LDS church’s 99-year-old president to miss global conference after back injury

Russell M. Nelson, the 99-year-old president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, will be absent from this weekend’s General Conference, a semi-annual gathering of church leaders beamed to the group’s 17 million global members.

Mr. Nelson, regarded as a prophet by members of the church popularly known as the Mormons, injured his back three weeks ago, two days after his latest birthday.

“This episode has reminded me of the reality that things sometimes change quickly in our lives,” he wrote on X. “Thankfully, my healing is progressing.”

The religious leader hoped “to record my general conference message and look forward to participating in this marvelous October 2023 General Conference through technology.” He said.

He will be viewing the two-day event from his home, under doctor’s orders for a “slow, careful approach to healing,” he said.

“Having prescribed just such a course of action for many of my own patients years ago, I feel duty-bound to follow doctor’s orders.”

Mr. Nelson is a former heart surgeon who helped develop a heart-lung machine to support the first open-heart surgery using cardiopulmonary bypass. Appointed to the church’s Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in 1984, he was noted as an active downhill skier in earlier years.

The church said Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, another Quorum member appointed in 1984, also will sit out the weekend meetings as he “continues to recuperate from his recent health challenges.”

Mr. Holland, 82, is a highly popular conference speaker whose personable messages have long been a favorite of church members. He and his wife, Patricia, tested positive for COVID-19 and missed the April 2023 meetings. Mrs. Holland died in July, weeks after the couple’s 60th wedding anniversary.

The twice-yearly General Conference sessions feature devotional talks from various members of the group’s leadership, with special attention being given to Mr. Nelson’s announcements of new temple construction and the refurbishment of existing edifices. 

As of April, Mr. Nelson had announced projects involving 133 temples since becoming president in 2018, according to the church.

In May, he admitted to the occasional use of a wheelchair and a walker and previously surprised church members when he sat at the podium to deliver messages during the October 2022 and April 2023 sessions. He acknowledged being someone who would “age on stage.”

In August 2022, Mr. Nelson rededicated the group’s refurbished Washington Temple in the Maryland suburb of Kensington, a prominent feature along the city’s Beltway.