A Great Man... Gordon B. Hinckley

I say this to other people: you develop all the good you can. We have no animosity toward any other church. We do not oppose other churches. We never speak negatively of other churches. We say to people: you bring all the good that you have, and let us see if we can add to it.

As many of you know the leader of our Church passed away this past Tuesday. The quote above is one of my favorite of his. He said this when he was on the Larry King live show. He was the one of the best men to ever walk the earth and touched more people and me then I ever knew. All of you who know me, know that I am somewhat shy about bearing my testimony, but I know that this man was our Prophet, I know that our church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, is true. We have some things in out past that people are always confused about and our former President gave me much stregnth and courage in trying to convey the truth about our faith and love. I want everyone to know that I will mourn the loss of such a great man, but look forward to continuing to try to make him proud.

“We must not be clannish. We must never adopt a holier-than-thou attitude. We must not be self-righteous. We must be magnanimous, and open, and friendly. We can keep our faith. We can practice our religion. We can cherish our method of worship without being offensive to others. I take this occasion to plead for a spirit of tolerance and neighborliness, of friendship and love toward those of other faiths.” (Pioneer Day Commemoration, July 2001).

The following is an excerpt from an article I found online:

On Monday morning this week, 12 hours after the passing of the 97-year-old leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, President Gordon B. Hinckley, an extraordinary and spontaneous thing happened.
Young teenagers in Salt Lake City began showing up for school that day, dressed not in their usual jeans and winter clothing, but in their “Sunday best.” Young men sat in classes in white shirts and ties, suits and coats.
Thousands of them did this, with no prompting from parents or other adults and to the surprise of teachers. The idea, it seems, started with a few and then spread at unbelievable speed through text messaging, child to child. This was their way of showing respect to a man seven times their age and several generations their senior. Such was the power of this one extraordinary leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to touch the lives of ordinary people.
I think President Hinckley would have liked the spontaneity and simplicity of that gesture.