“Elder Eran A. Call Of the Seventy,” Ensign, May 1997, 103
Elder Eran A. Call
Of the Seventy
Elder Eran A. Call, a new member of the Second Quorum of the Seventy, learned the habit of priesthood service as a deacon. He remembers “collecting fast offerings, going from house to house in a wagon gathering offerings in kind.”
Indeed, Church service is a Call family heritage. His father served in the bishopric of their ward in Colonia Dublán, Mexico, for 50 years—29 as bishop. Elder Call and his wife have passed this heritage of service on to their children by example.
He has served as bishop, stake high councilor, counselor in a stake presidency (twice), stake patriarch, mission president (Mexico City, 1970 to 1973), and missionary training center president (again in Mexico, 1995 to 1996).
He was born in Colonia Dublán, Mexico, on 2 December 1929. He graduated from the Juárez Stake Academy in Colonia Juárez, Mexico, then moved to the United States to attend Brigham Young University, where he received a bachelor’s degree. He later received a master’s degree in business administration from New York University.
He has been active in business—from managing a department store to developing property—and active in community affairs throughout his life. But his central career has been as a faculty member at Brigham Young University, from which he retired in December 1994. In the early 1980s, he took a three-year leave to serve as director of the Church Educational System in Mexico.
He married Katherine Groesbeck in the Salt Lake Temple on 24 August 1955. They had 6 sons, 3 daughters, and 23 grandchildren at the time of his call to the Seventy, and 2 more grandchildren are expected soon.
“His hobby is working,” says his wife. Seven years ago, she gave him a set of golf clubs so he could learn the game with his sons and son-in-law. The clubs have been used only three times. But his capacity for work will be an asset in his calling, Sister Call indicates, as will his love for people.
He interprets his commitment to the gospel in a way that gives primary importance to eternal relationships—with his wife and their children, Sister Call says. His own words affirm that this is so: “The gospel has always been first in my life and paramount in all things.”