It's going to be a rough transition, given the lack of transition to date. Utahns will have to give up the idea that they are the center of everything.
But such is the nature of institutions when your leadership hearkens back to a different era.
Remember the Indian GA who was ex'ed? I wonder if they took a chance on a promising guy they didn't know well, and felt burned afterwards.
The nature of these things is you select someone that you 100% trust. And it is hard to trust people you don't know. You pray about those people you already know. And when you don't know a lot of people outside Utah and the mountain west, it is simply out of sight, out of mind.
I heard a GA talk about a time that another GA came down to reorganize a stake. He interviewed about every man that had a reasonable chance of holding such a position. And then people for whomm it was a big stretch. He said that he had not found the right man yet. So when he asked if there were any others, someone mentioned that someone had just moved in a week ago and was living in a motel. He interviewed this man and called him to be the Stake President.
Now I am not saying that the people who choose 70s know the candidate. But they trust the recommendation.
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