Book #47: The Biography of Gordon B. Hinckley: Go Forward with Faith by Sheri L. Dew

I've been thinking about reading this book forever. I took it from my parents' house before they moved so that I would actually start it, and then it sat on my bedside stand for three months. I loved reading about President Hinckley and learning more about his character and personality. I was surprised by how many of the stories or anecdotes in the book I was already familiar with, like he had told them in Conference talks or people had included them in lessons in church that I have heard.

Things I loved learning about President Hinckley:

-How hardworking he was. He really valued a strong work ethic and had one himself. He may have been a sort of workaholic, but he was always dedicated, particularly since he saw himself as working to further the work of the Church.
-He built their entire house with his own hands. He was extremely handy and knew how to do everything, from the plumbing to electrical, etc. He was constantly making up projects and remodeling their house just for fun or for major events. He would take down walls and put them back up for any little reason.
-He came home from his mission in England and went to report to the First Presidency on something for his mission president (asking for more and better missionary materials). Then he thought he would apply to journalism school back East. But two days later, the First Presidency asked him to work for the Church and be in charge of the project he had proposed to them--and to be their main PR guy. He basically became the PR and missionary departments at the Church headquarters. And he worked for the Church for the rest of his life (except for two years during WWII when he worked for the railroads). This really prepared him to be a leader later because he knew every aspect of the Church and its functions.
-He spent many years traveling to Asia and getting to know the people there, in Hong Kong, Korea, the Philippines, and all over. He went to tiny towns and talked to individual members, and he saw their sufferings and their lives. He may have only lived in Salt Lake City his whole life, but he was very aware of the issues of the world.
-His sweet relationship with his wife. He always wanted her to travel with him, even when they had young kids at home, and he hated being separated from her. They were a completely equal partnership (even though he didn't do all that much of the parenting at home, because he was always gone)--he never tried to tell her what to do. Pretty awesome when they got married in the Great Depression.
-He was very humble. He was very shaken every time he was called one step up the chain of command--when he was called to be an Assistant to the Twelve, then an apostle, then second counselor in the First Presidency, then first counselor, then of course when he became the prophet. Every time was very nerve-wracking and scary to him, and he struggled with a lot of self-doubt and concern. But he always felt relieved reminding himself that it was the Lord's church and not himself that mattered. He didn't love it when people would all stand when he'd come into the room and sing "We Thank Thee, O God, for a Prophet", because he didn't want all the attention. He struggled with the loneliness of leadership and being separate from everyone else, especially in the First Presidency and as prophet. It's so interesting/nice to know that even the prophet has moments of self-doubt.

I was disappointed in this book for several reasons though. First, it was published right after he became President of the Church, so it only covered about 18 months of his term as President. I didn't realize that when I started reading it, and I wished it went longer because I wanted to learn more about the years in which I remembered him as prophet. He is the only prophet I remember as a child (although I was six or seven when he became prophet, so I should probably have remembered Presidents Hunter or Benson) and I was disappointed that I didn't get to read more about what he did as prophet. I was also disappointed that this book was so focused on what he did every year. It seemed like there was so much minutiae about every trip he took and every assignment he had that it dragged a lot. I didn't feel like this format gave me as much information about what he was really thinking or feeling, like you usually get from biographies. (Probably part of the reason of that was that he was still alive while she was writing/publishing this, and he didn't want the book to be written anyways, so he may not have wanted it to get too personal.) But it felt like she just got a hold of his calendar and journal from his whole career and just expounded on everything he did each year. It really was dry. I feel like it might have been more interesting if she'd had a whole chapter just on his trips to Asia over the years instead of every chapter talking about another trip to Asia, and another trip to Asia, and another trip to Asia. All of them sounded the same and all of them were a ton of work and he loved the people there, yadda yadda yadda. That might have been an abnormal format for a biography but it would have helped to keep it feel like it was dragging.