President Gordon B. Hinckley died yesterday. I just wanted to say how grateful I am for his service and how happy I am that he is able to be back with his wife. I will miss him but I know that he finished his work here and deserves a rest.
In the Salt Lake Tribune, an article stated that, "He dazzled people - members and outsiders alike - with his encyclopedic memory and almost superhuman work ethic. During his nearly 13 years as president, Hinckley gave more than 2,000 speeches, visited more than 150 countries, and greeted hundreds of diplomats and ambassadors. He was interviewed by journalists from nearly every major American newspaper, charming many with his folksy wisdom and self-deprecating humor.
"Treat me well," he would say with a sly grin. "I'm just an old man."
Yet even in his 90s, the figure Mormons consider a "prophet, seer and revelator" rarely thought like an old man.
"His keen intellect and thirst to understand how everything works resulted in a storehouse of knowledge that will be nearly irreplaceable," said Elder Marlin Jensen, the church's official historian. "I believe he was a true prophet but it didn't hurt that he was a genius, too."
I too know that he was a prophet, a seer and revelator and feel grateful to have him in my life.
