Pool photo courtesy of Intellectual Reserve, Inc.

Part One (Click to enlarge any photograph)

February 2, 2008

“Now, as we separate for a season, God bless you, my beloved associates. I so pray, as I say good-bye, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.” (Gordon B. Hinckley, Ensign , May 2007, 105).

As a crowd wound around Temple Square and into the north gate to get one of the 21,000 tickets available for President Hinckley's funeral on Saturday, strains of the music of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir filled the air.

It seemed as if the very city was singing in reverent celebration of a life well-lived and the prophet who has left us. “Jesus, the very thought of thee, with sweetness fills my breast.”

Many of them had been in line since 6:30 a.m., but a few had been there even earlier, bundled up against the Rocky Mountain chill.

For the viewing in the Hall of the Prophets on Thursday and Friday, 57,443 people walked passed the open casket, bedecked with flowers. Though the viewing was to have ended at 7:00, the last visitor left at 11:25 p.m., after nearly a five-hour wait.

In addition to those who packed the Conference Center, the funeral was broadcast via the Church satellite to locations across the world in 69 languages.

It was the end of an era of service that has changed the face of the Church. The line for the funeral was near the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, which President Hinckley had gutted and renamed; it went past the Main Street Plaza, which President Hinckley created, and on into the Conference Center, which President Hinckley built.

Dignitaries stopped their activities to remember President Hinckley and attend the funeral — including the LDS members of Congress — Senators Orrin Hatch, Robert Bennett, Mike Crapo, Gordon Smith and Harry Reid and Congressmen Rob Bishop, Chris Cannon, John Doolittle and Jeff Flake, as well as Governor Jon Huntsman.

Michael O. Leavitt, the Secretary of Health and Human Services attended the services representing President Bush, who called President Hinckley “a remarkable man and a good friend. While serving for more over seven decades, he represented the heart of a servant and the wisdom of leader.”

Governor Mitt Romney took a pause from the campaign trail at a critical moment — just three days before the Super Tuesday primaries — to pay his respects, and that, no doubt, added, to the largest media attention ever afforded a Church event.

For members, however, it was personal. To attend was an expression of faith and love, with the refrain sounding again and again, “He was our prophet. We loved him.”

The Conference Center was filled with flower tributes, including one from the former President of Indonesia, Alwi Shihab, who once had entertained President Hinckley at a special state dinner in Jakarta.

Just before the funeral, a private viewing was held for the Hinckley family and close personal friends at the Church administration building, after which a solemn funeral cortege brought the coffin to the Conference Center.

Click here to go to Part 2 of We Thank Thee, O God, for This Prophet

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Scot Facer Proctor and Maurine Jensen Proctor are the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Meridian Magazine. They live in the Washington, D.C. Metro area.