M. Russell Ballard, who went from hard-driving automobile supplier to longtime Latter-day Saint apostle, dies at 95

M. Russell Ballard’s profession was cruising.

He had been the highest automobile salesman at his dad’s Nash dealership earlier than taking on the enterprise, touring to Motor Metropolis to share his profitable formulation for revving up auto income and profitable the best to hawk Ford’s sizzling new mannequin: the Edsel.

After a robust begin, although, gross sales sputtered and, in the end, the Edsel fabulously and famously flopped.

Ballard and different sellers misplaced thousands and thousands.

“It was a devastating expertise,” he recalled in a 1986 interview with the Ensign journal of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “The primary a part of my enterprise profession it appeared like every little thing labored. I used to be a little bit illiberal, I believe, of those that have been having bother in enterprise. However then I had bother, and that helped me achieve empathy and understanding for individuals who battle equally.”

It will hardly be the primary humbling for Ballard. Extra would come because the hard-driving businessman, who shifted gears midlife to develop into a mission president in Toronto, accepted more and more weighty church assignments, rising from a common authority to the presidency of the Seventy and, ultimately, one of many religion’s main apostles.

Ballard, appearing president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and second within the line of succession after Dallin H. Oaks to guide the Utah-based church of 17 million members, died Sunday night time at dwelling surrounded by family members.

He was 95.

“President Ballard was by no means indecisive,” 99-year-old church President Russell M. Nelson stated in a information launch. “He knew precisely what the Lord taught and the way it could possibly be utilized in a single’s private life and convey pleasure and happiness.”

Oaks, who sat beside Ballard for greater than three many years among the many apostles, stated he “at all times cherished his heat method. He was a person to be trusted. And he was a person who trusted you.”

Ballard is survived by his seven kids, 43 grandchildren 105 great-grandchildren and one great-great grandchild. Funeral particulars are pending.

‘Best gross sales job’

Indicators of future full-time church service appeared comparatively early for a younger Ballard, who was born Oct. 8, 1928, in Salt Lake Metropolis to Melvin R. and Geraldine Smith Ballard. In school, his College of Utah fraternity brothers, recognizing his devotion to his Latter-day Saint religion, referred to as him “the bishop.”

As a 21-year-old missionary, he turned the primary counselor within the presidency of the British Mission.

After returning dwelling, he discovered his future bride, Barbara Bowen.

“I met her on the College of Utah ‘Hiya Day Dance,’” Ballard defined in a beforehand printed biography on the church’s web site. “A pal of mine thought I ought to fulfill her, so he tagged in to bop along with her, danced over to the place I used to be, launched me, and I danced along with her 30 seconds earlier than I used to be tagged out. That was the start of a courtship of 11 months.

“I knew from the start that I needed to marry her, however she didn’t share the identical emotions. It was a little bit laborious convincing her. I child[ded] her … that getting her to conform to marry me was the best gross sales job I ever did.”

The couple married within the Salt Lake Temple on Aug. 28, 1951. They went on to have two sons and 5 daughters. Barbara died Oct. 1, 2018, at age 86.

Six days later, throughout Common Convention, her heartbroken husband concluded a shifting sermon in regards to the redemption of the useless with a touching tribute to his spouse of 67 years and a sworn statement about ceaselessly households.

“How grateful I’m to know the place my treasured Barbara is,” Ballard stated, “and that we are going to be collectively once more, with our household, for all eternity.”

Latter-day Saints imagine husbands and wives, with their kids, might be collectively as households within the afterlife.

He talked about his beloved Barbara once more a number of years later, when Utah — amid its annual Pioneer Day celebrations — declared July 23, 2021, M. Russell Ballard Day for his “lifelong dedication and advocacy for the Days of ‘47″ actions.

“I typically surprise when I’m alone — Barbara’s not with me; she’s been gone for 3 years,” the humbled apostle stated, “have I executed any good on the earth right now?”

Church service begins

Quickly after his marriage, Ballard took on the “bishop” title for actual and thus started a lifetime of “doing good” via vital service to his faith.

“He’s extraordinarily dedicated to his household, and so they’ve at all times come first,” his spouse advised the Ensign, the church’s journal for adults that was changed by the Liahona in 2021. “He was a bishop for a few years and held numerous church jobs, however these tasks have by no means been to the detriment of his household. When he was dwelling, he made the time depend.”

Ballard, in flip, credited his spouse, who usually needed to shoulder the family load whereas he was away on church enterprise.

“I married the best lady,” he stated. “With out the assistance and path of Barbara, our household relationships wouldn’t have occurred in addition to they did. It was laborious to be the bishop, the proprietor of my very own enterprise, and on the identical time father of those kids that got here alongside, however by some means it labored out.”

In personal enterprise, Ballard constructed a fame for laborious work and a eager sense.

“He at all times had a job, even when he was little,” his sister, Ann Keddington, advised the Ensign, mowing lawns after which taking up extra jobs . He was a “smiling, slender, wiry younger man with a enjoyable humorousness.”

He offered extra automobiles than anybody at his father’s Nash dealership after which left within the early Nineteen Fifties to pursue different pursuits, in response to his church bio. In 1956, he returned and have become the massive wheel at Ballard Motor Co. — on the identical time fulfilling a stint within the U.S. Military Reserve — steering it to better heights because the nation’s most profitable dealership. Ford Motor Co. even invited Ballard and his associates to Detroit to share their story.

Ford then rolled out the Edsel. The corporate recruited Ballard to promote the ill-fated car. He prayed about it, felt leery of the supply, however took it anyway. The automobile tanked, however Ballard walked away studying a priceless lesson.

“To me, failure is simply whenever you give up making an attempt,” he advised the Ensign. “If you happen to hold working at a process and attempt to do what’s proper and sincere, in the end it really works out.”

Ballard additionally had pursuits in actual property and funding companies. He turned president of Bountiful’s Valley Music Corridor, which booked big-time Hollywood acts. After making a splash, the Ensign reported, the enterprise failed financially — if not theatrically — however Ballard made certain traders had alternatives to get better their cash.

A son-in-law, Peter Huntsman, stated his father, Jon Huntsman Sr., who died in 2018, was a like a brother to Ballard.

“They’d take off and go go to services and clients of Huntsman Corp. and on the identical journeys, go to missionwide gatherings,” Peter recalled. “It was a time when Russ may bask in his lifelong ardour for enterprise, and my dad may play the position of a preacher. Dad had a little bit of [early Latter-day Saint apostle] Parley Pratt in him. By the top of their week or two on the street, Dad was able to get again to enterprise and Russ again to preaching.”

The pair would ceaselessly fly-fish collectively in Driggs, Idaho, on the Snake and Teton rivers, Peter added. “Russ was legally blind in a single eye and hadn’t excellent depth notion when casting a fly. He caught my dad’s hat, shirt and arms extra usually than he caught a trout.”

Peter and his spouse, Brynn Ballard Huntsman, stated the apostle’s life was one “that may solely be celebrated. He was a loyal disciple of his Savior, a pal to all these with whom he got here in touch and a proud and loving father and husband.”

In 1974, Ballard was referred to as as president of the church’s Canada Toronto Mission. Two years later, he was appointed to his religion’s First Quorum of the Seventy. In 1980, he turned a member of the presidency of the Seventy.

After influential Latter-day Saint apostle Bruce R. McConkie died in 1985, the then-57-year-old Ballard acquired one other sudden church task.

“We have been simply prepared to go away the home to go to [General] Convention,” spouse Barbara recalled within the church bio. “The cellphone rang, and it was President [Gordon B.] Hinckley, who requested my husband to return to the workplace. He thought he would maybe be referred to as on to talk in convention, since one of many audio system was unwell.

“We have been relaxed on the best way to President Hinckley’s workplace and mentioned what Russell would possibly speak about if referred to as to talk. Once we acquired to the workplace, President Hinckley referred to as my husband to be an apostle. I nearly thought, ‘Please say that once more. I don’t know if I heard accurately.’ Russ checked out me with tears in his eyes. It was a sobering expertise.”

Ballard advised the Ensign: “It was an awesome name. A few of my associates within the Quorum of the Twelve inform me there may be an ongoing feeling of humility and wonderment on the name.”

Maybe, given his pedigree, the apostolic task shouldn’t have shocked him. Ballard was a descendant of Hyrum Smith, brother of Mormonism founder Joseph Smith, and the grandson of two early Twentieth-century apostles: Melvin J. Ballard and Hyrum M. Smith.

The truth is, each of their photos held on his workplace wall. He additionally displayed busts of his great-great-uncle the Prophet Joseph Smith, his great-great-grandfather Hyrum Smith, and his great-grandfather President Joseph F. Smith.

“I’ll usually sit in my workplace wrestling with assignments I’ve, desirous about higher do issues,” Ballard stated, “and achieve quite a lot of energy taking a look at their countenances and realizing they’re not very distant.”

That legacy of management propelled him in his church service.

“I’m continually conscious that I’ve an obligation simply by advantage of the truth that I’ve a connection,” Ballard recalled, in response to the church’s information launch. “I hear them saying on a regular basis, ‘Get with it; do one thing worthwhile. Get going, boy; don’t simply sit there.’ They have been doers. They needed to be doers.”

Latter-day Saint historian Benjamin Park pointed to Ballard’s familial ties in a social media submit Monday.

“We’re coming into solely the second period during which there are not any Smith relations as apostles. (The opposite was 1972-1985, between Joseph Fielding Smith’s dying and Ballard’s ordination.),” he said on X, previously Twitter. “…Only a reminder how regardless of how international and enormous the … church has develop into, it’s nonetheless not too removed from its origins as a household religion.”

Ballard himself reminded his son Craig, a 19-year-old missionary on the time, that “the blood of prophets flows in your veins.”

“Effectively, no stress there,” Craig remembered considering. “[My father] checked out [those busts] on daily basis in his workplace … and I believe he felt he needed to do his greatest. He instilled that in the remainder of us.”

Craig, had bother at first sharing his dad with Latter-day Saints around the globe, the launch said. So the apostle determined to take the boy alongside on certainly one of his church journeys to Tonga and Samoa.

”Once we acquired off that airplane, for the primary time I spotted how others noticed him,” Craig stated. “Many had walked for 2 days to return and simply get a glimpse of an apostle. That’s when it modified from a burden to a blessing for me to know this individual intimately.”

The pen and the pulpit

Throughout his church service, Ballard, at instances, oversaw the church’s curriculum, correlation and missionary departments. He helped develop “Preach My Gospel,” the religion’s major proselytizing instrument. He additionally wrote a 1997 ebook, “Counseling With Our Councils: Studying to Minister Collectively within the Church and within the Household,” and up to date the quantity in 2012.

In a time of accelerating racial, sexual and political polarization, Ballard turned a robust voice in opposition to bigotry.

Within the fall 2017 Common Convention, he warned Latter-day Saints that any type of bigotry is anti-Christian.

“We have to embrace God’s kids compassionately and eradicate any prejudice, together with racism, sexism and nationalism,” he declared. “Let or not it’s stated that we really imagine the blessings of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ are for each baby of God.”

Amid 2020′s coronavirus pandemic, social unrest and contentious U.S. presidential election, Ballard referred to as on individuals of all faiths to “pray on your nation and on your nationwide leaders.”

“This isn’t about politics or coverage. That is about peace and the therapeutic that may come to particular person souls in addition to to the soul of nations,” he stated. “… Humbling ourselves and searching for heaven’s inspiration to endure or conquer what’s earlier than us shall be our most secure and surest solution to transfer confidently ahead via these troubling instances.”

Ballard additionally inspired Latter-day Saints to succeed in out to others and be extra inclusive of their interactions with neighbors, co-workers and strangers.

“Get to know your neighbors. Study their households, their work, their views. Get along with them, if they’re prepared, and achieve this with out being pushy and with none ulterior motives,” he stated in an October 2001 convention sermon. “Friendship ought to by no means be provided as a method to an finish; it could actually and must be an finish unto itself.”

He tried to vary the course of on a regular basis conversations, particularly in Latter-day Saint-dominated Utah, to be much less exclusionary.

“I imagine it will be good if we eradicated a few phrases from our vocabulary: ‘nonmember’ and ‘non-Mormon.’ Such phrases might be demeaning and even belittling,” he stated in a speech delivered 17 years earlier than the church launched its marketing campaign to excise using the Mormon moniker as shorthand for the religion and its members.

“Personally, I don’t think about myself to be a ‘non-Catholic’ or a ‘non-Jew.’ I’m a Christian. I’m a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. That’s how I want to be recognized — for who and what I’m, versus being recognized for what I’m not. Allow us to prolong that very same courtesy to those that reside amongst us.”

Ballard then urged Latter-day Saints to exhibit extra understanding with neighbors who’ve points with Utah’s predominant religion.

“If neighbors develop into testy or pissed off due to some disagreement with [the church] or with some legislation we assist for ethical causes, please don’t counsel to them — even in a humorous approach — that they think about shifting someplace else,” he stated. “I can not comprehend how any member of our church may even assume such a factor.”

He famous how early Latter-day Saints have been pushed from their properties by illiberal neighbors. “If our historical past teaches us nothing else,” he stated, “it ought to train us to respect the rights of all individuals to peacefully coexist with each other.”

In 2016, Ballard instructed Latter-day Saint non secular educators to sort out head-on any robust questions their college students could have in regards to the religion’s previous.

“Gone are the times when a pupil requested an sincere query and the trainer responded, ‘Don’t fear about it,’” he stated. “Gone are the times when a pupil raised a honest concern and a trainer bore his or her testimony as a response supposed to keep away from the problem.”

As an alternative, the longtime apostle advised the educators to show to church-published essays, which confront Mormonism’s thornier theological and historic points.

“I’m speaking about polygamy. Of seer stones. Completely different accounts of the [church founder Joseph Smith’s] ‘First Imaginative and prescient.’ The method of translation of the Ebook of Mormon. Of the Ebook of Abraham. Gender points. Race and the priesthood. Or a Heavenly Mom,” he stated. “…It is vital that you recognize the content material in these essays like you recognize the again of your hand.”

Ballard’s blunt recommendation received reward from Latter-day Saint students, together with Faith Information Service columnist Jana Riess, who stated she “cheered” his directive.

In 2021, he and fellow apostles Jeffrey R. Holland and Quentin L. Cook dinner returned to acquainted turf: Nice Britain, the place all three had served their missions. Holland and Cook dinner, the truth is, have been companions.

Through the nostalgic journey, Ballard went to Scotland’s Tranent (exterior of Edinburgh), the place his great-grandmother Margaret McNeil was born in 1846, a church information launch reported. She lived there till she was 10, when she and her household crossed the Atlantic to settle in Utah. He additionally visited the cemetery the place her grandparents are buried.

“Once you come right here, the footings of my basis are right here, the blessing of being who I’m,” Ballard stated on the time. “It’s fantastic to see it.”

In his waning years, the church chief turned embroiled in controversies surrounding Operation Underground Railroad founder Tim Ballard (the 2 usually are not associated).

The apostle had struck up an alliance with the anti-human-trafficking activist, referring to Tim as a “household pal” in a 2019 speech in Massachusetts.

By fall 2023, nevertheless, these ties had frayed. The church even issued a stinging rebuke of Tim Ballard, accusing him of exploiting his relationship with the apostle in assist of OUR and Tim’s personal enterprise efforts.

“As soon as it turned clear Tim Ballard had betrayed their friendship, via the unauthorized use of President Ballard’s title for Tim Ballard’s private benefit and [for] exercise considered morally unacceptable, President Ballard withdrew his affiliation,” in response to the religion’s assertion. “President Ballard by no means licensed his title, or the title of the church, for use for Tim’s private or monetary pursuits.”

A number of weeks after this tempest hit the headlines, the apostle, simply days away from turning 95, spoke at Common Convention, for the ultimate time, with out mentioning the dispute.

Slightly Ballard expressed, slowly and considerably haltingly, his gratitude for the Ebook of Mormon, calling the religion’s signature scripture a “marvelous, fantastic present.”

“We now have it,” he added, “as a result of Joseph was worthy to go get the [gold] plates, was impressed by heaven to translate them by the present and energy or god. And to present it to the world.”

Unable to learn from a teleprompter as a result of failing eyesight, he joked, “My kids inform me they assume I’m quite a bit older than [he was] some days. However that’s OK. I’m doing the most effective I can.”

Later that day, apostle Dieter F. Uchtdorf lauded his colleague from the pulpit, telling him. “You don’t have 20-20 eyesight anymore, however you’ve got 20-20 non secular imaginative and prescient.”

President Nelson stated in a information launch that conversion, dedication and consecration “have been in [Ballard’s] blood. Are you able to think about — we had the privilege of sitting beside a person who’s the nice‑nice‑grandson of Hyrum Smith. And Joseph Smith was his nice‑nice‑uncle. Daily, I really feel a debt of gratitude for the privilege of associating with a direct descendant of these revered and revered leaders. He’s acquired that very same integrity that they’d.”

Assembly the pope

In March 2019, Ballard accompanied church President Russell M. Nelson for a historic personal viewers with Pope Francis on the Vatican. It marked the first-ever face-to-face viewers between a Catholic pontiff and a Latter-day Saint prophet.

The non secular leaders mentioned international aid and the 2 faiths’ mutual efforts to ease human struggling.

“We defined to His Holiness that we work facet by facet, that we’ve tasks with Catholic Reduction Companies all around the world, in over 43 nations,” Ballard stated in a information launch. “[We’ve] been shoulder to shoulder as companions in making an attempt to alleviate struggling. He was very eager about that.”

The encounter marked a return journey for the apostle to the Vatican. In 2010, he had huddled with Catholic leaders there to debate problems with mutual concern.

“We’re eager about ethical values,” he stated on the time. “We’re eager about marriage. We’re within the household. We’re eager about these fundamental fundamentals that are of joint curiosity to individuals of religion all over the place.”

Ballard additionally solid shut ties with Catholic leaders in Utah. He turned a {golfing} buddy with then-Bishop John C. Wester, who oversaw the state’s 300,000-plus Catholics.

At a reception honoring Wester earlier than his departure to go up the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, Ballard lamented his pal’s leaving.

“You’re dropping your fantastic bishop,” he advised the gang gathered in a Salt Lake Metropolis lodge ballroom, “and I’m dropping certainly one of my very pricey buddies.”

Now Latter-day Saints have misplaced certainly one of their pricey buddies, a pushed automobile supplier who traded in his shot at worldly wealth to develop into a mission president, common authority and an apostle in pursuit of everlasting riches.

— Tribune senior faith reporter Peggy Fletcher Stack contributed to this story.

Editor’s be aware • Peter Huntsman is a brother of Paul Huntsman, chair of the nonprofit Salt Lake Tribune’s board of administrators.