Hello again, everyone! Elder Neil L. Andersen is marking his 70th birthday today. As a result of reaching this milestone, Elder Andersen becomes the tenth current apostle to be 70 years of age or older. Let's get right into the latest birthday tribute I'm posting in his honor. Neil Linden Andersen was born on this day in 1951 to Lyle and Kathryn Andersen in Logan Utah. 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 future apostolic seatmate, Elder D. Todd Christofferson.
Through the next couple of decades 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 also 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). 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, a role in which he would only serve for around 8 months.
With the December 2008 death of Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin, 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, with their apostolic calls occurring in April 2008, April 2009, and October 2015 respectively.
Since Elder Andersen's original call as a General Authority Seventy in April 1993, he has given a total of 28 addresses 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 25 since his call to the QuorIum of the Twelve Apostles).
Elder Andersen continues to be the seventh in both senirotiy and chronological birth order among the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and ranks tenth among the 15 total apostles in both seniority and birth chronology. I gladly sustain him and each of his 14 apostolic colleagues as prophets, seers, and revelators, and am grateful to have been able to publish this tribute in honor of his birthday today. That does it for now. Any and all comments are, as always, welcome and appreciated, on any post at any time, as long as such comments are made in accordance with the established guidelines. 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.
Hello again, everyone! Given that today is Elder Andersen's 70th birthday, the Church News has shared 7 quotes from him which were given in various settings throughout this last year:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.thechurchnews.com/leaders-and-ministry/2021-08-09/elder-andersen-70th-birthday-quotes-221491
And in the 1950s and 1960s, the Church sent out several missionaries (who were sometimes accompan ied by their wives and children) to work on construction projects relating to the Church College of New Zealand and the Hamilton New Zealand Temple. Another new article from the Church News looks back on that period now as the 70th anniversary of that period is being observed:
https://www.thechurchnews.com/history-revisited/2021-08-09/sacrifice-and-consecration-exhibit-labor-missionaries-new-zealand-221309
My thanks once again to you all.
Elder Ulisses Soares of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles addressed youth in the Caribbean during an FSY conference that took place in late July:
Deletehttps://www.thechurchnews.com/leaders-and-ministry/2021-08-09/elder-soares-caribbean-fsy-learn-to-listen-to-recognize-the-holy-ghost-221485
My thanks once again to you all.
The Church News has provided a final report on Latter-day Saints who participated in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, which concludecd with the closing ceremony last night:
Deletehttps://www.thechurchnews.com/members/2021-08-09/lds-olympians-valerie-adams-medalists-carries-new-zealand-flag-closing-ceremony-tokyo-games-221789
To review content provided by the Church News about Latter-day Saints in the Olympics, please visit the following Church News section dedicated to that coverage:
https://www.thechurchnews.com/category/olympics
My thanks once again to you all.
In addition to speaking fluent French, Elder Andersen also speaks very good Spanish and Portuguese. Patzicia.
ReplyDeleteHello, Patzicia. I apologize for mg delayed acknowledggrement of your comment here. You are absolutely correct about Elder Andersen's grasp of Spanish and Poruguese. I appreciate you mentioning it. Within the last 17 years or so, the Church has called a total of 10 new apostles. As we also know, among the other 5 apostles are those who have varyying degrees of fluency in languages other than English, it has been particularly true that most, if not all, of the 10 apostles called between October 2004 and April 2018 have been either bilingual, or in some cases, multilingual. And there hss particularly been a majority of those 10 apostles who alsoc have specifically been very fluent in Spanish and Portuguese. The fact that there are more apostles now who are fluent in those languages appears to reflect the fact that Spanish and Portuguese are the second- and third-most common languages spoken by Church members and by residents of nations to which the Church has sent missionaries.
DeleteThe fact that, for the first time in Church history, insofar as I am aware, a majority of our current apostles are fluent in both Spanish and Portuguese is indeed significant. Because that is so significant, it has been a fairly prominent point of information that is frequently emphasized in coverage from the Church about the ministry of the apostles, especially when remarks given as part of their global ministry efforts are given in either of those languages.
But the one downside of having so many apostles fluent in either or both of those languages is that I might not always remember to include that information in posts highlighting the birthdays and/or ministry of the apostles about whom that applies.
Having acknowledged that, I appreciate you underscoring that point. I am one who firmly believes that the Lord has put so many apostles fluent in those languages in their current roles so that they will be in a better position to more fully represent the global demographics of the Church. So thanks agian for that reminder. I always appreciate hearing from you.