Elder Paul Newton has been called a pioneer and a guinea pig — appropriate for the first-called senior single male missionary since The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints recently expanded missionary opportunities for single men 40 and older.
And he is starting a pilot program as part of his 12-month service in the Adriatic North Mission.
Elder Newton’s pioneering journey spans more than just the physical distance from his Salem, Utah, residence to the nearby Provo Missionary Training Center and on to the mission office in Zagreb, Croatia.
The real journey has been the past half-dozen years, first when hopes and plans for a senior mission with his wife, Kathleen, were dashed by disease and death, followed by the Nov. 1, 2024, announcement that single senior men could serve and then the nearly several weeks needed to complete his online application, which required Missionary Department assistance.
“I’ve wanted to go on a mission ever since I served the first one as a young man,” said Elder Newton, recalling feeling “clean and connected to Heavenly Father” as a missionary a half-century ago in South America. “And now, I get to do that again.”
He treasures this Dec. 23 text from Tami Evans, a project coordinator in the Missionary Department’s senior missionary services division: “You may not know this, but you were the very first single senior elder called. I know it was a process and at times difficult, but you are paving the way for us to be able to fix things and make it better for years to come.”
Early years, mission and marriage
Paul Newton was born in September 1954 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, while his father attended the University of Alberta. The oldest of 14 children, he grew up in Monroe, Utah, and the then-unincorporated area west of Salt Lake City. Following high school graduation and a year of college, he served in the Uruguay Paraguay Mission from 1973 to 1975.
After returning home, Newton joined the Mormon Youth Chorus, soon meeting Kathleen Parker of Salt Lake City. They started dating in June 1976, became engaged the next month and were married Sept. 21, 1976, by Elder Marion D. Hanks in the Salt Lake Temple. They raised their family in the Salt Lake Valley and are the parents of five children and 22 grandchildren, with two of the oldest grandsons currently serving full-time missions.
A real estate lawyer with an emphasis in title insurance, Paul Newton left full-time legal practice in 1992, working in-house with a title insurance company until 2015 and then working and consulting for a national insurance company.
Kathleen Newton sang in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir — now the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square — for 18 years, retiring in 2014. The Newtons talked about serving a senior mission together after her retirement, but she had been called as a ward Relief Society president and wanted to finish her service.
In early 2019, with a pending mission assignment and a projected July 1 availability date, the Newtons completed their application and medical and dental forms. Ready to meet with their bishop in mid-March, the couple were overcoming an illness he had picked up traveling out-of-state.
On the morning of their appointment, Paul Newton was working downstairs and heard a loud crash. Rushing upstairs, he found wife on the floor, having fallen getting out of a hot bath and hurting her shoulder.
After resting in bed until midday, Kathleen Newton said she wasn’t feeling well and left for the doctor’s office, worried about the shoulder and the possibility of pneumonia. When she was sent to the emergency room for X-rays, her husband joined her to hear the ER doctor confirm a cracked shoulder — and add a diagnosis of a lung disease called pulmonary fibrosis.
“We didn’t know what that was, but once we figured it out, we knew Kathy wasn’t going on a mission, so we pulled the plug on that totally,” said Paul Newton. “But we didn’t know the journey we were going to go on.”
Last years together, first years alone
A pulmonologist eventually gave Kathleen Newton heartbreaking news — he could do little beyond a lung transplant, a dangerous procedure at her age.
A move to the Kansas City/Liberty area of western Missouri helped her breathe easier. “We got three more years by moving away,” said Paul Newton, noting that lower-elevation air has a higher oxygen content. “She never used an oxygen tank in Missouri — not once.”
Kathleen Newton died Nov. 13, 2022, and Paul Newton returned to Utah, selling the family home and assets, purchasing a small residence and soon immersing himself into temple and family history work. He became an ordinance worker in the Payson Utah Temple, happy to pick up extra shifts as well as do ordinance work for the hundreds of deceased he found doing extensive family history research.
“What I did in title insurance was the same thing,” he said. “It’s just a history of land and stuff instead of the history of people.”
He added: “My mindset was that I needed to be anxiously engaged in good causes. You don’t have your sea legs under you when your spouse of 46 years passes away. You’re used to doing things together and making decisions together — and all of a sudden, she’s not there, and you’re like only half of yourself.”
A new opportunity — and adventure
On Nov. 1, 2024, after more than 10 hours in the temple doing ordinance work for the deceased and substituting on a shift, Newton was greeted by texts from family and friends informing him of the Church’s new allowance for senior single male missionaries and the common question: “What are you going to do?”
By the next day, he had contacted a friend who used to work in the Missionary Department and learned of a possible opportunity. “I’m all in,” he told his friend.
Including all in for the adventure of simply applying.
Newton can rattle off a series of November and December dates, listing stops, stalls and restarts in his application process. He found encouraging and responsive Missionary Department advocates in Evans and Sister Suzanne Vause, a recently released full-time missionary assisting on the division’s support team.
The latter confided the online missionary systems were being updated, with senior single elder applicants being “guinea pigs” for the first updates.
Newton mentioned that to Elder Lawrence Corbridge, an emeritus General Authority Seventy and former law partner. “Call yourself a ‘pioneer,’” Elder Corbridge told him. “‘Guinea pig’ doesn’t sound as nice.”
Evans told Newton the same thing later in a text: “You are a literal pioneer.”
Evans salutes Newton for his patience and kindness. “His unwavering desire to serve allowed us to identify and resolve many issues, ultimately improving the process for every single elder who has since submitted a recommendation,” she said, adding “I believe the Lord knew we needed someone like him to walk through this experience first. … “He remained optimistic, always expressing faith that the Lord would make things work in His timing.”
Newton finally hit “submit” on his online application on Dec. 6. Just before Christmas came Evans’ text, his call and assignment and the formality of sending his acceptance letter to the First Presidency. He entered the Provo MTC on March 10 for five days of “Preach My Gospel” training and five days of instruction on working in a mission office before departing for Croatia.
And now in Croatia
Adriatic North Mission President Brian E. Cordray’s first learnings about senior single elders were that they are to work in mission offices and not be assigned a companion. But he doesn’t see Elder Newton as serving alone.
“I don’t think he is coming ‘alone,’ in the spiritual sense,” said President Cordray, mindful of the late Kathleen Newton. “I feel that in a very tangible way, she will be with him in spirit, and he will feel her love and support from the other side of the veil.”
With missionaries serving in and transferring across five southern European countries and crossing international borders for transfer assignments, the mission needs someone to navigate visa processes with a myriad of lawyers and government agencies.
“Elder Newton, with his unique background as a lawyer, is a godsend for us,” President Cordray said. “It’s a wonderful opportunity for good men to serve at a time when they might otherwise feel put out to pasture. The Lord needs these faithful sons — and frankly we do too here in the mission field.”
Even before starting arriving at the Adriatic North Mission office in Zagreb, Croatia, on March 21, Elder Newton was apprised of a special responsibility, which he describes as “a pilot program for reactivating nonparticipating members” for both the mission and the Church’s Europe Central Area.
To hear President Cordray explain the opportunity, it’s an initiative that Elder Newton can understand and appreciate.
Said President Cordray: “We have many older, single male adults who feel like they have lost their usefulness and don’t know what they can offer the Lord and His Church by way of service. Elder Newton will surely be an inspiration to all those good brothers — the Savior has a use for each of us in this great work, no matter what our personal circumstance may be.”
