Prior to his call as a general authority, Holland served as
bishop of a
single adult ward in Seattle, as a counselor in the presidency of the Hartford Connecticut Stake, As a member of the Seventy, Holland was a counselor in the general presidency of the church's
Young Men organization from 1989 to 1990. From 1990 to 1993, Holland and his wife lived in
Solihull, England, where he served as president of the church's Europe North
Area. On June 23, 1994, Holland was called and ordained as an apostle by new church president
Howard W. Hunter. The vacancy was created by the death of
Ezra Taft Benson and subsequent reorganization of the First Presidency. This timing differed from the typical sustaining of new apostles in a
general conference and ordaining them afterward. Holland met with the media on the day of his ordination. His call to the apostleship was subsequently
ratified by the church during its October 1994 general conference. In 2000, Holland became the chair of the Missionary Curriculum Task Force which worked to develop
Preach My Gospel. Holland lived in
Santiago and served as president of the church's
Chile Area from 2002 to 2004. In the church's general conferences in fall 2007 and spring 2008, Holland gave sermons that directly answered accusations that Latter-day Saints are not Christians. At the April 2009 general conference, Holland gave a sermon about the
crucifixion of Jesus Christ and the importance of Christ's saying, "
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" This talk was later reformatted with music and put on a church website where it had been viewed over 500,000 times by August 2009. In 2012, Holland was the member of the Quorum of the Twelve with responsibility for the affairs of the church in
Africa. Early in that year, he went to
Sierra Leone,
Liberia, and
Ghana to meet with members and missionaries. He also met with the vice president of Sierra Leone,
Samuel Sam-Sumana. In December 2012, Holland organized the church's 3,000th stake, located in
Freetown, Sierra Leone. On March 12, 2012, the
Harvard Law School hosted Holland for a "Mormonism 101" series. On June 10, 2015, he addressed the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Foreign Affairs in the House of Lords at the UK Parliament. In 2016, Holland was keynote speaker at the
Boy Scouts of America's (BSA)
Duty to God breakfast, as part of his assignment as the church's chief BSA representative. From 2015 to 2023, among his other assignments, Holland served on the
Church Board of Education and Boards of Trustees, where he also served as chairman of the Board's Executive Committee from January 2018 to May 2023. In November 2018, Holland spoke at a major inter-religious conference at
Oxford University. During the same trip, Holland met with
Theresa May, prime minister of the United Kingdom. This may have been the first official meeting of a church apostle and a British prime minister. In January 2019, Holland presided at the groundbreaking for the church's
Urdaneta Philippines Temple. He also spoke at a multi-stake conference in the Philippines that week. In 2020, as chairman of the executive committee of the
BYU-Hawaii board of trustees, he announced the appointment of
John S. K. Kauwe III as the institution's new president. In August 2021, Holland spoke at BYU's annual conference for faculty and staff, which sparked controversy within the
LGBTQ+ community. In the address, Holland asked the faculty to defend the doctrine of the LDS Church, BYU's institutional sponsor, to be like the temple builders in Nauvoo, a trowel in one hand, and a musket in the other, to both build and defend, adding that this was not only meant for marriage between a man and a woman, but for broader issues within the church as well. In the speech, on the subject of same sex attraction, he also called for balance between commandment, love, and condoning behavior, stating that it is a "sensitive, demanding balance". Holland said that Christ never once withheld love from anyone, but Christ "also never once said to anyone, 'Because I love you, you are exempt from keeping my commandments. In early June, Holland began to gradually return to church service. After the death of
M. Russell Ballard on November 12, 2023, Holland was
set apart as the acting president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles on November 15, 2023, ==Personal life and death==