[MUSIC PLAYING: "PRESS FORWARD,
SAINTS"] [applause] Good evening, everyone! Welcome to the Conference
Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. Tonight we're gathered
to celebrate a landmark in the life of President
Russell M. Nelson, President of The Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints. We're honored to be joined
by President and Sister Nelson and their family, as
well as President Dallin H. Oaks and President Henry B. Eyring
of the First Presidency, members of the Quorum
of the Twelve Apostles, General Authorities and
General Officers of the Church, and their families. We extend a special
welcome to government, civic, and religious
leaders of many faiths. And we are especially
delighted to be celebrating with all of you! President, welcome home
to you and Sister Nelson after another remarkable
international trip, this time to Central
and South America. We are glad you're home safely. [applause] President, you just
never stop, do you? We're all trying to
keep up with you. Ruth and I, along with
our support staff, have run some
unofficial numbers. Since you have been
the prophet, a little over a year and a half, you
have traveled over 90,000 miles. You have also been
in 28 countries and by our count have met
with more than 100 world and religious leaders. And here is something
really profound: you have spoken to more than
one million members and friends in audiences all
around the world. [applause] President, there is no
question--you have brought happiness and hope to so many. You are helping us strive to
find enduring joy through Jesus Christ. This is certainly a
joyous occasion tonight, so thank you for
letting us share this special evening with you. How appropriate that we begin
with an opening prayer offered by your son, Russell
M. Nelson Jr. Our most kind and
gracious Heavenly Father, we are grateful to be
gathered here tonight to celebrate the birthday,
the life, and example of our dear prophet,
President Russell M. Nelson. We're grateful to
all those who have made this evening
possible, and ask Thee to bless them for their efforts. Please bless the performers,
the technicians, and all those involved
tonight, that they may perform to
their best abilities and in a manner
pleasing unto Thee. We're grateful for all the
many blessings Thou dost bestow upon us so generously. And we say these
things in the name of Thy Son, Jesus Christ, amen. Thank you, Russ. On September 9, 1924--95
years ago next Monday--Marion and Edna Nelson
welcomed a nine-pound, 11-ounce baby boy
into the world. The name they gave him
was Russell Marion Nelson. He was a child of a
true pioneer heritage. Between 1855 and 1863, all eight
of his great-grandparents had joined the Savior's restored
Church--The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints--and
gathered from Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and England all the
way to the tiny pioneer outpost of Ephraim, Utah. The verdant landscapes
of Scandinavia and the British Isles
were very different from the desert
wilderness of Utah. But President Nelson's
ancestors were not drawn to a familiar landscape. They were drawn to the
tops of the mountains, as Isaiah prophesied. With Jesus Christ's
gospel in their hearts, they "[came] with
singing unto Zion," and the hills and valleys were
alive with their joyful songs. Please welcome Jenny Oaks Baker
and her children, Family Four, performing a medley
from The Sound of Music. [applause] [JENNY OAKS BAKER AND FAMILY:
THE SOUND OF MUSIC MEDLEY] [applause] The word father, to my dad, I
think, is his highest calling. He oftentimes has said,
"There are Twelve Apostles, but you only have one daddy." And he takes that
responsibility very seriously. He has never made
us feel like he was too busy to be our father. He and my mother worked
together to help us all feel really important. My parents met at the
University of Utah at a rehearsal for a play. Daddy was busy studying and
had his nose in his books, and Mother was up singing. And he noticed her. He took his nose out of
the book and looked at her and said, "Who is that girl?" Growing up in the Nelson
household was fun. Imagine living with
your best friends and having wonderful parents. It was always fun. We enjoyed being home together. We did a cross-country
camping trip to go to the New York World's
Fair, and we just played. It's one thing that I am in awe
about my mother and my father, is how much they taught
us without actually saying anything. Just by the way they
lived their lives, the way they taught
the gospel in our home. We learned love. We learned respect and how we
want to be like the Savior. Our number-one goal is to
return to live with our Heavenly Father. I know my father
was really busy, but I never really realized it. He had a great way of
making time and making us know that we were important. Sunday mornings, my mom was
gone to sing in the Tabernacle Choir. He had the responsibility
of getting nine girls ready for church and out the door on
time, and he did it with love. He loved and
cherished my mother. And he was very supportive of
her--she was a wonderful singer and a wonderful musician--and
always encouraged her to be who she was. [choir singing] One of my favorite things
about being President Nelson's grandson is that I get to
see him in constant motion. He is always moving;
he has endless energy. But he always has time to pull
us aside individually and see how we are doing. In the fifth grade, I
remember an experience where we were asked to
do a report on our hero, and I choose my
Grandfather Nelson. And in the end, our heroes were
invited to come to an assembly, I didn't think he would
be able to make it. He was such a busy man. But I asked him to come, and he
came and stood right next to me as I gave my report and
spoke about him as my hero. To be around Grandfather
is just to feel love and to feel just like you
are the most important thing in the world to him. And I remember, as
a young grandchild, they had a riding lawn mower. It was like we'd get in line
in the back of the house to go sit on Grandfather's lap
and take a lap around the yard as he mowed. He's always there for
you when you need him. He made it look easy. He made being a
father look easy. And now as a father
myself, I'm realizing all that he did do for
us and everything he was able to accomplish. So for me it's meant a lot. I was the only son, and now
I have four boys of my own. And so it's been a great thing
to be able to pass that along to them, and I hope I've
done a good job doing that. [FAMILY SINGING "HAPPY
BIRTHDAY"] Happy birthday, Daddy--95 years. You are amazing. You are a great example to
me and to the whole world. We are grateful
for you and for all that you do, for the love and
the tenderness that you show. We love you. Happy birthday, Grandfather! [applause] Well, as you can see,
President Nelson's life has certainly been filled
with joy in his family. Of course, it wasn't all easy. For each of us, it
is the Savior who strengthens us to
"stand on mountains" and "walk on stormy seas." Here to sing "You Raise Me Up,"
please welcome Donny Osmond. [applause] [DONNY OSMOND: "YOU RAISE ME
UP"] [applause] Thank you, Donny. President Nelson is
always lifting us. He is such a powerful leader! It is interesting serving
at Church headquarters with my last name, Nielsen,
and the prophet's last name, Nelson. It gets even more interesting
when my wife's name is Wendy and his wife's name is Wendy. Because of how changing our
assignments can be around here, we have all of our
mail sent to my office. Many of our bills are put
in my wife, Wendy's, name. Not long ago, I was
walking down the hallway and President Nelson was
coming the other way. He greeted me and then
said, "Giff, this morning I just about paid
your power bill!" [laughter] He continued, "Then
I took a closer look, and it was your Wendy's name on
the bill instead of my Wendy." So my first thought was, "Do
you still have the check? I want to frame it." I was taught once again
an important lesson--that our prophet is all about
adding power to our lives, in more ways than one. [laughter] [applause] President, you are
such a blessing to us! And speaking of blessings,
please welcome Gentri, singing "Come, Thou
Fount of Every Blessing." [applause] [GENTRI: "COME, THOU FOUNT OF
EVERY BLESSING"] [applause] In 1956, Dr. Nelson did the
first open-heart surgery in the state of Utah. At that time, the main challenge
was actually open-heart. There had been
closed-heart surgery done, but the problem was, as soon
as you open up the heart, there's a lot of blood in it. And what are you supposed
to do with that blood? And that blood is meant
to go through your lungs to get oxygen and then go
to the rest of your body, to your brain, to
deliver oxygen. And so we had to figure
out a way, "How do you support the patient's
circulation while not having the heart do any of the work?" And so that was the development
of what we call today the heart-lung machine. Dr. Nelson, in his time
when he was up in Minnesota, worked with John Kirklin
and Walt Lillehei. And these people were at the
forefront of the technology. When he came into
medical school, he would have been
told that the heart is an organ that you don't touch. But I think he just recognized
that there's problems here. "This is what we need. I'm going to do what
I need to do to help move the field forward." He laid it upon himself as
a challenge in the attempt to try to help others that
had sufferable disease that could not otherwise be faced. It turns out that when he
came back to Utah in the '50s and did this operation in
1956, Utah was just really the third state in the country
to do open-heart surgery. It had such a huge impact. Somebody could get a heart
valve replaced rather than die. Or a child that
would otherwise die, because they couldn't get
blood flow through the lungs, was able to get an operation
that allowed them to live. These are pretty profound
things that happened. He was a part of that
history of what we all today just take for absolute granted. I did a heart
surgery this morning, and I didn't even think
twice about the fact that I was putting someone
on the heart-lung machine. And it was because of him. Being a part of
that original team has to be considered
a key accomplishment. But from then on, there were
multiple accomplishments. He's a master surgeon, and
his results were phenomenal. He had this particular
way of putting a tube into the pulmonary vein. And he told me that
would always work. Stick with it. Well, as I got more proficient
at whatever I was doing, one day I was operating with
him, and I put that stitch in. And I thought, "I can
improve that a little by just sort of
incorporating more tissue and making a circular stitch." And he just stopped
me, and he said, "Do it the way I told you, and
you'll never get into trouble." And he's right. I've done that particular
maneuver the same way that he taught me for the
next, what, over 40 years now. And it's always worked. The thing that Dr.
Nelson is most noted for within the
academic environment is the fact that
he was the program director of the training program
for future heart surgeons. He was a born teacher. He loved to teach. And he just had a
unique skill at it. I've heard many people say
that it was a different feeling in his operating room. He never was degrading
but wanted everyone to know that they added
an important part. For a young resident, it
was a very tense time, coming into the operating room
and knowing how high the stakes were if you made a mistake. But Dr. Nelson had a way
of just calming you down. And even if you made a mistake,
he would very carefully explain how you did that
wrong and maybe a better way would be to do it this
way the next time. And it just sort
of encouraged you to do it better than
you had done before. He held multiple
national positions. And he was right there in
that group that were doing, every day, something that
was moving the needle that we cannot even come close
to moving right now. I'm very grateful
for the privilege it's been to be
one who could make a contribution in medicine. True, he was a great scientist,
a phenomenal clinician, but he always carried
with him that aura of being a man who
really had faith. I think he projected
that to his patients. It gave them confidence to
put their lives in his hands. For us as physicians and
surgeons, the Dr. Nelson piece we actually don't separate from
the President Nelson piece, because we think that the two
are pretty close together. You know, we look
to him and the way that he's conducted his
life, the way that he was a physician and a surgeon. We strive to be like that. Well, Dr. Nelson, I
certainly wish you a very happy 95th birthday. You've done so many
great things in your life and have been so important
to so many people, me being one of them. It's been an honor to be
able to have learned from you in every aspect of life. And I just can't thank
you enough for what you have meant to me and my career. [applause] [CHOIR: "HIS VOICE AS THE
SOUND"] [applause] As his colleagues
regularly observed, Dr. Nelson's achievements in
medicine express a deeper, spiritual impulse to seek and
find that which is "virtuous, lovely, ... of good report
[and] praiseworthy." As a boy, President
Nelson rode the streetcar to the Salt Lake public
library and spent his days reading books. That same enthusiasm
for learning has helped him gain a
variety of skills and talents that have enriched his
own life and certainly blessed so many others, such
as studying new languages, skiing with his
family, and playing the piano and the organ. And now we have a
surprise for you. President Nelson will now
play "Prelude in C Minor" by Chopin--one of his favorites. [applause] [PRESIDENT NELSON: "PRELUDE IN C
MINOR"] [applause] President, you are a perfect
example of magnifying talents. Thank you for that. President Nelson's
many achievements are not only the result of
busy days and hard work. He has also sought the help
of heaven both day and night. Seeking through the night is
the subject of Puccini's aria "Nessun Dorma"--or in
English, "No One Sleeps." Please welcome tenor
Nathan Pacheco. [applause] [NATHAN PACHECO: "NESSUN DORMA"
FROM TURANDOT] [applause] Wow! Through his work
as a heart surgeon, President Nelson has been
a disciple and a witness that because of Jesus Christ,
it is well with our souls. [CHOIR: "IT IS WELL WITH MY
SOUL"] [applause] My beloved associates in the
work of the Lord, as you know, there are two vacancies in the
Council of the Twelve Apostles. When Russell Nelson
and Dallin Oaks were announced to be members
of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles-- Russell M. Nelson
and Dallin H. Oaks. --I thought, "We have just
sustained future Presidents of the Church." That was a feeling I had because
I knew the depth of Russell M. Nelson. Now I understand fully that the
call to the holy apostleship is one of witness to the world
of the divinity of the Lord Jesus, the Christ. As a minister of the
gospel, he understood that he would go where
anybody chose to send him. His assignment was
to open the doors for the gospel of
Jesus Christ in Europe and in Eastern Europe. And he was in and out and
working with government leaders at the highest level. And he has such great
faith and believes in the power of
heaven and prayer that, to be candid with
you, many of the things that he was able to do
were heaven directed. When President Nelson
came to the Presidency, I think everyone
wondered, "Well, what's he going to be like? What are his characteristics?" I could have told them then. It would be
characterized by love. As the Lord's
prophet to the world, President Nelson brings the love
of God to all of God's children everywhere he goes. One of the striking things
about traveling with President Nelson, watching him, is
how he can speak to the one and to the ninety and
nine at the same time. And if you're keeping
the commandments of God, you will feel joy
every day of your life. He wants the people
to be joyful; he wants the Church
to be a blessing. And he himself is happy, and he
conveyed that stop after stop. He talks to kings, he
talks to prime ministers, he talks to everyone
with that same spirit. And part of it is
that he's so desirous that they will feel God's
love for them, that he does that in a way
that they just know that this is God's prophet. When we were in Rome for the
dedication of the new temple, we had the opportunity to have
an audience with Pope Francis. I was fortunate to be
his junior companion. The shaking of hands
between President Nelson and the Pope--there was
an almost immediate sense of brotherhood. When we locked arms, as I locked
arms with President Nelson--not as black and white, not
as Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or Baptist,
but as children of God who are about loving everybody whom we
have the occasion to minister to. For me an example of how
President Nelson relates on such a deep personal
basis was in Samoa. The plane landed,
and the distance from the airport to the
residence of the head of state was 17 miles. There was a fairly large
crowd as the cars came out of the airport. What we didn't expect is
that people would line the street for those 17 miles. What was remarkable for me is
that President Nelson leaned out the window and he waved
to every single one of them. Russell Nelson loves people. And so every picture
that you see, he's reaching out to the
people; he's reaching out to the little children;
he's holding little children in his arms. He loves people. He likes little people,
and he likes old people. And that makes it
possible for him to be a prophet to all of the people. And as a people, we need
to be looking and acting like true followers
of Jesus Christ. It's real, it's deep, it's
genuine, it's authentic. We were with a father who
had recently lost his wife, and the children and the father
were there in their deep grief, but also in their deep faith. President Nelson
embraced them, told them of God's love for them. And they knew that;
they felt that. It strengthened them. She'll be cheering for
you on the other side. She'll be close to you. I have been affected by
this remarkable quality of genuine love for me. He sees me as a fellow Apostle. He sees me as someone
who needs to work hard. He sees me as someone
who has assignments, and I need to go do them. But through that and behind
that and above all of that is that I know he loves me. And I want to be that way. I want to convey that to other
people--genuine affection, genuine love that marks
him as a true prophet, a disciple of Christ. We can all love each
other more and better, and we can take that lead
from Russell Marion Nelson. President Nelson, happy
birthday and many more to come. Happy birthday,
President Nelson. We love you. From all the people
you met while traveling with Elder and Sister
Holland, and from the bottom of my own personal heart,
happy, happy birthday! May you have many, many more. [applause] [choir: "alleluia"] [applause] Around the world, families feel
to sing "Alleluia" for a living prophet. We especially delight to
hear children and youth sing about following
you, President Nelson. Truly, it's a time of great
inclusiveness and dynamic energy in the work of
salvation--a time when everyone is needed and every
contribution counts. With this in mind, please
welcome the Bonner family and their new arrangement
created especially for tonight's
celebration: "Hallelujah, the Prophet's Medley." [applause] [BONNER FAMILY: SONGS OF THE
PROPHETS] [applause] And now it's time to sing a
song we all know by heart. Happy birthday,
President Nelson! [laughter] [THE BONNER FAMILY AND
CONGREGATION: "HAPPY BIRTHDAY"] [applause] Leave it to a little
child to make that happen. A hallmark of President
Nelson's ministry is his call to all God's
children everywhere. In his first message as
President of the Church, he spoke from the Salt
Lake Temple and said, "Our Father in Heaven
cherishes His children, and He wants [us each]
to return home to Him." That invitation comes to us
through the still, small voice of the Holy Ghost, always
softly and tenderly, even to the most weary among us. [choir: "softly and tenderly"] [applause] And now please welcome
back Donny Osmond and Nathan Pacheco. [applause] [DONNY OSMOND AND NATHAN
PACHECO: "THE PRAYER"] [applause] That was electric! Thank you, Donny and Nathan. They can sing, can't they? Yeah, one more time. [applause] Well, what a wonderful
evening this has been! As we have celebrated
tonight, our hearts have been drawn toward
our Savior Jesus Christ. We are so grateful that
President Russell Marion Nelson is called to be His
living prophet on the earth today. Happy birthday,
President Nelson. We love you. Happy birthday, President. [applause] [CHOIR: "GUIDE US, O THOU GREAT
JEHOVAH"] [applause] President Eyring,
this audience has heard a lot about President
Russell M. Nelson's professional accomplishments
and his remarkable service to the family and the
profession and the Church. Now we have an opportunity
to talk about some of our own observations. What comes first to your mind? Actually, if you'd just
asked me, "What's it like to be with him?" He has more love
for people, I think, than almost anybody I've
ever been around in my life. He's just remarkable. And I think you feel
that too, with me too, that he not only loves
us--he sees the best in us. He's interesting; he
sees good in people to a degree that's
really quite remarkable. That feeling of love also
comes out in the fact that he's such a good
listener to people. Every time you're with him. And he is good at understanding
the impact of decisions on a variety of different
people--the young, the single, the married, the aged. I'm always amazed. When decisions seem
to be administrative, he'll always think of the impact
on people--either the people of the Church, or you
as you sit with him. He's very concerned with how
it will affect the people. Exactly. And that raises another thing
that I've admired so in him, and that is that he is an
effective decision maker. Oh my. He's not a postponer. Never. Like a surgeon who must
make a decision right now and can't appoint a
committee to study it. Yeah. He is gifted at noticing when
we need to postpone a decision to get more facts. But for the most part, when
something comes before him, he decides it. And we love that. Even in our schedules, he
moves everything as rapidly. "Why not now?" whenever we have-- Sure. "If we're going to do
it, let's do it now." And one of the great things that
I admire about President Nelson is the way he unifies people
of different points of view and different levels of
experience and maturity. He finds the common ground. It's interesting. Whenever he meets people who
may be very different from him in their religious or
political beliefs or whatever, he has a feeling of--"You and
I have more in common than we have differences." I've found that he is my most
effective friend and associate in looking at a manuscript
I've written--perhaps 10 or 15 drafts. He can always find
a way to improve it. He's a master of the language. But he does it to himself too. It's fun to have him
offer you a chance to read one of his drafts. And it says "6th draft." And more than that, I've
seen a 13 or 15th draft. He always puts the
work of the Lord first. Always, yeah. When he was called, we saw
him put aside his prominence in saving hearts,
and reaching out to all members of the
Church and, indeed, to the whole world
in long-term service to the Lord in changing hearts. Changing. He's a heart healer. He's a heart healer
and a great one. And he's had that influence on
me, and I'm grateful for it. On all of us. We love him as a friend. Yes. And through him, we love his
companion, Wendy Watson Nelson, who enhances his service
in such a marvelous way. In a marvelous way. This wonderful experience of
visiting with you about this, I think, has helped
me understand how much we appreciate him
and how much his life has meant to us and how much we hope
it goes on a long, long time. And so we often say, "Happy
birthday and many more." I think we say that. Let us say that
to him right now. President Nelson, happy
birthday and many, many more. Amen. We love you. [applause] My dear, precious
family and friends, I am totally overcome with
feelings of love and gratitude. I cannot adequately thank
the many who have planned and performed for us tonight. Please know of my
heartfelt feelings of appreciation and affection! I thank you all most sincerely. I reflect upon those who
have made my life possible. I am ever so grateful
for my petite mother, who entered the valley of
the shadow of death to give birth to
this baby boy, who weighed in at nearly 10 pounds. [laughter] I am ever grateful for
a father who taught me to respect and honor womanhood. He also taught me the
importance of education and the joy of rendering service
of worth for other people. I am thankful for my teachers
through these many years. They have insisted on
excellence of effort and a continuing
search for truth, whether it comes from
a scientific laboratory or by revelation from heaven. Truth is truth. To my dear wife Dantzel--the
mother of our 10 children--I am eternally grateful. She embodied all the
attributes of a devoted wife and saintly mother. Our dear children have always
been a credit to their parents. They have prayerfully sought to
know the will of our Heavenly Father. Now they have children and
grandchildren of their own. Two of our 10
children have already completed their sojourn
here in mortality and now live on the
other side of the veil. Perhaps they and their mother
each received a "hall pass" to witness this event tonight. [laughter] To my beloved wife Wendy,
I express my profound love and deep appreciation. Wendy is a devoted
servant of the Lord, willing to fulfill any
challenge in His holy work. She is a great blessing
to me, our family, and to the entire Church. To my counselors, President
Oaks and President Eyring; our colleagues in the Quorum
of the Twelve Apostles, the Seventy, the Bishopric;
our General Officers; each member of The Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; and to our many choice
friends not of our faith, I express my deep feelings
of love and appreciation. It is a great privilege
to serve beside you throughout the world. These colorful flags
represent the many nations where our members reside. Every day of my life, I thank
my Heavenly Father--in the name of Jesus Christ--for the gift
of life and the privilege of serving His children. On occasions past when my
mortal life was in grave danger, They intervened with help that
only They could have delivered. Jesus the Christ is literally
my Savior, my Redeemer, my Exemplar and Friend. In this celebration
tonight, efforts have been made to depict
the influence of the Lord in my life. From my earliest childhood
to my most recent miraculous experience, I acknowledge timely
and generous help from heaven. In retrospect, I
can see things now that I could not
see at the time. I not only know that
God lives; I know that He loves His children. He wants us to have joy, choose
to return to His holy presence, and receive the blessings,
all the blessings that He has in store for His
faithful children. If I have learned anything
certain in my 95 years of life, it is that Jesus the
Christ is the Son of God. His Church has been restored
in these latter days to prepare the world for the
Second Coming of our Redeemer. He provides the
doctrine, covenants, and ordinances that enable
families to be perpetuated beyond the grave. He is the Light and
the Life of the World. Only through Him can we
reach our divine destiny and eventual exaltation. My message to the world
is simple and sincere. I invite all of God's children
on both sides of the veil to come unto their
Savior, receive the blessings of the
temple, have enduring joy, and qualify for eternal life. Most humbly and
gratefully, I thank you for this sublime
celebration tonight. To each of you I express
my love, my gratitude, and my testimony, in the sacred
name of Jesus Christ, amen. [applause] [choir: "let us all press on"] [applause] [reprise: "let us all press on"] [applause]
