NEW MORMON LEADER HAS STRONG TIE TO PRAIRIES
He is able to mix love for the individual with rigidity of the doctrine, and has led an outreach to sisters in the church.
After 90-year-old Prophet Thomas S. Monson died on Jan. 2, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints chose a new leader, Russell M. Nelson, formerly president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
Nelson is a heart surgeon who left his medical career 34 years ago to serve the Mormon Church.
The LDS church is organized geographically into congregations called stakes, a term taken from Old Testament tent imagery in which the tent or church is held up by supporting stakes. The leader of a stake is stake president.
Doug Robertson is the Saskatoon LDS stake president and John Spencer is his counsellor.
“The hierarchy of the LDS church as a pyramid with the president at the top,” Spencer says. “The president has the designation of prophet and serves with two counsellors or advisers under him. This three-man body supervises the work of the entire church in all matters of policy, organization and administration.”
Beneath the prophet is a council or Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. When a presiding president dies, the most senior apostle (calculated by years of service rather than age) becomes president of the church.
“There was no jockeying or lobbying for the position,” Spencer says. “Any person wanting the position won’t be the one to get it. There’s a great manifestation of trust.”
All 16 million Mormons worldwide knew who the next president would be.
Nelson is almost 94. He joined the Church at age 16, “which technically makes him a convert,” Spencer says. “And he has a Saskatoon connection.”
There are more than 3,000 LDS stakes worldwide, with nine congregations in the north half of Saskatchewan and 13 in the south. Once a year a conference is held which is presided over by one of the brethren from Salt Lake City. The representative spends many hours in consultation with local leadership setting goals and action plans to achieve those goals, plus determining needed supports.
“At the same time, the representative is observing, looking out for people with special leadership skills, talents and abilities,” Spencer says. “He conducts interviews, and creates a short list of adult men eligible to become priesthood leaders. Through prayer and revelation he picks those who will be given leadership opportunities based on upward streaming and impressions when interacting.”
Mormons in Saskatoon got to know Nelson when he was an elder and came to Saskatchewan in 2001 at a critical time for the Saskatoon stake. The status of the congregation was about to be downgraded because people were leaving and numbers were dwindling. Regina was the main stake and a proposal was in place to make Saskatoon a congregation within the Regina district.
Nelson met with local leadership and spent time interviewing members, and recommended the status of stake remain in place.
Spencer remembers Nelson as being a very perceptive person. “When he looked at me, I felt he was looking at the front of my backbone. But he was very kind.”
A brief bio refers to Nelson as an internationally renowned, groundbreaking cardiovascular surgeon and researcher who gave it all up when he was called by the church to become an apostle. The father of 10 served in the Korean War as a medic, then studied at a Harvard hospital. He performed the first open-heart surgery in Utah.
In his inaugural address to church membership he touched on three main things: dedicated, intentional parenting; being covenant-keeping people; and his intention to serve with fullness of heart to the last breath in his body.
Spencer says the LDS Church is growing so fast that leadership is beginning to shift. “When I was a kid, most members were American or Canadian. As the church has grown, we’re seeing many Africans and Asians joining, and we’re seeing a multinational approach to church issues.”
What does he think Russell Nelson’s global influence will be?
“President Russell is well-connected in China and Eastern Europe. He was the person who designated Kazakhstan to be opened to missions.
“He has a very strong character and is tremendously popular. He is able to mix love for the individual with rigidity of the doctrine, and has led an outreach to sisters in the church to realize their own power and act on it.”