By Keri Adams
Elder Neal A. Maxwell will speak about agency at today”s Mar. 16 Devotional at 11:05 a.m. in the Marriott Center.
Elder Maxwell has been a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints since 1981. Before his call to the Quorum of the Twelve, Elder Maxwell served as a member of the Presidency of the First Quorum of the Seventy, an assistant to the Twelve and as the commissioner of education for the Church Educational System.
Prior to these church callings, Elder Maxwell worked as the executive vice president at the University of Utah, as well as in other positions at the school. He also received his bachelor”s and master”s degrees in political science from the University of Utah.
Elder Maxwell has served as a director of several businesses, including Questar Corporation, Questar Pipeline and Deseret News Publishing Company. He has been active in public service and served as chairman of the Utah Constitutional Revision Commission.
In 1967, Elder Maxwell received the Liberty Bell award for public service from the Utah State Bar, and in 1973 he was named Public Administrator of the Year by the Institute of Government Service at BYU.
In a biography of Elder Maxwell, Bruce C. Hafen, a member of the Quorum of the Seventy, said Elder Maxwell”s life has not been perfect but the many challenges he has faced have made Elder Maxwell the wonderful man he is today.
“Giving full due to his stature as an educator, an administrator, a writer and a political scientist, it is the spiritual maturing of a charitable heart that best characterizes the course of his personal development,” Hafen said.
Elder Maxwell was born in 1926 in Salt Lake City. After two years with the U.S. army infantry, which included fighting in 1945 in Okinawa, Japan, Elder Maxwell served a mission in Canada.
Elder Maxwell is married to the former Colleen Hinckley. They are the parents of four children and have twenty-four grandchildren.
The Devotional will be broadcast to the JSB Auditorium, the Varsity Theatre and on KBYU.
