Elder Spencer V. Jones

Of the Seventy

“Let’s all go up. Let’s make the bishop faint. Let’s all go up and bear our testimonies.” This was the challenge young Spencer V. Jones made to his fellow deacons. It was also a turning point in the maturing of his testimony. “As I bore my testimony, at the end—where maybe a month before I was giggling at the people who cried while bearing their testimonies because I didn’t really understand—I found myself in tears,” Elder Jones recalls. “I’ve never forgotten that moment, because when spirit speaks to spirit, something special happens.”

Elder Jones, recently sustained as a member of the Second Quorum of the Seventy, was born in Safford, Arizona, to Virgil and Nellie Baker Jones on 17 September 1945. He grew up a farmer’s son in the small Latter-day Saint community of Virden, New Mexico, where the meetinghouse was the center of activities. “We called almost everyone in town aunt and uncle—even if they weren’t related—and everybody took care of everybody as if they were.”

After serving in the Argentina North Mission, Elder Jones attended Brigham Young University, where he earned a degree in animal science. At an Arizona Club dance on campus, he met Joyce Elizabeth Mathews. They were married on 3 June 1968, and after graduation, they moved to Gallup, New Mexico. Elder Jones has worked in a variety of businesses, including a furniture company and a cattle company. He and his wife have three children and eight grandchildren.

Elder Jones explains that each of his assignments has been a blessing and has prepared him to further serve in the Lord’s kingdom. He has learned much from each calling, whether serving as Young Men president, bishop’s counselor, bishop, seminary teacher, mission president, area executive secretary, or Area Authority Seventy. “Each calling is a stepping-stone and a learning experience,” says Elder Jones. “You grow one step at a time.”