Elder Robert E. Sackley, 70, a member of the Second Quorum of the Seventy, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, died early Monday of natural causes in Brisbane, Australia.
The general authority, who was called to the First Quorum of the Seventy in April 1988 and sustained as a member of the Second Quorum in April 1989, died in his sleep about 4 a.m. Australia time (about midday Sunday Mountain Standard Time) in a hotel.He was in Brisbane with his wife, Marjorie, on church assignment at the time of his death.
The church official, a native of Australia but a longtime resident of Canada, was serving as president of the Nigeria Lagos Mission in Africa when called as a general authority in 1988. He was serving as a first counselor in the Pacific Area Presidency, based in Sydney, at the time of his death.Memorial services were scheduled in Sydney and in Brisbane, and funeral services will be held later this week in Salt Lake City.
Before being called to the Pacific Area Presidency, Elder Sackley served as a managing director in the Missionary Department and as second counselor in the North America Southeast Area Presidency.
He also had served as president of the Philippines Quezon and the Philippines Baguio missions; administrative associate in the Salt Lake Temple; director of the Washington, D.C., Temple Visitors Center; and as a missionary in the Sydney Australia Temple.
Elder Sackley was born Dec. 17, 1922, in Lismore, New South Wales. He served as a member of Australia's elite Commando Forces during World War II when he and 10 others were ambushed on New Guinea in the Solomon Islands on Christmas Day 1944.
More than half the members of his patrol were killed, and Elder Sackley, then only 22, was severely wounded. For a number of hours, he struggled to get to safety, but every time he moved, an enemy gunner fired at him. Later he was able to escape by rolling into a fast-moving river, from which he was rescued and taken for medical treatment.
Besides sustaining serious injuries in the ambush, Elder Sackley suffered from malaria and was 30 miles behind enemy lines. After he was fished out of the river, he was carried on a litter for six days by tribesmen to an American encampment and was later transported by ship and train to a hospital in Australia.
During a long medical recovery, he met Marjorie Orth, a member of the church who introduced him to the gospel and who later became his wife. He joined the church June 16, 1946, and they were married March 26, 1947, by her father, who was a branch president. Their marriage was solemnized in the Cardston Alberta Temple during the summer of 1954.
He was a forestry officer in New South Wales and later worked for an income tax department. In 1954, the Sackleys emigrated to Canada where he worked for more than 25 years as a business administrator in a school district in Cardston. He also was vice president of administration at a community college in Medicine Hat, Alberta. Elder Sackley served five years as president of the college beginning in 1973 and had been asked to serve another five-year term when he was called in 1979 to open the Philippines Quezon Mission.
Later he opened the mission in Baguio. Soon after the Sackley's return from the Philippines in July 1982, they were called to serve in the Salt Lake Temple. He was called as an administrative assistant and Mrs. Sackley as an assistant matron.
In 1983, he was called as director of the Washington Temple Visitors Center. In 1985, they were called to serve as missionaries in the Sydney Australia Temple. In January 1986, they returned to Canada and within a few months were on their way to Africa where Elder Sackley was called to preside over the Nigeria Lagos Mission. He was called to the Seventy in 1988.
During an October 1989 general conference address, Elder Sackley bore a strong testimony of the importance of being converted to the gospel and walking in a newness of life.
Survivors include his widow, two daughters, three sons and 17 grandchildren.