As a senior in high school, David Todd Christofferson was voted the “most courteous” and “most respected” student in his graduating class. Over time such adolescent superlatives would prove early adumbrations of a life of profound service, deep love and dedicated discipleship.
Born in American Fork, Utah on January 24, 1945 to Paul Vickery and Jeanne Swenson Christofferson, Todd was the first of five boys. His father was away during the end of World War II, so he and his mother stayed with her parents, Helge and Adena Swenson. For Todd, his grandparents became influential mentors.
“You learn many things from Grandparents,” Elder Christofferson said. “Their association gives you a sense of legacy, stability, and heritage.”
In addition to instruction on how to tend sheep and milk cows in the algid winter air, Todd learned other character-forming lessons from his family, “Those kinds of relationships give you a great foundation and a great start to life.”
After Todd’s father took a job in pharmaceuticals after the war, his family relocated to New Brunswick, New Jersey. There, Todd attended high school and was the only member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in his class.
Despite sparse numbers their family belonged to a close-knit congregation of Latter-day Saints. “Our ward in New Brunswick became the center of life outside of the home,” Elder Christofferson said. “That was our extended family, the ward family.”
Todd enjoyed warm associations at school and learned to appreciate people of all different backgrounds. He started a literary magazine with friends and chaired the local chapter of the National Honors Society. During those years, he developed an abiding testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ that would become a lodestar throughout his life.
“I learned to appreciate that the gospel of Christ wasn’t just something nice but a matter of eternal import,” he said. “I could see around me more than ever what life would be like without the gospel and the advantages and blessings that I had with the gospel and the Church. It was a tremendous awakening for me.”
This awakening further cemented Todd’s already steady moral compass. “Todd was always spiritually inclined and exemplary in his conduct,” Elder Christofferson’s brother Greg observed.
Such character was sustained during Todd’s freshman at Brigham Young University and later as a young missionary in Argentina. Under the close tutelage of his mission president, Richard G. Scott—who would later serve with Elder Christofferson as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles—Todd learned to selflessly aid others. Elder Scott recalled watching Todd develop into “an exceptionally outstanding missionary whose devotion and capacities were evidence that he would have a life of unusual significance.”
After his time in Argentina, Todd carried his missionary zeal into his collegiate studies. At BYU, he received the prestigious Edwin S. Hinckley scholarship and served as student-body vice president. Yet, nothing was more important to Todd than his courtship of Kathy Jacob. As their reciprocal love augmented, they wed on May 28, 1968 in the Salt Lake Temple. Their marriage became the focal point of their lives and a source of continual joy and fulfillment.
“I knew Kathy was good and wonderful when we were first married,” Elder Christofferson said. “I just didn’t know how deep her character and qualities and wisdom and goodness really were. I’ve been happily surprised as time has gone by how much better she is than I realized even then.”
The couple moved to Durham, North Carolina where Elder Christofferson pursued a legal education at Duke University. Graduating with a Juris Doctorate and two small children—the first of five—the Christoffersons soon found themselves at the epicenter of political turmoil reverberating across the country.
As the law clerk for Chief Judge John Sirica, Todd was with him throughout the infamous Watergate hearings. With the nation’s eyes fixed upon the trials, the
seasoned Judge and his young law clerk developed a close bond of respect, intellectual admiration and friendship.
At the time of the hearings, the Washington Post profiled Todd, describing him as “a former Mormon missionary” who works as Judge Sirica’s “clerk and alter ego.” When Time named Judge Sirica “person of the year” for his handling of the Watergate hearings, the magazine displayed the two working side by side on the most sensitive matters of the trial.
Reflecting on the lessons learned from Watergate, Elder Christofferson later commented, “What it said to me was that if you’re not invariably and unfailingly honest then you’re in jeopardy… your only safety is never making an exception.”
After his clerkship, Elder Christofferson fulfilled an active duty requirement with the U.S. Army, followed by another eight years of reserve service while simultaneously practicing law in Washington D.C.
As Elder Christofferson toiled, and sometimes struggled, to provide for his growing family, they moved from the nation’s capital to Nashville, Tennessee; Herndon, Virginia; and Charlotte, North Carolina, among other locations. Yet, throughout his career, Elder Christofferson always gave precedence to what mattered most.
He spent meaningful moments with all five children. Son Peter recalled that during an especially busy era of his life, Dad routinely accompanied him on visits to help an elderly woman from Church who was in need.
“I was inspired by my father’s faithfulness…despite having limited time,” Peter said.
He “was very happy, and he wanted us to be happy,” Brynn, Elder Christofferson’s daughter, said. While he had “high standards” for his children, Brynn noted that Dad was always “loving” and “never preachy.”
A loving father, husband and hard-working attorney, Elder Christofferson also volunteered as the chairman of Affordable Housing of Nashville, Tennessee and helped the community as a local Church leader.
On April 3, 1993 Elder Christofferson was asked to serve in the Church fulltime as one of its General Authorities in the First Quorum of the Seventy. Almost exactly
fifteen years later, on April 5, 2008, he accepted the call to serve as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
Elder Ralph W. Hardy, a former Church leader and a dear friend of Elder Christofferson’s said that as a Church General Authority, Elder Christofferson, “has given inspired counsel on many important gospel topics” with extraordinary “eloquence and precision.”
Indeed, during a commencement address at his alma mater, Elder Christofferson counseled graduates that true Christian greatness “will not come in a day or with one grand act.” But rather “will be built over time with…patient, persistent effort.”
Elder Christofferson’s life testifies of this truisms.
Though still known by his peers and family as both exceptionally “courteous” and well “respected” — today, as a cherished husband, father, and disciple of Christ, Elder Christofferon has truly earned life’s most exalted superlatives.