Mormonism Research Ministry

17th LDS Church President Russell M. Nelson, 101, Passes Away

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Eric Johnson

Russell M. Nelson (9/9/1924-9/27/2025) passed away at his Salt Lake City home on Saturday night, September 27, 2025. He will be replaced by 93-year-old First Counselor of the First Presidency Dallin H. Oaks (born August 12, 1932), most likely at the October General Conference scheduled for this weekend.

Nelson served as President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles since 16th President Thomas S. Monson died on January 2, 2018. Nelson then became the seventeenth president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on January 14, 2018.

Nelson was the oldest president (at the age of 94) to take office. Before Nelson, the oldest had been Joseph Fielding Smith, who was 93 in 1970 when he became the tenth president. Nelson, who celebrated his 101st birthday in a quiet ceremony earlier in September, became the oldest president ever in church history, surpassing Gordon B. Hinckley, on April 14, 2022.

During his first two years as president, Nelson made a number of changes to LDS policy, including:

Since October 2018, Nelson announced exactly 200 temples, averaging more than 13 new temple announcements at each of the 15 general confernces where he presided. He easily passed Gordon B. Hinckley for having announced the most temples in the lifetime of a president. (Source) While he did not normally attend the opening ceremonies at the temples he announced, he did travel to Rome in 2019 along with the other members of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. 

President Nelson holds the symbolic keys of authority held by the apostle Peter’s statue in Rome. Mormonism teaches that the LDS Church is the holder of the keys today, so this photo is highly symbolic and has a powerful meaning. See The Photo of the Statue of the Apostle Peter and LDS President Russell M. Nelson

Nelson was first married to Dantzel; together they had 10 children, 9 girls and 1 boy as well as 57 grandchildren and 167 great-grandchildren from their relationship. They also have one great-great-grandchild. Dantzel died in 2005.

A year later, Nelson was sealed to Wendy Watson (born 5/31/1950) for time and eternity in the Salt Lake temple. Although he married the two women at separate times, Nelson was sealed to both women for “time and eternity.” This means that he fully expects to be with both women in eternity. This is what is known as spiritual polygamy.

Noting that few of Nelson’s predecessors have used the “revelation” card when it came to receiving communication from God, Salt Lake Tribune reporter Peggy Fletcher Stack wrote that Nelson never shied away from the word, saying,

In January, the month Nelson took the faith’s reins, his wife, Wendy Watson Nelson, reported that one night she was prompted to leave her husband alone in their bedroom. “Two hours later, he emerged from the room,” Wendy Nelson told apostle Neil L. Andersen, who reported it on Facebook. “Wendy, you won’t believe what’s been happening,” the church president told his wife, according to Andersen’s account. “The Lord has given me detailed instructions on what I am to do.” (Salt Lake Tribune, 10/2/18,  “Nelson and the ‘R’ word: Why this Mormon prophet speaks more openly about revelations from God than his predecessors did”).

Nelson became an apostle in April 1984 at the age of 59. Before becoming an apostle, Nelson was a former Sunday School president, regional representative, and stake president. For his profession, Nelson was a surgeon and medical researcher. He received his BA and MD degrees from the University of Utah, becoming a doctor in August 1947 at the age of 22.

Nelson later received his Ph. D. from the University of Minnesota. While Nelson was in school earning his advanced dergree, he worked on the research team that developed a heart-lung machine that supported the first open-heart surgery in 1951. He spent two years in the US Army, stationed in Korea, Japan, and the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC. He later received additional surgical training at Harvard.

In 1955, he joined the faculty at the University of Utah’s medical school and developed his own heart-lung machine that he used for the first open heart surgery in Utah. Nelson was a pioneering heart surgeon and received many honors over the years. He even performed surgery on future (12th) LDS Church president Spencer W. Kimball, replacing Kimball’s damaged aortic valve. He left the medical profession in 1984 when he became an LDS apostle. 

One thing Nelson was known for is helping the LDS Church move into the Soviet bloc after the Cold War ended in 1989. He had been assigned in 1985 to work in Eastern Europe, and Nelson was a player in meetings with Romanian, Bulgarian, and Russian officials to allow the missionaries the ability to enter those countries. In 2010, he helped dedicate the Kiev Ukraine Mormon temple. The next year he helped organize the first stake in Russia.

There is no doubt that, during his lifetime, Nelson had a brilliant mind. For example, he was the general president of the Sunday School when he attended a meeting where he heard Spencer W. Kimball say that those in attendance ought to learn Chinese. Nelson eventually became fluent in Mandarin and ended up participating in training seminars for Chinese surgeons. He received an official invitation from the vice premier to visit China in 1995 with other LDS leaders.

Starting in 2020, general conference talks by most speakers began to be littered with citations from Nelson in a way they had never quoted from Nelson’s predecessors. It was almost as if every talk needed to include one of Nelson’s quotes. (For more, click here.) 

Among Nelson’s favorite topics were the plan of salvation, the importance of keeping covenants, and the necessity of temple work to unite families for eternity. Here are links to critiques to some of his teachings in the past few years:

And here are 10 questions I would have liked to have asked Nelson but never had a chance to meet him: 10 Questions I’d Like to Ask President Russell M. Nelson

Our Top 20 Nelson Quotes

  1. “We preach tithing to the poor people of the world because the poor people of the world have had cycles of poverty, generation after generation. That same poverty continues from one generation to another, until people pay their tithing” (Russell M. Nelson, “’Dowry is Not the Lord’s Way’: In Kenya, LDS President Nelson Says Tithing Breaks Poverty Cycle,” Deseret News, April 16, 2018).
  2. “We and all mankind are forever blessed because of Eve’s great courage and wisdom. By partaking of the fruit first, she did what needed to be done. Adam was wise enough to do likewise” (Russell M. Nelson, “Constancy amid Change,” Ensign, Nov. 1993, 34).
  3. “Prophecies that the stick of Joseph (the Book of Mormon) and the stick of Judah (the Bible) would be one in God’s hand have now been fulfilled” (“Catch the Wave,” Ensign (Conference Edition), May 2013, p. 47).
  4. “Teach of faith to keep all the commandments of God, knowing that they are given to bless His children and bring them joy. Warn them that they will encounter people who pick which commandments they will keep and ignore others that they choose to break. I call this the cafeteria approach to obedience. This practice of picking and choosing will not work. It will lead to misery. To prepare to meet God, one keeps all of His commandments. It takes faith to obey them, and keeping His commandments will strengthen that faith” (“Face the Future with Faith,” Ensign (Conference Edition), May 2011, p. 34, Italics in original).
  5. “My dear brothers and sisters, I promise that as you prayerfully study the Book of Mormon every day, you will make better decisions—every day I promise that as you ponder what you study, the windows of heaven will open, and you will receive answers to your own questions and directions for your own life. I promise that as you daily immerse yourself in the Book of Mormon, you can be immunized against the evils of the day, even the gripping plague of pornography and other mind-numbing addictions” (Russell M. Nelson, “The Book of Mormon: What Would Your Life Be Like without It?” Ensign (Conference Edition), November 2017, 62-63. Italics in original).
  6. “Obedience to the sacred covenants made in temples qualifies us for eternal life—the greatest gift of God to man” (“Prepare for the Blessings of the Temple,” Ensign Special Issue Temples, October 2010, p. 42).
  7. “What is your purpose? You brethren were foreordained in a premortal realm to bear the priesthood (see Alma 13:2-3). And you sisters were chosen before the foundation of the world to bear and care for God’s children; in doing so, you glorify God (see D&C 132:63). Have you sisters considered what it really means to be co-creators with God?” (Ensign, January 2015, p. 31).
  8. “To be saved—or to gain salvation—means to be saved from physical and spiritual death. Because of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, all people will be resurrected and saved from physical death People may also be saved from individual spiritual death through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, by their faith in Him, by living in obedience to the laws and ordinances of His gospel, and by serving Him” (“Salvation and Exaltation,” Ensign (Conference Edition), May 2008, p. 8).
  9. “Now, to each member of the Church I say, keep on the covenant path. Your commitment to follow the Savior by making covenants with Him and then keeping those covenants will open the door to every spiritual blessing and privilege available to men, women, and children everywhere” (Russell M. Nelson, “As We Go Forward Together,” Ensign, April 2018, 7).
  10. “On occasion, I read in a newspaper obituary of an expectation that a recent death has reunited that person with a deceased spouse, when, in fact, they did not choose the eternal option. Instead, they opted for a marriage that was valid only as long as they both should live. Heavenly Father has offered them a supernal gift, but they refused it. And in rejecting the gift, they rejected the Giver of the gift” (“Celestial Marriage,” Ensign (Conference Edition), November 2008, p. 93. Italics in original).
  11. “Celestial marriage is a pivotal part of preparation for eternal life. It requires one to be married to the right person, in the right place, by the right authority, and to obey that sacred covenant faithfully. Then one may be assured of exaltation in the celestial kingdom of God” (“Celestial Marriage,” Ensign (Conference Edition), November 2008, p. 94).
  12. “Then one night last May, I was awakened by those two little girls from the other side of the veil. Though I did not see or hear them with my physical senses, I felt their presence. Spiritually, I heard their pleadings. Their message was brief and clear: ‘Brother Nelson, we are not sealed to anyone! Can you help us?’ Soon thereafter, I learned that their mother had passed away, but their father and younger brother were still alive” (“The Price of Priesthood Power,” Ensign, May 2016, p. 66).
  13. “The greatest of all the blessings of the priesthood are bestowed in holy temples of the Lord. Fidelity to covenants made there will qualify you and your family for the blessings of eternal life” (“Face the Future with Faith,” Ensign (Conference Edition), May 2011, p. 36).
  14. “Those whose lineage is from the various tribes of Israel are those whose hearts will most likely be turned to the Lord. He said, ‘My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.’ Those who are of the house of Israel will most easily recognize the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior and will desire to be gathered into His fold. They will want to become members of His Church, make covenants with Him and Heavenly Father, and receive their eternal ordinances” (Russell M. Nelson, Hope of Israel: Worldwide Youth Devotional, June 3, 2018, p. 8. Supplement to the New Era and Ensign Magazines, August 2018).
  15. “Think of this, my dear young brothers and sisters, right now I am preparing for the day when I will be required to give an accounting to the Prophet Joseph Smith, to President Brigham Young, and others—and ultimately to the Lord—about my stewardship as God’s prophet upon the earth today” (Russell M. Nelson, Hope of Israel: Worldwide Youth Devotional, June 3, 2018, p. 13. Supplement to the New Era and Ensign Magazines, August 2018).
  16. “Thus, the name of the Church is not negotiable. When the Savior clearly states what the name of His Church should be and even precedes His declaration with, ‘Thus shall my church be called,’ He is serious. And if we allow nicknames to be used or adopt or even sponsor those nicknames ourselves, He is offended. What’s in a name or, in this case, a nickname? When it comes to nicknames of the Church, such as the ‘LDS Church,’ the ‘Mormon Church,’ or the ‘Church of the Latter-day Saints,’ the most important thing in those names is the absence of the Savior’s name. To remove the Lord’s name from the Lord’s Church is a major victory for Satan. When we discard the Savior’s name, we are subtly disregarding all that Jesus Christ did for us—even His atonement” (Russell M. Nelson, “The Correct Name of the Church,” Ensign (Conference Edition), November 2018, pp. 87-88. Italics in original).
  17. “If someone should ask, ‘Are you a Mormon?’ you could reply, ‘If you are asking if I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, yes, I am!’ If someone asks, ‘Are you a Latter-day Saint?’ you might respond, ‘Yes, I am. I believe in Jesus Christ and am a member of His restored Church’” (Russell M. Nelson, “The Correct Name of the Church,” Ensign (Conference Edition), November 2018, p. 88).
  18. “Eternal life is the kind and quality of life that Heavenly Father and His Beloved Son live. When the Father offers us everlasting life, He is saying in essence, ‘If you choose to follow My Son — if your desire is really to become more like Him — then in time you may live as We live, and preside over worlds and kingdoms as We do’” (Russell M. Nelson, “At Christmas devotional, President Nelson addresses 4 gifts from the Savior,” ChurchNews.com, December 2, 2018).
  19. “The Second Coming. The Lord will return to the land that He made holy by His mission there in mortality. In triumph, He will come again to Jerusalem. In royal robes of red to symbolize His blood, which oozed from every pore, He shall return to the Holy City (see Doctrine and Covenants 133:46-48). There and elsewhere, ‘the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together’ (Isaiah 40:5; see also Doctrine and Covenants 101:23). His ‘name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace’ (Isaiah 9:6). He will govern from two world capitals; one in old Jerusalem (see Zechariah 14) and the other in the New Jerusalem ‘built upon the American continent’ (Articles of Faith 1:10). From these centers He will direct the affairs of His Church and kingdom. Another temple will yet be built in Jerusalem. From that temple He shall reign forever as Lord of Lords” (Russell M. Nelson, Ensign, “The Future of the Church: Preparing the World for the Savior’s Second Coming,” April 2020, p. 16. Bold in original).
  20. “The Savior loves us always but especially when we repent” (Russell M. Nelson, “The Power of Spiritual Momentum,” Liahona (Conference Edition), May 2022, p. 98. Italics in original).

For other LDS leader obituaries, click here.

With his second wife Wendy. Nelson’s first wife, Dantzel, passed away, and Nelson is sealed to both wives for eternity.