President Thomas S. Monson celebrates his 90th birthday today, becoming the 7th nonagenarian prophet in this dispensation

As noted above by the somewhat abnormally lengthy title of this blog post, not only are we marking a solar eclipse today, but our prophet, President Thomas S. Monson, marks his 90th birthday today, becoming the 7th of our 16 prophets to become a nonagenarian. That is significant any way it's considered. So much has been written and said about our prophet, both prior to and as a result of this monumental day. and it is therefore a very daunting task to provide a fresh perspective of his life. But I will try.

As many know, his service in the Naval Reserve precluded his ability to serve a mission. However, right around the age he would have been after returning from a mission (22), he was called to be the bishop of his ward. A few years later, he would serve for a time as a member of his stake presidency. At the young age of 32, he uprooted his family (which then consisted of his wife and his two children; the youngest son would be born a short while later) to serve as a mission president in Canada. After three years in that assignment, he came home and served on Church committees while continuing a profession of publishing. A short time later, he was called by President David O. McKay to fill a vacancy in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles that had arisen when the junior apostle, N. Eldon Tanner, who had been called to the apostleship the year before, was called to the First Presidency.

Elder Monson would serve in the apostleship for 22 years before the death of President Kimball, the 12th Church President, led to a reorganization of the First Presidency. When Ezra Taft Benson became the prophet, he selected Gordon B. Hinckley and Thomas S. Monson as his counselors. President Benson functioned actively as prophet for just a few years. Presidents Hinckley and Monson saw the Church through a period of several years when the Lord's prophet was not able to function fully as such.

When President Benson passed away in May of 1994, his successor, President Howard W. Hunter, retained Presidents Hinckley and Monson. But President Hunter's presidency would only span a short period of just under 9 months.

When President Hunter passed away in March of 1995, President Monson's status as the second in line to new Church President Gordon B. Hinckley made him a natural fit to serve as both the First Counselor to President Hinckley and as President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, a position he held for the next almost-13 years.

When President Hinckley himself passed away in January of 2008, President Monson, as had many before him, spent several hours in the temple pouring out his soul in prayer to our Heavenly Father for guidance about how to lead the Church. He was then able to oversee the funeral arrangements for President Hinckley, and a day after that funeral, convened a meeting with the 14 remaining apostles to reorganize the First Presidency. He was unanimously sustained by his Brethren as Church President, and the next senior apostle Boyd K. Packer set him apart in that position.

President Monson then noted that, acting under the inspiration of the Spirit, he was calling Elders Henry B. Eyring (who was the first apostle called by President Hinckley and had served alongside President Monson in the first Presidency for almost four months prior to President Hinckley's passing) and Dieter F. Uchtdorf (called to the apostleship in 2004 and who, as a native German, had been blessed by President Monson's apostolic ministry to that nation, was a good friend of the new prophet) as his counselors.

The next 9.5 years, as we know, between February 2008 and now has seen quite an expansion of so many wonderful things for the Church, including the changing of the missionary age and so many more temples. But perhaps best of all, Presidents Eyring and Uchtdorf have, through these last 9.5 years, learned how President Monson thinks and feels about things, and were thus prepared to continue to lead the Church forward in the wake of the announcement made on May 23 of this year, when we learned that President Monson would be scaling back his duties and not actively participating in meetings or decisions. We have also, in the last several years, seen the 7 apostles junior to President Monson but senior to President Nelson pass away.

I could go on forever about the accomplishments of our prophet. But I think it sufficient to say merely that the Church has been in good hands under his inspired leadership, and will continue to be so now as he takes a less active role in Church leadership. Over his apostolic ministry, which will, as of this October, have spanned 54 years, he has given a number of masterful general conference addresses. If I have counted correctly, the total number of those addresses now stands at 247. And that is just in general conference alone. I do not know how many more times we may be privileged to hear from this wonderful man, but if any of you would like to review any of those addresses, you can find most of them (from April 1971-April 2017) here.

In the meantime, that does it for this tribute to our prophet. I hope he had a wonderful day.  Any comments are, as always, welcome, but I hope any such comments will be respectful of our prophet. In the meantime, thank you all for the privilege of your time. Until my next post, I wish you all the best.