Elder J. Kimo Esplin

General Authority Seventy

A few months after his mission, Elder J. Kimo Esplin was in a car accident that killed his father. Just a few months later, with his mother sitting beside him, his car was struck from behind. The car rolled, and his mother and niece were killed.

Despite the tragedies and grief he has experienced, Elder Esplin considers himself blessed. He attributes that feeling to the Lord and His goodness and tender mercies.

“Life’s been good,” he said.

One of his favorite sayings is “The Lord isn’t doing it to you; He’s doing it for you.”

In the wake of his parents’ deaths, his older sisters chipped in and sent him on study abroad to the Brigham Young University Jerusalem Center. There, he met Kaye Davis.

The two became good friends as their group camped in the Sinai desert, worked in banana fields, and studied the Old and New Testaments together.

After returning to Provo, Utah, they began dating. They married in the Salt Lake Temple in December 1985. They have eight children.

Jon Ross Kimo Esplin was born on August 18, 1962, in Kahuku, Hawaii, USA. He was the youngest child—and only boy—of Ross S. and Olive Ora Moody Esplin’s eight children.

Elder Esplin earned a degree in accounting from Brigham Young University in 1987. After moving his family to Chicago, Illinois, he began his career in investment banking and earned a master of business administration degree.

When Elder Esplin became executive vice president and chief financial officer for Huntsman Corporation, the family relocated briefly to Belgium before settling in Cottonwood Heights, Utah.

Elder Esplin, who was an Area Seventy at the time of his call as a General Authority Seventy, served as a mission president in the Japan Tokyo and Japan Tokyo South Missions. As a young full-time missionary, he served in the Japan Kobe Mission. He has also served as a stake president, high councilor, and bishop.