“Elder Brian K. Taylor,” Ensign, May 2017
Elder Brian K. Taylor
General Authority Seventy
Brian King Taylor was sustained as a General Authority Seventy on April 1, 2017.
Elder Taylor was born in 1964 in Ogden, Utah, USA, to Lowell Moon and Marie King Taylor. He grew up in nearby Kaysville, the fourth in a family of five children that loved fishing and sports.
His older brother Craig had a basketball scholarship at Utah State University in Logan, Utah, and was trying to decide whether to serve a mission or continue his college career.
“One night at dinner I said [to him], ‘Hey, if you go on a mission, I’ll go on a mission,’” Elder Taylor recalled. Both brothers ended up serving, with Elder Taylor going to the Spain Seville Mission.
Before his mission, Elder Taylor played on the Brigham Young University basketball team from 1982 to 1984 with Devin G. Durrant, who is currently serving as a member of the Sunday School General Presidency. After his mission, he played two more years, from 1986 to 1988.
He also met his wife-to-be, Jill Featherstone, at BYU. She was teaching the Gospel Doctrine class in her student ward. Invited by his brother, Elder Taylor visited her class and met her. A romance blossomed, and they were married on April 30, 1987, in the Salt Lake Temple. They are the parents of seven children.
Sister Taylor is the only daughter out of seven children of Elder Vaughn J. Featherstone, emeritus General Authority, and Sister Merlene Featherstone. “They were just really accepting and kind,” Elder Taylor said of his in-laws. “I felt immediately loved.”
With a bachelor’s degree from BYU, Elder Taylor has built a number of businesses, including a company that designed software to coordinate emergency calls between public safety agencies.
He has served as institute teacher, high councilor, ward Young Men president, stake president, and, at the time of his call to the Seventy, president of the Texas Dallas Mission.