GEMS-Teachings: Work Keeps People Young

Gems from the Teachings of Church Leaders
Work Keeps People Young
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“Work is what keeps people young. Loafing is what starts to weakenthem from the time they stop working. President Young was in active, vigorous life when he passed away, but appendicitis ended his life. His successor, John Taylor, was seventy-three years of age when he was made the President of the Church. John Taylor’s successor, Wilford Woodruff, was eighty-odd years of age when he became the President of the Church, and according to some, he ought to have retired over twenty years before that time. . . . Lorenzo Snow came to the presidency of this Church as active as any young man, and with matured judgment, at eighty-five years of age, and when the Church was in a slough of despond financially, from which he rescued it. During his three years of administration, until he was eighty-eight years of age, his mind was as clear and active as that of any man who ever presided over this Church.

“Joseph F. Smith, according to many people, was two years past the age when he should have retired, when he became the President of this Church, and the same is true of me. Next month, according to some people, it will be twenty-two years since I should have retired.

“I do not ask any man or child in this Church, although I am more than eighty years of age, to work any more hours than I do. . . . I do not know of anything that destroys a person’s health more quickly than not working.”

Topics: Work, service

( Heber J. Grant, in Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Heber J. Grant [2002], 116-17)