“Elder Anthony D. Perkins Of the Seventy,” Liahona, May 2006, 126
Elder Anthony D. Perkins
Of the Seventy
Elder Anthony Duane Perkins spent much of his childhood with his legs in “all kinds of contraptions” because one of his legs stopped growing when he was 7. At age 10 he was the “guinea pig” in an inventive but successful operation performed by a Chinese doctor.
Elder Perkins notes that the event was the first of many interactions with the Chinese. “My whole life has been wrapped up with the Chinese people.”
Born in Cortez, Colorado, USA, on July 22, 1960, to Sunny Kimballa Luther Perkins and Larry Lazelle Perkins, Elder Perkins says the family didn’t settle in one spot until he was 13 years old. There, in Farmington, New Mexico, USA, he first met his future wife, Christine Abbot, who overwhelmingly defeated him in student body elections. They later dated, wrote throughout his mission, and were married in the Salt Lake Temple on November 21, 1981.
Elder Perkins served as a missionary in the Taiwan Taipei Mission, where he says he “caught the China bug.” He obtained a finance degree from Brigham Young University and Masters of Business Administration and Arts from the University of Pennsylvania; then he joined an international management consulting firm. Elder Perkins was later one of the partners to open an office in China, an opportunity that sent the Perkinses and their six children to Beijing for eight years. He is now completing his tenure as president of the Taiwan Taipei Mission.
“I’ve spent half of my adult life in Asia,” he says. “This great blessing has shown my family the global reach of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.”
Previous to his call to the First Quorum of the Seventy, Elder Perkins had served as district president’s counselor, branch president, elders quorum president, ward clerk, and seminary teacher.