Russell M. Nelson

Russell M. Nelson has served as the 17th President of the Church since January 2018. He was born in 1924 in Salt Lake City the second of four children to Edna and Marion Nelson. When Russell was young, his parents did not attend church but supported him in participating in Sunday School and other Church-related activities. He was baptized in 1940 at the age of 16. Since his early childhood, he was immensely curious, which drove him toward the sciences and the study of the human body. Because of his deep desire to serve others, he decided to channel his interests toward the practices of medicine and healthcare.

While attending the University of Utah, Russell carried a rigorous course load—finishing eight years’ worth of studies in six—yet made time for performing arts. He participated in school plays, which was how he met his future wife Dantzel White. They were married in 1945 and became the parents of ten children, including nine daughters and one son, their youngest child. Family life was of the greatest importance to the Nelsons. Russell remained a very attentive father despite extensive professional obligations.

In 1944, Russell M. Nelson began his journey toward becoming a widely respected heart surgeon by enrolling in the medical school at the University of Utah. Over the next several years, his medical training took him and his family to Minnesota, Massachusetts, and back to Utah. In 1975, he was elected president of the Society for Vascular Surgery and was later appointed director of the American Board of Thoracic Surgery. During his medical career, he performed over 7,000 surgeries, including widely reported operations on President Spencer W. Kimball and on a woman with a tumor near her heart who was expectant with twins. Nelson sought heavenly guidance each time he performed a surgery.

Dr. Russell M. Nelson instructing a colleague during his medical career as a heart surgeon.

Russell M. Nelson also served in a bishopric and as a stake president. In 1971, he was called as the Sunday School General President. Church leaders asked him to accept the call only if he could still continue his work as a surgeon. In 1978, he served as a regional representative of the Twelve (the forerunner of an Area Seventy) in Utah with a stewardship that included student wards and stakes at Brigham Young University. Thirty-five years into his career, a stage when many other professionals of similar accomplishments were considering retirement, Nelson was called to serve as an Apostle. In 1985, one year into Elder Nelson’s apostolic ministry, a physician in China whom he had known for several years asked if he would perform surgery on Fang Rongxiang, a famous opera singer. After respectfully declining a few times, Elder Nelson agreed and, together with a former colleague in Salt Lake City, performed his final operation as a surgeon.

In the 33 years he served as an Apostle, he traveled to 134 countries and was involved in opening 31 of them for the preaching of the gospel. He championed developments in youth programs, especially the creation of the Young Women values and theme, which were announced soon after his ordination to the apostleship. He also led Church affairs in Eastern Europe during a time of international tensions with Western Europe and the United States in the 1980s and 1990s. He served on, and for a time chaired, the Missionary Executive Council in the 2000s and 2010s, when several significant advances were made to missionary training and qualifications for missionary service.

In 2005, after almost 60 years of marriage, Dantzel Nelson passed away suddenly of a heart attack. In 2006, Elder Nelson married Dr. Wendy L. Watson, a marriage and family therapist and professor at Brigham Young University. After President Boyd K. Packer passed away in 2015, Elder Nelson became the President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, where he served until the death of President Thomas S. Monson in 2018.

President Russell M. Nelson helping Isabela Castellano as she directs a song at the end of a ministry tour throughout Latin America, 2019.

Since 2018, President Nelson has presided over a series of changes to Church programs and operations, all parts of what he anticipated as “an accelerated pace” for “an unprecedented future.” Many adjustments answered the addition of nearly three million members during the tenure of President Monson and the increasingly global spread of Church congregations. He has emphasized the significance of the gathering of Israel for the ongoing work of the Restoration, urging everyone to “let God prevail” in their lives and to see the fulfillment of the covenants of the Lord in their service at home and in the Church. He has encouraged using the full name of the Church instead of cultural nicknames and initialisms, observing the Sabbath with greater sanctity, and leading out “in abandoning attitudes and actions of prejudice.” The Church was operating 159 temples in 2018; President Nelson has since announced more than 150 new temples, many in the 35 countries he has visited as President of the Church. He also directed major renovations to temples constructed by early Latter-day Saints in Utah, especially the Salt Lake Temple and its Temple Square surroundings. During the COVID-19 pandemic that touched virtually all parts of the Church throughout the world, he oversaw rapid responses and expansions in humanitarian aid. In the years following the pandemic, President Nelson welcomed resuming the accelerated pace of ministering to the world and spreading the gospel. In 2023, he taught, “The Savior’s message is clear: His true disciples build, lift, encourage, persuade, and inspire—no matter how difficult the situation.” That same year, he reached 99 years of age, the greatest longevity of any President of the Church.

President Russell M. Nelson invites people worldwide to fast for relief from COVID-19, 2020.

For more information about the life of Russell M. Nelson, see his profile in the Prophets of the Restoration collection on history.ChurchofJesusChrist.org.