Elder James E. Evanson and his wife, Sister Jody Evanson, were in the thick of raising their five children in 2007.
One evening, as he and his wife passed each other in the hallway of their home in Lethbridge, Alberta, before shuttling their children to different sporting events, Sister Evanson exclaimed, “Could we be any busier?”
The following Saturday, Elder Evanson, as a member of the high council, was invited to an interview with the visiting general authorities who were organizing a new stake presidency.
The morning of the interview, before heading out to a variety of activities — including Elder Evanson coaching two of his sons’ football games — Elder and Sister Evanson knelt in prayer. After the prayer, Elder Evanson asked his wife, “What if I get called to something?”
Sister Evanson said she snorted with laughter. “There’s no way,” she said.
Following the first football game, Elder Evanson traded his hoodie for his suit coat and sat down with the late Elder Richard G. Scott of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and Elder Randy D. Funk, who was serving as a General Authority Seventy and is now emeritus.
Elder Evanson called the interview “a sweet little experience.” After just five to 10 minutes, he was headed to his next football game. On the sidelines of the football field, however, he received a phone call asking him to come back to the stake center.
Standing in front of the open door of his minivan, “I just felt this crushing weight come over me that I knew I was going to be called,” Elder Evanson remembered.
As Elder Scott issued the call, Elder Evanson protested. “But I’ve never been a bishop,” he said.
“Neither have I,” Elder Scott responded.
“I’m too young,” said Elder Evanson, who was then in his mid-30s.
Elder Funk explained that he had been called when he was even younger, Elder Evanson recalled.
Finally, Elder Evanson asked, “Are you sure?”
Looking him in the eye, Elder Scott asked, “Do you sustain me as an Apostle?”
Elder Evanson immediately responded “yes” — to both Elder Scott’s question and to the new responsibility.
But for his first few months as stake president, “I felt Heavenly Father had made a terrible mistake,” Elder Evanson said.
He was just a farm kid from a tiny town in southern Alberta. He was younger than everyone on the high council.
Roughly six months after being called as stake president, he and his wife went on a trip to Israel. While sitting alone in an olive grove at the traditional site of the Garden of Gethsemane, it dawned on him that some of those ancient trees could have been there the night the Savior took upon Himself all of his pains and sins and weaknesses and inabilities.
The realization was humbling. And yet, Elder Evanson thought, “I cannot do what He’s asked me to do. I’m just not good enough.”
A voice then came to him that said: “I know you’re not good enough, but I am. So stop worrying about what you can’t do and go do something, and I’ll make up all the difference.”
That lesson “changed my whole life,” Elder Evanson said.
It’s also what made it easy to say “yes” to other calls that elicited similar feelings — including as a mission leader and Area Seventy and, most recently, as a general authority. Elder Evanson was one of the 16 new General Authority Seventies sustained during the April 2025 general conference.
He’s not sure how to be a general authority, Elder Evanson told the Church News. “But what I do know is that if I do what I can do, if I give my best, if I give my will, if I give everything I have, that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ make up all the rest of it.”
Gaining a firm testimony
When Elder Evanson looks back on his life, he said, there are two experiences that come to his mind as providing the footings for his firm testimony of Jesus Christ and His gospel.
One was his experience as a stake president. The other occurred when he was a young boy.
Elder Evanson was raised on a small sugar beet farm near the village of Barnwell — which had a population of around 400 in 1986 when Elder Evanson was in high school. “I grew up hoeing beets, planting corn and moving pipes,” he recalled.
“The Savior can help any of us do what He’s asked us to do.”
— Elder James E. Evanson
His parents — Dale Eugene and Phyllis Tanner Evanson — are both from multigenerational Latter-day Saint families whose ancestors joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the early days of the Restoration. They exemplified for their eight children the principles of hard work, integrity, humility, obedience and service. He grew up in a family where the gospel was both “taught and lived,” he said.
When he was just 10 years old, he read all 16 volumes of the family’s illustrated Book of Mormon and Church history stories and noted that Joseph Smith wasn’t that much older than him when he knelt in the Sacred Grove.
Sneaking across the gravel road in front of their farm, young Elder Evanson knelt in a small grove of trees and asked Heavenly Father if Joseph Smith was a prophet, if the Book of Mormon is true and if He was truly there.
“I didn’t have a vision,” Elder Evanson said. “But to this day, even right now as I talk about it, I get the exact same feelings of the Spirit reminding me that as a 10-year-old, God answered my prayers. I knew right then that the Book of Mormon was true, Joseph was a prophet and Jesus Christ is my Savior.”
Serving the Lord
Elder Evanson played basketball and football throughout middle school and high school but “was never very athletic.” The nice thing about being from a little town is that “anybody who showed up could be on the team,” he said with a laugh.
After high school, he attended the University of Alberta for a year before being called to the Arizona Tempe Mission. Already equipped with a strong testimony, Elder Evanson was eager to reach the mission field. “I just wanted to get out there and share the gospel.”
Looking back, “the mission to me was an opportunity to give my whole soul to Heavenly Father for that time,” Elder Evanson said. “I gave everything I could. I wore myself out. And I learned very quickly that if you give yourself to Heavenly Father, if you give Him everything you have, then He gives so much in return — more than you deserve. The blessings really flow. I saw that happen all my life, but I especially learned that on my mission.”
After his mission, Elder Evanson worked on his grandfather’s farm hauling peas and sugar beets and enrolled at the local university in Lethbridge.
Elder Evanson described himself as “a very shy kid,” even after two years of practice talking to strangers on his mission. Through a case of mistaken identity, however, he struck up a conversation with Jody Karil Zobell at the local institute building and discovered they were in the same biology class. The next morning, he arrived early to the class and asked her for a date that same evening.
Early in their courtship, Sister Evanson said, she recognized his goodness. She felt nudges from the Spirit telling her, “You’ll find happiness here.”
They were married in the Salt Lake Temple on Dec. 20, 1989. “I just wake up every morning and make sure that she still thinks that was a good idea,” Elder Evanson said.
Their life soon overflowed with toddlers and homework and sports practices and — always — serving in the Church. Through the years, Elder Evanson served as elder’s quorum president, ward and stake Young Men president, high councilor and stake president.
Sister Evanson noted: “Our kids watched their dad go out and serve all the time, and I feel like it really blessed them.”
Through “divine design” and a technicality, Elder Evanson decided not to apply to medical school like he had originally planned and pursued dental school instead. He earned a bachelor’s degree and a Doctor of Dental Surgery degree from the University of Alberta and built a practice in Lethbridge, where they raised their family.
As their children got older, Sister Evanson finished her degree in exercise science and taught instructors throughout Canada, the United States and the Caribbean how to teach fitness classes, which afforded them many opportunities to travel. As a family, they enjoy sports, playing games, watching movies and the outdoors.
The Evansons’ five children have now all served full-time missions and are scattered across the United States and Canada pursuing education, building careers and growing their own families.
One activity that Elder and Sister Evanson have loved to do as a couple is hike. In 2020, during the lockdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic, the two hiked to 64 summits. An added perk of being assigned as mission leaders in Utah from 2021 to 2024 was access to the area’s many mountain trails. They spent many preparation days in hiking boots.
“We love the challenge. We love the view. We love the ability to summit something and then start again,” said Elder Evanson.
Sister Evanson has pointed out to their children and their missionaries that “when you get to the top of a mountain and you look around, you see that there are always more mountains to climb.”
This new calling poses a new “mountain” of opportunity — for potential challenges as well as scenic vistas. “So we’ll just keep climbing,” said Elder Evanson.
He knows from experience — “The Savior can help any of us do what He’s asked us to do.”
About Elder James E. Evanson
Family: James Eugene Evanson was born on Aug. 16, 1968, in Taber, Alberta, Canada, to Dale Eugene and Phyllis Belle Tanner Evanson. He married Jody Karil Zobell, also from southern Alberta, on Dec. 20, 1989, in the Salt Lake Temple. They have five children and 11 grandchildren.
Education: Earned a Bachelor of Science degree in dental materials in 1993 and a Doctor of Dental Surgery in 1995, both from the University of Alberta.
Employment: Worked as a dentist in private practice for more than 26 years.
Church service: Utah Orem Mission president (2021-24), Area Seventy, stake president, high councilor, ward and stake Young Men president, Primary teacher and missionary in the Arizona Tempe Mission. At the time of his call, he was serving as the Valiant activity leader.
