by Daniel Bay Gibbons (Editor), Francis M. Gibbons (Author)
President Russell M. Nelson, the seventeenth President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is sustained by millions around the world as a Prophet of God. But he is a Mormon Prophet with a difference. Prior to his historic 1984 call as an LDS Apostle President Nelson was already world-renowned as a surgeon. His pioneering work in the field of open-heart surgery beginning in the 1950's has blessed the lives of millions around the world. This book of personal reminiscences, written by former secretary to the First Presidency and prolific Mormon biographer Francis M. Gibbons, gives significant new insight into President Nelson's early life in Salt Lake City, his family, his baptism at age sixteen, his education, his first callings in the Church, and his ultimate call to high Church leadership positions. Brother Gibbons draws upon more than sixty years of close association with President Nelson to provide unique stories, anecdotes and insights about the Prophet. This book will surely find a place among the most important documents about the remarkable life and ministry of President Russell M. Nelson.Full of inspiration and insight, this book is the eighth and final part of Brother Gibbons's eight-volume work entitled Remembering the Prophets of God.
Author Biography
During his ninety-five years of life, Francis M. Gibbons (1921-2016) was a student, a newspaper carrier, a grocer, a bookkeeper, a certified court reporter, a missionary, a sailor, a laborer, a university and law student, a trial lawyer, a church leader, and a prolific writer of more than thirty books. A lifelong member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he served as a bishop, stake president, stake patriarch, and as the secretary to the First Presidency under four Presidents of the Church. For more than thirty years until his death at the age of 95, he was also a General Authority or Emeritus General Authority of the Church. In the autumn of his life, from 1994 to 2010, he also served as patriarch at large to the Church. Brother Gibbons is also the acclaimed author of fifteen full-length biographies of every President of the Church from Joseph Smith through Gordon B. Hinckley. He was married for seventy years to Helen Bay Gibbons, who preceded him in death in 2015. They had four children and eighteen grandchildren.