(Salt Lake City, USA - To cap off his 95th birthday celebration, President Gordon B. Hinckley plans to visit 10 international cities in a 13-day whirlwind tour at the end of July, adding thousands of miles to his log as the most traveled of LDS Church presidents.
Speaking to reporters at a press conference Monday in the LDS Church Administration Building, the ever-spry church leader joked with reporters that he carries a cane simply to "stay in style" with several past LDS presidents.
"When you get to be my age, people look at you as if you were an artifact in a museum."
He said he doesn't have "the slightest idea" what he'll do to celebrate his 100th birthday five years from now. "I'm not counting on it. I'll live as long as I can and then cash in."
A family celebration will take place Thursday to commemorate his 95th year. He said he plans to have just a small sliver of birthday cake because he has diabetes.
On July 22, the leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will be the guest of honor at a birthday bash in the LDS Conference Center. It will feature broadcast journalist Mike Wallace along with Gladys Knight and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
After that celebration, he plans to travel to various cities around the globe and dedicate the church's Aba, Nigeria, Temple in the process.
"It's work that keeps you alive," he said of the breakneck pace he continues to keep, despite the passing of his wife, Marjorie, a year ago last April.
"I had the good fortune of marrying a truly wonderful woman. I can honestly say I have no recollection of a serious difficulty between us."
Theirs was an "idyllic" relationship that lasted for 67 years, and he said if all were able to have such a happy marriage and family life, "it would be a vastly different world."
As for the aged who may be tempted to give up on life, he said, "The secret at this age is to keep busy. Work, work, work is the best antidote for loneliness, incapacity or any other thing that happens to impede your progress. That's the only antidote I know. It's work that's saved me and has been an offset to the sorrow and loneliness I felt."
Despite the challenge of losing his wife, "I'm an optimist. If you dwell on the negative, it will hurt you, depress you and really destroy you. If you work on the positive and dwell on it and seek to bring it to pass, it will make you lighter and brighter, younger and more vigorous. That's my feeling and that's my program."
Had he not been called to the hierarchy of the LDS Church, he said he "wouldn't be living this long. People die when they don't have any challenges. That's what keeps me going. I'm so grateful to have something to do every morning when I wake up. There's always more to be done than I can get done."
Asked what his legacy will be, President Hinckley gave credit to those who have worked with him to accomplish a litany of milestones in LDS Church history. The church has added 3 million members and organized 4,000 new wards and 500 new stakes during his 10-year administration.
Also during that time, some 51 million copies of the Book of Mormon have been distributed, hundreds of millions of dollars have been donated to humanitarian causes worldwide and historic reconstructions in Palmyra, N.Y., Nauvoo, Ill., and Kirtland, Ohio, have been completed.
Dozens of LDS temples have been built and dedicated — more than doubling the number that existed prior to his administration. The Conference Center has been constructed and millions of students have been educated in LDS seminaries, institutes and universities.
Even so, he said he has scores of additional projects in mind but declined to discuss them because he doesn't know if he'll have time to complete them.
President Hinckley said he believes the most difficult challenge people face is "reconciling our faith with the growing secularism in the world. We see it all around us," including in the breakdown of the traditional family.
"Everyone knows the family is in trouble, and the challenge we face is to build faith and move forward in the face of these tremendous, powerful forces with which we are constantly dealing."
Given the opportunity, he said he would "like to speak to the whole world and declare the goodness of this church and the strength of its programs and the desire of its leaders to promote goodwill, peace and harmony and good relationships among the diverse peoples of the world."
He knows there is much suffering, grief and pain, adding his heart "reaches out to all who are unfortunate and have serious problems" who are "weighed down with grief and seem to have so many difficulties. You just have to make the very best of it and do the best you can with what you have and leave the rest to the Lord."
Could he have imagined 80 years ago what his life would be like?
"Never in my fondest dreams did I ever think of such a thing. At one time I had an ambition to do what you (reporters) are doing. Think of what a wonderful thing it was that I escaped that!" he joked.
President Hinckley said he's most pleased about having lived as long as he has, and most concerned about moving the church forward.
"We have great plans, and I think our accomplishments the past 10 years or so have been rather remarkable. I hope they will continue to be so. We still have a lot of problems, and we're still reaching out across the world."
He said he's not worried about the future when the torch is passed to a new set of leaders, and he has no advice to give in that regard.
"The church is organized in such a way that the transition from one president to another is a very simple, straightforward thing. The one who succeeds me will have worked with me for a very long time. He'll know all I've tried to do and know all about it. Things will continue on much the same way we've tried to do."
He said he doesn't think much about his own mortality because "I have an assurance of immortality of the human soul.
"There's no question in my mind we'll go on living after we leave here. I don't dwell on it a lot. I just accept it and move forward. When all is said and done, you get up each morning. . . . You get up and keep moving."