"Now don't overdo it," Elder Lowell D. Wood cautioned a Church News writer during a telephone interview from his Sydney, Australia, office. "We're just common people who have had some great blessings."
Called to the Second Quorum of the Seventy in June, Elder Wood prefers to avoid the limelight.In fact, he and his wife, Lorna, might have been content to spend their lives on the family farm in Cardston, Alberta, where he was born Jan. 23, 1933, the eldest of eight children.
But the Lord apparently had other plans for him. That was indicated in his patriarchal blessing, which he received from his grandfather, Edward J. Wood, who had been president of the Alberta Temple for 25 years.
"My blessing said, `You will be on the faculty of some of our universities,' " he explained. "There weren't very many people in my high school who went to the university, and I didn't really have plans to go. I wanted to be a farmer. But I kept reading that blessing. It was one of the motivating forces."
Thus, after his mission to South Africa from 1952-1954, he entered BYU. Before the end of 1954, he met his future bride, Lorna Cox, on a blind date. They were married the following July 8, at the temple in her home town of St. George.
"That was 1955, and I didn't graduate until '61," he said. "But I was farming most of the time."
"We went back and forth between Cardston and Provo to get the education," Sister Wood explained.
In Alberta, she grew to love the people who had been a part of her husband's life, including Bishop Edwin J. Greene, father of Ardeth Greene Kapp, former Young Women general president.
"Ardeth was born and raised in Glenwood Ward, as I was," Elder Wood said. "Bishop Greene was bishop while I was a young man in the Aaronic Priesthood. He was a kindly man, always interested in us."
"He was interested in me when we went there," Sister Wood added. "He was a good, spiritual leader, and so was his wife."
Influenced by his uncle, Vi Wood, who had a doctorate in agricultural economics, Elder Wood entered the same discipline. He received a bachelor's degree in 1961, and the Woods returned to the Glenwood Ward to farm.
There, he was called as bishop at age 26.
"There are wonderful people in those Canadian wards," he affirmed. "We had as many as 22 missionaries at one time from our small country ward of 150 members while I was bishop."
In January 1965, he went to graduate school full time, obtaining a master's degree from Montana State University in 1966 and a doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley in 1969.
He never returned to farming. Instead, he fulfilled his patriarchal blessing, serving on the BYU faculty from 1969 to 1975.
At BYU he was a department chairman and one of the founders and first director of the Ezra Taft Benson Food and Agricultural Institute.
"I'm proud of it," he said of the institute. "They're doing a lot of good things."
Regarding the institute's founding, he said: "There are a great number of professional agriculturalists in our Church, and many of those people had a desire to help agriculture and help the Church. It was an attempt to try to focus some of the resources of the Church to help people agriculturally. And also, we looked at it as an alternative to the federal land-grant system, which focused on large-scale agribusiness. The Benson Institute is focused on small farms and trying to help individual farmers."
In 1975, he went on a year's sabbatical leave to work for Church Welfare Services. The sabbatical was extended for a year and then for another year. Finally, it became a full-time position during a period of growth for Welfare Services.
Elder Wood served in several capacities, mainly as director of the production-distribution department, with responsibility for farms, storehouses, canneries and transportation.
His work with Welfare Services was interrupted in 1979, when he was called as president of the South Africa Johannesburg Mission.
It was a momentous time for the Church on that continent, just a year after the 1978 revelation on the priesthood. The time was right to spread the gospel to many people who had not yet received it.
"The Lord prepared those people, and they found us, and that's how the Church was established among them." Elder Wood reflected.
"One of the most exciting things that happened while we were there was the announcment that they would build a temple in South Africa. In those days, you raised a local share, and we were able to help the people raise the local share."
The announcement was "highly motivating, electrifying" to the people, he said. "Previous to that, the nearest temple was in London, and it cost them a lot of money to go to the temple. Yet many of them had made that sacrifice. So they were overjoyed to have a temple in their land."
Returning from his mission in 1982, Elder Wood resumed his work for Welfare Services until 1987, when he went to work for the Presiding Bishopric's office. He served first as regional manager for temporal affairs in New Zealand. In July 1987, he became director of temporal affairs for Asia, serving in Hong Kong, and then in June 1991, was transferred to Manila, Philippines, as director of temporal affairs.
In that position, he supervised the work of the Presiding Bishopric in the area; that is, the physical facilities of the Church, finances, materials management, translation, printing and distribution of materials.
During the post-mission period, the Wood children began to leave home and establish families of their own. Vacation trips to the family farm in Alberta over the years have helped maintain family unity.
"My dad is very spiritual, but he's also a lot of fun," daughter Alisa Wightman reflected. "When we would go back to the farm to visit, he always had to hitch the tractor up to the hay wagon, and we took a big ride through the fields and the streams. He'd always put on his old cowboy boots and cowboy hat, just to have fun on the farm. We'd have barbecues at the river bottom. He is lots of fun."
Elder Wood was teaching a Sunday School gospel doctrine class in the Makati Villages Branch of the Makati Philippines Stake at the time of his recent call as a General Authority.
"He's an excellent teacher," Sister Wood said of her husband. "He has a lot of gifts from the Lord that he has developed, and I think one of them is he knows how the Church works. He knows how things fit together. He has a great talent to see where he wants to go and eliminate the things that aren't important."
Daughter Alisa remembers her father "always was really into self-reliance."
"He always wanted to teach us to be able to take care of ourselves, no matter what. And he always encouraged us to get our educations and to have a marketable skill of some kind."
Elder Wood credits his parents for his values and strength.
"My mother and father had a significant influence in my life," he said. "My mother has always had great faith in me (in all her children) and in my abilities. This faith has motivated me to be better and do better than I would have done on my own.
"My father was an example of hard work and faithfulness. He taught me to be responsible. For example, it was my job as a young boy to keep the wood box full. One evening, in my parents' absence, I neglected to fill the box. When they came home late, my father got me out of bed and sent me out in the dark, alone, to bring in the wood and fill the box. I have never forgotten that important lesson."
Elder Wood serves with Elders Rulon Craven and Robert Sackley as second counselor in the Pacific Area presidency. As such, he resides in Sydney, Australia, far removed from the farm in Alberta where he at one time thought he might spend his life.
But he maintains home-spun values of industry and self-reliance, fostered through years of working with the Church welfare plan. Those values are coupled with an appreciation for the unity the gospel brings among a diverse Church membership.
"It may be a trite saying, but the Church really is the same in each place you go," he commented. "We've been to Church in many, many countries, and you feel the same kinship, you sing the same hymns although they may be in a different language, you teach each other out of the same lesson books, and the people love you. There really is a community of saints that's wonderful to be a part of."
"Our experience in the world confirms to us that there is a great need for the gospel among all people, and we hope that the Church can fulfill its role before the world self-destructs."
(Additional information)
Elder Lowell D. Wood
Family: Born in Cardston, Alberta, Jan. 23, 1933, to Wm. Dale and Donna Wolf Wood; married Lorna Cox in the St. George Temple, July 8, 1955. Parents of five children: Paula (Wood) Rowberry, 36; Alisa (Wood) Wightman, 34; Brett, 33; Anthony, 29; Randy Scott, 20 (serving in Japan Kobe Mission); 12 grandchildren.
Education: Bachelor's degree from BYU, 1961; master's degree from Montana State University, 1966; doctorate from University of California at Berkeley, 1969, all in agricultural economics.
Employment: Farmer, 1961-65; BYU faculty, department chairman, 1969-75, during which he helped found and was first director of Ezra Taft Benson Food and Agricultural Institute; Church Welfare Services Production-Distribution Department, 1975-79, 1982-87; worked for Presiding Bishopric's office as regional manager for temporal affairs in New Zealand, 1987; director of temporal affairs for Asia Area, 1987-91; and for Philippines Area, 1991-92.
Church service: Bishop and counselor, branch president, stake president's counselor, president of South Africa Johannesburg Mission, gospel doctrine teacher.
