A Prophet of God

March 17, 2008

With President Hinckley's passing I reflected on a personal experience years ago with him. If I remember correctly Bob and I had driven Debbie (my sister) to the airport for a flight back to BYU. This was before we were married - and back in the day when you could sit at the gate and wait - even if you weren't flying. So as we approached the gate Bob said rather loudly, "HEY! That guy over there looks just like President Hinckley!" Well - as we all looked we realized it was. So we huddled for a moment wondering if we should approach him or leave him alone. As I recall he was reading his scriptures and there were a couple of bodyguards sitting nearby. Clearly we decided that we couldn't pass up a once in a lifetime opportunity and we decided to say hello. We were still some distance away but immediately as we began to walk towards him he stood up and extended his hand - and he said with a twinkle in his eye "I wondered when you were going to come over!" We had forgotten that we all had BYU shirts on! It was a dead give-a-way! The things I remember about that experience were how so many people were hurrying by - unaware that the living prophet of God was sitting a few feet away from them. I was also struck at how kind he was - how he stood to meet us before we even got close and extended his hand to us and made us feel welcome - even though we were intruding on his peaceful moment of sitting there. I always enjoyed his humor and grandfatherly ways when he spoke and more than that - I know he was truly a prophet of God.