President Monson recalls influence of family on his life

A few months before their marriage, he graduated with honors from the U., where he majored in marketing and minored in economics. At the time, he worked his way up in classified advertising at the Deseret News, becoming manager of the department.

As early newlyweds, he and his wife joined a bridge club. When club members came to their home, some of them smoked and he was concerned about it. He asked his bishop at that time what he should do and was told everything would work itself out.

A short time later, when he was set apart as a counselor in the ward bishopric, he went to see Elder Harold B. Lee, then a member of the Quorum of the Twelve. "He didn't ask me the usual questions concerning worthiness," President Monson later wrote. "He simply, and in and off-hand manner, said, 'Brother Monson, you don't have to play cards for entertainment, do you?' I said, 'No.' That was the end of the bridge club."

At age 22, he was called as bishop of the Temple View Sixth-Seventh Ward, which had "1,060 members, 85 widows and the largest welfare load in the church." Latter-day Saints who recall President Monson's sermons in general conference over the years remember many stories he has told from his years of service as a young bishop, struggling to help those who had little material wealth.

In 1952, his career in print media took a turn, as he accepted a position at the Deseret Press. During that time, he remembered working with Elder LeGrand Richards, whose book, "A Marvelous Work and A Wonder," was printed by the press and became a best-seller among Latter-day Saints.

Elder Richards would never accept any royalty payment for the book, turning down "literally hundreds of thousands of dollars." He said the church leader "never regretted the decision and kept that book underpriced on the market as long as he lived."

After serving as a bishop for five years, President Monson was called as second counselor in the Temple View stake presidency, where he served until his call in 1959 as president of the Canadian Mission with headquarters in Toronto.

When called as a mission president, he and his wife had two young children, Thomas Lee and Ann Frances, and they were expecting a third, Clark Spencer. It was one time in their married life when his church assignments allowed them to spend more time together than they had been accustomed to, he would say later.

When their children were young, Sister Monson usually stayed home while her husband was away, often for weeks at a time. "People used to ask me what I did when he was so busy as a General Authority," she later told the Church News.