Elder Paul H. Sinclair has come to know through his own life experiences that the Lord can take any kind of circumstance and make it right through His Atonement.
“I believe that He can take anything that happens to us in our lives, any situation, any circumstance — whether I created it, or somebody else created it, and it’s a mess — He can make that beautiful,” Elder Sinclair said soon after being sustained as a General Authority Seventy during April 2026 general conference.
Elder Sinclair said his life is remarkably different from what he imagined “in many glorious ways.”
Growing up, he always had what he calls “a core faith.” As a child, he would go to Mass at the Catholic parish behind his childhood home in De Pere, Wisconsin. He recalls especially enjoying the guitar Mass held in the evenings.
“I didn’t quite know what I was feeling, but I knew I was feeling something faithful,” he said.
His high school sweetheart, who would later become his wife, Mona Marie Hill, was raised in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and first introduced him to the restored gospel.
At 18, she moved away to attend Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, and he stayed in Wisconsin and played football at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. But they stayed in touch, writing letters back and forth. Soon, Sister Sinclair’s letters were filled with stories of what she was learning in her religion classes, especially a Book of Mormon class.
“That’s when I formed my testimony,” Sister Sinclair said. “Because I was taking these amazing religion classes, I was surrounded by people with the same core values, and that’s really when the gospel came alive to me.”
Elder Sinclair recalls: “It was just a mind-blowing experience for her. And I’m reading it, and I’m thinking to myself, ‘Well, I’m not having that kind of experience. I’m faithful, but I’m not having those kinds of experiences.’”
Elder Sinclair said he wanted to have his own experiences with the scriptures and with the Spirit. So after a trip to visit Sister Sinclair in Utah, he took home a copy of the Book of Mormon.
“And I got stuck. There was so much snow that it snowed in the Minneapolis airport.”
With nothing else to do, Elder Sinclair opened the Book of Mormon and read it cover to cover in 26 hours.
“And it was complicated, and it was confusing, and it was beautiful to me,” he said. “I’ve always had a reverence for scripture. Even though my parents were not actively engaged in church, we had a family Bible. It was a beautiful, gold-leaf Bible. And so I had reverence for that. But when I read the Book of Mormon for the first time, the word of God came alive to me for the first time, really, in my life.”
After that experience with the Book of Mormon, Elder Sinclair invited missionaries to teach him. He recalls telling them that he “wanted to have these kinds of experiences on a regular basis.”
“And it was powerful,” he said of the lessons. “It was meaningful to me that Elder Thompson and Elder Aguilar, a couple of 19-year-old boys, were having a discussion about God and about Joseph Smith and being open with me about how powerful that miracle is.”
Elder Sinclair was baptized in February 1986. While Sister Sinclair wasn’t able to attend, her family drove four hours to show their support.
“They were the best example of a good, healthy family relationship,” he said. “Because I didn’t have that in my past, it was a beautiful example to me of what’s possible. And that’s what the gospel can do.”
After his baptism, Elder Sinclair transferred schools to Brigham Young University, where he also played football. The Sinclairs were married in the Chicago Illinois Temple the following year on April 30.
“We were growing together,” Elder Sinclair said. “We now have five kids and 15 grandchildren who are in covenant with us because missionaries were so willing and so open in sharing with me, including Mona.”
Sister Sinclair said it’s amazing to look back on those early days and see how they were both transformed by the scriptures.
‘This is what God can do’
Elder Sinclair said the gospel opened his eyes to “what was possible.”
Although he had what he calls a pretty challenging life growing up — his dad died when he was a teenager and his mom was an alcoholic — he said his life was transformed by the gospel of Jesus Christ.
“If you’ve got hope, all things are possible,” he said.
He said he came to understand what it means to receive “beauty for ashes” (Isaiah 61:3) from the Lord.
“There’s nothing that says ‘only a certain type of ashes get transformed,” Elder Sinclair said. “It doesn’t matter how you were made into ashes — if it was your fault or if it wasn’t your fault — He transforms all of that into something beautiful.”
Elder Sinclair is grateful Sister Sinclair was willing to share her testimony. And now he hopes he can share with others that “this is what God can do.”
“If He’s thinking about me in an airport in Minneapolis, Minnesota, snowed in — if He can find me there, he can find anyone anywhere,” Elder Sinclair said. “He restored me into what He knew I could be. His plan was better than my own plan for my life.”
Consecrating service
At the time Elder Sinclair was called as a General Authority Seventy in April 2026, he and Sister Sinclair were serving as mission leaders in the England London Mission.
“We’ve seen so many miracles, not only for us, but for our family because of that service,” Sister Sinclair said of their mission. “Just to be involved in the hastening of the work and the gathering of Israel has been remarkable.”
Sister Sinclair said they will miss their missionaries with this new calling, “but my testimony is that through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, we are all healed and can find peace.”
Elder Sinclair said that because he benefited from missionaries who were willing to share the gospel with him, including Sister Sinclair, he would tell the missionaries that their work was “not just changing the way somebody feels.”
“You are changing their past, their present and their future,” he said.
After the Sinclairs accepted his call to the Seventy, they had the chance to visit the temple with a group of missionaries. Elder Sinclair said it was a “Joshua 24:15 moment” for them.
“Where we’re saying ‘as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord,’” he said. “We’re making a commitment on behalf of ourselves. But our kids and our grandkids, they’re part of the consecration because this means that we will do what the Lord asks us to do, we will go where He asks us to go and do those things, even if that means time away from our children and grandchildren.”
Pointing to Isaiah 43:19, Elder Sinclair said the Lord does “make a way in the wilderness.”
“Everything along the way has prepared us — not necessarily for the calling — has prepared us to have the faith that with Him, we’ll be able to do whatever He asks us to do,” Elder Sinclair said. “I don’t know how He does all that. But we have faith that He is always willing to show us the way, if we are willing.”
Elder Sinclair said he knows The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the “true and living church,” referencing Doctrine and Covenants 1:30.
“What I know is that it’s a true and living Church because I believe in a true and living Christ and true and living scriptures and true and living prophets,” he said. “All of that has changed my life, has changed the lives of people that I love.”
He added that Heavenly Father hasn’t removed every challenge, but He has strengthened them through every challenge “because He is alive, and He knows, and He sees, and He’s experienced.”
“And that is true because the Church is living, and prophets are living, and the scriptures are living, and the true and everlasting gospel is alive.”
About Elder Paul H. Sinclair
Family: Elder Paul Harrison Sinclair was born in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on March 20, 1966, to Roland Sinclair and Rosalie Geurts. He married Mona Marie Hill in the Chicago Illinois Temple on April 30, 1987, and they raised their family in Indiana. The Sinclairs have five children and 15 grandchildren.
Education: Elder Sinclair earned degrees from Brigham Young University, Southern Illinois University and Gonzaga University. He has professional experience in law and organizational leadership.
Church service: Elder Sinclair was serving as president of the England London Mission at the time of his call. He is a former Area Seventy, stake president, bishop, high councilor and public affairs specialist.
