Elder William K. Jackson

General Authority Seventy

After 23 years as a regional medical officer in the U. S. Foreign Service, William K. Jackson was asked to share the top 20 experiences he’d had while living and working in the nethermost regions of the world.

As he mulled over that request before his retirement ceremony, he realized that “all 20 of my top 20 were Church- or family-related,” he said.

William King Jackson was born on March 29, 1956, in Washington, D.C., USA, to E. William and Lois Andrey Jackson. He grew up in Ojai, California, USA, but because of his parents’ volunteer work, he also received schooling in Honduras, Algeria, and Afghanistan.

After serving a mission in the Bolivia La Paz Mission, Elder Jackson met Ann Kesler in the summer of 1977.

“It was love at first sight for me,” he said. “I spent the rest of that summer trying to convince her that I was the one.”

They married on December 29, 1977, in the Los Angeles California Temple. They are the parents of eight children, three of whom are adopted—from India, Nepal, and Cambodia.

Elder Jackson attended Brigham Young University, earned a bachelor of science degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and received a doctor of medicine degree from the University of California, San Francisco, in 1983.

After his medical residency, they worked overseas for 26 years. He worked most recently as medical director of Valley Family Health Care, with locations in Idaho and Oregon, USA.

When they lived outside the United States, he and Sister Jackson spent most of their time among first-generation Church members.

“One of the biggest parts of my testimony of the gospel has been watching what the gospel does to these people that we love,” he said. “It changes them.”

Elder Jackson has served as an Area Seventy, president of the India New Delhi Mission, branch Young Men president, institute teacher, and Gospel Doctrine teacher. At the time of his call to be a General Authority Seventy, he was serving as a bishop.