Elder Jeffrey R. Holland is a beloved speaker and leader in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He is a master teacher, with a gift for sharing experiences from his life in a powerful way that imparts memorable lessons. Many of us can recall, for example, his story of pulling a small U-Haul trailer behind his family's old car, only to have the car break down--twice--after driving just 34 miles of his family's 2,600 mile journey to graduate school.
One of my favorite experiences of Elder Holland's occurred early in his married life--before that fateful drive from St. George to New Haven--when he was serving as a bishop in Seattle, Washington. Anyone who has ever been to college or graduate school can almost certainly relate to his experience, but the lesson he learned is one that anyone can apply in almost any meaningful context. A decision that seemed relatively small and inconsequential turned out to have an unexpectedly significant impact on his future. I have tried to always remember Elder Holland's invitation, at the end of this story, to "knock one more door."
Here is the experience, in Elder Holland’s own words:
One summer
in Seattle, I was taking a class that was particularly demanding. I wasn’t
exactly ecstatic over the teacher, and the material he used in the course
seemed uneven and often unwisely chosen. But I jumped in and tried to ride the
waves as best I could.
Just as a
major midterm paper was coming due, my parents called and said they were coming
to visit us. That was, of course, wonderful news. We needed a shot in the arm
from our parents just as you do from yours. They had never been to the
Northwest, and we wanted to show them everything. However, time was going to be
a bit of a problem. I was teaching a full summer schedule and taking this class
on the side. And like the iceberg and the Titanic in Thomas Hardy’s poem, my
parents and this paper converged upon me at exactly the same moment. Now
there’s no sense even discussing which option was most attractive to me. We had
not seen my parents in more than eighteen months, and I’ve already told you how
I felt about the class. Furthermore, the class was an optional thing I was
doing. After all, this wasn’t the university at which I would be doing my
graduate work, and certainly no one but I cared whether I did well in the class
or not.
Well, as
fate would have it, my parents arrived on a Friday, and my paper was due the
next Monday. I had had the good sense to go to work on it reasonably early, so
it wasn’t as though I had to do it all over one weekend. (I had tried that at
BYU and found that it didn’t work very well.) So I had the paper virtually
complete, except for one thing. I didn’t like it. It wasn’t right. I had to
work more on it.
We set everything aside that Friday night and had a great time. My wife
made tacos and enchiladas, the art for which my father said he would have
banned me from the house had I not married her. We laughed and talked and had
great fun. And then I had a decision to make. It was a kind of a missionary
decision, if you will.
Saturday
was a natural day to get up early, drive a couple of hours into British
Columbia, meander back down the coast along the Puget Sound, and end up at the
Seattle Center to enjoy all the remnants of the World’s Fair. That would leave
Sunday for my duties as a bishop and then most of Monday to visit some other
spots before they left Tuesday to see my brother in California. That just posed
one problem. My paper.
Now I ask
you to remember that this was not life-and-death, or at least it did not seem
so to me. For all intents and purposes, I could have caved in on the course,
and no one would have cared. But that somehow did not seem right to me. I was
plagued, if you will, with “missionary feelings.” So I made a deal with my
parents. If they would do all that I had outlined for Saturday with my wife, Pat,
and our son, Matt, who was then two, but minus me, I would have my paper
completely finished for the rest of their stay plus the promise of barbecued
steak, tossed green salad, garlic bread and baked potatoes by the time they got
back. With one proviso, of course—that my Dad leave me enough money to buy the
steak.
Well, they
were disappointed, and so was I, but it seemed the best thing to do. So they
played and I worked. I wrote and rewrote and shouted and tore up papers and
punched the typewriter and rewrote. It didn’t go as smoothly as I had hoped,
but it went. I finally got it into what seemed reasonably acceptable shape and
then threw myself (figuratively, of course) into the tossed green salad. Dad
had left a dollar or two, Pat had found some steaks at the store, and I had
started the coals on the grill, using part of the fury I was feeling over a
paragraph that wouldn’t work. But the paper was finished and the food was on
the table when they returned.
Now that isn’t much of a story except that it has made a great deal of
difference in my life. When I got that paper back from a teacher I didn’t like
much in a course I didn’t particularly enjoy, the professor had written just
five words. I think it was all he had said to me during the entire term: “Publishable paper.
See me sometime.”
 |
| Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut |
Well, the
aftermath doesn’t really matter either except to say that this professor turned
out to be, by sheer coincidence I suppose, a very close friend of a faculty
member in my intended department at Yale. And then one thing led to another,
and he wrote a note, saying, in effect, “You may want to consider this chap
even if you haven’t heard of St. George, Utah.” There were other contacts along
the way and other blessings that came, but my point is, again, sort of a missionary
point. With that paper that summer in a remote setting—remote at least in terms
of my ultimate plans—it made all the difference in the world for me to tract
just one more door before calling it a day. To have done otherwise certainly
would have been understandable and certainly would have been more enjoyable.
But it has made a wonderful difference in my life to have demanded just a bit
more of myself on that occasion.
Forgive me if I see this experience as being in the same category as
modest dress and attractive grooming and honesty on an exam, but I do. It is
something better than average effort, it is something a little harder than par,
it is something more rewarding in the long run. I ask you—for your sake and for
the untold future you now only dream of—to work hard, work early, be honest,
knock on one more door before quitting, stand out in the crowd through extra
effort and personal commitment. (Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, “Are
You True?” BYU Devotional, September 2, 1980)
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland was ordained a member of the
Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints on June 23, 1994. At the time of this call, Elder Holland was serving as
a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy, to which he had been called on
April 1, 1989. From 1980 until his call as a General Authority in 1989, Jeffrey
R. Holland served as the ninth president of Brigham Young University in Provo,
Utah. He is a former Church commissioner of education and dean of the College
of Religious Education at BYU. A student leader and varsity athlete at Dixie
High School and Dixie College in his native St. George, Utah, he received his
bachelor's and master's degrees in English and religious education,
respectively, from Brigham Young University. He obtained master's and doctor of
philosophy degrees in American Studies from Yale University. 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. He has served on the governing boards of a number of civic and business
related corporations and has received the “Distinguished Eagle Scout” award
from the Boy Scouts of America. He is the author of eight books, one of which
he co-authored with his wife, Patricia. Elder Holland was born December 3,
1940, to Frank D. and Alice Bentley Holland. In 1963, he married Patricia
Terry. They are the parents of three children, Matthew S. Holland, Mary H.
McCann and David F. Holland.
