Glen L. Rudd

Glen Larkin Rudd served as a General Authority of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was called to serve as a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy in April 1987, then sustained to the Second Quorum in 1989. He was granted emeritus status in October 1992.

Rudd managed Welfare Square in Salt Lake City for twenty-five years and was known by the nickname “Mr. Welfare.” He became involved with its creation in 1941 and virtually spent the rest of his life working in the Church’s welfare department. He visited nearly all of the stakes in North America with general authorities of the Church, which included future presidents Joseph Fielding Smith, Harold B. Lee, Spencer W. Kimball, Ezra Taft Benson, Howard W. Hunter, Gordon B. Hinckley, and Thomas S. Monson. Before his work with the welfare department, he ran his own poultry business for twelve years.

After his release from the Seventy, the First Presidency assigned him to write a history of the Church welfare program. Pure Religion was published by the Church in 1995.

Rudd was born on May 18, 1918, in Salt Lake City, Utah. He served as a full-time missionary in New Zealand under the leadership of his mission president Matthew Cowley. Throughout his life he returned to the country twenty-seven more times in several different capacities: Advisor on the Labor Missionary Project that built the Hamilton New Zealand Temple and the Church College of New Zealand, president of the New Zealand Wellington Mission, president of the Hamilton New Zealand Temple, and as area president. Additionally, he served as a member of the General Missionary and General Welfare committees, president of the Florida Mission, and interim president of the Texas Corpus Christi mission. He also served as a bishop, stake high councilor, and counselor in a stake presidency.

He and his wife, Marva, were the parents of eight children. He passed away at the age of 98 on December 30, 2016.