Recollecting Pres. Monson

"I'm always impressed when he gets up to speak and he doesn't have any notes, and he'll just speak for 10 to 15 minutes. Its obvious he thinks about it, but it just flows from him. He has this tremendous ability to tell stories, and I love that ability," she said. "It helps you understand more about the mind of Thomas Monson. He's a very, very bright man.

"He has some things, I think, in common with President Hinckley. I think both of them are gentle giants.

"President Monson has this great ability, when he's talking to you, he makes you feel like you're the most important person in the room. He treats you the way he wants to be treated himself.

"I don't remember ever hearing him introduce himself as President Monson. It's 'Hi, I'm Thomas Monson,' or if it's an LDS setting its 'Brother Monson.'

"He is so in tune with the world within the church and outside of the church too. He's very much in tune with other faiths.

"I don't think the LDS Church is going to miss a beat. he'll just build on that legacy and it will continue to grow. "

Floyd Max Widdison, returned missionary, Morgan County resident

Widdison and three other new missionaries arrived in Toronto by train, where they were told someone would be there to meet them. "This fellow said, 'Down here, elders,' beckoning us. I thought he just looked like a little older missionary, but it was President Monson.

"He was a very vigorous, energetic fellow at that time. Missionaries loved him. He's a great motivator. He knew every missionary's name."

"He would speak extemporaneously. I'm sure he had some thoughts he wanted to convey to us, but a lot of his talk to us was straight from the heart — from him to us. He was a great missionary president. There was no doubt in any of our minds that some day he would be a general authority."

Widdison noted that President Monson continued to preside at mission reunions each October, including last year when the missionaries also celebrated the 80th birthdays of both President Monson and his wife, Frances.

Wm. James Mortimer, Deseret News publisher 1985-2000

Wm. James Mortimer first met Thomas S. Monson in the early 1950s when they both had jobs affiliated with the Deseret News. Their work associations grew closer and closer over the years with Mortimer under Elder Monson's direction on a number of significant projects: A realignment of church printing services, the seven-year project to print new editions of the scriptures and then an association again at the newspaper.