Becoming Brigham Young’s Friend

Adapted from Conference Report, Apr. 1917, 23; Conference Report, June 1919, 7.

Illustrated by Mike Eagle

One winter day six-year-old Heber J. Grant sneaked onto the back runner of President Brigham Young’s sleigh. He wanted to ride for only one block. But he didn’t dare leap off until the sleigh slowed down. When it did, he had ridden quite a way. He tried to run without President Young seeing him.

President Young: Stop! That little boy is almost frozen! Put him under the buffalo robe.

President Young: What’s your name?

Heber: Heber Grant, sir.

President Young: You must be Jedediah’s son. I loved your father very much. He was my Second Counselor.

President Young told Heber he would like to interview him in six months. Heber obeyed. He and President Young were friends from then on.

Heber spent almost as much time at Brigham Young’s home as at his own.

Sometimes Heber stayed for family prayer, and he was startled by the way President Young prayed. Heber later said, “I … lifted my head, turned and looked at the place where Brigham Young was praying, to see if the Lord was not there. It seemed to me that he talked to the Lord as one man would talk to another.”

As prophet, Heber J. Grant learned to speak to Heavenly Father the same way.