A. Joel Clark

Worked with Lamanite generation for three years right after my mission as result of an introduction by President Beckham to Janie Thompson the creative director of the program bureau back in the 70s. We traveled all over the United States Canada Mexico Central and South America. After leaving BYU I worked for KSL TV for three years which was a lot of fun and then I worked with my brother building homes in bountiful Utah and when that didn't work I went back to TV with channel 4 and then KUTV 2 for about three years. TV work was a lot of fun but I didn't pay very well so I went to work for a aerospace company Hercules for about six years and then they went almost out of business after being the largest employer in the state of Utah. I then went to work for Nu Skin international in Provo Utah for nearly 13 years and it was a marvelous experience. The company truly valued what films could do to present a message to the world. During the time I worked for a Nu Skin I became identified with humanitarian efforts of the company and also public service. I worked on the grand parade in Provo. My favorite job was making a promotional film for FA RMS before they were part of BYU. After I made the film they went from 20,000 subscribers to over 100,000. I'm sure the film did not account for all of that, but it's been a project that I have been very proud of because I truly believe in the mission of FARMS in defending the church and assembling great works of scholarship about the church. More recently my wife and I have been enjoying breeding Shi Tzu dogs which sell for ridiculous amounts of money in Arizona. We are semi retired and enjoying our grandkids so much and working every day to help them increase their testimonies of the Gospel. Looking back on my life I just want to say here at the end that Elder Karl Christansen made a huge difference in putting my life on the right track as my first companion there in the mission field in Kindersley Saskatchewan. I hope someday to find him and thank him personally!

Some of you may remember that Elder Kelly Davis somehow thought that he should promote my slide presentation on archaeology and the book Mormon. Elder Karl Christiansen and I had put the presentation together in Kindersley when we found out that most of the people there had a Book of Mormon but had never read it and that movie "chariot of the gods" was shown on TV five times in Canada and all the sudden people were interested in what we had to say about who built the pyramids in Central and South America. Well anyway Kelly Davis decided that we had to promote it and put together a presentation in Calgary that was attended by 5000 people. That presentation resulted in the largest newspaper article that had ever been done on the church in Western Canada at that time. I spent the rest of my mission three or four nights a week doing the presentation for the old third discussion when elders would give it. President Beckham, to my surprise, was a great supporter of it. Unfortunately, we didn't get much support from President Rhoten until it became such a big success. I certainly do not hold that against President Rhiton at all because I totally admired that man and his unparalleled level of spirituality and how he could out work every other missionary and man I've ever seen in my life! But it was refreshing to have President Beckham enthusiastically support it and even let me train Elder Brimhall to take my place when I left.