Hello again, everyone! With today being August 9, Elder Neil L. Andersen is celebrating his 67th birthday today. So I wanted to post and share some highlights of his life and ministry in the Church. Let's get right into all of that.
Neil Linden Andersen was born in Logan, Utah on this day in 1951 to Lyle and Kathryn Andersen. His family relocated to Pocatello when he was five to run a dairy farm. He served a full-time mission in France, then obtained a bachelor's degree in economics, eventually earning his MBA from Harvard, also in economics. During his time at BYU, he met and married his wife, Kathy Sue Anderson, and together they raised four children.
He spent his professional career working various jobs. At the pinnacle of his career, he was Vice President of the Morton Plant Health System. He has served in the Church as a stake president’s counselor, stake president and mission president (assigned to the France Bordeaux Mission) from 1989-1992. Less than a year after his return, he was called to be a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy. Interestingly, his call as a General Authority occurred in the same conference as that of his apostolic seatmate, Elder D. Todd Christofferson.
During his time as a Seventy, he served in a wide variety of Church assignments, including as executive director of the church's Audiovisual Department, assistant executive director of the Priesthood Department, and in the presidencies of the following areas: Europe West Utah North, Utah South, North America Southwest, North America Northeast, and the Brazil South Area (during which time he served as the area president).
In 2005, Elder Andersen was called to the Presidency of the Seventy, where he was assigned to preside over the Idaho Area (from 2005-2007), and by the time his stewardship switched to the North America Southwest Area (2007-2009), he had gone from being the second-least senior member of that Presidency to being the third-most-senior member. In 2008, with Elder D. Todd Christofferson’s call to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (in April) and the release of Senior President Elder Earl C. Tingey (in August, in preparation for his being granted emeritus status in the October General Conference), Elder Andersen then became the Senior President of the Seventy.
He would only serve in that capacity for 8 months. In view of Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin’s death in December 2008, Elder Andersen was subsequently called to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles during the April 2009 General Conference. An interesting bit of trivia is the fact that Elders Christofferson, Andersen, and Rasband were all seatmates in the Presidency of the Seventy as of August 2007, and they would all go on to be apostolic seatmates, having been called in April 2008, April 2009, and October 2015 respectively.
Elder Andersen has had 24 opportunities thus far to address Church members in General Conference (3 of which he gave as a General Authority Seventy, with 2 others given while he was a member of the Presidency of the Seventy, and the remaining 19 since his call to the QuorIum of the Twelve Apostles). To review any or all of those talks, click here.
I am grateful for Elder Andersen's ministry, and I joyfully and wholeheartedly sustain him as a prophet, seer and revelator. Although it is unlikely he will ever personally read this tribute, I am likewise grateful for all I have learned through both his General Conference talks and reading the reports of the ministry of both him and all the Brethren we sustain as special witnesses of the Savior.
That does it for this post. Any and all comments are, as always, welcome and appreciated. Thank you for the privilege of your time. If you enjoyed what you read here and would like to stay informed of newly-added content, please feel free to subscribe. Until my next post, I wish each one of you all the best and pray that the Lord will bless you all in everything you do.
Thursday, August 9, 2018
Elder Neil L. Andersen Marks his 67th Birthday
I have had a lifelong love for Church history, which has extended to ongoing reports of the ministry of our apostles and prophets, General Conference, and all temple developments. This blog enables me to share that love with all who read my thoughts on these developments, which are sometimes reported multiple times per day as needed.
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