As Elder Aaron T. Hall begins his service as a recently sustained General Authority Seventy for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he and his wife, Sister Kimberly Hall, are drawing on the learnings and perspectives from past experiences — growing in marriage, serving as mission leaders, his working as a Missionary Department director and even competing in triathlons.
He was sustained in the Saturday morning session of the April 2025 general conference, one of 16 new General Authority Seventies. A resident of Huntsville, Utah, he was serving as an Area Seventy in the Utah Area at the time of his call.
With all the mixed feelings of the call, Elder and Sister Hall bring gratitude — something they learned from Elder David A. Bednar when the member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles set them apart a decade ago to lead the Texas Houston South Mission.
When Elder Bednar asked the Halls of their feelings then, they described a range from overwhelmed to excited. He paused and asked, “How about grateful?”
Said Elder Hall: “What he taught us that day has never left my thoughts relating to any calling we receive, which is ‘We are just simply grateful.’”
So after receiving the recent call from Church President Russell M. Nelson, Elder Hall bears witness of feeling an assurance from the Lord and being reliant on Him. “You wonder how in the world the Lord would have ever chosen you, but we witness that He does,” he said. “And because we are willing and available, He will make us capable.”
‘Stand up, stand out’
Looking for new friends at the start of her senior year at Roy High School three decades ago, 17-year-old Kimberly Wade arrived at the back-to-school dance and saw a group of boys who she determined were making better choices than most. One was a certain senior boy whom she’d never been in class with — or even met — in the two previous years.
“She comes in all by herself and starts to dance with us, and I thought, ‘Wow, this girl is brave and beautiful,’” recalls Elder Hall, saying the experience served as an introduction to her character.
“She was looking to make a change in friends, and she had to stand up, stand out and do it on her own,” he said, adding, “And she has stood up and has been a standout all of her life — a remarkable, faithful woman. We’ve been together for 32 years in October — 37, if you count high school days and mission.
“And our first date, she asked me out, and I’m so grateful that she did,” added Elder Hall of his wife, whom he frequently calls “this sweet girl of mine.”
“You wonder how in the world the Lord would have ever chosen you, but we witness that He does. And because we are willing and available, He will make us capable.”
— Elder Aaron T. Hall
For Sister Hall, that dance experience was the first of many times she has stepped into the uncertain with faith and hope — including being called with her husband as mission leaders or accompanying him in his next two decades of service as a general authority.
“Find confidence in knowing you’re a child of God. We need to know who we truly are,” Sister Hall told herself then and since — and would say the same to others. “To know who you are is so important. We heard a lot of that in the recent general conference — that we are children of a loving Heavenly Father, He sees your worth, and He wants the best for us. This is true. So in those moments when we are unsure, don’t know how we fit in or feel lost, remember you are a child of God and He loves you.“
Following his serving a mission in Chile, they married Dec. 28, 1993, in the Logan Utah Temple and are the parents of four children.
True power and common interests
Of marriage, Elder Hall said: “When we kneel across the altar, we invite the Savior and a loving Heavenly Father into our relationship through a covenantal relationship that brings two people from different backgrounds, different life experiences, and brings them together as one. There’s power, true power, that comes into our relationship when we make and keep covenants, and as President Nelson says, we have ‘direct access to the power of God.’ Every day we are blessed to choose love and grow in it together.”
Added Sister Hall: “The growing into love can be really fun, because you’re going to find things that you didn’t know that you can have in common.”
Growing in love for the Halls has included weekly date nights, family activities, boating and mountain biking — and more. “We find common interests, we find things that we love to do together,” said Elder Hall, “and sometimes we wouldn’t have thought that we would have loved to do those things together until we go do it.”
He loves to ski and compete in Ironman competitions — swimming 2.4 miles, biking 112 miles and running 26.2 miles. By comparison, an Olympic or standard triathlon is 0.93 miles swimming, 24.8 miles biking and 6.2 miles running (equivalents of 1.5, 40 and 10 kilometers, respectively).
Rather than to simply be content in her exercising, Sister Hall joined with Elder Hall to go similar distances, from supporting and watching her husband compete to giving her a desire and the confidence to overcome a fear of the swimming portion. She has since worked up to doing half-Ironmans.
Family learnings from a mission
Friends have asked how the Halls’ family has reacted to the new call — and their children have responded that it’s not something new or something they haven’t experienced before. The call 10 years ago to lead the Texas Houston South Mission came with uncertainties, anxieties and challenges that impacted the family then.
When the Halls left for that three-year assignment, their four children were between the ages of 7 and 16. After prayerful consideration, the Halls’ oldest daughter opted to stay home to finish her senior year of high school. That decision, though the right choice, was not easy. The move to Houston for their 14-year-old son was not an easy transition either. He often asked to return home as the feelings of FOMO — the fear of missing out — were real for him.
“One of the things that we might hope for as we serve the Lord, as we do what He would ask us to do, is that we would receive a free pass from hardships or trials,” Elder Hall said, recalling kids integrating into schools, finding new friends and longing to be back home.
“As we live our covenants to sacrifice and consecrate time and talents, you’d hope sometimes that things in life would just be easy — and mission life wasn’t. It was far harder than we ever anticipated.”
The Halls shared they have learned from the teachings of President Nelson “that making and keeping covenants does not make life easy, but it does make life easier by providing access to the power of Jesus Christ.” This was true for the Halls and their children then, and this assurance provides strength for the years ahead.
Sister Hall said she appreciated “the mission experience helped our children work through hard things and increase their faith in the Savior.” Their oldest son stayed all three years with the family and then served his own mission through the challenges of COVID-19.
Testimony and conversion
Elder Hall has worked as a director in the Missionary Department, overseeing efforts to help friends find and learn about the gospel of Jesus Christ, ranging from Easter initiatives and Light the World Christmastime efforts to social-media messages that, figuratively speaking, invite people to knock the missionaries’ door instead of the missionaries’ knocking theirs, he said. “And we now see miracles each day as many of God’s children seek out the missionaries, exercise faith and come unto Christ.”
He said his testimony of the restored gospel — like others’ — is the result of hearkening unto the voice of the Lord, listening to His counsels and following His instruction that comes through the scriptures, latter-day prophets and apostles, and personal revelation.
“My testimony has come ‘line upon line, precept upon precept’ (2 Nephi 28:30),” he said, “and it’s been in the small and simple ways — not a pillar of light, but rays of light that have helped me come to know that God is my loving Heavenly Father.”
Elder Hall said his understanding of God’s love for His children has grown as he has experienced his ever-increasing love grow for his wife and children and now the start of grandchildren joining their extended family.
And not just God’s love for him and his family but for all others. “I’ve witnessed that as a priesthood leader — in particular, as a young bishop — having the opportunity to feel and see God’s love for His children in ways that I had never before imagined,” he said, “where you can sit on the stand, look at the faces of those people that you love and know that God knows them and loves them, and He loves me.”
Elder Hall underscored his reliance on Jesus Christ. “As good as I may try to be and as good as I hope to be, I am mortal and fallen, and I have felt to sing the song of redeeming love as I exercise faith and repent. Repentance for me has been joyful, and the Savior brings me absolute hope,” he said.
“So, I think of my testimony as building and growing and continuing to move towards what we all hope for, which is conversion — conversion to the Savior, Jesus Christ, to His gospel, such that we become like Him.”
About Elder Aaron T. Hall
Family: Aaron Tracy Hall was born March 4, 1971, in Provo, Utah, the son of Alan Eugene Hall and Paula Jeanne Nowak Hall. He married Kimberly Wade on Dec. 28, 1993, in the Logan Utah Temple. They have four children and one grandchild.
Education: Bachelor’s degree in professional sales from Weber State University and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Utah.
Employment: Previously an executive for technology and private equity firms, he most recently was working as a director in the Church’s Missionary Department.
Church service: At the time of his call as a General Authority Seventy, Elder Hall was serving as an Area Seventy in the Utah Area. He is a former Texas Houston South Mission president (2015-2018), stake presidency counselor, high councilor, stake executive secretary, bishop, elders quorum president, ward Young Men president and full-time missionary in the Chile Osorno Mission (1990-1992).
