Dear Pat, 
Dear Pat,
Dearest Pat, 
Dear Pat -
A celebration of Life: 
Talk given by Elder Bruce Hafen, at the funeral on February 14th, 2009
What a wonderful service this has been. I pray that the Lord’s spirit will continue with us. I see so many who were with us in that mission, with Pat, almost 50 years ago. And if I multiply that across her influence since then, in the groups with which she’s associated, I marvel. I’ve been stirred by what we’ve heard today. I’ve been thinking that as joyful as the music in heaven is, it got better this last week and it will be better and well taught from now on.
It also occurs to me, Kent, that some people would say Valentine’s Day is a pretty sad day for a funeral. But if such a day must come, as it does and will to all of us, I think it is a wonderful day for it, because it makes me think of the red roses of Valentine’s, prompt a memory of a song that I know Pat loved because we sang it together, it’s a beloved German Christmas hymn, “Es ist ein Ros entsprungen, aus einer Wurzel zart.” , the English is “Lo how a rose ere blooming from tender stem hath sprung, of Jesse’s lineage coming as man of old have sung, It came a bud so bright amid the cold of winter when half spent was the night.” Elder Neal A. Maxwell once said that some of the doctrines in the gospel are warm and fuzzy and we love them, but there are some doctrines that are outright wintery and we’ve been tasting of one of the wintery one’s today. Because it’s so hard to be tutored by adversity and by the reality of the pains of mortality in this kind of separation, it is very real and it runs very deep. The Lord has told us we should weep at the loss of those who die. If we understand, we will, but for all that it means but amid the cold of that wintery doctrine and the line of the song says, “amid the cold of winter”, there’s that rose blooming and the rose is the symbol of Christ. And it is because of Christ that we will be resurrected and it is because of His atonement that we can be together again. And so the Valentine symbol is a symbol of Him and His blessing on love.
Pat loved all things Germanic, I heard a line from a German opera once where somebody said, “take me to the place where love lasts forever”. They dreamed of that in the operas. Their hearts told them that there really ought to be a place like that, and there is.
Here’s how I came to know Pat. There’s an old ancient record in my little pile of books at home, my missionary journal. I blew off the dust and found this entry: “In the Stuttgart Germany district, December 17, 1960,” Pat and I had both just arrived and started our missions there. I didn’t describe every event in this kind of detail, I was a sporadic journal writer, but I was so glad to find this much because I’d forgotten completely that it was there. Listen, “Last night we went to Kornwestheim for the Primary Christmas party sponsored by the Sister Missionaries there, Sister Jane (Sharon) Turman and Sister Patricia Haglund. They had over 20 kids in the program. Most of them were non-members, the Sisters had just gathered up in the neighborhood where they’d been tracting. Their program showed the polish of lot’s of rehearsals and enthusiasm. The program was the one outlined in the primary pilot class lesson manual. The Sisters got the Primary going by just finding those kids and contacting their parents about letting them come to Primary and of course the parents came to the program to hear their children sing. We met in a music school with plenty of room and facilities. Sister Haglund accompanied the songs with some kind of guitar like instrument, then they served hot chocolate in paper cups and donuts and Santa Claus paid a visit and Elder Wunderli gave a short message of the restoration talk. The whole Ludwigsburg branch was there, they’re a tightly knit group. It was a great evening.”
And then, almost a year later, one more entry, from a conference I still remember and always will ~ an all mission conference in Frankfurt for our mission when Royal K. Hunt was our mission president. And I wrote in my journal that it was the most inspiring conference I’d ever attended to that time. I wrote, “the whole mission was there. We fasted for a day and a half. We started the conference at 9am on Thursday morning and met together until 8:30pm that night with just a couple of stand up breaks.” Think that through. Those of you who worry about a 3o minute attention span. “During the last two or three hours on Friday morning, we had the sacrament and then a testimony meeting. I played the piano and Sister Haglund lead the singing.” I wrote in my journal, “During the song and the sacrament, I am sure there were tears in the eyes of every missionary in the room. One couldn’t keep them back. I will never forget that burning inside and the desire I felt to rededicate myself to the work. I think the sacrament meant more to me that day than it had ever done prior to that in my life. In his testimony, President Hunt said, that as he watched Sister Haglund lead us in the sacrament song, he honestly believed she looked like an angel.” We all did. I still remember the image, and I want to keep it always. She’s played that kind of angelic role in keeping the Lord’s spirit with so many groups, as we’ve heard about today, ever since.
The song we will sing at the end today, is the one that we’ve been singing at the end of our missionary reunions every six months for four plus decades. Pat would always lead it. I would say to Kent what President Hinckley said at Danzel Nelson’s funeral. This was not long after he’d lost his beloved Marjorie. I was glad he was so honest, he said, speaking to Elder Nelson, he said, “the loneliness is indescribable and any words of comfort that people offer you, will be well meant, but they won’t be enough. It’s devastating and there will be times when you wonder if you can go on, but then there will be moments in the night when a voice unspoken but real nonetheless comes to you to assure you that (Pat) lives, that God loves you and ultimately that all will be well.”
There will be another reunion, with the same songs, and we’ll pick up the same happy conversations just where we left them. Imagine Pat smiling and leading us once more. I love the timelessness. I feel that timelessness now as I see our missionaries of those 50 almost years, it was nothing. I’m reminded of Brigham Young’s words, when he said, after a lifetime of troubles and sorrow. One day we’ll be together again in the Lord’s presence with each other, we’ll look back on our lives and say, “but what of all that, we’re here together now.”
I found myself thinking of Joseph Smith’s teachings about the pre-mortal world. Reference has been so clearly made to that, we’ve heard wonderful doctrine. We may underestimate the significance of that doctrine and the fact that no other church teaches it. Even though you could find it in the hearts of so many, many people through so many centuries, because our hearts tell us there has to be something like that.
Because Pat loved things German, for some reasons I thought of what I might say, I remembered that the story of a German romantic writer named Novalis, his real name was Georg Friedrich von Hardenberg, you can see why they called him Novalis. The German poet of the late 18th Century who influenced later romantic thought ~ sometimes called the prophet of romanticism. The central image of his writing was something he described in a little novelette, where the hero, the young hero of romantic young man had a dream about a blue flower and he longed for something he couldn’t describe when he saw this blue flower in his dream. And when he awoke, he just couldn’t overcome the longing. He didn’t understand it. He searched for it and then he found a young woman and fell in love with her and as his love grew he began to sense that sort of image of a flower about her. This, the blue flower that became the symbol for the romantic longing. This was autobiographical for Novalis because as a young man, studying at a university he had fallen in love with a young woman named Sophie. He’d fallen deeply, madly in love with her and then she got sick and died after about two years. And Novalis, who only lived a few more years himself, spent the rest of his life longing for her. And he concluded that this longing was sort of the human plight and condition because it can’t ever be fulfilled and that’s why the romantic longing, there’s something so poignant and well, to the Germans so powerful about it, to know that it can’t be fulfilled. There’s something kind of noble about that and so the longing pierces even more deeply. So, to quote Novalis, “the blue flower is unattainable and it is to remain unattainable.” So, the romantics expressed a longing for home, a longing for that which is far off. The great German poet Schiller called this the romantic exiles pining for a home land. So the longing is what the Germans call the “Sehnsucht” – it’s searching and it’s longing.
But the wonderful news of the gospel, brothers and sisters, is yes, it’s there, we know it’s there, we want to feel it. We don’t apologize for feeling it. Because it is through the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ that we know those feelings are instilled in us because we came from our heavenly home as children of that Father, for whom we long, we want to be with Him. And as our missionary friend Alan Keele has discovered in German opera and literature and movies, for a long time people have been saying, oh there must be some way that we lived somewhere else before we came here or we wouldn’t feel these things, but the churches don’t teach that. You can’t believe it. So I guess that’s why it can’t be fulfilled and that’s maybe one reason that it’s hard to take those churches seriously because they don’t seem to understand what that longing is about.
The great news of the gospel is where it comes from. We did come from another place. This world is not our home. I’m stirred by what I heard Elder Holland say on an occasion like this, at a funeral, when he said, “This earth is not our home, but too many of us live as if it were.” So a funeral is such a remarkable time of focus to be reminded that what we’re feeling is given to us by God, a sort of call from home. Stay close. What you feel now is a taste of what you can always feel.
As Brigham Young wrote, “God is the Father of our spirits. If we could know, understand and do His will, every soul would be prepared to return to His presence, and when they get there, they would see they formerly lived there for ages. That they’d previously been acquainted with every nook and corner with the palaces, walks, and gardens and they will embrace their Father and He will embrace them and say, ‘My son, my daughter I have you again’. And the child will say, ‘Oh, my Father, my Father, I am here again.’” We are feeling that that is true because it is true. And it feels like a call from home because that is home. This isn’t our home. We’re away at school, learning what it takes to go back.
And we have seen a life, Patricia Haglund Nielsen, that teaches us how to go home. And what’s so remarkable about her life in today’s world is that most people in today’s world wouldn’t believe that a woman would really live like that, could find fulfillment and meaning by living like that, much less that it would be connected to where she came from and where she’s going. She was really remarkable. And her life shows that it’s possible to live like that in a world that denies that you can live like that or many that it’s even desirable to live like that. It is the most fulfilling way to live and the adversary doesn’t want people to know that. So we’ve been blessed with a witness of it. a witness of a noble woman who was a disciple of Christ. And it’s so much better so see that sermon than to hear it.
And so I pray that our life will be indelibly impressed on us that we will want to live like that, and we will. It’s not that we have to live the gospel. It’s that we get to. And to know how, just look at her life. I want to echo Kent’s wonderful testimony today. Thank you for that Kent. It was like Lehi bearing testimony to his posterity. I know that what you said is true and I know that what we feel is true.
And I ask God to bless us, that as we leave here, we will be strengthened in our resolve to overcome the natural oppositions all around us, the wintery doctrines of adversity that surround us, that we can cling to the rose of Christ, and the rose of love in this life and in the life to come. I testify that we will be with the Lord, with our families, in that great missionary reunion, that family reunion, again one day. I know it of a certainty. Joseph said, “the same sociality that exist among us here will exist among us there.” I testify that it’s true and ask the Lord to bless us to live for it. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
Dear West German missionaries, spouses, and friends:
Pat’s funeral was held last Saturday. It was one of the most beautiful funerals I’ve ever attended. Our Elder Bruce Hafen presided and Pat’s bishop conducted. Bishop Keith McMullin sat on the stand next to Elder Bruce. Pat’s children told touching memories of Pat. The children and grandchildren sang. Kent (Pat’s husband) spoke and gave one of the most remarkable and powerful testimonies of the Savior I’ve ever heard. Bishop Keith spoke and dispensed hope and comfort, and Elder Bruce spoke intimately and tenderly, recalling experiences from the West German mission and teaching about life before, life now, and life afterwards. Pat was really a marvelous person, and that became ever clearer as speakers mentioned events in her life. One person noted that she never was negative and always encouraged people. She simply said, “You can do it, and I will help.” The chapel had a pipe organ which was played exquisitely. The closing hymn was “Heilig, Heilig, Heilig,” with an English translation by Pat on the back of the program. “Heilig” is the right word to describe this special meeting in memory of a saintly woman.
Jerry Anderegg
In my first committee chairmanship assignment on the Primary Board in 1995 I was fortunate to have Pat on the committee. We had a meeting in Orem and Pat was, as usual, superbly prepared. As we discussed some small part of a presentation -- I can't even remember what it was now -- she gave some great ideas, but I didn't feel like it was what needed to happen. I brought it up rather tentatively -- after all she was the experienced one, she had professional expertise in this area, she also had very good ideas -- and she said, "Oh, that would be a good idea, let's try that." I couldn't believe it! I didn't have to argue, compete, or even debate. It was a revelation to me in how one could work in a committee.
Dear Pat (if possible), Kent, Sharon and all the Nielsens,
What an incredible wife, mother, mother-in-law you have! I knew of her by reputation before my time on the Primary Board and have loved her since our first meeting. To say she is one-in-a-million is to seriously underestimate. She has been a source of light, inspiration and good cheer to thousands—and I am glad and grateful to be counted among them. Our love and prayers are with you and we know the Lord is mindful of you all!
Love & admiration,
Sydney and Noel Reynolds
P.S. We’re so glad we were able to participate in the book you did for the anniversary!
Dear Pat,
Dear Pat, 
Dear Pat: 
Dear Pat, 
Dear Pat -
Kent, We will surely miss your dear wife. Our mission reunions will never be the same without her leading us in a few "folk songs" from our beloved Germany. Her service to the Lord in so many callings from Wife, Mother, Sister and Friend is a testament to her strong eternal spirit. May the Comforter be with you and your family during this brief separation. 
Testimony of Bishop Keith McMullin, shared at the funeral on February 14th, 2009
Talk given by Susan L. Warner, at the funeral on February 14th, 2009
Patricia H. Nielsen
Loving, Consecrated, and Valiant
I feel humbly grateful on this special day to join with all of you as we celebrate the life of Patricia Haglund Nielsen and the completion of her earthly mission. I feel the Lord’s spirit here today and I pray that I can give voice to the love and gratitude we all feel for Pat and her influence for good in our lives.
I especially want her children and grandchildren to know of the great contributions your mother and grandmother made to Heavenly Father’s kingdom on this earth. We know that Pat’s life did not begin with her birth – nor does it end with her death. We know that she lived with Heavenly Father before she came here. She lived there and loved there with people she knew – so did you. Then Heavenly Father presented a wonderful plan all about earth and eternal salvation for man – and with all of Pat’s enthusiasm, I know she eagerly anticipated receiving a body and the many experiences, challenges, and joys she would have on the earth.
Elder Russell Nelson taught us that even before we came to earth we regarded the returning home as the best part of that long – awaited trip to earth. He said, “Before embarking on any journey, we like to have some assurance of a round-trip ticket. Returning from earth to life in our heavenly home requires passage through – and not around – the doors of death. We were born to die, and we die to live. As seedlings of God, we barely blossom on earth; we fully flower in heaven.” If the Pat I know was just a blossom I can hardly wait to see her in full bloom.
When Pat came to the earth, Heavenly Father not only gave her a strong body – a temple if you will – he also endowed her with many abilities, gifts, and talents. Pat did not bury her talents – or keep them to herself – Oh no, she studied and worked and practiced and developed those gifts and talents and also her testimony so that she could share them with you, her family, and so that she would be prepared to teach and serve others.
Though your mother was omni-competent, she was humble and eager to learn from everyone. She worked very hard to improve her skills and she practiced so that she could teach other leaders, who then took what they learned from her throughout the world.
One of the board members whom Pat taught, is now serving in Puerto Rico. She writes, “Pat’s creative approach to teaching the gospel with music has blessed children around the world. I know, because I have utilized her ideas and methods with children and their leaders in Chile, in Mexico and even in the humble huts of the San Blas Islands. That is only a tiny sampling of the far-reaching ripples of her influence, because I am certain that many other board members have shared the principles and love for music that Pat shared so selflessly with us.
Many others who served on the Primary Board with your mother have echoed that same sentiment as they recounted the ways that she willingly taught them and shared her knowledge and skills. We have wanted you to know of the influence your mother had on all of us who served with her. We have put together a book with personal tributes from some of those whose hearts and lives she touched during her Primary service. As your children and grandchildren come along, this will help you share with them a glimpse of their remarkable grandmother and great-grandmother and her service to Primary children and their leaders throughout the world.
Along with your mother’s knowledge of music and the skills she developed to share that knowledge, she inspired and strengthened all of us with her strong and deep testimony. Her knowledge of the gospel of Jesus Christ infused everything she did. She listened to the still small voice and she felt the Savior’s love in all the world around her.
Pat knew that music was the best way to teach children the gospel and so she worked diligently to bring the Primary songs to children everywhere. She planned and prayed and worked and worked some more. Now the Children’s Songbook is published in 21 languages and 3 more are in process. Recordings have been made in 10 languages.
To help bring this about, Pat worked with many others, and in doing so she utilized yet another of her talents. As one board member said, in the groups in which she labored “she fostered unity and love.” She lifted, loved, and encouraged us by her memorable ways of expressing confidence in our ability to do whatever we had been called to do. Once when I was facing an overwhelming assignment, she was the first to be on my doorstep to remind me that “the Lord qualifies whom he calls,” and “His spirit whispers that I can.” Her personal life experiences had taught her these truths.
What brought all these and other talents to life was Pat’s gift of prayer. She was never hesitant to pray in faith. She asked for and received divine help. And because of this, the Lord was able to make her an instrument in His hands to accomplish His work in the many places where she served.
Once in a Relief Society lesson the question was asked, “How can we be Saviors on Mount Zion?”
Your dear mother, Kent’s beloved wife, and our sister and dear friend Pat, not only knew the answer to this question, she lived it. She went about doing good. She served not only those she encountered in this life, but those who have passed on. She sought out their names, learned of their lives, and gathered their earthly records, so that they could have the opportunity to receive the sacred ordinances of the temple that had been unavailable to them when they lived on the earth. And because she was a gifted teacher, Pat along with Kent was able to teach others how to search for their ancestors and in her loving way she inspired them to do so.
Last Saturday, when I learned of Pat’s passing from this life into the next, I immediately saw, in my mind’s eye, the happy welcome she must have received as she met in person the many, many people she had known on paper. How warmly they must have greeted her as they rushed to embrace her and thank her for helping them to obtain sacred temple ordinances and blessings!
Yes, Pat remembered the promises she had made to her fathers, her mothers, her sisters and her brothers. But she not only remembered – she did the work. She gathered their records and then made sure the saving ordinances of the gospel were performed on their behalf. And those who haven’t yet accepted those ordinances will meet a valiant servant who will find a way to teach them the gospel. Pat has always said, “The Lord can depend on me.”
As I visited Pat just a few days before her spirit departed her body, I saw a peaceful soul lying on the bed being attended to by you her loving family. I saw a sore on her ear, an ear that had listened to her husband and her children and heard the word of the Lord. She had responded to the calls she heard from the Lord and his servants.
I swabbed her dry lips that had sung the songs of Zion and had not spoken guile but rather had spoken words of hope and cheerfulness and optimism. One board member said, “I do not recall ever hearing a negative or pessimistic comment from her lips.”
I saw a quiet mouth that had been so active in singing to us, had often been filled with infectious laughter, and had formed many words that taught us and encouraged us.
I looked at her once strong hands that had lifted and served children and youth and led us in making music.
I saw the tired arms that were strong when they enveloped us with her love and warm bear hugs.
Pat had worn out her body in service to her eternal brothers and sisters. She had nobly finished her work on this earth. Her spirit was prepared to go on to a more important work.
Joseph Smith said, “The spirits of the just are exalted to a greater and more glorious work: hence they are blessed in their departure to the world of spirits.”
He also said, “…Let your hearts rejoice, and be exceedingly glad. Let the earth break forth into singing. Let the dead speak forth anthems of eternal praise to the King Immanuel, who hath ordained, before the world was, that which would enable us to redeem them out of their prison.”
I am certain that Pat will be called on to help the dead speak forth in anthems as they break forth into singing. We can rejoice that she has prepared herself for the even greater good that she has been called to do. She will continue to minister to her eternal family, as she did here. She will continue to learn and grow and teach, but without the pain and physical limitations that she has endured in recent months.
In closing may I share an experience I had sitting on one of the benches at the front of the chapel for the funeral of Elder Archibald. President Monson who was then a counselor in the First Presidency was speaking when he leaned over the pulpit and spoke directly to Sister Archibald and her daughter. He told them with memorable conviction in his voice, that their husband and father would be closer to them from the other side of the veil than he could have ever been to them here because now he had an eternal perspective about their present lives and challenges.
When we remember her warm hugs that said “I love you, and I know you can do it” we must also remember that Pat is not very far away and that she still loves us with an even greater understanding of who we are and the challenges we now face. I know that Pat will still be cheering us on from a more heavenly vantage point.
I know that our Heavenly Father and his son Jesus Christ, our Savior and Redeemer, live and they love us. I know that Patricia Haglund Nielsen also lives and loves us. I know that we belong to the Church of Jesus Christ and that through the prophet Joseph Smith , the priesthood is restored and God has spoken to the earth. His power is here again and he speaks today to us through His living prophet, Thomas S. Monson.
I am grateful to our Savior Jesus Christ for the price he willingly paid so that we might be able to prepare ourselves to live again in His presence in our Heavenly Home. I pray that we will be valiant servants as our dear Pat is and faithfully fulfill our own earthly mission as she did. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
