Russell M. Nelson
Russell M. Nelson performed nearly 7,000 operations as a surgeon before he was called to be an apostle. He later served as the seventeenth president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, from 2018 until his death. He lived to the age of 101.
Few lives run through two careers that rarely meet. How did a boy whose parents were not active in the faith come to lead it? What did a young researcher help build in a Minnesota laboratory, and what did he do with it back home in Utah? And what happened when a man in his nineties took charge of a worldwide church and began changing how it ran?
Holy Cross Hospital in Salt Lake City was where Nelson was born on the 9th of September 1924. His mother was Floss Edna Anderson and his father was Marion Clavar Nelson. He had two sisters, Marjory and Enid, and a brother, Robert. His father worked as a reporter for the Deseret News and later became general manager of Gillham Advertising, Utah's earliest advertising agency.
Faith came to the household late. His parents were not active in the Latter-day Saint church while he was a youth, but they still sent him to Sunday school. He was baptized at the age of sixteen.
At sixteen he also graduated from East High School. In his mid-teens he had attended LDS Business College while still enrolled in high school, and he worked as an assistant secretary at a bank. At the University of Utah he joined the Beta Epsilon chapter of Sigma Chi and the Owl and Key society. He graduated in 1945 with a bachelor's degree and membership in Phi Beta Kappa.
Medical school followed at a pace that stood out. Nelson started his first year while he was still an undergraduate. He completed the four-year program in only three years and received his Doctor of Medicine degree in 1947, ranked first in his class. His residency would take him to the University of Minnesota, where a research team was trying to build a machine that could stand in for the human heart.
In April 1951, surgeons performed the first human open-heart operation supported by cardiopulmonary bypass. The research team behind the machine was led by surgeon Clarence Dennis at the University of Minnesota. Nelson, then a resident, was a member of that team. He received a Ph.D. from Minnesota in 1954 for his research contributions.
The Korean War came next. Nelson served a two-year term in the U.S. Army Medical Corps, stationed at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. He was assigned to a research group formed by Col. William S. Stone, the commandant of the graduate school at Walter Reed. The group was led by Fiorindo A. Simeone, a professor of surgery at Case Western Reserve University who had served as a clinical investigator in the Mediterranean Theater during World War II.
Their task was to find better ways to treat the wounded. The team was sent to all five MASH units active in Korea, along with two major evacuation hospitals, several field station hospitals and a prisoner of war camp. It also visited larger hospitals in Japan, Hawaii and the mainland United States. At one point the team came close enough to the front that enemy artillery fired on it, and the shells missed. After 20 months, Nelson left active duty as a captain. He then spent a year of work and surgical training at Massachusetts General Hospital.
In 1955 Nelson returned to Salt Lake City and took a faculty position at the University of Utah School of Medicine. There he built his own heart-lung bypass machine. With it, he supported the first open-heart surgery in the United States west of the Mississippi River. The operation took place at Salt Lake General Hospital, now University of Utah Hospital, on an adult with an atrial septal defect. Nelson was the third surgeon in the country to perform an open-heart operation successfully. He also directed the university's thoracic surgery residency program.
In March 1956 he performed the hospital's first successful pediatric cardiac operation. It was a total repair of tetralogy of Fallot in a four-year-old girl. He became one of the surgeons pushing attention toward coronary artery disease, and he advanced valvular surgery as well. In 1960 he performed one of the first repairs of tricuspid valve regurgitation, a disorder that lets blood flow backward into the right upper chamber of the heart. His patient was a Latter-day Saint stake patriarch.
A 1968 case series of his aortic valve replacements showed an exceptionally low risk of death around the time of surgery. He later performed the same operation on Spencer W. Kimball, replacing the damaged aortic valve of the man who would become church president. In 1985, Nelson and his colleague Conrad B. Jenson performed a quadruple bypass on the Chinese opera performer Fang Rongxiang, who lived from 1925 to 1989.
In 1964 Nelson set up his own private practice with himself as lead and Jenson as an associate. Two years later he became head of a thoracic residency program that pooled the University of Utah Medical School, LDS Hospital, Primary Children's Hospital and the VA Hospital in Salt Lake City. He also became chair of the Division of Thoracic Surgery at LDS Hospital.
In 1965 the University of Chicago offered him the headship of its department of thoracic surgery. Dallin H. Oaks, then a law professor at Chicago and a fellow Latter-day Saint, actively worked to recruit him. Nelson consulted church president David O. McKay and then turned the offer down.
He took on the administrative side of medicine too. He was elected president of the Utah State Medical Association, and in 1975 he was elected president of the Society for Vascular Surgery. He also served as a director of the American Board of Thoracic Surgery. Over the years he addressed conferences across Latin America and Africa, and in India and China.
In 1981 he was a visiting professor of surgery at the National Institute of Cardiology in Mexico City and at the Catholic University in Santiago, Chile. In May 1982 he held a visiting professorship at the Hospital de Clinicas in Montevideo, Uruguay. In 2015 the University of Utah and the American College of Cardiology created the Russell M. Nelson, MD, PhD, Visiting Professorship in Cardiothoracic Surgery.
Every Thursday afternoon from 1955 to 1965, Nelson spent about two hours giving tours to visitors on Temple Square. Richard L. Evans, an apostle who led the church's publicity efforts there, had extended the assignment. It was one of many unpaid callings Nelson held alongside his surgical work.
In Minnesota he served as Sunday School superintendent in his local congregation. In Washington, D.C., he was a counselor in the bishopric of a ward that apostle Ezra Taft Benson attended while serving as secretary of agriculture under Dwight D. Eisenhower. In the Boston area he was secretary for the adult Aaronic priesthood organization in his branch.
Back in Salt Lake City, he advised the priest quorum in the Garden Park Ward, working with more than fifty boys aged sixteen to eighteen. He then served in the stake young men's superintendency and as a counselor in the Garden Park bishopric. Joseph Fielding Smith, whose son-in-law was the bishop, set him apart for that role. Nelson served over five years in that bishopric, in a ward of more than 1,000 members. After moving to the Yale Second Ward, he joined the stake high council.
From 1964 to 1971 Nelson was a stake president in Salt Lake City. Joseph B. Wirthlin, a future apostle himself, served as his second counselor. From 1971 to 1979 Nelson was the church's Sunday School general president. During those eight years the Sunday School adopted a unified eight-year cycle for covering the church's scriptures. Training for new teachers shifted away from the general board and toward written materials, which grew into the book Teaching: No Greater Call.
He then served for four and a half years as a regional representative. For about half that time he oversaw the fourteen student stakes at Brigham Young University. For the rest he worked with stakes in the Kearns, Utah, area.
The call to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles came from Spencer W. Kimball, whom Nelson had treated as a personal physician for many years. Nelson was sustained on the 7th of April 1984 at general conference and ordained on the 12th of April by Gordon B. Hinckley. Oaks was sustained at the same conference. The two filled vacancies left by the deaths of LeGrand Richards and Mark E. Petersen.
Early in this service, Nelson advised the church's Young Women organization and supported the Young Women values and Personal Progress program. In 1991 he negotiated with the Internal Revenue Service over whether contributions supporting missionaries could be tax deductible. In 1992 he served on the Strengthening Church Members Committee with fellow apostle James E. Faust. In 1993 he led the church's delegation to the Parliament of the World's Religions, and for a time he represented the church on a US State Department committee on international religious freedom. From 2007 to 2015 he sat on the Church Board of Education and chaired its executive committee. Oaks succeeded him in that chairmanship.
Boyd K. Packer died on the 3rd of July 2015, which made Nelson the most senior member of the Twelve. Thomas S. Monson set him apart as quorum president on the 15th of July 2015. His first international trip in that role, to Central America in late August 2015, came just before he dedicated the renovated Aaronic Priesthood Restoration Site in Pennsylvania.
A meeting in the 1970s changed how Nelson spent his spare hours. Kimball urged those present to learn Chinese, and Nelson took the challenge seriously enough to reach elementary proficiency in Mandarin. He built ties with the medical community in China and made several trips there to train surgeons. In 1985 he became the first person named an honorary professor of Shandong Medical College. In 1995 he went to Beijing with Neal A. Maxwell and other church leaders, at the official invitation of Vice Premier Li Lanqing.
Eastern Europe became his assignment in 1985, after Monson was called to the First Presidency. Nelson worked closely with Dennis B. Neuenschwander and Hans B. Ringger. He took part in the first meetings between church leaders and government officials of Bulgaria, Romania and the Soviet Union. He also worked to expand the church and win recognition in Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland.
In August 2010 he traveled to the dedication of the Kyiv Ukraine Temple. In September he visited church meetings in several European countries and pronounced blessings on Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo. These added to Monson's 1985 dedication of Yugoslavia for the preaching of the gospel.
Russia held a personal connection for him. His only son, Russell M. Nelson Jr., had served as a missionary there. In 2011 the elder Nelson returned to organize the first church stake in the country, headquartered in Moscow.
In August 2003 Nelson became the first member of the Quorum of the Twelve to visit Kazakhstan. He met government officials, gave an interview to the television station Yuzhnaya Stalitsa, and dedicated the country for the preaching of the gospel.
Africa was also under his supervision. In 2009 he, his wife and others were attacked while in Mozambique. He kept returning to the continent, including a visit to Kenya in 2011. In 2018, Kenya's capital would be one of the stops on a very different kind of tour.
On the 2nd of January 2018, Monson died, and Nelson became the expected successor. As presiding apostle he had signed 1,150 mission calls. He was ordained and set apart as church president on the 14th of January 2018 and introduced to members and the media two days later. Oaks became his first counselor and Henry B. Eyring his second.
Nelson did not keep Dieter F. Uchtdorf, who had been Monson's second counselor. It was the first time since 1985 that a new president had not retained a counselor from the previous First Presidency. The new leaders also opened with a short broadcast to the whole church before the press conference, which was unprecedented.
Change arrived quickly, though much of it had been discussed before. In March 2018 the First Presidency issued a letter on preventing and responding to abuse. It stated that no one should ever be counseled against reporting abuse to legal authorities, and it stressed counseling toward healing. It also required that interviews with women and youth be held with another person nearby. The rule against an adult male teaching children or youth alone was extended to all adults.
At the April 2018 general conference, Nelson appointed Asian American Gerrit W. Gong and Brazilian Ulisses Soares to the Quorum of the Twelve. He dissolved the high priests groups at the ward level, so all Melchizedek priesthood holders in wards and branches joined the elders quorum. He ended home teaching and visiting teaching and replaced them with ministering. Young women aged 14-18 could now be assigned as ministering sisters.
June 2018 brought a First Presidency celebration of the fortieth anniversary of the revelation extending priesthood and temple blessings to all worthy members regardless of race. Nelson gave concluding remarks. A few days earlier, he and his counselors had met national leaders of the NAACP. That same weekend he urged church youth to commit more fully and to choose a period of seven days to abstain from social media. On the 18th of June, committees were formed to prepare a unified hymnbook and children's songbook for the worldwide church. On the 29th of June, the Come, Follow Me program was announced, with study that is "home-centered and church supported".
In August 2018 Nelson issued a statement urging use of the church's full name. At the October general conference he said, "It is a correction" and "It is the command of the Lord." He added, "To remove the Lord's name from the Lord's Church is a major victory for Satan." At the same conference he announced that Sunday meetings would shrink from three hours to two. In December the First Presidency changed youth progression, so that from 2019 youth moved between classes and priesthood quorums at the start of the year they turn twelve, fourteen or sixteen.
The hardest question concerned a policy from November 2015. It had classified same-sex couples as apostates and required First Presidency approval before their minor children could be baptized. In 2016, Nelson, then quorum president, said, "It was our privilege as apostles to sustain what had been revealed to President Monson." In April 2019 the First Presidency reversed the policy. Nelson called the change "revelation upon revelation" and said it was meant to "help affected families" and "reduce the hate and contention so common today."
On the 5th of April 2020, Nelson announced a proclamation titled "The Restoration of the Fulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ: A Bicentennial Proclamation to the World". It marked the 200th anniversary of Joseph Smith's First Vision and was the sixth proclamation in the church's history.
The first trip of Nelson's presidency, in April 2018, was called a global ministry tour. He traveled with his wife and with Jeffrey R. Holland and his wife. They met Latter-day Saints in London, Jerusalem, Nairobi, Harare, Bengaluru, Bangkok, Hong Kong and Laie, Hawaii.
In June 2018 he went to Alberta, Canada, where his second wife was born and raised, and gave three devotional addresses on three consecutive evenings. In September 2018 he visited the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. In the Dominican Republic he gave an entire talk in Spanish, believed to be the first extended talk in a formal setting by a church president in a language other than English.
At the end of October 2018, he toured five South American countries. He met Peru's president, Martín Vizcarra, gave a major address in Spanish in Peru, and dedicated the Concepción Chile Temple. On the 10th of February 2019, he spoke at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, and the devotional was broadcast across the state. In August 2019 he visited Guatemala, Colombia, Ecuador, Argentina and Brazil.
On the 9th of March 2019, Nelson met Pope Francis at the Vatican. It was the first face-to-face meeting between a pope and a president of the church. The next day, the Rome Italy Temple was dedicated.
Nelson presided over three days of dedicatory services in Rome, from the 10th to the 12th of March 2019. He brought all of the church's apostles, the first time all ordained apostles had gathered together outside the United States. There the First Presidency and the Twelve took their first group photo in two decades.
Temples were the center of his presidency. As of April 2025, he had announced a total of 200 new temples in countries around the world. In 2018 alone he announced nineteen, seven in April and twelve in October. Among them were the first temples in India, Nicaragua, Russia and Cambodia.
In India, Nelson told members that the Lord had instructed him to announce the temple the night before general conference, though he had not planned to. The Nicaragua temple fulfilled an apostolic promise he had made to members there six years earlier.
In April 2020 he announced plans for a temple in Shanghai, China. Days later the Shanghai Municipal Ethnic and Religious Affairs Bureau answered. It said it "knew nothing about the American Mormon Church... building a so-called 'temple' in Shanghai." It called the plans "wishful thinking, not based in reality."
On the 14th of April 2022, Nelson passed Gordon B. Hinckley to become the oldest president in the church's history. On the 8th of August 2022, he passed David B. Haight to become the oldest apostle ever. He turned one hundred on the 9th of September 2024, and the church marked the day with a globally broadcast livestream about his life and service.
The story of his family began on a University of Utah stage. Dantzel White, a fellow student born in Perry, Utah, was his co-lead in a musical there. They dated for three years and married on the 31st of August 1945 in the Salt Lake Temple. In the 1950s she sang in the Tabernacle Choir.
The couple had ten children. The nine daughters were Marsha, Wendy, Gloria, Brenda, Sylvia, Emily, Laurie, Rosalie and Marjorie. Wendy lived from 1951 to 2019 and Emily from 1958 to 1995. Their son, Russell Jr., was born in 1972.
Dantzel died unexpectedly at home in Salt Lake City on the 12th of February 2005, at the age of seventy-eight. On the 6th of April 2006, Nelson married Wendy L. Watson in the Salt Lake Temple. She was from Raymond, Alberta, and had been a professor of marriage and family therapy at BYU until her retirement in 2006. It was her first marriage.
On the 26th of September 2025, The Salt Lake Tribune reported that Quentin L. Cook had told members at a stake conference in northern Kentucky that Nelson had lost sight in both eyes. Nelson died the next day, the 27th of September 2025, at 10:00 p.m. at his home in Salt Lake City. His wife Wendy was with him. Oaks and Eyring had visited in his last days, and all his living children and their spouses were present.
A public viewing was held at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City on the 6th of October 2025. The funeral took place there the next day. He was buried in the Salt Lake City Cemetery next to Dantzel. Back in June 2018, the University of Utah had endowed a chair in cardiothoracic surgery in the names of Nelson and his first wife, Dantzel.
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Common questions
Who was Russell M. Nelson?
Russell M. Nelson was an American surgeon and religious leader who served as the seventeenth president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 2018 until his death in 2025. He lived from the 9th of September 1924 to the 27th of September 2025.
What did Russell M. Nelson do as a heart surgeon?
Russell M. Nelson was on the Minnesota research team that developed the heart-lung machine used in the first human open-heart surgery in April 1951. In Utah he built his own machine and supported the first open-heart surgery in the United States west of the Mississippi River.
When did Russell M. Nelson become an apostle?
Russell M. Nelson was sustained as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles on the 7th of April 1984 and ordained on the 12th of April 1984 by Gordon B. Hinckley. Spencer W. Kimball, whom he had treated as a physician, called him.
What changes did Russell M. Nelson make as church president?
Russell M. Nelson replaced home teaching and visiting teaching with ministering, dissolved ward high priests groups, introduced Come, Follow Me and shortened Sunday meetings from three hours to two. He also urged use of the church's full name.
How many temples did Russell M. Nelson announce?
As of April 2025, Russell M. Nelson had announced a total of 200 new temples. In 2018 he announced nineteen, including the first in India, Nicaragua, Russia and Cambodia.
When did Russell M. Nelson meet Pope Francis?
Russell M. Nelson met Pope Francis at the Vatican on the 9th of March 2019. It was the first face-to-face meeting between a pope and a president of the church.
How old was Russell M. Nelson when he died?
Russell M. Nelson died at the age of 101 on the 27th of September 2025 at his home in Salt Lake City. He was buried at the Salt Lake City Cemetery on the 7th of October 2025, next to his first wife, Dantzel.
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141 references cited across the entry
- 1With the death of Boyd K. Packer on July 3, 2015, Nelson became the second most senior apostle among the ranks of the church, resulting in him being the de facto President of the Quorum. He was set ap
- 3How Apostles are called — and a look back at the calls of the current 15 ApostlesScott Taylor — December 22, 2023
- 4Press releaseLeader Biography: President Russell M. NelsonLDS Church
- 6LDS Church President Russell M. Nelson donates medical papers to the UMatilyn Mortensen
- 7Noted heart surgeon unlikely to transform Mormon church as new presidentAlex Johnson — January 16, 2018
- 8NewsMormons Worldwide Tune in to Semiannual General ConferenceHeather Hemingway — Jack Sweeney — October 12, 2013
- 10Shifting ParadigmsG. M. Jarrard et al. — January 4, 2004
- 11How President Nelson's faith forged his path for service in the LDS ChurchCarter Williams — January 16, 2018
- 1211 Things You Didn't Know about President NelsonJenny Poffenbarger
- 13Church News, October 17, 2009.
- 14NewsRussell Nelson, Who Led Major Changes to the Mormon Church, Dies at 101Liam Stack — September 28, 2025
- 16Meet the former heart surgeon set to become the Mormon church's new leaderChantal Da Silva — January 4, 2018
- 17Get to Know President Russell M. Nelson, a Renaissance Man - Church News and EventsSarah Jane Weaver — January 16, 2018
- 18BookRussell M. Nelson: Father, Surgeon, ApostleSpencer J. Condie — Deseret Book — 2003
- 19JournalDevelopment of a Pump-oxygenator to Replace the Heart and Lungs: An Apparatus Applicable to Human Patients and Application to One CaseClarence Dennis et al. — October 1951
- 20JournalMy Home BasePage Johnson et al. — April 24, 2009
- 22Celebrating 60 Years of Cardiac Surgery in Utah With Russell M. Nelson, M.D.The University of Utah Health — October 19, 2015
- 24BookFrom Heart to HeartRussell Nelson — Nelson — 1979
- 25JournalDiscovering a Surgical First: Russell M. Nelson and Tricuspid Valve AnnuloplastyAustin Robinson et al.
- 26Sweet Power of PrayerRussell Nelson — LDS Church
- 27JournalAortic valve replacement.RM Nelson et al. — October 1968
- 28Condie. Russell M. Nelson Chapter 12
- 29Meet LDS Church President Russell M. Nelson, a Renaissance man with perfect pitch and pure faithSarah Jane Weaver — January 16, 2018
- 30Condie. Rusell M. Nelson, Ch. 17
- 32Pamela Atkinson: President Nelson's work has been saving lives and soulsJanuary 17, 2018
- 34Spencer J. Condie. Russell M. Nelson: Apostle, Surgeon, Father
- 36Condie. Russell M. Nelson
- 37Condie. Rusell M. Nelson
- 39What I know now that I learned from President Russell M. NelsonAugust 28, 2018
- 41NewsReligious Leaders Hold A 2d World ParliamentPeter Steinfels — August 30, 1993
- 43NewsState Department names religious freedom advisory committeeKim Lawton — January 1, 1996
- 47Inauguration for LDS Business College's 13th presidentMarianne Holman Prescott — October 20, 2017
- 48President Boyd K. Packer Dies At Age 90LDS Church — July 3, 2015
- 52Mormon leader says policy against gay marriage was word from GodJanuary 11, 2016
- 53LDS Apostle: Policy on same-sex couples was revelation from GodDaryl Lindsey — January 10, 2016
- 57Gary Browning, "Russia and the Restoration", Out of Obscurity: The LDS Church in the 20th Century (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book, 2000) p. 67
- 60New Mormon President: Who is Russell M. Nelson, set to become 17th Leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?Chantal Da Silva — Newsweek — January 4, 2018
- 62NewsCountry information: KazakhstanLDS Church — January 29, 2010
- 63Spencer J. Condie, Biography of Russell M. Nelson.
- 66President Nelson Signs Mission Calls as Presiding ApostleLDS Church — January 9, 2018
- 67NewsPresident Russell M. Nelson introduced as 17th LDS president, vows to serve, discusses diversityTad Walch — January 16, 2018
- 68President Nelson is Now Oldest President of the ChurchLDS Church — April 14, 2022
- 69President Russell M. Nelson Is Now the Third Longest-Living Apostle in History of the ChurchCory Ward — September 9, 2021
- 70The Leader of the Mormon Church Turns 100Ruth Graham — September 9, 2024
- 74President Nelson asks LDS members to gather Israel, believe in Book of MormonScott Taylor — The Church News — June 15, 2018
- 75President Nelson promises Puerto Ricans their 'best days' are aheadJason Swensen — September 2, 2018
- 76President Nelson to Visit the Caribbean AreaAugust 28, 2018
- 77President Nelson promises Puerto Ricans their 'best days' are aheadJason Swensen — Deseret News
- 78Crowd Sunday at State Farm Stadium could rival Super BowlBoyd Matheson — Deseret News via Ktar News — February 8, 2019
- 79Prophet Meets Pope Francis at the VaticanNewsroom of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
- 80President Nelson Meets with Pope Francis at the VaticanSarah Jane Weaver — Church News of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
- 81Pope Francis meets with President Nelson in the VaticanTad Walch — Deseret News
- 84As We Go Forward TogetherPresident Russell M. Nelson
- 85First Presidency Directs Leaders to Prevent and Respond to AbuseThe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — March 26, 2018
- 86Twitter reacts to LDS Church naming new apostles, Elder Gong and Elder SoaresHerb Scribner — March 31, 2018
- 90President Nelson Challenges Youth to Participate in 'Greatest Cause' on EarthThe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — June 3, 2018
- 91LDS Church leaders ask Mormons to submit original songs for new global hymnbooksTad Walch — June 18, 2018
- 94NewsStop Saying 'Mormon,' Church Leader Says. But Is the Real Name Too Long?Julia Jacobs — August 18, 2018
- 95Members 'offend' Jesus and please the devil when they use the term 'Mormon,' President Nelson saysPeggy Fletcher Stack et al. — The Salt Lake Tribune — October 7, 2018
- 97The Correct Name of the ChurchPresident Russell M. Nelson
- 98'Home-centered' plan includes 2-hour churchKaitlyn Bancroft — October 6, 2018
- 99President Nelson in South America: 8 inspiring moments from the recent ministry tourHerb Scribner — October 31, 2018
- 100What church changes for 11-year-olds mean for 2019 and beyondTad Walch — December 14, 2018
- 106A by-the-numbers look at the 200 temples announced by President NelsonSeptember 30, 2025
- 114NewsPlans for an LDS temple in Shanghai may have hit an obstaclePeggy Fletcher Stack — April 29, 2020
- 115NewsMormon church to open first temple in mainland ChinaApril 6, 2020
- 116NewsElder Nelson's wife, Dantzel, dies at age 78February 13, 2005
- 118Death: Emily Nelson WittwerJanuary 30, 1995
- 119JournalIntegrity of HeartRussell M. Nelson — February 23, 1993
- 120Condie, Spencer J. Russell M. Nelson: Father, Surgeon, apostle chapter 5
- 121Elder Russell M. Nelson Marries Wendy L. WatsonLDS Church — April 6, 2006
- 124Remembering the Life of President Russell M. NelsonThe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
- 125NewsRussell M. Nelson, president of the Mormon church, dies at 101Kathryn Palmer — September 28, 2025
- 126President Russell M. Nelson dies at 101Sarah Jane Weaver — 28 September 2025
- 127Special Tribute Broadcast and Funeral Services for President Nelson29 September 2025
- 128JournalElder Russell M. Nelson: Applying Divine LawsMarvin K. Gardner — June 1984
- 129LDS Church News - Elder Nelson, pioneer heart surgeon, honoredChurch News — April 20, 2002
- 130Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of AchievementAmerican Academy of Achievement
- 131Awards Banquet Draws 'Giants of Achievement'The Salt Lake Tribune — June 24, 1979
- 134Elder Russell M. Nelson Counsels New Doctors to Read Scriptures - Church News and Eventschurchofjesuschrist.org
- 141Honorary Degree Recipients by Year (1892-2022)University of Utah
- 142Press releasePresident Russell M. NelsonLDS Church
- 143BookMedicine in the Beehive State, 1940–1990University of Utah Press and Utah Medical Association — 1992
- 144NewsChurch NewsLDS Church — July 17, 1971
- 145NewsChurch NewsLDS Church — July 3, 1971
- 146BookFrom Heart to Heart: An AutobiographyRussell M. Nelson — Nelson — January 1, 1979