Biography gordon b hinckley

President Gordon B. Hinckley, who led The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints through twelve years of global expansion, has died at the age of 97.

President Hinckley was the 15th president in the 177-year history of the Church and had served as its president since 12 March 1995.

The Church president died at his apartment in downtown Salt Lake City at 7:00 p.m. Sunday night from causes incident to age. Members of his family were at his bedside. A successor is not expected to be formally chosen by the Church’s Quorum of the Twelve Apostles until after President Hinckley’s funeral within the next few days.

President Hinckley was known, even at the age of 97, as a tireless leader who always put in a full day at the office and traveled extensively around the world to mix with Church members, now numbering 13 million in 171 nations.

His quick wit and humor, combined with an eloquent style at the pulpit, made him one of the most loved of modern Church leaders. A profoundly spiritual man, he had a great fondness for history and often peppered his sermons with stories from the Church’s pioneer past.

He was a popular interview subject with journalists, appearing on 60 Minutes with Mike Wallace and on CNN’s Larry King Live, as well as being quoted and featured i

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Gordon B. Hinckley

Gordon Bitner Hinckley served as the 15th President of the Church between 1995 and his death in 2008. He was born on June 23, 1910, as the first child of Ada and Bryant Hinckley, who raised him in a large, close-knit family in Salt Lake City, Utah, and fostered in him a love of learning and resilient faith. As a child, Gordon was not especially robust (once considered a “spindly, frail boy”), but he learned diligence and a strong work ethic while exploring and laboring on his family’s farm in the East Mill Creek area of the Salt Lake Valley. He graduated from high school in 1928 and immediately enrolled at the University of Utah. After the United States stock market crashed in 1929, unemployment in the Salt Lake area shot up, but he managed to keep a job as a maintenance worker and continue to fund his schooling.¹ Tragically, his mother Ada passed away from cancer a year later, when Gordon was 20, ushering in a period of “emptiness.” He graduated with a degree in English in 1932 and looked forward to a career in journalism.

Although relatively few young men were called to serve full-time missions during the Great Depression, Gordon’s bishop approached him with “a shocking suggestion,” as Gordon remembered it, to embark on a mission. The bank that had hel