Leading Saints Podcast

Leading Saints Podcast


How I Lead as Stake President | An Interview with Randy Lonsdale

February 02, 2022

For more information about the virtual conference libraries mentioned in the introduction, go to leadingsaints.org/lead


Randy Lonsdale and his wife Linda (Mendenhall) are Canadians living near Calgary, Alberta. They are thrilled to have six wonderful children and nine practically-perfect grandchildren. Randy is an in-house attorney handling engineering and construction contracts for a supermajor energy company. Randy’s law career has taken his family to Vancouver (Canada), twice to South Korea, and to the island of Saipan (CNMI), and he still speaks Korean first learned during his mission to Seoul, Korea. He has served as bishop as well as a counselor in a stake presidency and a military district presidency. For the past 5 years he has served as a stake president.


Highlights

3:00 Introduction and Randy’s background


5:00 Story of how Randy was called to be a Stake President and Stake demographics


11:45 The most important things that Randy has learned in his leadership


  • Showing people love is always number one
  • Teach people how to build a stronger relationship with Jesus Christ through teaching and by example

13:30 In Randy’s stake they have a vision statement and also a set of goals. They try to keep it simple.


14:30 Traditions and their approach to High Council meetings


16:30 Helping youth prepare for their missions: They have a “missionary bootcamp” checklist


21:40 Randy explains how their stake runs and things that he has found that really work


23:00 Tools they use for administration


25:40 Randy’s personal stories and family tragedy


30:45 How losing his daughter has helped him be a better leader


Links

Church Missionary Preparation pages
Pre-Mission Boot Camp Checklist (DOCX)
Pre-Mission Boot Camp Checklist (PDF)

Read the TRANSCRIPT of this podcast