The first time he met an apostle, Elder Clark G. Gilbert was 10 years old.
The little boy was so excited to see President Spencer W. Kimball near his home in Arizona that after he shook the church leader’s hand, he ran to the back of the line so he could shake it again.
That still wasn’t enough. He exuberantly returned to the line over and over again.
Now 55, Elder Gilbert this week joined that special brotherhood of leadership himself, becoming the 105th apostle in the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The calling almost came on Tuesday, when church President Dallin H. Oaks spent the day with Elder Gilbert at Brigham Young University, where, President Oaks delivered a devotional.
“I could tell Tuesday that there was something on his mind, but we didn’t have a conversation that day,” Elder Gilbert said Friday in a new interview with the Deseret News.
President Oaks waited until after the next day’s regularly scheduled monthly meeting of the Church Board of Education, which he chairs. Elder Gilbert was serving as commissioner of the Church Educational System.
Elder Gilbert thought the church president was going to give him a new project, not extend a call to fill the vacancy in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles created by the death of President Jeffrey R. Holland on Dec. 27.
“I followed him into his office and he extended the call,” Elder Gilbert said, “and he said he had wondered about doing it while we were down at BYU but felt it would be better to be in a more steady setting.
“It was sacred. I felt immediately overwhelmed.”
President Oaks talked about an apostle’s responsibility to be a witness of Jesus Christ to all the world.
Elder Gilbert talked late into that night with his wife, Sister Christine Gilbert, about how their lives had changed.
“We’ve had many late nights in bed, just talking, knowing the next day was going to change our lives,” he said. “We had that happen when we were called to be the president of BYU-Idaho, when we were called to be the president of BYU-Pathway Worldwide, our call as a general authority.
“Nothing compares to what happened on Wednesday night as we stayed up too late into the morning just talking about this calling. We knew this was really different.”
On Thursday, he was set apart and ordained by President Oaks and the other apostles in their weekly meeting.
Elder Gilbert has gained deep experience with apostles since standing in that line for President Kimball 45 years ago. Some have mentored him, including President Holland, who sealed him and Sister Gilbert in marriage, and President Henry B. Eyring, first counselor in the First Presidency.
“I’ve spent the last five years as a General Authority Seventy, supporting and sustaining the Twelve,” Elder Gilbert said. “The call of a Seventy is to be a resource to the Twelve instead of any other, and I’ve done everything I knew how to magnify and strengthen them.”
The Gilberts talked together Wednesday night about their experiences with — and what is unique about — each of the 14 other living apostles, including the three who serve in the First Presidency.
“They’re all different,” Elder Gilbert said. “They all have different talents and backgrounds, but they all have a special witness of the Savior, Jesus Christ.”
Elder Gilbert, the youngest man called to the apostleship in more than two decades, will be led by an experience that has shaped him for the past 20 years.
While he was a Harvard professor with an expertise in disruptive innovation, BYU-Idaho President Kim B. Clark asked Elder Gilbert to leave the Harvard Business School and the family’s beloved Boston home for Rexburg, Idaho. The job came with less money and less prestige.
“At the time, it felt so hard to walk away,” he said.
While he considered it, Elder Gilbert attended an early morning priesthood meeting. A bishop who worked in the Boston Massachusetts Temple spoke about the Heinrich Hoffman painting of “Christ and the Rich Young Ruler.”
The bishop said he was saddened when people think of the rich young man’s inability to walk away from all he had to lose while Christ pointed the way to something better.
“I sat there thinking about all the things I would give up if I left,” Elder Gilbert said. “Every time we’ve made a sacrifice for the kingdom of God, Christ was always pointing us to something better.”
The Gilberts went to Idaho, where he helped launch the Pathway program that has become BYU-Pathway Worldwide.
It’s a lesson he wants to share with people who wonder if they can stick to their faith and be committed disciples of Jesus Christ.
“Christ is always pointing you to something better,” he said. “If you’ll follow him, you’ll find greater joy and happiness, and it’s never a sacrifice if you’re following what the Savior would ask you to do.”
Finding happiness in Christ was his first message in a video interview after the announcement of his calling.
That message surfaced again Friday when the Deseret News asked about the biggest threats and challenges facing the church, and its biggest opportunities as it continues to expand globally.
“They’re the same right now,” he said. “The world is in commotion and people are struggling, and good is being called evil and evil being called good. There’s anxieties and tumult and polarization, but those are the same things that are creating the most unprecedented opportunities for the church.
“It’s much harder in this climate to do things without the Lord, but when you involve him and make him your priority, all of those things calm.”
He has watched teens and young adults learn that while he served as church commissioner of education, with responsibility for nearly 1 million students around the world.
That creates the church’s opportunity to share its message, Elder Gilbert said.
“The very tumult that’s surrounding the world right now and impacting young adults and creating anxiety and concern is the same thing that will help the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ stand out with greater clarity and greater impact,” he said.
He said he is grateful for a full-time calling to share that around the world.
“I’m grateful that we have a living prophet whose role is to teach the world the messages of the Savior,” he said.
The editor of the Church News, Ryan Jensen, asked Elder Gilbert to share his testimony of Jesus Christ.
“I know he lives,” Elder Gilbert said. “I know he loves us. I know he can help us repent and that we can be forgiven when we fall short. I know that because of him, we will live again, and as we’re taught in Alma 7:12, that he will comfort us in our afflictions and he will strengthen us in our infirmities, and he will succor us when life’s not fair.”
