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Show ! $ t f' Is -' jL4! ; I t ' if , i ; Illy j ELDER ELRAY L. CHRISTIANSEN Assistant to the Council of the Twelve Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Elder Christiansen Has Long Record of Church Service Elder EIRay L. Christiansen, an Assistant to the Council of Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is president of the famed Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City, Utah. His business and church work have been varied, including in-cluding activity in civic, cultural cul-tural and educational fields and in scouting. He was born in Mayfield, Utah on July 13, 1897, a son of Parley and Dorthea C. Jensen Jen-sen Schow Christiansen, and was graduated with a degree in agronomy from Utah State Agricultural College . (now Utah State University.) He was employed to make a farm lands soil survey along Bear River, 1919-20; assisted in establishing the Smith-Hughes program for agriculture i n high schools; and worked for the U. S. Forest Service, making a grazing reconnaissance reconnais-sance on the Wasatch Range. He did graduate work at the University of Utah and at Brigham Young University. He was an educator and administrator adminis-trator in high schools in Utah and also in the Church educational educa-tional system. In 1922, he married Lewella Rees in the Manti L. D. S. Temple. Together they served as missionaries in the Central States Mission in 1924-25. They have one son and two daughters. daugh-ters. Elder Christiansen served as a member of the East Jordan Stake Sunday School superin-tendency superin-tendency and high council, then as a bishop of Draper Ward. He was president of the Texas-Louisiana Texas-Louisiana Mission from 1937 to 1941. He then served is counselor in the Cache (Logan) Stake Presidency; as councelor and later president of the East Cache Stake; and as president pres-ident of the Logan L. D. S. Temple from 1941-1949, before becoming one of the General Authorities of the Church in 1951. |