Stokes Sounds Off: New Mission Presidents Announced for 2017

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Friday, January 13, 2017

New Mission Presidents Announced for 2017

Even though, historically speaking, by this time in January in years past, mission presidents and any new missions have been announced for about a week, in light of the recent deaths of prominent current and former General Authorities just within the last 20 days or so, it is understandable (in my opinion) that this year's assignments were only announced today.

The biggest surprises for me in this regard (which were, on reflection, not as surprising as they initially appeared to be) were that the only new mission to take effect this year is the Utah Salt Lake City Church Headquarters Mission, and that, among those called to serve as mission presidents this year were not a few former Area Seventies, four currently serving ones (Pedro U. Adduru, Angel H. Alarcon, Winsor Balderrama (Sejas) and Abenir V. Pajaro, who will no doubt be among the many Area Seventies released this April (as service as a mission president renders continuing service in a specific geographical area impossible)) and one current General Authority, Elder Chi Hong (Sam) Wong, who joins the ranks of five or six other actively serving General Authorities that have served as a mission president during that same time.

I honestly can't qualify this next statement. I only make it based on my own study of the relevant time periods. But from that study, I can say with relative certainty that it was a common thing for apostles to serve as mission presidents while being active members of the Quorum of the Twelve, at least for the first 100 years or so of the Church's history. Then it seemed that, during President Spencer W. Kimball's tenure as prophet, many actively serving General Authorities served as mission presidents. I haven't been made aware of all those that might have so served during the tenure of Presidents Ezra Taft Benson, Howard W. Hunter, and Gordon B. Hinckley, but I can't say unequivocally that it did not happen at all. If that practice did go away during those years, it seems that President Thomas S. Monson has been inspired to bring it back.

As part of my desire to share what I know regarding Church news and developments, I share the following facts I am aware of in terms of those active General Authorities who have served, are serving or will start serving this year as mission presidents. This information was mentioned by me in a comment I posted recently in response to a post on the LDS Church Growth Blog. For what it's worth, here's that information:

Elder W. Craig Zwick served as an interim mission president because of the death of the current president. I guess the idea was to do a quick fix to ensure the mission work would carry on uninterrupted while the Church appointed a successor. Elder Zwick served for that short time in 2014 as president of the Puerto Rico San Juan Mission. Then, as mentioned above, Elder Michael John U. Teh currently serves as the president of the Taiwan Taichung Mission, having been called last year. Elder Wong has been called to serve as president of the Canada Vancouver Mission starting in July, which will neccesitate and result in a change being made in the Asia Area Presidency. Elder Kazuhiko Yamashita served from 2013-2015 as the president of the Japan Nagoya Mission. And during that same two year span, Elder Yoon Hwan Choi served as the president of the Seattle Washington Mission.
That said, I am not sure of all the factors that are involved in the decision to assign a currently serving General Authority to simultaneously lead a mission. I imagine most of it involves helping thosemissions grow in ways that they could not otherwise achieve. Slightly less important, it may be that some of these brethren did not have a chance to be a mission president prior to serving as a General Authority. Service as being a mission president is not by any means a prerequisite to being a General Authority, but it does help. Another reason may be the idea that a general authority who has had experience through various assignments around the world and at Church headquarters may serve to "tighten up" mission procedures and policies and bring them more in line with the Church's general mission.

It has been interesting to see the announcement of new mission presidents. For a list of those called,click here. Any comments on the subject of new mission presidents are always welcome and appreciated. Thanks.

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