Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints<\/a>, has been called to preside over the London England Temple.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
I saw a few posts from critics describing this new assignment as his \u201creward,\u201d supposedly for the slavish lies he\u2019s told on behalf of the Cult.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
And, over the years, I\u2019ve seen calls of others \u2014 to serve as mission presidents or as General Authorities, or to join the Council of the Twelve \u2014 derisively described as if they were invitations sit upon a throne while being wafted with peacock feather fans and receiving the adulation of the multitude.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
If such comments have been serious, they reveal a deep misapprehension of the nature of these callings. \u00a0(I\u2019ll say nothing about the baseless and uncharitable allegation that Brother Otterson was lying. \u00a0The same charge is routinely leveled, with equal inaccuracy, against me.)<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I have a friend \u2014 we\u2019ve known each other since before our missions \u2014 who was called to the Seventy quite a while\u00a0ago, at a relatively young age. \u00a0At one point, years into his calling (in which he still serves), we were talking about the nature of his duties and about the perception of some that being a General Authority is\u00a0glamorous. \u00a0He chuckled. \u00a0\u201cNinety-nine percent of the \u2018glamour\u2019 that I receive\u00a0in this position,\u201d he laughed, \u201cconsists in sitting on a big chair during a weekend in April and a weekend in October.\u201d \u00a0He told me stories of having to preside over a foreign area covering seven time zones, where he was on the road several weeks each month. \u00a0He recalled a room \u2014 in the best hotel of a rather large but quite\u00a0third-world city far to the north \u2014 where it was so cold that he and his traveling companion, Elder Charles Didier, were afraid to go to sleep. \u00a0Instead, they stayed up all night, dressed in their trench coats, slapping their arms, talking to stay awake, and sitting on a heating grill from which they imagined they could feel some slight warmth. \u00a0They had to step over drunks and ascend several urine-drenched flights of stairs to get to that room.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Very glamorous.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I recall running into another General Authority whom I had known at BYU prior to his call. \u00a0He was serving in the area presidency of a foreign region. \u00a0Plainly, he\u2019d been having a rough day: \u00a0I asked him how he was doing. \u00a0\u201cOh, Dan,\u201d he replied, \u201cthe law of consecration is a check made out for an amount with a virtually unlimited number of zeros in it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I happen to have known a member of the Twelve \u2014 now departed \u2014 who sometimes\u00a0audibly wondered how far his business career might have gone had he not been called to serve as a General Authority. \u00a0It had been cut off just at the moment that he was really beginning to rise in the corporate world. \u00a0He wasn\u2019t resentful, and he was certainly committed to the Gospel, but there was still a wistful curiosity in him\u00a0about what might have been.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been on various committees in Salt Lake City and I\u2019ve seen something of the life of a General Authority, and it\u2019s not even remotely about simply sitting around eating truffles\u00a0while basking\u00a0in the glow of mass reverence. \u00a0Rather, it\u2019s endless meetings, countless speeches, committees, crises, personnel searches, living out of a suitcase on extended trips around North America and abroad long after such travel has lost even a trace<\/em> of novelty.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
And remember: \u00a0The service of an apostle, so long as he remains faithful, continues until his death. \u00a0There is no retirement. \u00a0And even for members of the Seventy, release as a General Authority often leads almost immediately to service as a temple president or in some other demanding capacity.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
But surely presiding over a temple<\/em> represents a prestige calling without much work, right? \u00a0Surely it\u2019s a restful reward for services rendered. \u00a0And, for Michael Otterson, near\u00a0London, no less!<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hardly.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
A member of the temple presidency must be in the temple during every hour that the temple is open for ordinance work. \u00a0Which means that \u201cretired\u201d people in temple presidencies are rising early in the morning, well before dawn, or staying late in the night, throughout each week. \u00a0And administering and coordinating\u00a0the work of a temple, with potentially hundreds or even sometimes thousands of ordinance workers who must be organized and properly deployed, isn\u2019t perhaps the easiest work in the world.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Likewise, mission presidents: \u00a0Speaking constantly, traveling continually, worrying about missionary apartments and sometimes other real estate issues, working with local Church units and members, organizing scores and perhaps hundreds of full-time missionaries, dealing with health problems, counseling \u2014 it\u2019s anything but a vacation.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
One of the things about the Church that most impresses me is the willingness of its members to sacrifice in the cause. \u00a0Back in our home ward today, we learned that my co-teacher in the Gospel Doctrine class, who has already served as a mission president and who has been enjoying retirement, will be leaving in July with his wife to serve a Church Education System mission for eighteen months in the Republic of Cabo Verde, several hundred miles off the Atlantic coast of Africa. \u00a0And, it turns out, another retired couple in the class will be leaving in a couple of weeks for eighteen months of service in South Korea. \u00a0(Both couples, of course, will be serving at their own expense.)<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
People accept these callings because they believe and because they want to serve. \u00a0Not because they want to laze around in romantic\u00a0settings and do nothing.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Those who claim that such undertakings are\u00a0all about luxurious living, exotic travel, and prestige may be revealing a great deal about themselves. \u00a0They\u2019re certainly saying nothing about the real nature of service in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 It was announced a few weeks ago that British-born Michael Otterson, who is retiring after having\u00a0served for many years\u00a0as director of Public Affairs for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has been called to preside over the London England Temple. \u00a0 I saw a few posts from critics describing this new […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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