No stranger to deep challenges, Elder Maxwell's 2002 biography chronicles several disappointments during his early years as a shy and retiring young boy. His failure to make the Granite High School basketball team, a bad case of acne, criticism of his writing ability and the fact that he raised pigs as a 4-H project made his early years a humbling time, though he would later express gratitude for the lessons he learned as a result.

"It may be that seeing some of these things and feeling them personally has given me an extra bit of compassion."

Although he felt ostracized during those years, he used the experiences as a springboard of caring, looking to see that others would feel valued and included. Those close to him observed his ability to pinpoint the shy person who hung back, unsure of how to be part of a group. If he saw someone leaving a chapel alone, he pursued them down the hallway.

"I don't want them to go away without shaking hands," he said. "I know what it's like to stand outside the circle."

That perspective came through in his numerous sermons and writings, born of deeply personal experience. "If we are serious about our discipleship, Jesus will eventually request each of us to do those very things which are most difficult for us to do," he said. "Sometimes the best people have the worst experiences, because they are the most ready to learn."

Early lessons

He was born July 6, 1926, in Salt Lake City to Clarence H. and Emma Ash Maxwell, their only son and the first of six children. A 2002 biography by Elder Bruce C. Hafen, "A Disciple's Life," chronicles how he learned early to prize hard work and spiritual wealth over ease and material possessions. The teachings came from his father, who was a convert to the LDS Church and worked in obscurity for the railroad and then for a furniture company. For much of Elder Maxwell's early life, the family didn't own a car, and he never recalled going to dinner at a restaurant with his parents.

His respect for the power of prayer and divine intervention was bolstered when, as a boy of 16, he came home late one night from his job as a "grease monkey" at the local bus terminal to find his parents and other adults huddling over his 6-week-old baby sister, Carol, who was suffering from whooping cough.

He watched from the shadows as they tried to revive her. She had turned blue and looked lifeless. Decades later he would tell television commentator Hugh Hewitt of watching as his father and others laid their hands on the baby's head and blessed her "after the manner of the New Testament, with the power of the priesthood," to live. Shortly afterward she revived and began to breathe again.