Elder C. Max Caldwell

Of the Seventy

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As a boy growing up in Vernal, Utah, C. Max Caldwell loved to camp and fish in the nearby mountains, but the mountains were not his only love. “I remember that when I was ten years old,” says Elder Caldwell, “the feeling that the gospel was true came forcibly to me during a testimony meeting. I stood and expressed it and wept.”

Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, on 4 December 1933, Max loved growing up in Vernal. During his high school years, he played basketball, football, baseball, and track. He attended the University of Utah, where he studied business administration and received his B.S. On September 1952, he married his high school sweetheart, Bonnie Lee Adamson, in the Salt Lake Temple. They became the parents of five children.

Brother Caldwell served a mission to the North Central States from 1953 to 1955. Then, after serving on active duty in Korea as an Army pilot from 1958 to 1961, he returned to graduate school at Brigham Young University, where he earned an M.A. in Church history and doctrine.

“After I began to teach in the Church Educational System and really search the scriptures,” says Elder Caldwell, who taught seminary in Salt Lake City and institute adjacent to Utah State University, “the Savior became a very meaningful person to me. I always knew he was there, but I added to my testimony of the Church a testimony of Christ.”

At the time of his call to the Seventy, he was a professor at Brigham Young University. He was also serving as a regional representative in the Utah South Area, having previously served as president of the Louisiana Baton Rouge Mission from 1983 to 1986.

“David O. McKay made the following statement in April 1951 general conference,” says Elder Caldwell: “‘What you sincerely in your heart think of Christ determines what you are, and will largely determine what your acts will be.’ No statement outside of holy writ has had more impact on my life than that.”