Elder Richard G. Scott: “Well done, thou good and faithful servant”

I don’t believe that many who knew of him were surprised, and I suspect that he himself was delighted — he had yearned for his beloved Jeanene for more than twenty years, he’s been quite ill for some time, and he was (so I’ve heard) entirely willing, even eager, to go  — but it was still sad to hear of the passing of Elder Richard G. Scott:

“Elder Richard G. Scott Dies at Age 86”

“Elder Scott: The Mind of a Scientist, the Soul of an Apostle of God”

And we’re now in the position, unprecedented in my lifetime and perhaps without precedent since the expulsion from Nauvoo in 1846, of having three simultaneous vacancies in the Council of the Twelve.  That’s fully 25% of the quorum.  General conference is less than two weeks away, and important announcements seem inevitably to be on the near-term horizon.

Elder Scott’s distinctively soft voice and deliberate delivery at conferences of the Church, spoken directly into the camera, were among his signature characteristics.

I don’t know how many of the Saints know this, but Elder Scott pre-recorded each of his conference talks in both Spanish and Portuguese.  And his very deliberately paced delivery represented his attempt to match the speed of those recordings, which — I believe I was told — he had playing in his ear while addressing the live audience.  He wanted each of the Saints in Spain, Portugal, and Latin America to hear his counsel and testimony in his own voice and (this was the point of his earnest gaze into the camera) as personally addressed to them.

Elder Scott was a kind and gentle man, a caring and loving man, and he will be missed here.  But his well-deserved reunion with Jeanene must have been glorious.  May God bless them and their family, forever.

Posted from Nauvoo, Illinois