Post Honoring President Dieter F. Uchtdorf on his 77th birthday

As promised, I am posting now in honor of President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, who is celebrating his 77th birthday today. Aside from being only the 11th apostle born outside the US and the first with ties to both German and the Czech Republic, President Uchtdorf is the 6th of those 11 to serve in the First Presidency. At the time of his call to the First Presidency in February 2008, there were only two apostles more junior than he (Elder Bednar, also called to the apostleship in October 2004, and Elder Cook, who was called 3 years after that, but 3 months before President Monson became Church President. Since that time, President Uchtdorf has gone up in the ranks of the apostleship to become the 7th most senior apostle in the Church, which makes him the least senior of the first half of our 14 apostles. So, what is important to note about the life of this wonderful man? Let's talk about all of that.

Dieter Friedrich Uchtdorf was born on November 6, 1940 in Czechoslovakia to Karl Albert and Hildegard Else Opelt Uchtdorf. He was raised in Germany, where his family joined the Church in 1947. He studied engineering, business administration, and international management. Joining the German Air Force in 1959, he trained to be a fighter pilot. In 1965, he joined Lufthansa German Airlines as a pilot, working as an airline captain from 1970-1996. He held many responsible executive positions with German Airlines. He married Harriet Reich on December 14, 1962, and they have two children and several grandchildren. He served as a stake president before his call as a General Authority. He was sustained a member of the Second Quorum of the Seventy on April 2, 1994. On April 6, 1996, he was sustained to the First Quorum of the Seventy. He became a member of the Presidency of the Seventy on August 15, 2002 and was sustained a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles on October 2, 2004 and ordained an apostle on October 7, 2004. On February 3, 2008, he was set apart as 2^nd Counselor in the First Presidency to President Thomas S. Monson.

President Uchtdorf, who has become so well loved by many members of the Church, has had the experience of being a refugee twice, and of seeing how their conversion to the gospel of Jesus Christ blessed him and his family. He also also spoken before of first being impressed by the woman he would eventually marry, when he saw them come to Church after being found by the missionaries. President Uchtdorf has spoken frequently about ways in which Church members should consider themselves called to action. I enjoy hearing what he has to say in his General Conference addresses every six months. Throughout his almost 24 years as a general authority, almost 14 years as a special witness of the Savior, and nearly a decade of service in the First Presidency, he has given 67 talks, only 2 of which were given prior to his apostolic call. To review any of these remarkable and noteworthy addresses, click here. Also worthy of note (in my opinion) is the fact that, in addition to being the 7th in seniority in the apostleship, he is also, coincidentally enough, the 7th oldest of our apostles. Though he may never read this, I wanted this post to stand as a tribute to this remarkable, unassuming man that has had such a profound effect on me personally.

That does it for this post. Any comments are, as always, welcome and appreciated. Thank you for the privilege of your time. Until my next post, I wish each one of you all the best and pray that the Lord will bless you all in all that you do.

BREAKING NEWS: Matthew Holland to serve as mission president

Hello again, everyone! I will get to my post honoring President Uchtdorf, but there is big news from the campus of Utah Valley University. Matthew S. Holland, who has served as the university's president since 2009, and is also the son of Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, has announced that, in view of his recently given call to serve as a mission president (which will start at the end of June next year), he is stepping down as UVU president. He said that he will still be committed to the university until his replacement is named, but wanted to give the governing board of UVU the next six months to find and inaugurate his replacement. He also said that he was given permission to make his new call public because of the time it will take to find the new president.

Now, that said, I did want to note that this news (especially because he is the son of an LDS apostle) may have Church critics crying "nepotism is alive and well in the Church", and may not make people happy. But in defense of both Elder Holland and the current and future President Holland, I also wanted to note that, as far as I can tell, Elder Holland has no role currently on the Missionary Executive Council, and he would likely say what President Eyring likely said about his son's call as president of BYU-Idaho, which surely echoed President Gordon B. Hinckley's response to the  call of his son, Richard, as a General Authority Seventy in 2005, that none of them advanced their son's names,  that that was done by others who have the right to do so, that they all are and were qualified because of their excellent mothers and perhaps in spite of their fathers. The Church is, always has been, and always will be very sensitive about matters of nepotism, and anyone who says otherwise obviously has never bothered to gain for themselves a testimony of the process by which such calls come.

All that aside, I will be back in a short while to publish my tribute post to President Uchtdorf, whose special day may have been overshadowed by all of this, but who is well deserving of the post which I hope will honor him sufficiently. That does it for this post. As always, any comments are welcome and appreciated. Thank you for the privilege of your time. Until my next post, I wish each one of you all the best and pray that the Lord will bless you all in all that you do.

Elder Christofferson reorganizes a stake he was once sent to dissolve

Hello, everyone! While I have not forgotten my promise to post about President Uchtdorf's birthday, and while I am actively working on getting that put together to post shortly here, there was yet another apostolic coincidence that I learned of recently, and it is well deserving of a mention here. So, what is that latest coincidence? Let's talk about that.

In early June 2007, amid the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Elder D. Todd Christofferson, who was serving as the second most senior member of the Presidency of the Seventy, and was just 10 months away from the time he would be called to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (which, though he did not have any idea that would happen, was surely known to the Lord), had a supervisory role in overseeing the Church response to Hurricane Katrina. In the aftermath of that natural disaster, and knowing that many Saints had been forced to move out of the Slidell Louisiana Stake and find both new homes and work outside of the storm's destruction zone, the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles gave Elder Christofferson the assignment to go supervise the dissolution of that stake.

It was a sad day for all concerned, but the remaining members in the region gave their full support to this decision. Fast forward now to the middle of October 2017. Having been an apostle of the Church for almost 10 years, and following General Conference, Elder Christofferson was given the joyful assignment to represent his Brethren in the apostleship by returning to the Slidell Louisiana region, this time to reorganize the stake he had dissolved over 10 years earlier.

Elder Christofferson commented to the Church News that he told the Saints in that area that he was pleased to fill this assignment, which, as he put it, gave him the opportunity to repent and redo what he had undone a decade before. As further evidence that the Lord not only knew this situation would happen the way it did (including that Elder Christofferson would be an apostle when he was sent to reestablish the stake he had previously dissolved), the Lord indicated to him that the man who should be the first president of the reinstated stake was a man who had, not coincidentally, given a prayer at the gathering 10 years earlier when the stake had been disbanded.

It was awesome to read the account the Church News shared in publishing this story.  You can find that article here. This is yet another witness to me that the Lord is, in a very real way, clearly involved in the minute details of the lives of each of us. I am confident that each one of us could share many examples of how such coincidences have occurred in our own lives, and while it may seem that the leading Brethren have such things occur more often than the rest of us, I am grateful to testify that I know for myself how mindful the Lord is of each of us as individuals. In His infinite wisdom and compassion, He orchestrates events in our lives that are not in any way random or happenstance, that demonstrate His tender mercies in the details of our lives.

I am grateful for the opportunity I have had to share all of this with each of you today. That does it for this post. Any comments are, as always, welcome and appreciated. Thank you for the privilege of your time. Until my next post, I wish each one of you all the best and pray that the Lord will bless you all in all that you do.

President Nelson Will Preside at the Inauguration of BYU-Pathway Worldwide President Clark G. Gilbert

Hello, everyone! As one who has done extensive study on what happens when the Church President is dealing with age- or health-related issues that prevent him from actively presiding over Church matters, the remaining First Presidency members (in this case, Presidents Eyring and Uchtdorf) from time to time have the option of delegating responsibilities to the President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, whether or not those assignments and responsibilities relate to assignments in which he is taking an active part. That happened just recently. So what is it that Presidents Eyring and Uchtdorf have asked President Nelson to do? Read on for more on that.

As I mentioned in another blog post earlier this year, the Church Educational System membership expanded earlier this year to include four members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (Elders Oaks and Holland, who serve on the Executive Committee, and were on the Board prior to the changes), and Elders Bednar and Renlund, who were added when membership expanded), Presiding Bishop Gerald Causse, Elder Hallstrom (who continued his role on the Board after his release from the Presidency of the Seventy, while Elder Gong represents the Presidency of the Seventy on the Board), and the Young Women, Young Men, and Relief Society General Presidents (the RS and YW Presidents were part of the board prior to the changes, but the YM President was added when board membership was expanded).

With all of that in mind, it was significant to me that Presidents Eyring and Uchtdorf, who serve as First and Second Vice Chairmen on the Board, have given President Nelson, who has no direct role on the Board, the assignment to represent them in presiding at the inauguration ceremony for BYU-Pathway Worldwide President Clark G. Gilbert. The new organization, announced earlier this year, allows groups of students in the BYU program to gather together at various locations worldwide for their study and certification, rather than having to negotiate being on the BYU campus. The new organization, administered from Salt Lake City, is an official secondary educational organization that had started at BYU-Idaho. While the appointment of President Gilbert had been announced earlier this year (as he was serving as President of BYU-Idaho), he has not yet been inaugurated. That is set to happen 10 days from now, on November 16.

The inauguration of President Gilbert is set to include a charge he will be given during the event that will give him guidelines to use as he officially assumes this new assignment, though it is unclear whether President Nelson will administer that charge himself, or if he will call on one of the four members of the Quorum of the Twelve serving on the Board to do so. For more on what is known about this event, the official article from the Church News on that subject can be found here.

I will be back later on today to post the birthday tribute to President Uchtdorf, who is celebrating his 77th birthday today. That does it for this post. Any comments are, as always, welcome and appreciated. Thank you for the privilege of your time. Until my next post, I wish each one of you all the best and pray that the Lord will bless you in all that you do.

Meridian Idaho Temple Set to Begin Its Final Week of Open House Tours

Hello, everyone! With today being November 6, I have a post in the works for President Uchtdorf's birthday, which will be published within the next 12 hours or so, if not sooner. But I wanted to post now to note that the Meridian Idaho Temple is beginning its final week of open house tours. The dedication is two weeks from yesterday. After the open house concludes, the Church will ensure that the temple is ready for the dedication. Still no word on who will be in attendance from the leadership of the Church, but I will post information on that as soon as I find it. That does it for this post. Any comments are, as always, welcome and appreciated. Thank you for the privilege of your time. Until my next post, I wish each one of you all the best and pray that the Lord will bless all of you in everything you do.