He was Noble and Great

It is without equivocation that members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints say that Gordon B. Hinckley was a prophet of God. While he was alive we honored him in the same way we would honor Moses or Abraham or Peter.

When President Hinckley entered a room to speak, everybody in the room stopped talking and stood until he sat down. President Hinckley taught us to be proud of our Mormon heritage but to always be respectful of the beliefs of others. He implored us to treat our family and neighbors with love. He encouraged us to pray with fervency and to work to ensure that our prayers could be answered. In short, his teachings were in perfect harmony with the gospel that Jesus Christ taught during his ministry on Earth.

I was personally inspired by the story of his life presented in his biography titled Go Forward With Faith. He spoke to the entire church several times a year and over the past 12 years I cannot think of a time that I missed one of his addresses.

I saw him in person three times. Once while I was a student at BYU he visited campus and participated in a ceremony to give Margaret Thatcher an honorary doctorate degree from Brigham Young University. On one of his visits to campus he came into the newsroom while I was there. That was the closest I ever got to meeting him. A few years later he spoke at a Temple jubilee at the Alamodome in San Antonio and we traveled down as a family for the event.

Going forward with faith was a trademark for President Hinckley. He stepped into a leadership role at the highest level of the Church and became the face of the First Presidency after its other members became bowed down with age and were unable to perform many of the necessary day-to-day tasks. The pressure upon him was immense, yet he never wavered publicly.

One of President Hinckley's final addresses was titled Slow to Anger. I was asked to use it as the basis for a talk I gave two weeks ago in Hillsboro, so I studied it more intently than I might have otherwise done and learned some things about myself.

I think the best way to honor President Hinckley in death is to live by his teachings. I'm confident that is what he would want.

Although he was well spoken, I think his greatest teachings were evident in his actions.

There is no doubt in my mind that he loved his wife with all his heart. I know that he had a great reverance for the saints who laid the foundation upon which he stood. He treated the pauper and the king with the same amount of dignity and respect and was equally comfortable around both.

He didn't part any seas or build any boats, but he did mend hearts and lift up the eyes of the discouraged. And he had simple answers that helped bring peace and happiness to peoples' lives.

He was able to bring people to Christ because he knew Him and had his gaze fixed upon the Savior throughout his life, except for the time when he cursed in front of his mother as a boy and had his mouth washed out with soap.

There are many who will never know President Hinckley. To those who missed learning who Gordon B. Hinckley was, I invite you to learn about his successor, likely Thomas S. Monson. He is cut from the same cloth.