Elder D. Todd Christofferson named new apostle; other leaders called

Elder D. Todd Christofferson was called as the LDS Church's newest apostle on Saturday, the same day church members sustained the new First Presidency in a solemn assembly.

A bevy of new leaders were also sustained to new positions Saturday. L. Whitney Clayton of the Quorums of the Seventy was called to the replace Elder Christofferson in the Presidency of the Seventy. Several new members of the Quorums of the Seventy were also called, along with a new Young Women General Presidency.

Elaine S. Dalton, formerly first counselor in the Young Women, is now president, with Mary N. Cook (formerly second counselor) as first counselor and Ann M. Dibb as second counselor. Sister Dibb, a former Young Women General Board member, is President Thomas S. Monson's daughter.

Saturday morning's solemn assembly was the first in 13 years and the first such assembly in the new Conference Center.

A solemn assembly is a unique opportunity for Latter-day Saints to sustain their top leaders by priesthood quorums and auxiliary groups, followed by a vote of the entire congregation.

President Monson was sustained as the 16th president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, along with his first counselor, President Henry B. Eyring, and second counselor, President Dieter F. Uchtdorf.

Elder Christofferson filled a gap in the Quorum of the Twelve left when President Uchtdorf was called to serve in the First Presidency. He had been serving as a member of the Presidency of the Seventy since 1998, and was sustained to the First Quorum of the Seventy in April 1993.

As yet another American in the Quorum of the Twelve in a growing global church, Elder Christofferson was asked during a press conference Saturday how he would explain to church members why a non-American was not called as an apostle.

His answer: "It's a question of time."

"Remember, though, that we are not called to represent any place, any group any region," he said. "We don't need to try to tell the Lord about his sheep and how to take care of them. He knows them better than we do."

Elder Christofferson has served in various positions of leadership in the church, as a former regional representative, stake president, stake president's counselor and bishop. As executive director of the Family and Church History Department, Elder Christofferson was involved in the high-profile negotiations to block the names of Holocaust victims from submission for temple work. In 2001, with Elder Christofferson at the helm, the church compiled and released a new database to aid African American family history research called the Freedman Bank Records.

Before serving the church in a full-time capacity, Elder Christofferson worked as a lawyer. He was an associate general counsel of NationsBank Corp. (now Bank of America) in Charlotte. N.C., and practiced law in Washington D.C., Tennessee and North Carolina.

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