of a smaller talk where there was, you know, some, some subject matter research that had to be done, uh, he'd ask, he'd ask for a little assistance.

And so I, I got to do that on a couple occasions, but felt very intimidated. Understandably so. I, I cannot imagine. I jumped, Matt, at the end of the book. Like I said, I, I told Matt before we started that I had the review copy of this book for five days and it's over 700 pages. And so I tried to make it through.

I usually have a rule, Matt, when I do it, an interview about a book on this show, that I have to read at least half of the book- Yeah ... before doing the interview. But I'll be honest, I made it ... I think I'm like 250 pages in, and then I jumped to the end. And the reason was I wanted to read both about Pat Holland's passing, and then I wanted to read about President Holland's kinda near-death experience and what you had written about that.

Mm-hmm. And it really is amazing. I think we all saw what Elder Renlund talks about. He talks about, you know, he was dead, and he was given these last couple of years to continue his ministry. His work here on Earth wasn't done. What do you think he considered his biggest reasons for being here a couple of years longer?

I think it was, uh, I mean, the, the word that he used in public, the word that he used in his, in the interviews with me is that he just feel- felt a real sense of urgency for the work, that he needed to come and testify more, that he needed to come and consecrate more, that he needed to come and teach more, and witness of Jesus Christ more.

And so I, I, I think in s- I think in most ways, he didn't see [00:54:00] his work as fundamentally different than what had come before. The work of an apostle is to be a special witness of the name of Jesus Christ in all the world, and I think that's, he just felt that more urgently. He felt that he just wanted to do everything he could to testify, to bring people.

And I think he also felt like, of course, as, as soon after he comes out of that crisis, that President Ballard dies, and he becomes the president of the Quorum of the Twelve. And I think he felt, uh, we, we've talked about the, the way others mentored him. I think he felt like he had a special role in mentoring the members of his quorum in and in teaching them, in, in, in leading them in, in ways that will continue to influence the church as he influenced these leaders who are going to be apostles continuing far into the future.

My last two questions, Matt, kinda go back to the theme of the show. I wanted to ask you first, what do you feel like you most learned from President Holland about what it means to be all in the gospel of Jesus Christ? And then you're gonna ask about, um, what? What I think- Yes, sir. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it is just a life of consecration, and I think one of the specific things that I learned or relearned as I s- as I studied his life was about the relationship of the intellect and faith or scholarship and faith.

He's been so articulate and influential on this. And, and for me, I think for those with a more a-academic or, or scholarly intellectual bent, I think part of being all in, he modeled in the sense of there has to be intellectual hon- intellectual humility, spiritual humility. His son David said to me that, and David i- is a professor at, at, at Harvard, that his father always taught that when there seems to be a conflict between scholarship and the gospel That if it's, if it's just something kind of ancillary about the church, then, then, then maybe that can give way or may-maybe need to change.

But if it's something about the core aspects of the gospel, then it's scholarship, provisional scholarship, temporary scholarship that ultimately has to give way and, and that we have to have the humility to recognize that, to trust, to hope in the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so there's, there's so many things I could say in response to that question because he really did li-live a life of consecration.

But I love that teaching, that ultimately, ultimately there's going to be no tension between true scholarship and the true gospel of Jesus Christ. But when there does appear to be tension in this life, we can be humble and trust in the Savior and in His promises I love that that is what you highlighted because it makes [00:57:00] sense that that would resonate with you, Matt, given your background and, and I think the ability to, to learn from President Holland up close and then apply that yourself.

I think that's, that's really cool to see. Okay. For you, Matt, what does it mean to you to be all in the gospel of Jesus Christ? I think I'd answer this question by the lesson from the story that we begin the book with. And maybe in a lot of ways, President Holland's most influential sermon over time, right, is, is, is the high priest of good things to come.

And he begins with this story of Jeff and Pat Holland driving from St. George, headed to graduate school in the east, and the car breaking down two times thirty-four miles from town. And I love that he, h- there were some aspects of that story that he hadn't shared in the general conference talk, that after the second time the car breaks down, the only way he gets to, to Yale with the young family is his mom gives him her car.

And just, just kind of this great family moment. But then he, President Holland weaves that moment of this sense of discouragement and loss and challenge into this beautiful sermon about the Savior. And he, I, I think he was just able to speak to the messiness of life, the inevitable disappointment and depression and challenges and shortcomings that all of us face, and then turning that and talking it, uh, you know, really describing the Savior as he's described in the Old Testament as the high priest of good things to come.

And for me, and I think for President Holland, the, the lesson that I took from him is, is hope in Christ. And there's, there's that scene in, in that sermon where he drives by where the car had once been broken down sixty years earlier, and he says, "I, I, I could see myself as a young man, and I just wanted to call out, 'Keep going, keep moving, keep trying.'"

And then this line from the sermon about hope. "Some blessings come soon, some come late, and some don't come until heaven. But for those who embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ, they come." I think it's that sense of hope. That's what it means to me. Beautifully said. Thank you so much, Matt. I, I think that story of Kanarraville, I feel like- Yeah

all of us remember the name of Kanarraville because- Yeah ... of that. But I remember when the [01:00:00] church released the- Mm ... Mormon message- The video ... of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember exactly where I was. I was in the BYU- Mm ... Museum of Art, and my- Mm ... my brother was a missionary, and he- Mm ... I had been going through a hard time.

I don't remember- Yeah ... what about, and my brother sent me an email and said, "I saw this video and thought of you." And I think to all of us, there are those moments where something President Holland said cut through and, and got us through a hard time, and that's why we all love him so much. So thank you so much, Matt, for your work on this book, and thank you for taking time to talk with me.

I really, really appreciate it. It's been a real pleasure.

We are so grateful to Matthew Grow for joining us on this week's episode. You can find the new biography on President Jeffrey R. Holland titled Jeffrey R. Holland: A Witness for Christ in Deseret Bookstores in December. We are so grateful to Derek Campbell of Mix at Six Studios for his help with this episode, and we're grateful to you for listening.

We look forward to being with you again next week.