The following excerpts are from Go Forward with Faith (1996, Deseret Book), Sheri L. Dew’s authorized biography of Gordon B. Hinckley.

When a male member of the Mormon faith serves a mission, he is called “Elder.”

“In the mission field Elder Hinckley’s literary gifts flourished. He had been in England just a month when his first article in the [periodical] Millennial Star was published. ‘A Missionary Holiday’ recounted the experience he and other missionaries had on July 4 when they visited the beautiful Lake District north of Preston and slept out on a grassy meadow that rose from Lake Windermere and Lake Grasmere. ‘What a picture! A smooth, glistening pearl set in the quiet of rolling green and wooded hills, the sun of a new day streaking across the waters,’ he wrote by way of description.”

Elder Hinckley’s English degree had made him an exceptional writer. In one letter home, he included this short literary essay that described an experience he had on a bus:

“You’re a lot of infamous rats,” were the final words of that fat, neatly dressed office manager as he moved toward the door of the bus, throwing the torn bits of my card out of the window without ever reading it.
At the next stop, three or four dirty raggedly clothed colliers boarded the bus. One of these men sat beside me. His red lips and the white of his eyes stood ghostly against the sooty background of his face. His clothing smelled of the damp, gritty dust of the mines. His back and shoulders were muscularly round and broad, his chest hollow. He seemed to whisper as he breathed.
Since small boyhood – all day in the mines, at night recuperating for another day in the mines. What did the heavens, the flowers, the gods mean to such a man? Edwin Markham’s words came to my mind:
Is this the thing the Lord God made and gave
To have dominion over sea and land;
To trace the stars and search the heavens for power;
To feel the passion of eternity?
I made a try at conversation. “Been a hard day today?”
He turned quickly as if surprised to think that anyone should pay any attention to him. “Yes, we have to do our bit.”
We chatted a little about his work. Then I introduced myself and handed him a tract.
“Ta,” he said. “I can’t read, but our Annie reads to us. Ta.” The bus stopped. He nodded good-night, his tea bucket ringing as it hit the doorframe. I heard his clogs clattering across the wet cobbles.
For the next five miles I was alone in the bus save for the conductor who was counting his tickets. Rain was beating against the window, and quietly I thought of two men I had met that day.

“London immediately captivated Gordon, who quickly fell in love with this jewel of the far-flung British empire. Perhaps at that time, the world’s greatest metropolis and capital city, it was a tremendous center for art, music, drama, and commerce. Looking out of a third-floor window at the European Mission office at 5 Gordon Square, Elder Hinckley could see black taxi-cabs weaving in and out of traffic, little horns mounted on the outside. Bobbies with nightsticks walked the street. Red mailboxes on street corners symbolized a postal system whose efficiency was unrivalled anywhere in the world. London was intoxicating. The pace, the cosmopolitan nature of the population, the sophisticated culture – it was invigorating for a young man from Salt Lake City. He came to believe that no one could ‘live in London for long without developing a love for the place.’”

In London, Gordon continued to publish articles in the Millennial Star. In one article, he elaborated on his feelings about good books:

It is both relaxing and invigorating to occasionally set aside the worries of life, seek the company of a friendly book and mingle with the great of the earth, counsel with the wise of all time, look into the unlived days with prophets. Youth will delight in the heroic figures of Homer; or more modern, will thrill to the silent courage of Florence Nightingale on the battlefield… The power of Cicero’s oratory may awaken new ambitions in middle age, or the absurdity of Don Quixote riding mightily against a windmill may make your own pretentiousness seem ridiculous; if you think the world is against you, get the satisfaction of walking the streets of Athens with Diogenes, lantern in hand in broad daylight in search of an honest man… From the reading of ‘good books’ there comes a richness of life that can be obtained in no other way. It is not enough to read newspapers… But to become acquainted with real nobility as it walks the pages of history and science and literature is to strengthen character and develop life in its finer meanings.”

“Gordon’s mission had been a rich experience, beginning with his labors in Preston and concluding in London, a world capital that he would ever after refer to as ‘my town.’”