Elder W. Mark Bassett, a General Authority Seventy who was overseeing the worldwide missionary efforts of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has died at age 59.
“We are deeply saddened at the sudden passing of Elder W. Mark Bassett, a General Authority Seventy who had been serving since April of 2016,” church leaders said in a statement.
Elder Bassett was serving as executive director of the Missionary Department when he died Monday after sustaining a traumatic brain injury while with his family in St. George, Utah, over the weekend.
“His service in this calling coincided with a period of historic growth in missionary efforts around the world and unprecedented levels of missionaries deciding to serve,” the church statement said. “Elder Bassett will be deeply missed and always remembered for his great faith and dedicated service to the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Elder Dale G. Renlund of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles noted Monday on social media that the church has seen in recent months “remarkable growth in the number of missionary applications.”
Elder Bassett was born in Carmichael, California, on Aug. 14, 1966. He married Angela Brasher in December 1989. They are the parents of five children.
Elder Bassett served a full-time mission as a young man in the Guatemala Guatemala City Mission. He earned a degree in accounting from BYU in 1991, then worked as controller at Brasher’s Sacramento Auto Auction and later became the CFO and co-owner of West Coast Auto Auctions, Inc., where he operated automobile auctions throughout the western United States.
He was the president of the Arizona Mesa Mission from 2007-2010.
He also had served as a ward Young Men president, bishop, high councilor, stake president and Area Seventy.
Elder Bassett spoke about how his grandparents’ and parents faith through tragedies brought him peace and taught him to rely on Jesus Christ.
His grandfather was killed in an explosion at home when Elder Bassett’s mother was 10 years old, and his grandmother raised four of her six children by herself. He called her a hero.
When he was 11 years old and on the way home from Primary, he came upon the scene of an auto-and-bicycle accident. His friend had been struck by a car while delivering newspapers and died.
When he was 15, Elder Bassett was on a campout when that friend’s father was mortally wounded by a lightning strike. He and the other boys went to find help. Then they knelt to pray at the ranger station.
“It was a turning point for me,” Elder Bassett said. “Just praying together and relying on the Lord at that time was a learning experience — we really had nowhere else to go. I felt comforted even though at the time we didn’t know he had passed away. We felt the Holy Ghost clearly and felt peace during a very challenging time.”
He said he realized at a young age how important faith and family are in life, and he made them his top priorities.
“I had to decide at a young age what I believed and what it all meant,” he said.
Elder Bassett spoke at the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah, days before his accident.
“Invite everyone to come — and do everything you can to help them enter this beautiful gate which leads to eternal life," he told the missionaries.
He gave two talks during international general conferences. In the final one, in 2023, he spoke about the fourth day after the death of Lazarus, when Mary and Martha feared it was too late for even Jesus to heal him.
“Sometimes during our own challenges, we might feel like Christ is too late, and our hope and faith might even feel challenged,” Elder Bassett said. “My witness and testimony are that as we move forward with faith in Jesus Christ, the fourth day will always come. He will always come to our aid or to raise our hopes back to life.”
The church’s statement offered condolences to the Bassett family.
“Our love and prayers,” the statement said, “are with his dear wife Angela, his children, and his grandchildren during this difficult time.”