President M. Russell Ballard: Dedicated to Sharing the Gospel

Melvin Russell Ballard Jr. was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, on October 8, 1928, to Melvin Russell Ballard Sr. and Geraldine Smith Ballard. The only boy out of four children, Russell learned to respect women at an early age.

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M. Russell Ballard as a child

His father, a savvy entrepreneur, owned an automobile dealership, Ballard Motor Company. Although his father wasn’t active in the Church during Russell’s childhood, Russell still noted, “He had a profound impact on my life. He instilled in me the desire to work hard.”⁴

His father’s professional life wasn’t the only example of hard work the father set for his son. Russell’s father owned a small peach orchard in Holladay, Utah, where he kept bees that would pollinate the peach blossoms. “Father loved his gentle honeybees. … [He] always tried to involve me in his work with his hives, but I was very happy to let him tend to his bees.”⁵

The influence of that legacy of hard work learned from his father would continue through Russell Ballard’s life. His sister Ann Keddington remembered, “He always had a job, even when he was little.” His first jobs were cutting lawns and doing yard care, but he eventually began working on Saturdays and after school in his father’s automobile dealership.⁶

In high school Russell had opportunities to develop his leadership skills, participating in student government at East High School in Salt Lake City and being president of the East High Seminary his senior year, among other activities.⁷ After high school he attended the University of Utah, where he joined the Sigma Chi Fraternity and earned the nickname “the bishop” among his fraternity brothers for his example of being true to his faith.⁸

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M. Russell Ballard as a young missionary

Russell was called to serve in the British Mission in 1948, where he was a counselor in the mission presidency under two different mission presidents. He served just after the end of World War II, and he later explained that at that time “Mormons were ‘a hiss and a byword’ (3 Nephi 16:9), and missionaries were laughed at and ridiculed.” He remembered: “People even threw things at us, and some would spit at us. However, we did not retreat.”⁹ He learned from his experiences and, as he said, “loved being a missionary in England.”¹⁰

One of the greatest blessings Russell received from serving a mission was an unwavering testimony. He recalled: “Because of my missionary experience, I became anchored to a testimony of the reality of the restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ through the Prophet Joseph Smith. I stood in Hyde Park and on many other street corners in the British Isles and bore my testimony that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God, that the gospel had been restored in its fullness, and that the priesthood and authority to bless mankind is once again upon the earth. The more I bore my testimony, the more it became a part of me.”¹¹

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M. Russell Ballard preaching in a market square

Indeed, his missionary service would help prepare him for many future callings. Just prior to his call to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, President Ballard noted: “Of all the training I have received in my Church assignments, none has been more important to me than the training I received as a 19-year-old elder serving a full-time mission in the British Isles. As I look back now, I can see that no training in my life was more important for what I am now doing in the Church than the training I received as a full-time missionary.”¹²

Following his mission, Russell continued his schooling at the University of Utah. Soon after returning home, he went to a “Hello Day Dance.” He explained: “A friend of mine … told me about a beautiful sophomore named Barbara Bowen, whom he thought I ought to meet. He brought her over and introduced us, and we started to dance.

“Unfortunately, this was what we used to call a ‘tag dance,’ which meant that you got to dance with the girl only until somebody else tagged you out. Barbara was vivacious and popular, so I got to dance with her for less than a minute before another young man tagged me out.

“That was just not acceptable to me. Having learned the importance of follow-up on my mission, I got her telephone number and called her the very next day to ask her out, but she was busy with school and social commitments. Thankfully, my mission taught me to be persistent even in the face of discouragement, and I was eventually able to make a date. And that date led to others. Somehow during those dates I was able to convince her that I was the only true and living returned missionary—at least as far as she should be concerned.”¹³

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wedding photo of M. Russell Ballard and his wife, Barbara

His persistence and dedication paid off, and he and Barbara were married in the Salt Lake Temple on August 28, 1951. They have seven children: Clark, Holly, Meleea, Tamara, Stacey, Brynn, and Craig.

President Ballard shared an experience he had as a young father in which he learned how demanding the role of motherhood could be. “I served as a counselor and then as bishop for a period of 10 years. During that time we were blessed with six of our seven children. Barbara was often worn-out by the time I got home Sunday evening. She tried to explain what it was like to sit on the back row in sacrament meeting with our young family. Then the day came that I was released. After sitting on the stand for 10 years, I was now sitting with my family on the back row.

“The ward’s singing mothers’ chorus was providing the music, and I found myself sitting alone with our six children. I have never been so busy in my whole life. I had the hand puppets going on both hands, and that wasn’t working too well. The [snacks] got away from me, and that was embarrassing. The coloring books didn’t seem to entertain as well as they should.

“As I struggled with the children through the meeting, I looked up at Barbara, and she was watching me and smiling. I learned for myself to more fully appreciate what all … dear mothers do so well and so faithfully!”¹⁴

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Ballard family

His wife also remembered the amount of time he put into his family. He was “extremely devoted to his family, and they’ve always come first,” she said. “He was a bishop for many years and held lots of Church jobs, but those responsibilities have never been to the detriment of his family. When he was home, he made the time count.”¹⁵

Later in life, President and Sister Ballard enjoyed spending time with their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. His children and grandchildren cherish memories of family vacations visiting Church history sites such as Palmyra, Kirtland, and Nauvoo; attending the Preston England Temple dedication in 1998; traveling in the Holy Land; and trekking across part of the pioneer trail.

Following his wife’s passing in October 2018, President Ballard remarked, “How grateful I am to know where my precious Barbara is and that we will be together again, with our family, for all eternity.”¹⁶

As a descendant of the Prophet Joseph Smith’s brother Hyrum, Russell Ballard was always proud of his pioneer ancestry. Two of his grandfathers and his great-grandfather served in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Following his own call to that office, President Ballard said: “I count it a blessing to be a representative now of the family of Joseph and Hyrum, and acknowledge publicly that to follow my great-grandfather, Joseph F. Smith, and both of my grandfathers, Hyrum Mack Smith and Melvin J. Ballard, into the Council of the Twelve Apostles is a great honor and responsibility. I will do my very best to be the kind of a servant that is worthy of such a birthright.

“On several occasions I have been assured by my Brethren that they felt my forefathers must have sustained my call in the councils on the other side as well as the First Presidency and the Council of the Twelve on this side of the veil.”¹⁷

The vision that his grandfather Melvin J. Ballard had of embracing the Savior in the Salt Lake Temple helped President Ballard through difficult times,¹⁸ and a plaque with his grandfather’s final words in mortality—“Above all else, brethren, let us think straight”—hung on a wall in his office. “I don’t go into my office any day of the week that I don’t see those words,” President Ballard explained. “I find that they help me a great deal.”¹⁹ Indeed, those two simple words, “think straight,” became a family motto for President Ballard as he encouraged his family members to think clearly in making good decisions and to remember the simplicity of the gospel.²⁰

President Ballard was a great example of relying on and continuing a legacy of faith through families. For him, the history of the Church and the faith of the early Saints were indelibly linked to his own family history. He reminded us that we can all “derive great strength, particularly our youth, from understanding our Church history.”²¹ And although many of the Saints’ faith was tested through the “19th-century Mormon pioneer trek, we need to remember that ‘the trek through life continues!’ for each of us as we prove our own ‘faith in every footstep.’”²²

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M. Russell Ballard throwing a baseball

Photograph by Lori Shepler / AP

Business Success and Failures

In his professional life, Russell Ballard worked in the automobile, real estate, and investment industries. Important life lessons came from unexpected sources, and Russell learned firsthand the importance of listening to the counsel of his father and the promptings of the Spirit in matters both spiritual and temporal.

“The Ford Motor Company was looking for dealers to sell their new line of cars,” he recalled. “Ford executives invited my father and me to a preview showing of what they thought would be a spectacularly successful product. When we saw the cars, my father, who had over 35 years experience in the business, cautioned me about becoming a dealer.”

President Ballard explained: “As I wrestled with this, I was also asking the Lord about it, asking for direction. It was a big decision; it involved a lot of money, a lot of commitment on my part. The minute my father and I saw the cars I had the distinct impression not to go ahead with the franchise.”

However, President Ballard said, “the Ford sales personnel were very persuasive, and I chose to become Salt Lake City’s first—and actually last—Edsel dealer. And if you don’t know what an Edsel is, ask your grandpa. He will tell you that the Edsel was a spectacular failure.”

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Ford Edsel

Photograph via Getty Images

President Ballard observed: “I allowed myself to drift from the promptings of the Spirit that I had earlier. I had followed the counsel of the ninth section of the Doctrine and Covenants, but I wavered from the impression the Lord had given me.” Herein was the lesson learned: “When you are willing to listen and learn, some of life’s most meaningful teachings come from those who have gone before you. … If you listen and respond to their counsel, they can help guide you toward choices that will be for your benefit and blessing and steer you away from decisions that can destroy you.”²³

Although otherwise quite successful in all his business endeavors, Russell took this flop as a learning experience that would help him “think straight” about those kinds of future decisions.²⁴

After serving as a bishop twice, Russell Ballard served on high councils and as a priests quorum adviser before being called in July 1974 to preside over the Canada Toronto Mission. That calling proved to be invaluable preparation for his future full-time service assignments in the Church. Two years later, on April 3, 1976, he was called as a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy. He was called to the presidency of that quorum on February 21, 1980. On October 6, 1985, he was called as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles at age 57. His ordination to that calling on October 10, 1985, by President Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985) was the last priesthood ordinance that President Kimball performed before his passing away.

On January 14, 2018, following the passing of President Thomas S. Monson (1927–2018) and the setting apart of President Russell M. Nelson as the 17th President of the Church, President Ballard was set apart as the Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

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President Ballard and President Nelson

In his capacity as a General Authority, President Ballard had the opportunity to be involved in the work of the Lord in various ways. He served as the Executive Director of the Missionary Department and also directed the Curriculum and Correlation Departments. He also helped oversee the Church’s Public Affairs Committee.

In 1980 he authorized the first chapel to be built in Nigeria. Four years later he returned to Africa, traveling to Ethiopia following a famine to decide how to distribute funds raised from a special Churchwide fast. Accompanied by Glenn L. Pace, then the managing director of the Church’s Welfare Services Department, the two met with the only member of the Church in Ethiopia at the time, a Melchizedek Priesthood holder. During that meeting President Ballard offered a prayer and a blessing on Ethiopia, where he, as Brother Pace recalled, “called upon the power and authority of the holy Melchizedek Priesthood and commanded the elements to gather together to bring rain upon the land, thus to begin to relieve those who had been suffering for so many years. It hadn’t rained in a year, and the prayer was offered on a clear and sunny Sunday morning.”

Later that day, Brother Pace noted, “I was sitting at a little desk writing in my journal when I heard a clap of thunder. I went to the patio just in time to see the beginning of a torrential downpour. … I went down the hall and knocked on Elder Ballard’s door. When he came to the door, I could tell he had been overwhelmed [as I had been]. We said a prayer of thanksgiving and returned to the privacy of our own rooms and thoughts. From that day forward, wherever we traveled, it rained.”²⁵ For President Ballard, it was a life-changing experience.

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Elder Ballard in Ethiopia

Another memorable experience was in 1988, when President Ballard created seven new stakes in Lima, Peru, in one weekend. His grandfather Elder Melvin J. Ballard had dedicated South America for the preaching of the gospel in 1925, foreseeing the remarkable growth of the Church there. President Ballard said, “[This experience] gave me … a special feeling because I felt Grandfather’s influence in a rather dramatic way knowing I was fulfilling in part his remarkable prophecy.”²⁶

Throughout all his teachings, President Ballard emphasized the importance of gaining a testimony and sharing the message of the restored gospel: “If we do not understand and willingly teach others of the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ through the Prophet Joseph Smith, who will?”²⁷ He often challenged members to set a date by which to find someone with whom they could share the gospel, and he made sure to follow up on those challenges.

He also acclaimed the vital role of women in the home and the Church, taught how to effectively use councils, and championed the work of full-time missionaries and member missionaries, so much so that one of his fellow Apostles once quipped that the “M.” in his name stood for “missionary.”²⁸

He encouraged missionaries and members worldwide with his optimistic outlook on missionary work. At Brigham Young University, he reminded students, many of whom were former or prospective missionaries, that “the growth of the Church … is really in your hands and in mine, and in the hands of the active members of the Church.” He said that when he used to hear that the gospel would need to be shared with every living soul, “I would say to myself, … the Lord has asked us to do something that’s impossible. [But] it’s not impossible. It’s not impossible if the membership of the Church would vest themselves in what He’s asked them to do, and that is to be aggressively involved in moving the gospel forth to the earth.”

“We don’t need to worry about letting this Church grow,” he said. “The Lord will provide and the Lord will lift up and the Lord will inspire and the Lord will make it possible for His work to roll forth. … God bless you, then, and bless me, that we’ll have the courage, the good judgment, the personal discipline and preparation, that we will be ready in every way to do our part, whatever that might be, in building the kingdom of God through the earth.”²⁹

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President Ballard and others in Scotland

Testimony of the Restored Gospel

The testimony that was planted in his childhood, solidified during his mission, and strengthened throughout his lifetime of service was always rooted in the simplicity of gospel truths. “I raise my voice to the whole world in testimony that I know without reservation or question that Joseph Smith opened this dispensation through divine revelation and began the restoration to the earth of the true Church of Jesus Christ.”³⁰

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Church leaders at Rome Italy Temple Visitors’ Center

He declared that our faith “must be centered in Jesus Christ, in his life, in his atonement, and in the restoration of his gospel to the earth in the last days. …

“Nothing is more remarkable or important in this life than to know that God our Eternal Father and his Son, Jesus Christ, have spoken again from the heavens and have called prophets and apostles to teach the fullness of the everlasting gospel once again upon the earth.”³¹

Surely, his lifetime of service and devotion to hastening the work of the Lord helped him become who the Lord needed him to be. “My understanding of the gospel has given me guidance on the kind of father and now grandfather I should be. My testimony, gained in my youth, has helped me respond to every call in the Church, including this current overwhelming call to be a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. My testimony, obtained a long time ago on the street corners of England, has grown line upon line and precept upon precept until I can stand before you … and testify as a special witness of the Lord Jesus Christ that our Savior lives and He is the Son of God our Eternal Father. My life has never been the same since I anchored my soul to the truths of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.”³²