Elder W. Mark Bassett — a loving husband, father and grandfather; a current General Authority Seventy in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and hailed as a valiant disciple of Jesus Christ — died Monday, May 11, 2026. He was 59.
Elder Bassett suffered a traumatic brain injury while in St. George, Utah, with his family, according to a notice on ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
Most recently, Elder Bassett served as the executive director of the Church’s Missionary Department, overseeing worldwide missionary efforts.
“His service in this calling coincided with a period of historic growth in missionary efforts around the world and unprecedented levels of missionaries deciding to serve. Elder Bassett will be deeply missed and always remembered for his great faith and dedicated service to the Lord Jesus Christ,“ says the Church’s notice.
In a devotional at the Provo Missionary Training Center just days before his passing, he taught how missionaries can help truth seekers find the “strait gate” and ”narrow" way to eternal life. He challenged missionaries to “invite everyone to come — and do everything you can to help them enter this beautiful gate which leads to eternal life.”
Elder Bassett was serving as an Area Seventy when he was sustained as a General Authority Seventy in April 2016 general conference.
In an interview with the Church News shortly after his call, he said he saw his new calling as a wonderful opportunity to “be a part of building the kingdom of God on earth.”
“I have been blessed personally and am eternally indebted to Him,” he said. “I want others to feel that same love and am happy to do whatever part I can to help that happen.”
In the last 10 years of full-time Church service, Elder Bassett has served as a member of the Brazil, North America Northeast, and North America Southeast area presidencies.
In teaching new mission leaders in 2024, Elder Bassett testified, “The world desperately needs to access Christ’s redeeming power. People need the doctrine of Christ. They need baptism and confirmation and all that these ordinances can offer them. And what a blessing it is to be involved in this great and marvelous work, which allows us to offer exactly what God’s children need.”
William Mark Bassett was born on Aug. 14, 1966, to Edwina Acker and William Lynn Bassett, in Carmichael, California, the second-oldest of five children.
“I was close to my family and friends through my youth, and we relied on and helped each other,” he noted.
Faith-building experiences were nurtured by Elder Bassett’s gospel-centered family. Both of his parents were raised in the Church and taught their children to develop their own faith.
“I had to decide at a young age what I believed and what it all meant,” he said.
After serving a full-time mission in the Guatemala Guatemala City Mission, he attended Brigham Young University and conducted a long-distance courtship with a young woman from his hometown, Angela Brasher.
They were married in the Salt Lake Temple on Dec. 20, 1989. They have five children.
In 1991, Elder Bassett earned a degree in accounting from BYU and later moved with his family back to the Sacramento area to work in the wholesale auto auction industry. He worked as controller at Brasher’s Sacramento Auto Auction and as the chief financial officer and co-owner of West Coast Auto Auctions Inc., where he operated automobile auctions throughout the western United States.
In 2007, he and his wife were called as leaders of the Arizona Mesa Mission.
“His humility and how he treats others stands out in my mind,” said Sister Bassett in describing her husband. “I love watching him interact with the people he’s serving. ... He is thoughtful of people. He’s tender. He remembers people, and he’s always quietly doing things for others.”
Elder Bassett spoke twice in general conference: in October 2016 and in April 2023.
“He lives. Jesus Christ is His Only Begotten Son and the Redeemer of mankind. Because of Christ’s infinite Atonement, He has the wisdom and foresight to guide us in these latter days. Joseph Smith is His Prophet, chosen to restore His kingdom on earth to its fulness,” he testified (“For Our Spiritual Development and Learning,” October 2016 general conference).
Funeral services are pending.
