The Mormon church made history by selecting the first Asian American and Latin American apostles onto a top leadership panel. The announcement comes at the start of a twice-annual conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City, Utah on Saturday.
Gerrit Walter Gong, who is Chinese American, and Ulisses Soares, who is Brazilian, join a panel called the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. The quorum is the second-highest governing body in the church, sitting only below the church president Russell M. Nelson, and helps set church policy and oversee the faith’s business interests. The quorum’s longest-serving member will eventually succeed Nelson, meaning Gong or Soares could one day be church president.
Before Saturday, the panel was comprised entirely of White men from the United States, except for Dieter Uchtdorf, who is German. The church’s decision is praised by followers who have longed top leadership that represents a faith with more than 50% of its followers outside the United States.
According to his church biography, the 64-year-old Gong studied Asian and university studies at Brigham Young University before earning his Master in Philosophy degree and doctorate in international relations as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University. He served in the U.S. State Department and the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies and Mormon-owned Brigham Young University before being selected for the lower-tier church leadership panel. His grandparents immigrated to the United States from China.
The 59-year-old Soares’ church biography reveals he studied accounting and economics at São Paulo Pontifical Catholic University before earning his MBA. He worked as an accountant and auditor for multinational corporations in Brazil before joining church leadership. He was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
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