When Elder Wilford W. Andersen was a young missionary serving in Argentina, he was faced with one of those difficult choices that pit one good thing against another.

Tom Smart, Deseret News

Elder Wilford W. and Kathleen Andersen met at BYU while he was in the bishopric of a student ward. Together, they have reared nine children.

He had begun his mission in October 1968 on a 27-month schedule. While he was serving, the Church changed the length of the mission term to 24 months. He and other missionaries in the same circumstance could choose to go home after 24 months or stay for the full 27.

"For me, the choice was, 'Do I go home for Christmas or not?' " he recalled. "Christmas was a great, great thing in our family. My mother is the spirit of Christmas. We caroled to the neighbors and made Christmas candy. It was a big thing."

One night, he was reading the incident in Acts 3 in which apostles Peter and John saw a lame man begging at the door of the temple. Peter's reply in verse 6 is "Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee." He then healed the man in the name of Christ.

"I thought, 'How can I possibly leave?' " Elder Andersen said. "I recognized that I didn't have [tangible] gifts to give, but what I had was more valuable than silver and gold. I stayed and had some wonderful experiences."

Elder Andersen, sustained at April general conference as a member of the Second Quorum of the Seventy, received that gift himself while growing up in Mesa, Ariz., from parents who taught him and his seven siblings by precept and example.

"My father was able to bear his testimony without giving offense, because he loved people," Elder Andersen recalled. After his father died, a Methodist minister who had known him commented to Wilford, "If all Mormons were like your dad, the whole world would be Mormon."

His mother, who had been reared in the Mormon colonies in Mexico, loved people, as well, particularly Hispanic people and their cultures.

"They were both temple workers for 25 years together in the Mesa Temple, and we learned to appreciate the importance of the temple in their lives."

He said his father taught with love.

"Dad wanted us to make our decisions for the right reasons," he said. On one occasion, young Wilford wanted to go on a fishing trip over Sunday with another family. Instead of saying yes or no, the father asked if he had an assignment to administer the sacrament. Wilford said yes, but he thought he could get his brother to fill in for him. The father asked if the group would be going to church. Wilford replied, "I don't think so, but we'll have prayer in the tent."

After a moment's pause, the father said, "I probably wouldn't go if I were you."

"I learned that was his way of helping me think through an issue the way he would and then inviting me to make a good decision," Elder Andersen commented.

Emulating his father, Elder Andersen has been involved in community affairs and bridge building, helping the public to understand the Mormon people and faith better. On his mission, he traveled throughout the mission providing Spanish-translated recordings of "Music and the Spoken Word" and BYU basketball games to radio stations in Argentina. Later, as a stake president, he was closely associated with interfaith groups and has been a local spokesman for the Church on public issues in the Phoenix metro area.

As a student at BYU, Elder Andersen was in the bishopric of a student ward. A young woman in the ward introduced him to a friend of hers, a music and elementary-education student named Kathleen Bennion. After a few weeks, he called her, and a romance developed that shortly blossomed into marriage.

"He later told me the reason he was interested was that when he came to pick me up for my first date, the house smelled like applesauce, because all my family was canning," Sister Andersen said.

"The kitchen floor was sticky, and there was steam in the air, but it felt good to me," Elder Andersen added.

A similar hominess has characterized the household of Elder and Sister Andersen, as they have reared nine children together. Music has pervaded their home, as Sister Andersen is an accomplished pianist and organist.

"There is a dynamic in a large family that's interesting," he commented. "The children take care of each other, and there are great associations."

Sister Andersen added, "You rely on one another a lot, and you learn that you just can't do it alone. So you do have the help of the children, and you put them to work."

Elder Andersen recalls that for an assignment in high school, he read the Leo Tolstoy novel "Anna Karenina."

"I remember the opening line," he said. "He wrote: 'Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.' "

Drawing an application from that, Elder Andersen said, "The gospel gives us the blueprint for happy families. We can be so thankful for that. This world is searching for how to have happy families, how to be happy in our homes, and the gospel teaches us that. And not only that, it teaches us how to extend that happy family into the eternities."

It is a lesson he has sought to convey as a young missionary, as a mission president, as a local and area Church leader. Sister Andersen said he brought it on a personal level to families to whom he has been a home teacher, some of whom he has helped prepare to receive the ordinances of salvation.

For his part, Elder Andersen said, "I have loved every person I have ever been assigned to home teach, and I have felt love from them."

Such love, he acknowledges, is a spiritual gift. "The Holy Ghost operates in the context of loving relationships," he said.

rscott@desnews.com