“Brother Michael T. Nelson,” Liahona, May 2023.
Brother Michael T. Nelson
Second Counselor in the Young Men General Presidency
For Brother Michael T. Nelson, his time as a mission president confirmed that teaching the rising generation correct principles and then trusting them produces the best results—both for missionary work and in the lives of individual missionaries.
“It is all about trust. We learned to trust them,” he said of working with full-time missionaries in the California San Bernardino Mission, where the Nelsons served as mission leaders from 1998 to 2001.
Brother Nelson says that learning—and giving young people the opportunity to lead—has remained an integral part of his Church service and will continue to be in his new calling in the Young Men General Presidency. For the past three years, Brother Nelson has served as executive secretary to the Young Men General Presidency. For two years previously, he served as a member of what is now the Young Men general advisory council.
Michael Terry Nelson was born on June 10, 1956, in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, to Monte Cannon and Viola Eliza Nelson and grew up in the Salt Lake area. After serving in the Chile Santiago Mission, he studied organizational communications at Brigham Young University and the University of Utah. In 1982 he married Barbara Fluckiger in the Jordan River Temple. The Nelsons lived in Sandy, Utah, before moving to Wallsburg, Utah. They have nine children.
Brother Nelson is chief financial officer of a commercial and residential real estate and investment company. The Nelsons, including two children living at home, also operate a small farm on their home’s property. Being active and spending time in the outdoors should be important for youth of the Church, Brother Nelson says, as it has been for his family.
Brother Nelson has served as a stake president, counselor in a stake presidency, stake executive secretary, bishop, and ward and stake Young Men president. He helped with fundraising, registration, and logistics in 1997 for the sesquicentennial wagon train that reenacted the first company’s journey to the Salt Lake Valley.