Earl M. Monson

Who is Earl M. Monson?

Earl Merrill Monson was a general authority of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1998 to 2002. He was a member of the Second Quorum of the Seventy.

Monson was born in Salt Lake City, Utah to Charles H. Monson and his wife, Ortencia H. Merrill. He was raised in that city, where he learned to play the violin and was in multiple orchestras conducted by Frank W. Asper. Monson attended the University of Utah, where he met his wife, Donna Mae Hill. After their marriage in the Salt Lake Temple in 1954, Monson joined the United States Army. He later earned a bachelor's degree from Iowa State University.

Monson was a civil engineer, and from 1962 he worked full-time for the LDS Church as a structural engineer. In 1982 he became the head of the church's Temple and Special Projects Division and was closely connected with building many temples in the 1980s.

Prior to his call as a member of the Second Quorum of the Seventy, Monson had served as a bishop and a stake president. He lived most of his adult life in Kearns, Utah, but in the early 1990s moved to Sandy, Utah. Monson and his wife, Donna, are the parents of five children.

From 2006 to 2009 Monson served as president of the Manila Philippines Temple.