Elder Peter M. Johnson
General Authority Seventy
After Peter M. Johnson, the son of a facility supervisor and taxi driver, had accepted a basketball scholarship at Brigham Young University–Hawaii, he found himself standing before an institute teacher.
“You will [either] join the Church right away, or it will take you a while,” the teacher predicted.
The teacher was correct. More than a year later, Peter “fasted and prayed and received an answer.” He was baptized on August 16, 1986.
Peter Matthew Johnson, the fourth of five children, was born to McKinley Johnson and Geneva Paris Long on November 29, 1966, in Queens, New York, USA.
His parents divorced when he was 11, and his mother moved to Hawaii. A year later, Peter joined the Nation of Islam and became a Muslim. This association provided guidance and support and prepared him to embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ.
At age 15, Peter moved to Hawaii to live with his mother. There, he discovered sports—especially basketball—and started down a road toward university education, membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, missionary service in the Alabama Birmingham Mission, and temple marriage to Stephanie Lyn Chadwick in 1990. The couple, who met while playing basketball at Southern Utah University, have four children.
“I’m here to serve the Lord,” Elder Johnson says of his call to the Seventy. “Regardless of nationality or culture or where I am from, my assignment is to serve the Lord with all my heart, mind, and strength and to represent the Lord to His people. The Savior loves us all. We are sons and daughters of God.”
Elder Johnson received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in accounting from Southern Utah University and a PhD in accounting from Arizona State University. He has worked as an associate professor at BYU–Hawaii, assistant professor at Brigham Young University, and associate professor at the University of Alabama. He has served as an Area Seventy, stake president, stake financial clerk, and ward mission leader.