President Nelson declares in a funeral address that Sister Eyring's life is reason for "celestial celebration."

 President Nelson declares in a funeral address that Sister Eyring's life is reason for "celestial celebration."

At a funeral attended by Latter-day Saint officials, the widow of President Henry B. Eyring suffered her last years of bed rest and memory loss with "unfathomable strength and grace," according to her daughter.

BOUNTIFUL — The majority of Sister Kathleen Johnson Eyring's 65 grandchildren as well as great-grandchildren sang the song "I'm Trying to Be Like Jesus" during her burial on Saturday. A son described the performance as a representation of all she cared about and put her energy into.

The hour-long remembrance of Sister Eyring, the wife of President Henry B. Eyring, second counselor in the inaugural presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was dominated by discussions of everlasting life and eternal families. On October 15, she passed away at the age of 82.

Although the church's president, President Russell M. Nelson, who is recovering from a back injury, was unable to attend the funeral, that he asked his first counselor, President Dallin H. Oaks, to deliver a tribute he had written about Sister Eyring throughout a First The presidency meeting this week. President Oaks then presided over the funeral.

When expressing the family the greatest love and sympathy at a holy moment, President Nelson said he spoke on behalf of all church members.

President Nelson said in his letter that "Kathleen is an elect daughter of God who did everything she came to earth to do." "There should be a cosmic celebration about it. Kathleen established pacts with God. She upheld those commitments. Every day of her life, she was genuine and obedient to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Numerous friends, including Elders Jeffrey R. Holland, Dieter F. Uchtdorf, along with Dale G. Renlund of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church and Elder Lance B. Wickman, an emeritus General Authority Seventy and general counsel for the church, attended the funeral along with the approximately 100 members of the Eyring family.

President Oaks said, "We are gathered here to honor one who has lived a remarkable life, an excellent example for all of us to study and to model."

The funeral was conducted in the Maple Hills Chapel in the foothills of Bountiful, which were covered with vibrant autumnal reds, browns, greens, and yellows on a beautiful fall morning with blue sky and white clouds. In Bountiful, Utah, the Mueller Park 5th Ward, where Sister Eyring spent 45 years attending services, is housed in the chapel.

Sister Eyring passed away as she listened to the remote broadcast broadcasting the 5th Ward singing the concluding song of Sunday's Sacrament meeting, "Precious Savior, Dear Redeemer." Sister Eyring had suffered from memory loss for the last few years of her life.

Mary Eyring, a daughter, recited the hymn's last verse: "For the first time in nine years, her bedroom was perfectly still, save for the sound of these friends' voices."

President Oaks said that many people had prayed for Kathleen Eyring, President Eyring, and your whole family. "We have prayed for the realization of our Heavenly Father's will in her life most often. Now that our prayers have been answered, we are grateful for the account provided by relatives who were there: "At the moment of her death, she reached up and greeted that point in time with a radiant smile."

President Oaks remembered the 25-year anniversary of the passing of his first wife, Sister June Oaks.

He said, "I knew that I would miss her company, but I did not realize how deeply I would regret the duty of looking after her. Each of you is feeling the effects of that transitional era, but your father, our loving colleague in the Lord's mission, is feeling the effects the most. We will keep you in our prayers as you cope with this breakup and adapt to your new situation.

In order to speak on behalf of Sister Eyring's six children, John Eyring joined Mary at the podium. They said that their mother made Jesus Christ the focus of her and their lives.

"Toward the end of her life, her recollections started to fade," Mary said, "but her family and the nurses who were like family saw that her memory of the Savior appeared to sharpen with the passing of the years. She had spent her whole life as a humble, devoted follower, and the Savior was more than just a memory to her. He was the center of her past, present, and future devotion.

She "tested and proved the Savior's promise during trying years she weathered with unfathomable strength and grace."

All of the speakers agreed that Sister Eyring's commitment to following the guidance of the Holy Ghost was the key to understanding her.

According to Elder Wickman, "It was her compass, and she instinctively went where it pointed."

Sister Eyring, who was born on May 11, 1941 in San Francisco, actually enrolled at Cal-Berkeley as a result of such a prompting. She spent summertime at Harvard for the same purpose, where she met President Eyring.

When dad first met mom, he reportedly claimed, "If I could just be with her, I could become everything good I've ever wanted to be," according to John Eyring. "Together, our parents did accomplish all we could possibly hope for. We like being with our mother again, just like our father, and we want to be all she believed we were capable of becoming.

On July 19, 1962, President Spencer W. Kimball married them in the Logan Utah Center.

Elder Wickman said that at the time, "the portents of that match and its ultimate impact on the work of the Lord in this dispensation, could not have been imagined."

While President Eyring was a prominent professor at Stanford, according to President Oaks, Sister Eyring was awakened one night by another prompting. Are you sure you are leading a moral life, she questioned her husband as she roused him.

The next morning, according to President Oaks, President Eyring got a confirmation prompting from himself, and within a week, he "was offered the office of president of what was then Rick's University in Rexburg, Idaho, a location he hadn't been to before and a responsibility he knew very little about."

President Eyring graduated from Ricks, which is now BYU-Idaho, and went on to serve as an apostle, a counselor in the First Presidency, a council member of the Presiding Bishopric, a General Authority Seventy, as well as an associate director of Church Education.

Athlete Sister Eyring was. She played golf, skied, and once won the tennis doubles title at Ricks with President Eyring. At Ricks, she also started a women's softball league on a field next to Lincoln Elementary School. After dropping off the kids at school, the ladies played.

According to her eldest child, former BYU-Idaho President Henry J. Eyring, "I were to glance up and through the window see my mother destroying softballs outside in the third grade."

Sister Eyring attended Castilleja School in Palo Alto, California, wherein future singer Grace Slick was a friend and classmate. She served as the tennis team captain, student body president, as well as valedictorian. Sister Eyring studied political science at Harvard and Berkeley, as well as the Sorbonne in Paris and the University of Vienna, where she also acquired German and French language skills.

She created the book "Who Wants to Be a Nobody," which took home the top honor for a young adult book in the 1983 Utah Arts Council creative writing contest.

Additionally, Sister Eyring painted.

"Mom is an artist in her individual right," said Kelly Eyring, her daughter-in-law, "but that isn't recognized because she spent all of her time 'painting children.'"

She had concerns about President Eyring's career because of them. She had reservations about bringing up her kids in the Bay Area.

Henry J. Eyring observed, "Rexburg was very, very significant to our family.

Before Elizabeth Eyring Peters and Mary Kathleen Eyring, two girls, were born, there were miscarriages after the birth of four boys: Henry, Stuart, Matthew, and John. Additionally, there are now 31 great-grandchildren and 34 grandkids.

The liturgy was infused with the Latter-day Saint conviction that we would someday be reunited as an everlasting family.

President Nelson noted in his commemoration that when young Hal Eyring and Kathleen Johnson were sealed in the Logan temple on July 27, 1962, they "started a family that will flourish throughout eternity." Hal and Kathleen will eventually be able to enjoy all the pleasure that God has in store for his obedient children. They will have unending bliss throughout their life. And one day, if we are worthy, each of us will once again see Kathleen Johnson Eyring, a sister, saint, wife, mother, and daughter of the living God, glorified, redeemed, exalted, and perfected.

According to President Oaks, "The Lord Jesus Christ's resurrection is essential to what the prophets have referred to as the vast and everlasting plan of redemption from death. Every one of us who has ever lived on this planet will be raised to life because of the resurrection of our Savior. What a beautiful truth.

The fact that loved ones who have progressed to the spirit realm would still worry for family members who are still alive is a consoling effect, he said.

The children of Sister Eyring referred to her as their angel mother and claimed that after her passing, individuals she served told them personal accounts of how she had helped them.

According to Mary Eyring, her mother recognized Jesus Christ and instilled in her children a faith in him and his message.

She said, "We know she would have the Savior—and not herself—be the center of our life, our role model, and the fulfillment of all our ambitions.

It is a gospel of happiness, she said, and following it is the only guaranteed way to find happiness, security, and serenity. She said, "God is real, and he loves us." He sent his Son to open the way for our reunion and continued kinship with him.

The Eyring kids said they still had access to the affection she provided.

After mom died away, John Eyring said, "What a joyous relief it was for us to climb up into her bedroom and learn that the sensation we had cherished there had not been her ghost but the Holy Ghost. "The Father sent him to live with his obedient daughter, and she invited him. He is still here to console us if we continue to welcome him and meet the criteria for his company like she did.

In the words of Mary Eyring, "For a mother who pointed us toward the source of all some relief we are eternally grateful."