Thousands of mourners expected to attend Mormon church president’s funeral

Salt Lake City – Salt Lake City (AP) – A funeral service will take place Tuesday in Salt Lake City for Russell M. Nelson, the charismatic sentimentalist who supervised an important boom in the construction of the temple as president of the church of Jesus Christ of the Holy of the last days.

Nelson led faith until his death at the end of September at the age of 101.

Funeral should attract thousands of mourning people to the Faith’s Conference Center at Temple Square. 600 Nelson family members are expected to attend 20,000 people who have taken tickets that the church online in the 20 minutes, said church spokesman Doug Andersen, quickly.

The service will also be broadcast globally on the Church website and other online platforms.

Nelson’s funeral will be devoid of formal church rituals, Andersen said. It will look like a worship service with prayers, hymns and talks and will focus on Nelson’s life and goal, he said.

The two aspects of Nelson’s heritage – as a spiritual leader for four decades and as a heart surgeon who saved lives – will be celebrated during the service, Andersen said.

Nelson’s body will be dressed in mainly white temple clothes, ceremonial clothes worn by adult members. The commemoration service, open to saints and non-members of the last days, will be led by a secular minister. A viewing of the public took place on Monday at the Conference Center, which attended around 18,560 people attended, according to Andersen.

He said that the funeral of the Church are generally “marked by an atmosphere of hope and peace”.

“They are generally not overwhelmed by grief and inconsolable despair so often seen in other funeral,” he said. “This is particularly true in this case with a lived life beyond 101 years.”

Nelson’s funeral will also present “sincere tributes and comforting music” interpreted by the famous Tabernacle Choir, said Andersen.

He will include a hymn written by Nelson entitled “Our prayer to you”, which was published for the first time in the official publication of the Church and played during general conferences in October 2018 and April 2022. A musician described the song as a special and sacred representation of the relationship between God and the faithful.

Nelson family members will probably select the other songs and hymns that will be interpreted during the funeral.

Although the funeral will be public, the burial will be deprived of family. It will take place in the Pioneer cemetery, where Brigham Young and many other pioneers in the faith are buried, said Andersen.

The family plays an important role in faith, not only in this life, but also in life after death, said Kathleen Flake, former professor of Mormon studies at the University of Virginia.

Flake said that the body is escorted to the tomb site, those who are not of the family will leave and a member of the male family – generally the eldest son – will consecrate the grave.

In the church, the seals of the temple, who join a man and a woman and their children for eternity, bind the family as a unit that crosses this life to the next. A seal must be made in a temple by a man who has the priesthood.

“The belief is that (Nelson) would join the beyond the members of the previous family,” she said. “You are from the family here on earth to the family who is in paradise and live together in eternity.”

A new church president – considered a prophet by members – should be appointed one day after Nelson’s funeral.

The announcement of his successor, Dallin H. Oaks, is largely a formality because the church has a well -defined leadership hierarchy which helps ensure a smooth transfer and prevent lobbying internal or in public.

In his first major address since Nelson’s death, Oaks encouraged members on Sunday at the twice annual general conference of the faith to marry and have children. The former judge of the Supreme Court of Utah, 93, stressed the importance of the family while recognizing that not all families are alike.

In a departure from his typical sermons, which often appeal to reason than on emotion, Oaks shared an emotional story on the day his grandfather told him at the age of 7 that his father had died. He then described the value of being raised by a single mother and others who entered parental roles for him and his brothers and sisters.

Oaks also said on Sunday that faith “would slow the announcement of new temples” – the first major difference from the presidency of Nelson.

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Bharath has brought in Los Angeles.

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