A. Roger Merrill

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Ariel Roger Merrill (born May 2, 1945) has been the general president of the Sunday School organization of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) since 2004. He is the 19th head of the LDS Church's Sunday School.

Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, to Ariel Carden Merrill and Edith Horsley, Merrill grew up in Carmel, California and served as a missionary for the LDS Church the Texas MIssion of the church in the 1960s. Merrill married Rebecca Rippy in the Salt Lake Temple on June 7, 1967; they are parents to seven children.

On April 3, 2004, LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley asked that Merrill become the general president of the church's Sunday School auxiliary.[1] It was the first time since Russell M. Nelson was called to hold the same position in 1971 that a person who was not a general authority of the church had become the Sunday School general president. Merrill asked Daniel K Judd and William D. Oswald to be his counselors in the Sunday School presidency.

Previous to his call as general Sunday School president, Merrill served as an Area Seventy of the church.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ “The Sustaining of Church Officers”, Ensign, May 2004, 24.

[edit] References

v • d • e
General presidents of the Sunday School of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Cannon (1867–1901) • Snow (1901) • Smith (1901–1918) • D.O. McKay (1918–1934) • Pyper (1934–1943) • Bennion (1943–1949) • Hill (1949–1966) • D.L. McKay (1966–1971) • Nelson (1971–1979) • Pinnock (1979–1986) • Simpson (1986–1989) • Pinnock (1989–1992) • Lybbert (1992–1994) • Didier (1994–1995) • Hillam (1995–2000) • Jensen (2000–2001) • Samuelson (2001–2003) • Bateman (2003–2004) • Merrill (2004– )