[Archaea]

stuff.

Some will agree and some will not.

http://mormontimes.com/ME_blogs.php?bID=3

On the one hand, it's an absurd, even offensive, question. We believe that it's God, not men, who calls apostles. They have no constituency except Jesus Christ and the whole membership of the church, and the ethnicity, race or native language of an apostle should mean nothing.

And yet ... let's admit it, my fellow Saints, there are more than a few of us who felt a little thrill when Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf was called as the first apostle in the restored church whose native language was not English.

Further down:

Eventually, in a worldwide church, English will have no special precedence. Unlike Muslims, who will not translate the Quran because Arabic is the true language of the revelation, we Latter-day Saints eagerly translate the scriptures so that, ultimately, they can be read in every person's native language.

Non-English speakers listen to general conference through interpreters, teams of bilingual and polyglot Saints who have already translated the prepared remarks of the Brethren and then listen carefully for any variation so they can speak their words, as nearly as possible, into the ears of those who do not understand English.

There is no reason why Anglophone Latter-day Saints cannot also, occasionally, have the same experience. Someday we will be accustomed to having the occasional conference talk spoken in a language that some of us Americans learned only on our missions, and many Americans don't speak at all.

And a different argument why it's good NOT to pluck leaders from other regions.

But I have also seen how men and women of great heart, great faith and great wisdom serve in the humblest callings of ward and branch and mission. The church is blessed, not harmed, when the Lord leaves many of the most talented in the congregations of the Saints instead of putting them all in airplanes and flying them to Salt Lake City.

It is also true that the First Presidency is likely to call to the apostleship someone they have actually met and come to know.