Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

Quotes By Elder Jeffery R. Holland

Called in 1994, Elder Jeffery R. Holland currently serves as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Elder Holland has authored many books including, Broken Things to Mend and To Mothers: Carrying the Torch of Faith and Family. Elder Holland is known for his quick wit, his tender approach toward gospel topics, and his extensive knowledge of English literature.

Elder Jeffery R. Holland of the LDS church

“One of our national associates in this fight [against pornography] wrote, ‘When I ask men who are sex addicts if they would want their wife or daughter to be in porn, 100 percent say, “No.” They want it to be somebody else’s wife or daughter.”

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland | "Broken Things to Mend"

Topics: Pornography

“My brothers and sisters, the first great commandment of all eternity is to love God with all of our heart, might, mind, and strength—that’s the first great commandment. But the first great truth of all eternity is that God loves us with all of His heart, might, mind, and strength. That love is the foundation stone of eternity, and it should be the foundation stone of our daily life. Indeed it is only with that reassurance burning in our soul that we can have the confidence to keep trying to improve, keep seeking forgiveness for our sins, and keep extending that grace to our neighbor.”

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland | “Tomorrow the Lord Will Do Wonders among You”

Topics: Commandments, Nature of God, Truth

“In zone conferences, which are some of the greatest teaching moments we as General Authorities have with these young elders and sisters, I have asked missionaries what it is they want investigators to do as a result of their discussions with them.

“Be baptized!” is shouted forward in an absolute chorus…

“I don’t always run through this little exercise in a zone conference, but sometimes I do. And I have to say that almost never do the missionaries get around to identifying the two most fundamental things we want investigators to do prior to baptism: have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and repent of their sins. Yet ‘we believe that the first principles and ordinances of the Gospel are: first, Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; second, Repentance; [then] third, Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; fourth, Laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost.’”

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland | Missionary Work and the Atonement

Topics: Baptism, Missionary Work & Preparation

“Most people in trouble end up crying, ‘What was I thinking?’ Well, whatever they were thinking, they weren’t thinking of Christ. Yet, as members of His Church, we pledge every Sunday of our lives to take upon ourselves His name and promise to ‘always remember him.’ So let us work a little harder at remembering Him.”

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland | Place No More For the Enemy of My Soul, April 2010 General Conference

Topics: Pornography, Remembrance, Sacrament

“Remember the real thing. Remember how urgently you have needed help in earlier times and that you got it. The Red Sea will open to the honest seeker of revelation. The adversary does not have power to hedge up the way, to marshal Pharaoh’s forces and dog our escape right to the water’s edge, but he can’t produce the real thing. He cannot conquer if we will it otherwise. “Exerting all our powers to call upon God,” the light will again come, the darkness will again retreat, the safety will again be sure. That is lesson number one about crossing the Red Sea, your Red Seas, by the spirit of revelation.”

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland | Cast Not Away Therefore Your Confidence, BYUDA 3/99

Topics: Personal Revelation, Remembrance

“You’re the most prayed for people on the face of the earth. I really believe that. I do not believe, collectively speaking, that there is any body of people that’s any collective circle of individuals are prayed for on the face of the earth than the LDS missionaries.”

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland | “The Miracle of a Mission”

Topics: Missionary Work & Preparation

“Why is lust such a deadly sin? Well, in addition to the completely Spirit-destroying impact it has upon our souls, I think it is a sin because it defiles the highest and holiest relationship God gives us in mortality—the love that a man and a woman have for each other and the desire that couple has to bring children into a family intended to be forever. Someone said once that true love must include the idea of permanence. True love endures. But lust changes as quickly as it can turn a pornographic page or glance at yet another potential object for gratification walking by, male or female. True love we are absolutely giddy about—as I am about Sister Holland; we shout it from the housetops. But lust is characterized by shame and stealth and is almost pathologically clandestine—the later and darker the hour the better, with a double-bolted door just in case. Love makes us instinctively reach out to God and other people. Lust, on the other hand, is anything but godly and celebrates self-indulgence. Love comes with open hands and open heart; lust comes with only an open appetite.”

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland | Place No More For the Enemy of My Soul, April 2010 General Conference

Topics: Chastity, Love, Pornography

Sisters and brothers, through the incessant din and drumbeat of our day, may we strive to see Christ at the center of our lives, of our faith, and of our service. That is where true meaning lies.

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland | The Message, the Meaning, and the Multitude

Topics: General Conference 2019, Priorities, Purpose

“The future of this world has long been declared; the final outcome between good and evil is already known. There is absolutely no question as to who wins because the victory has already been posted on the scoreboard. The only really strange thing in all of this is that we are still down here on the field trying to decide which team’s jersey we want to wear!”

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland | "We Are All Enlisted," Conference October 2011

Topics: Agency, Discipleship

Let me suggest another matter on this whole subject of early, powerful, doctrinal declarations of Christ. I am intrigued that more than four-fifths of the Book of Mormon – 86 percent by actual page count – comes out of a period before Christ’s personal appearance to the Nephites in his resurrected state. I am deeply moved by that simple little statistic. I am profoundly touched by it. What faith! And what a way to teach us faith. You and I are expected to have faith in a Christ who has already come and lived and walked and talked and been crucified and resurrected. And we have witnesses, believers and non-believers, who saw him and heard him, who touched the hem of his garment on one day and felt the wounds in his hands and feet and side on another.

But these early Book of Mormon people? This keystone record of ours? It deals in remarkable faith of a very special kind, greater, it seems to me, than you and I are asked to exert. They had (at least 458 pages worth of them had) not a Christ who had come in the flesh but only the trust and consummate hope that such a Christ would come – far in the future and after most of them were dead. What godly, believing, stalwart people. I am moved to the center of my soul. And I feel ashamed for our post-advent generations who have so many witnesses and so much evidence but still do not wish to believe.

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland | BYU Symposium on the Book of Mormon, 9 August 1994

Topics: Book of Mormon, Jesus Christ