Elder Robert D. Hales (1932-2017)

I’m sorry to note that Elder Robert D. Hales of the Council of the Twelve has died:

“Elder Robert D. Hales Dies at Age 85”

It wasn’t really unexpected, I suppose; he’s been in poor health for quite some time.

Elder Hales wasn’t flashy.  He was quiet.  But he was solid.  And his contributions were considerable.  Someone shared an experience with him online a few days ago, when it was announced that he was entering the hospital.

The person telling the story said that he encountered Elder Hales in an elevator at Church headquarters and commented that the apostle looked tired, that it must have been a long day.  Elder Hales replied that his doctor had told him that he could only work half-days now.  So, he said, “about twelve hours.”

***

In that connection, permit me to share some more quotations about near-death experiences:

The whole thing . . . oh, there was the light, and there seemed to be soft, soft, soft . . . you couldn’t really hear it, you more felt this music.  It . . . it was soft, and immaculately beautiful.  There was, I guess there’s no way to really describe it.  There was a feeling of peace, beauty, love, and . . . it just felt like this is what I want.  This is the ultimate.[1]

Suddenly, I became aware of a light.  It was all around me, it enveloped me, it completely surrounded me.  It was an unearthly kind of light.  It had color that is unmatched here on earth.  It was not a beam of sunlight; it was not the glow from a 100-watt bulb; it was not a roaring fire; it was not a host of candles; it was not a celestial explosion in the midnight sky.

It was warm; it was radiant; it was peaceful; it was accepting; it was forgiving; it was completely nonjudgmental; and it gave me a sense of total security the likes of which I had never known.  I loved it.  It was perfection; it was total, unconditional love.  It was anything and everything you would wish for on earth.  It was all there, in the Light.[2]

At the Resurrection the righteous are light,

for their clothing is splendour, their garments brightness;

they become their own light, providing it themselves.[3]

[1] From the account of “Lois Clark,” as given in Arvin S. Gibson, Glimpses of Eternity: New Near-Death Experiences Examined (Bountiful: Horizon Publishers, 1992), 49.

[2]From the account of “Nel,” as given in Kenneth Ring and Evelyn Elsaesser Valarino, Lessons from the Light: What We Can Learn from the Near-Death Experience (Portsmouth, NH: Moment Point Press, 2000), 189.

[3] Text 7, Stanza 11, from Sebastian P. Brock and George A. Kiraz, trans. and eds., Select Poems of St. Ephrem (Provo: Brigham Young University Press).