Elder Daryl H. Garn

Of the Seventy

When Daryl H. Garn was a missionary in western Canada, his mission president made a visit to his area. Elder Garn hadn’t seen much of the mission president because the mission was so large, so this was a special occasion.

“As President Arave concluded his testimony, he said he knew those things better than he knew anything,” remembers Elder Garn, “and the Spirit witnessed to my mind that it was true—that you could know things of the Spirit as well or better than you know anything.”

Since that day, Elder Garn, sustained in October as a member of the Second Quorum of the Seventy, has experienced the truth of his mission president’s testimony again and again. He recalls a few years later when he was sitting in a stake conference in Ohio and the Spirit whispered that he would be called into his ward’s bishopric. He had been in dental school for just two weeks, but before the day was over, President Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985), then a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, made the call official.

“Elder Kimball said, ‘Brother Garn, the Lord has called you to this position, and if you put first things first, He will bless you,’” Elder Garn remembers. He feels that by serving diligently in his callings—including bishop, stake president, Young Men president, high councilor, and Area Authority Seventy—he has been sustained in all aspects of his life.

His wife, Irene, says he is always willing to put the Lord first, and he responds to any call—be it to help around the house or lead a ward—with an agreeable, “That’s just what I want to do!”

Elder Garn was born on 28 December 1938 in Tremonton, Utah, to Uel and Lolita Hodges Garn. He married Irene Hall on 19 December 1961 in the Logan Utah Temple. They have six children and 19 grandchildren. They raised their family in Mesa, Arizona.