Funeral for Mormon leader Boyd K. Packer at Tabernacle

Funeral services for Mormon leader Boyd K. Packer, president of the faith’s highest governing body, will be held Friday.

The man who rose to become the president of the Utah-based faith’s Quorum of the Twelve Apostles would say, according to his son, the temple was not his, but “the Savior’s home”. Headquartered in Salt Lake City, LDS has over 15 million members worldwide.

Packer was known for being a staunch advocate for a conservative form of Mormonism.

Others also shared their thoughts of Elder Packer’s passing with the Salt Lake Tribune, including Monsignor Colin F. Bircumshaw, administrator for the Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City who said of Elder Packer “His decades of service to his church and the community and his commitment to his family mark a rich and enduring legacy”.

At the Church’s April 2014 general conference, President Packer declared, “After all the years that I have lived and taught and served, after the millions of miles I have traveled around the world, with all that I have experienced, there is one great truth that I would share”.

Armand Mauss, a Mormon scholar, said Packer would be remembered “for an unyielding resistance to the secular, social world, especially as that world evolved during his lifetime”.

As to whether he would risk offending his well-known father by sharing firsthand family experiences and impressions, the son would only say, “We’ll have to see”. They had 10 children, 60 grandchildren and 111 great-grandchildren.

He said his father loved to shed his suit and tie and get dirty in the outdoors to hunt, fish and camp. An educator by profession, President Packer’s career included service as supervisor of seminaries and institutes of religion for the Church and as a member of the administrative council of Brigham Young University.

“He has great love for people, which is probably not well understood”, said Allan Packer, a member of the religion’s Quorum of the Seventy, the governing body below the Quorum of the Twelve.

Asked about those criticisms, Allan Packer said, “He was most concerned to do what Heavenly Father wanted him to do and to teach the gospel principles found in the scriptures”. Packer is the second Quorum member to die recently, following Tom Perry in May.

He had been a member of the Quorum since 1970 and became president when Thomas Monson moved up to became overall president of the church.