Difference between revisions of "Joy D. Jones"

Revision as of 14:47, 14 April 2021

Joy Diane Harmon Jones served as Primary general president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from April 2, 2016, to April 3, 2021. She had been serving on the Primary general board for six years at the time of her call as president. She has served as a ward Relief Society president and has also served in the Primary and Young Women auxiliaries.

She was born on July 20, 1954, in The Dalles, Oregon. Her parents, Aldo and Eleanor Ellsworth Harmon, helped build up the Church in their area as they attended a branch that was part of a district. As a young adult, she worked as a dispatcher for the U.S. Forest Service at the Redmond Air Center in eastern Oregon, sending out smokejumpers, suppression crews and supplies for forest fires in the northwest, and as an administrative assistant at the Federal Building in Provo. She was also trained as a medical assistant and worked at a dermatology clinic in Provo. She received an associate of science degree in family living at from Brigham Young University where she met her husband, Robert B. Jones. They married in 1974 and are the parents of five children.[1]

Sister Jones and her husband, Robert, lived in Santa Rosa, California, for 14 years, where her husband opened a chiropractic practice. When the Joneses’ first son was preparing to leave home to study at BYU and serve a mission, they felt a desire to be closer to him and their other children through their college and mission years so they relocated from California to Draper, Utah, a community her husband’s ancestors helped settle. She assisted in the open house for the Draper Utah Temple in 2009, which she describes as “a continual blessing in her life and in the lives of [her] family.”[2]

On September 13, 2017, Sister Jones's 39-year-old son passed away after a three-year battle with cancer. Despite the difficulty of losing one of her own children, Sister Jones spoke in the general women's session one day after the funeral.[3]

In 2018, Jones was the keynote speaker at the Utah Coalition Against Pornography Meeting. In 2019, she participated in the first-ever 'Sister-to-Sister' question-and-answer worldwide live event as part of Brigham Young University's Women's Conference. She was selected to participate in the 2019 White House National Day of Prayer. She gave a commencement address at the Brigham Young University-Idaho graduation in July 2019.

Sister Jones was part of the Face-to-Face event that introduced the new Children and Youth program in November 2019.[4]

In November 2020, the members of the Relief Society, Young Women, and Primary general presidencies of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints launched official Instagram accounts to expand their global ministries. The Church leaders’ use of social media platforms demonstrates a desire to connect with members around the world using technology. Sister Jones said, “I am grateful for this means of communicating in a more personal way with members across the globe.”[5]

Sister Jones's General Conference Talks

• "A Sin-Resistent Generation," April 2017, Sunday Morning Session
• "Value Beyond Measure," October 2017, General Women's Session
• "For Him," October 2018, General Women's Session
• "An Especially Noble Calling," April 2020, Saturday Morning Session
• April 2021, Saturday Morning Session