The following is excerpted from the Church News. To read the full article, CLICK HERE.
Moments after being honored with the Rural Legacy Leader award during the One Utah Summit at Southern Utah University on Oct. 5, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland turned his thoughts to the poetic prose of Robert Frost.
“The land was ours before we were the land’s. She was our land more than a hundred years. Before we were her people. She was ours,” he recited.
The poem — spoken during the U.S. presidential inauguration of John F. Kennedy — references rural New England.
But Elder Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles thinks of his own youth in southern Utah when he hears those lines.
As a child, he took for granted the stunning red rock peaks and cliffs of Kolob, Zion and Snow canyons and of Cedar Breaks — set against a blue sky and the grandeur of the Pine Valley Mountains. He and his wife, Sister Patricia Terry Holland, still feel the pull of those colors and those lands. “Our identity is inseparable with the geology and terrain of southern Utah,” he said.
Legacy
Born just 35 miles apart in southern Utah, Elder and Sister Holland were high school sweethearts and married in the historic St. George Temple.
Elder Holland’s mother, Alice Bentley Holland, has pioneer roots in St. George.
To read the full article, CLICK HERE.
