“Russell M. Nelson: A Prophet for Our Day,” Liahona, Sept. 2024.
Russell M. Nelson: A Prophet for Our Day
With a prophet to guide us in these latter days, we truly are a blessed people.
President Russell M. Nelson greets people after a devotional in Singapore on November 20, 2019.
When an interviewer criticized The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as “a church run by old men,” President Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008) responded, “Isn’t it wonderful to have a man of maturity at the head, a man of judgment who isn’t blown about by every wind of doctrine?”
President Russell M. Nelson, the oldest living prophet to serve in this dispensation, is such a man. He completes his 100th year on September 9, 2024. He is a leader of extraordinary compassion and congeniality, vision and vitality, warmth and wisdom.
I love President Nelson. We have been friends for 60 years and fellow Apostles for 40 years. Since January 2018, I have been blessed to serve under his direction in the First Presidency of the Church.
Called to lead the restored Church of Jesus Christ and be its preeminent teacher, President Nelson knows the Savior, whose prophet he is. Through a century of living and learning, he has excelled in prominent professional and military service. With his large family, he has been a loving and effective family leader. Through Church callings, including the past six years as the Lord’s prophet, he has been an exemplary leader in the Lord’s restored Church.
Through a century of living, President Nelson has learned and practiced the keys to happiness in this life and in the life to come—what he has called life’s “most crucial lessons.”
He has taught us that we should “begin with the end in mind.”
He loves the house of the Lord. During his years as President of the Church, he has announced 168 new temples—about half of the Church’s 350 total temples that have been built, are under construction, or have been announced in this dispensation.
He has taught us that all our temple building is bringing the temple, and the blessings of temple covenants, closer to more of God’s children. That is God’s plan.
President Nelson has taught, “I have learned that Heavenly Father’s plan for us is fabulous, that what we do in this life really matters, and that the Savior’s Atonement is what makes our Father’s plan possible.” Understanding that plan, he said, “takes the mystery out of life and the uncertainty out of our future. It allows each of us to choose how we will live here on earth and where we will live forever.”
As Latter-day Saints, we are truly a blessed people to be led by the Lord’s humble servant, President Nelson, who is dedicated to preparing the world for the Second Coming of our Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ. May we all continue to pray for, testify of, sustain, and thank God for our prophet—President Russell Marion Nelson.