Remembering Elder L. Tom Perry

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This post on the Church web site has a nice article on the late Apostle’s life. Please feel free to post any memories of Elder Perry here.

You may want to read this account of some personal experiences with Elder Perry.

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About Geoff B.

Geoff B graduated from Stanford University (class of 1985) and worked in journalism for several years until about 1992, when he took up his second career in telecommunications sales. He has held many callings in the Church, but his favorite calling is father and husband. Geoff is active in martial arts and loves hiking and skiing. Geoff has five children and lives in Colorado.

6 thoughts on “Remembering Elder L. Tom Perry”

  1. Thank you for making it easy to get to those tributes. What a wonderful man Brother Perry was.

  2. With the death of every apostle we are reminded again of the amazing men who have been called to lead the Church. Two common traits are humility and competence. Elder Perry was a businessman and he brought that expertise to his apostolic calling. Apparently he was responsible for the creation of area presidents which was eventually tied into the organization of the expanded responsibilities and organization of the quorums of the Seventies. I’m old enough to remember when Assistants to the Twelve was an office directly under the apostles in the organization of the Church. The flexibility provided by the expansion and empowerment of the Seventies has helped integrate new converts in areas where there is rapid growth. When Elder Perry was called there was a crisis caused by the expansion. It is interesting that after he was asked to address the problem of rapid expansion the role of seventies was revised in 1976. Two years later the priesthood ban was lifted which made Africa and the Caribbean new centers of expansion. It could be seen that he was an important factor in the the extension of the priesthood to all mankind.

  3. Elder Perry visited our mission in Brazil while I was there 17 years ago. I still remember the complete silence when we all stood as he entered the chapel for our mission conference. The silence was promptly broken by Elder Perry stopping to talk to missionaries along the way and shaking hands with a bunch of elders and sisters on his way to the podium. His friendliness and enthusiasm stood out the most to me. He then proceeded to give a wonderful lesson applying the principles of a motion offense in basketball to missionary work, and how we can apply those same principles when trials come upon us in our own life. I’ve met four different apostles in my life, but that experience was the most memorable of any of them.

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