Elder Lynn A. Sorensen, Emeritus General Authority Seventy, Dies at 97
Contributed By Marianne Holman Prescott, Church News staff writer
Elder Lynn Andrew Sorensen, who served as a General Authority Seventy from 1987 to 1992, died peacefully on January 4, 2017, in Holladay, Utah, at the age of 97.
Sustained to be a General Authority Seventy on April 4, 1987, at age 67, Elder Sorensen served in that capacity for six years. He served in various assignments in his role as a General Authority: as Second and then First Counselor in the Brazil Area, as a member of the Correlation Executive Committee, as First Counselor in the North America Northeast Area, and as Assistant Executive Director of the Correlation Department. He received emeritus status on October 3, 1992.
Born September 25, 1919, in Salt Lake City to Ulrich Andrew Sorensen and Fannie Boam Sorensen, he was the oldest of four children.
Elder Lynn A. Sorensen.
As a young man he graduated from South High School and later attended the University of Chicago for two years prior to his mission. In 1940, Elder Sorensen served his first mission in Brazil only a few years after the Brazilian Mission had been created.
After returning home from his mission he served as an instructor in the U.S. Air Force during World War II and then graduated with honors from the University of Utah. He married Janet Weech in 1943, and together they have nine children. Sister Sorensen died April 23, 1997.
In 1973, he returned to Brazil to serve as the president of the Brazil Porto Alegre Mission for three years, and then returned again in 1982 for an assignment as director for the Church’s temporal affairs until 1985. He served as a bishop, a high councilor, a member of several general Church boards, and a patriarch.
His business career included administrative positions where he worked at Salt Lake Cabinet, Litton Industries, LTV Electro Systems, Deseret News Press, and various positions for the Church.
After he received emeritus status, Elder Sorensen—with his second wife, Sara Broadbent Paulsen, whom he married on September 21, 1998—served as the first president of the Porto Alegre Brazil Temple from 2000 to 2003. She died September 1, 2004.
On October 27, 2005, Elder Sorensen married Edythe Rae Robbins Tollstrup, who survives him.
In his October 1987 general conference address, Elder Sorensen said he hoped to be remembered for his testimony and love of the gospel.
“If I am to be remembered at all by the membership of the Church, I hope it will be in this manner, for I do have a great love for the gospel and for all the members of the Church everywhere.”
Elder Sorensen is also survived by eight of his nine children, 40 grandchildren, and 76 great-grandchildren. A funeral was held January 11 in Salt Lake City, Utah.
