Elder Jeremiah J. Morgan had been working as the chief deputy attorney general for the state of Missouri when the call was extended to be a General Authority Seventy for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
When he told his boss, the attorney general, that he would be leaving his position, the story of Christ calling Peter, Andrew, James and John came to his mind.
“She is a very religious person, the attorney general,” Elder Morgan said. “And so I shared with her that, ‘When Christ called the apostles, He asked them to lay down their nets and leave their boats and follow Him. And they did it ‘immediately.’ Something like that has happened to me. A prophet has called me to go and serve the Lord, and I am putting down my nets right now.’”
While others in the office were concerned that he was leaving, the attorney general told them, “It’s OK. Jesus has called him.”
Elder Morgan’s wife, Sister Rebecca Morgan, who had been a vice president for a software company, had a similar experience when she announced her retirement.
“There are people of faith everywhere who will embrace these kinds of decisions that we are making and celebrate them,” she said.
On that point, Elder Morgan — who was sustained in the April 2026 general conference — said he hopes others will have the courage and confidence to express their faith wherever they may be, because people are waiting for others to do so.
In his role for the state of Missouri, Elder Morgan had the opportunity to defend religious freedom, marriage, families, gender and other principles found in “The Family: A Proclamation to the World.”
“Everyone should be thinking about how we can proclaim eternal truths,” Elder Morgan said. “We especially need young people who are willing and able to get involved and have their voices heard in sustaining what God has revealed. We need not fear, God will bless us.”
Restoration heritage
Elder Morgan was born in Kettering, Ohio, and was a baby when his father left the family. His mother, raising the five children by herself, moved to Lamoni, Iowa, in order to attend Graceland University.
Elder Morgan’s middle name is Joseph, after the Prophet Joseph Smith, which was important to his mother.
His great-great-great-grandparents, Francis and Mary Ann Case, were baptized into the Church in 1831 in Lexington, Missouri, by Oliver Cowdery. They went with the Church to Independence and Far West, Missouri, and Nauvoo, Illinois, but they did not go West with Brigham Young and the rest of the Saints.
Ultimately, they joined the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints now known as the Community of Christ — and generations of the family followed as members of that church.
When Elder Morgan was 1, his mother, Susan Jane Case Morgan, moved the family to Independence, Missouri, the headquarters of the Community of Christ. During this time, each morning in their small mobile home, his mother read the Book of Mormon out loud to him while he got ready for school.
While he didn’t remember much from what she read to him: “I remember that she did it. That was the most important part. And her love of the Book of Mormon sunk deep into my heart.”
Meanwhile, significant changes were made at a world conference of the church in 1984, which greatly affected his family. The following summer, when he was 14, they went on a family trip to upstate New York. Standing in the Sacred Grove, he felt a question stirring in his heart — “Where is the true Church of Jesus Christ?”
High school friends who were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints shared the gospel with him, and he studied and prayed to find the truth. Events followed that, he said, can only be described as miraculous. Although he had become converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ, his mother asked him to wait until he turned 18 to be baptized, and he honored that request.
Elder Morgan used to wonder why at that particular time in his life he was ready to learn more about religion.
Reflecting on family history, Sister Morgan noted that Elder Morgan’s great-great-great-grandparents had received the endowment in the Nauvoo Temple in 1846.
“His conversion wasn’t a mere coincidence. It was a fulfillment of promises made long ago. It’s covenants — covenants draw you back,” she said. “They are generational, and they are eternal.”
Learning discipleship and leadership on his mission
At age 19, one year after his baptism, Elder Morgan submitted his mission papers and was called to the Micronesia Guam Mission.
“I had a testimony, and I was moving in the right direction, to be sure, but my mission set me on a course for the rest of my life,” he said. “If nothing else can be said of me, it is that I am striving to be a relentless disciple of Jesus Christ. These were lessons I learned on my mission.”
On the remote island of Pohnpei in the Pacific Ocean, with no running water or electricity, Elder Morgan found himself as both a brand-new missionary and a relatively new member of the Church. There he met a senior missionary couple, and the husband asked Elder Morgan to give his wife a blessing.
“If nothing else can be said of me, it is that I am striving to be a relentless disciple of Jesus Christ.”
— Elder Jeremiah J. Morgan, General Authority Seventy
“I thought to myself, ‘That’s your job. I don’t know anything.’” He doesn’t remember what he said in the blessing, but in time, he saw how things improved for them.
Years later, when the couple met him during a visit to Liberty, Missouri, he reflected upon that experience from his mission, and he wondered again why he had been asked to give that blessing.
“It dawned on me for the first time, maybe he was doing that for me so I could learn to be a better leader and grow in the gospel — in small and simple ways I could learn my stewardship and responsibilities.”
Elder Morgan said all can help raise the next generation of leaders to God by giving them opportunities right now to lead and serve, sometimes in ways they might not discover for decades.
Meeting and marriage
Sister Morgan grew up in Independence, Missouri, and met Elder Morgan while attending the Independence YSA Branch one summer about a year after he got home from his mission. She was home from her freshman year at Brigham Young University, and he was attending the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg, Missouri.
Elder Morgan saw her playing the piano at church and thought she was beautiful and talented.
They had only been dating a few weeks when one day, while he was at her house, her parents encouraged her to invite him on a family trip.
“I asked him if he wanted to go and he said, ‘Absolutely, I do.’ I always say that my parents fell in love with him before I did,” Sister Morgan said.
They wrote letters to each other when they returned to college and were married the next December in the Dallas Texas Temple. They raised their five children in the Liberty, Missouri, area; the youngest is now 21, and the oldest three are married with eight children between them.
After Elder and Sister Morgan got married, they wrote down their goals for their life together. They wanted to get started right away with their family, and they wanted to save money so that when their children were grown, they could serve the Lord on missions.
“We wanted to serve missions, plural,” Sister Morgan said. “We could have never envisioned this mission, and we couldn’t be happier. “
Growth of the Church in Missouri
When Elder Morgan began serving as stake president of the Liberty Missouri Stake in 2009, the stake boundaries were around three hours driving from one end to the other. Now three more stakes have been formed from that stake — the Far West, Grand River and Shoal Creek Missouri stakes.
“It’s a miracle,” Sister Morgan said. “Missouri is an incredible place to be. … I’m not sure that there’s anybody who loves Missouri more than Jeremiah and Rebecca Morgan.”
Living close to many Church historic sites, Sister Morgan knows, “So many beautiful things happened there, and so many beautiful things will happen there. The Lord is preparing a place and a people.”
Some of the most powerful revelations in scripture came to Joseph Smith while in the Liberty Jail. One of Elder Morgan’s favorite verses is Doctrine and Covenants 123:17, the last verse given in the jail.
It says, “Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, … and see the salvation of God, and for His arm will be revealed.”
Said Elder Morgan: “This is after three and a half months in this dark, dreary, cold jail. And what does the Lord say to the Prophet Joseph? ‘Cheerfully do all things.’ We ought to be joyful, cheerful.”
While there are tough things happening in the world, there are also amazing things happening, he said.
Right now, the Church has the most members, the most missionaries, the most temples — with more joining, serving and being built every year, he said. The covenants and blessings of the gospel are reaching more places than ever reached in history.
“That ought to be our focus and fill us with great joy,” Elder Morgan said.
About Elder Jeremiah J. Morgan
Family: Jeremiah Joseph Morgan, was born in Kettering, Ohio, on March 15, 1971, to Keith Alan Morgan and Susan Jane Case Morgan and raised with his four older siblings by his mother. Married Rebecca McDavitt in the Dallas Texas Temple on Dec. 17, 1994. They are parents of five children.
Education: Political science degree from the University of Central Missouri and law degree from Brigham Young University.
Employment: Worked as a lawyer in private practice, then in public service for the state of Missouri, including general counsel to the Supreme Court of Missouri, deputy solicitor general and chief deputy attorney general.
Church service: Area Seventy, stake president, communication specialist, high councilor, bishop and branch president, and served in the Micronesia Guam Mission.
