This biographical sketch is adapted from the "News
of the Church: Elder Jerald L. Taylor of the Seventy" in the Ensign for
May 1996.
“As farmers and ranchers, we had to depend on the
Lord,” says Elder Jerald L. Taylor, who grew up in the Latter-day Saint
colony of Colonia Dublan in Chihuahua, Mexico. “We had no deep wells for
irrigation, so we relied on man-made lakes. If rain
didn’t fill them, we had no water. I remember many family and ward
fasts that resulted in some wonderful blessings.”
Elder Taylor’s great-grandfather drove a wagon into
Salt Lake Valley after Brigham Young’s, and his grandfather helped settle
Colonia Juarez in Mexico. Elder Taylor was born in Colonia Dublan on 22
March 1937 and has lived there all his life except during college and missions.
His mother passed away when he was three, and later his father married
a widow who had nine children, making a total of 15 children.
Jerald Taylor took time off from attending Brigham
Young University to serve a mission to Argentina. Then he met his wife,
Sharon Willis, a few months before he graduated from BYU with a degree
in animal husbandry. Married in the Manti Utah Temple
on 5 July 1963, the Taylors have six children and four grandchildren.
Elder Taylor has earned his living raising beef cattle and growing apples.
His Church experience has included serving as a branch
president, stake mission president, stake executive secretary, and stake
president. In 1986 he was called to preside over the Chile Santiago South
Mission. Upon his return to Mexico, he was
called as a bishop and later as a regional representative. He was serving
as an Area Authority at the time of his call to the Second Quorum of the
Seventy.
“I’m grateful for my heritage,” Elder Taylor says.
“The people of the colonies have shown me what sacrifice and obedience
mean. The Church has been everything in my life. I’m grateful for the gospel.”
Having fulfilled the term of his call in a distinguished manner, Elder Taylor was honorably released in October 2002.
