Elder Marcus B. Nash

Of the Seventy

Elder Marcus Bell Nash remembers as an eight-year-old boy puzzling over something a nonmember friend had told him. This friend had said that he believed his own church was true. Elder Nash says, “I knew our Church was true. I had never thought that someone else could think his or her church was true. I walked home puzzling and pondering this question. If he thinks his church is true, and I think mine is true, who is right?”

As he sat on the front steps, his head in his hands, he asked himself, “How do I figure this out?” Elder Nash says, “A voice came into my mind, and it said, ‘Now you know that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, don’t you?’ I answered the question inwardly, ‘Yes.’ Then the voice said, ‘Then you know the Church is true, don’t you?’ And I said, ‘Yes!’ All the doubt disappeared.”

That answer set the foundation of his testimony. Elder Nash developed a great love for the Prophet Joseph Smith and a powerful feeling for the Book of Mormon that built upon that foundation.

Elder Nash was born to Brent and Beverly Bell Nash on March 26, 1957, in Seattle, Washington, USA. He married Shelley Hatch on May 29, 1979, in the Salt Lake Temple. They have five children.

Elder Nash graduated with a bachelor’s degree in international relations and a law degree from Brigham Young University. He was a partner in a major Seattle law firm at the time of his call. He has served in the Church as stake president, bishop, ward Young Men president, elders quorum president, Gospel Doctrine teacher, and full-time missionary in the El Salvador San Salvador Mission. Elder Nash was serving as an Area Seventy in the North America Northwest Area when he was called to the First Quorum of the Seventy.