Elder Neil L. Andersen
of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
On April 3, 2009, Church President Thomas
S. Monson announced to 21,000 people seated in the Conference
Center and to hundreds of thousands more watching the broadcast throughout the
world that Elder Neil L. Andersen would fill the vacancy left in the Quorum of
the Twelve Apostles by the passing of Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin, who passed away
in December of 2008.
Elder Andersen was
serving as the senior member of the Presidency of the Seventy prior to his
calling to the Quorum of the Twelve. He was named a member of the First Quorum
of the Seventy in April 1993, at age 41. He previously led the work of the
Church in southern Brazil and, again as a member of an area presidency, oversaw
the Church in western Europe. He has also assisted in supervising the work of
the Church in Mexico and Central America. In addition, he supervised
Church audiovisual production, including the filming of The Testaments: Of
One Fold and One Shepherd and managed construction of the broadcast
facilities in the Conference Center as the executive director of the Church
Audiovisual Department. He speaks French, Portuguese and Spanish in addition to
his native English.
Prior to his call
as a general authority, Elder Andersen served as a mission president in the
France Bordeaux Mission and as president of the Tampa Florida Stake.
Elder Andersen was
born in Logan, Utah, and raised in Pocatello, Idaho, on a dairy farm where he
remembers doing "typical Idaho farm work, from morning to night.” In
high school, he excelled in student government, serving as governor of Idaho
Boys State.
He graduated from
Brigham Young University, where he was a Hinckley Scholar, and earned a masters
of business administration from Harvard University. After completing his
education, he settled in Tampa, Florida, where his business interests included
advertising, real estate development and health care.
Elder Andersen and
his wife, Kathy Williams Andersen, are the parents of four children and 12
grandchildren.
Members of the
Quorum of the Twelve Apostles serve under the direction of the First
Presidency. In addition to their primary responsibility to be special witnesses
of Jesus Christ throughout the world, apostles have administrative
responsibilities as they oversee the programs and development of the global
Church.
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