When Elder Boyd K. Packer was called in 1961 as an Assistant to the Quorum of the Twelve, he was 37. He and his wife, Donna Smith Packer, were parents of eight children; two more were born later.
During the years he has served as an Assistant to the Quorum of the Twelve, then as a member, acting president and president of that Quorum, he has traveled throughout the world, racking up some 2.5 million miles. At times he, as has been the case with his fellow Brethren of General Authorities, was gone for weeks at a time.
He could not, he declared, have fulfilled his duties without the help and support of his wife and family. "She is a real teammate," he said of Sister Packer. "I don't know what I would do without her. She has deep spiritual insights and, for the most part, raised our family because I was gone so much."
Interspersed among his years as a General Authority was his call to serve from 1965-68 as president of the New England Mission. President and Sister Packer arrived at mission headquarters in Boston, Mass., with nine children. (Their tenth child was born after they returned from their mission.)
When Elder Spencer W. Kimball set Sister Packer apart for the mission, he blessed her that she would have the "ability to handle not only [her] immediate family but the great family of the mission" and that she might be able to do so in calm tranquility and without frustration. Elder Kimball counseled her to put her family first, to support her husband, and to carry her part in the auxiliaries only as her time and strength would permit (Lucile C. Tate, Boyd K. Packer — A Watchman on the Tower, Bookcraft, pp. 143-144).
President Packer looks back on counsel he received also. "Elder Mark E. Petersen said, 'I never take the office home with me.' I asked him what he meant. He said, 'Just that. I'll stay at the office late, but when I go home, I'm home.' I've tried to follow that practice." — Gerry Avant
