Remembering President Boyd K. Packer

Last Friday night, about an hour before the missionaries came over to the house for our weekly correlation meeting  (our last one for the next three weeks as we will be on vacation), we received a phone call asking if we had heard the news of President Boyd K. Packer's passing—we had not.  At first I went to the Church’s website, but being that many people had been given July 3rd off, there was no update on the website.  I then clicked over to the Deseret News website and came across an article confirming that President Packer, President of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles, had died earlier in the day.  My initial reaction was shock, how could it not (this isn’t the sort of news one expects to confront, especially so soon after Elder Perry's death), but, at the same time, I wasn't completely surprised because of the way he looked during his April conference address.

Elder Boyd K. Packer was called as an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ at the April general conference of 1970.  Before then, he had served as an Assistant to the Twelve (a calling that has been discontinued) since 1961.  As I read these facts, it dawned on me that President Packer had been serving as a General Authority of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for longer than I have been alive.  This coming October, will be the first time in my lifetime that I will participate in a general conference of the Church and will not hear him deliver a message—a sobering thought for me.  After our missionary correlation meeting ended and we had read scriptures as a family, we talked about President Packer for a while and I mentioned this fact to my family.  I will rejoice in the new callings of brethren to fill the vacancies in the Quorum of the Twelve, but I think a part of me will be melancholy about not seeing or hearing from President Packer (or Elder Perry).  He was (still is, really) a master teacher and I will miss being taught by him.

When I consider of some of the talks that had a major impact on my youth, I find that many of them were spoken by President Packer.  Since he was a seminary teacher, he had an affinity for gearing many of his talks, in whole or in part, to the youth of the Church.  An example of this is “Spiritual Crocodiles” given in April of 1976.  I defy anyone who was a youth of that era to tell me they’ve never heard at least a part of this talk. J  After equating spiritual crocodiles to the real animals he was shown in Africa, Elder Packer said, “These spiritual crocodiles can kill or mutilate your souls. They can destroy your peace of mind and the peace of mind of those who love you. Those are the ones to be warned against, and there is hardly a watering place in all of mortality now that is not infested with them” (lds.org/general-conference/1976/04/).  Nearly 40 years later, that infestation has become a plague, but he has helped us to see where they are hiding.

Another talk that was drummed into me (I’ll admit, it felt ad nauseam when I was younger because it seemed like the ready answer whenever the topic of “bad thoughts” arose in a youth class) came from the address “Inspiring Music, Worthy Thoughts” given in October of 1973.  Whenever the quote: “The mind is like a stage. Except when we are asleep the curtain is always up. There is always some act being performed on that stage. It may be a comedy, a tragedy, interesting or dull, good or bad; but always there is some act playing on the stage of the mind” (lds.org/general-conference/1973/10/) arose I knew we’d be talking about memorizing “I Am a Child of God” or some other hymn to help in overcoming those thoughts.  Mark Twain is quoted as saying, “When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years” (website link).  There is definite truth to that statement.  Unfortunately, it is a truth that holds for both parents and leaders.  I see Elder Packer’s wisdom so much more now than I did back when I was a youth.

Of course, another talk that is turned to quite often when one attempts to describe what Jesus has accomplished for us through His Atonement is found in “The Mediator,” an address given in April of 1977.  The parable offered by Elder Packer in that talk is wonderful and it does so much to help the listener truly understand the impact of the Savior in his or her life.  That was point.  In prefacing his remarks, Elder Packer stated, “I have not, to my knowledge, in my ministry said anything more important. I intend to talk about the Lord, Jesus Christ, about what He really did—and why it matters now” (lds.org/general-conference/1977/04/).

From these references I’ve given so far, you’d think all the great talks Elder Packer gave were in the ‘70s.  As I mentioned above, these talks were given during my years as a youth and had an influence for good (except for when my eyes would glaze over whenever someone began: “The mind is like a stage”) in my life.  Elder Packer, and then President Packer, had plenty to say throughout his ministry as an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ.  He was unwavering and uncompromising in his teaching of the gospel.  In his later years (and probably in his earlier years, I just never heard about it), it seemed that every time he gave a talk in general conference some person or group was offended and up in arms about what he had said.  Perhaps this is why the New York Times in their story concerning his passing called President Packer “a vigorous advocate for a highly conservative strain of Mormonism” (whatever that's supposed to mean).

Like Nephi, however, President Packer didn’t speak those things that were “pleasing unto the world ..., but the things which [were] pleasing unto God” (1 Nephi 6:5); he would testify of Jesus Christ, His restored gospel and “why it matters now” (for examples see here and here).  Why would he endure the slings and arrows to do so?  The answer, I believe, is found in a talk I watched with Isaac later in the evening of July 3rd.  Everyone had gone to bed.  By then there were more articles on the Deseret News website, so I was taking the time to read them when Isaac came back into the living room.  He had been reading in his bedroom and had stopped to fill up his water bottle.  He asked me what I was reading and after I told him he started asking more questions about President Packer and my statement from earlier in the evening.  Eventually, in response to a question, I said, “You have known President Packer as an older man.  Would you like to see how I saw him when I was younger?”  Isaac did and I pulled up the earliest general conference video I could find.  It was a talk titled “The Spirit Beareth Record” from April of 1971—one year after Elder Packer had been called as an Apostle.  I clicked play and as he came to the podium to begin his address, I turned to Isaac and said, “That’s the man I remember as a boy.”

As we continued watching the address, however, I came to realize that what we were watching was more than just a video of Elder Packer with dark hair, standing at the podium; we were listening to him bear his testimony of Jesus Christ.  At the end of his talk, Elder Boyd K. Packer testified: “Now, I wonder with you why one such as I should be called to the holy apostleship. There are so many qualifications that I lack. There is so much in my effort to serve that is wanting. As I have pondered on it, I have come to only one single thing, one qualification in which there may be cause, and that is, I have that witness.

        “I declare to you that I know that Jesus is the Christ. I know that he lives. He was born in the meridian of time. He taught his gospel, was tried, was crucified. He rose on the third day. He was the first fruits of the resurrection. He has a body of flesh and bone. Of this I bear testimony. Of him I am a witness.”

From then until his final conference address this last April (45 years after being called as an Apostle), he has borne this witness in different ways, in many settings, and throughout the world.  He felt he was an ordinary man serving in the calling he had been given to the best of his ability (see this address).  As I think about him and all of us striving to be perfect in trying, I am reminded of my favorite quote from President Packer found in the Temple Preparation lessons: “When you come to the temple and receive your endowment, and kneel at the altar and be sealed, you can live an ordinary life and be an ordinary soul—struggling against temptation, failing and repenting, and failing again and repenting, but always determined to keep your covenants. … Then the day will come when you will receive the benediction: ‘Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things; enter thou into the joy of thy lord’ (Matthew 25:21)” (Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled [1991], 257).

I think I am safe in saying that he has heard this benediction.  It is my hope that I can live my ordinary life is such a way that I can be the recipient of this same benediction. J