Elder Marcos A. Aidukaitis

When Elder Marcos Antony Aidukaitis’s oldest son was eight, he drew a picture of his family for a school assignment. At the time, Elder Aidukaitis was putting in long hours as general manager of a company in São Paulo, Brazil. “I was working a lot and was traveling to many places around the world,” he recalls.

Elder Aidukaitis was noticeably absent from his son’s illustration. “Where is your father?” the teacher asked the boy. “Oh, he’s working,” he replied.

For Elder Aidukaitis, the experience was a wake-up call. “I changed jobs and fixed what had to be fixed,” he says, renewing his efforts to put family first.

Elder Aidukaitis was born to Antony Aidukaitis and Maria Dittrich Aidukaitis on August 30, 1959, in Porto Alegre, Brazil. His father, baptized in 1940, was the first member of the Church in his family, as was Elder Aidukaitis’s wife, Luisa Englert Aidukaitis. Elder and Sister Aidukaitis were married on January 13, 1986, less than a month after he baptized her. They were sealed in the Provo Utah Temple the following year. They are the parents of five children.

Elder Aidukaitis, who served in the Brazil São Paulo South Mission from 1979 to 1981, says his mission changed his life. It enhanced his love for the Savior, prepared him to serve his family and his Heavenly Father, and, he says, “gave me the courage to teach and baptize my wife.”

Following his mission, he earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and an MBA, both from Brigham Young University, where he played on the soccer team. After graduating he went to work as an executive for multinational companies, first in the United States and then in Brazil, eventually opening his own business.

Prior to his call to the First Quorum of the Seventy, Elder Aidukaitis served as president of the Brazil Brasilia Mission, Area Seventy, stake president, regional welfare agent, and high councilor.