David A. Bednar used to teach business students at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. Now, he's a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
This month, he returned to the state to visit the church's new Bentonville Temple, which opens to the public today.
He'll be back Sept. 17 for its formal dedication.
The Northwest Arkansas he encountered as a young professor is a far cry from the booming region it is today.
Forty-three years ago,"Springdale and Rogers were much more rural. When you drove from Springdale to Tontitown, that was all grape vineyards. It's now strip malls," he said. "The progress that has been made in this area, and the development of this area is really quite stunning."
The growth of the church there, statistically, has been no less impressive.
When he began as an assistant professor of management at University of Arkansas in 1980, the state had 9,878 Latter-day Saints. Today, there are 35,405.
Last year, the church added an additional 1,378 members in the Natural State, a 4.5% increase that no other state could match.
Thanks to in-migration, a higher-than-average birthrate and a dedicated missionary force, future growth appears likely.
Bednar knows all about missionary work.
He served two years in southern Germany, arriving after a two-month crash course in German at the church's Language Training Mission in Provo, Utah.
He arrived in Europe with linguistic skills that were less than ideal, he recalled.
"When I got off the train in Nuremberg and I started talking to the local citizens, I honestly thought I had fallen asleep on the train and I was in Yugoslavia. They did not speak the German I had learned in the language training mission," he said.
With practice, and "help from heaven," he eventually was able to understand the language, he said.
A mission, he said, is a life-changing experience.
"Try to imagine at the most self-centered point of your life, when you're 19 and you think everything in the world revolves around you, and [now] you're in a different country speaking a different language and a very different culture and all that you do, all day long, is focus on serving, helping and blessing other people," he said.
For two years, "you help people but you're the one who ultimately is helped the most through the service that you render," he said.
For faithful Latter-day Saint young people, missions are a milestone.
There are currently 62,544 full-time teaching missionaries serving in every corner of the globe.
"Our oldest son, Eric, served in Finland. Our son Michael served in Bolivia, and our youngest son, Jeff, served in England," Bednar said.
Now, some of his 19 grandchildren are on the mission field as well.
"In fact, our oldest granddaughter returned last November from serving as a missionary in Chile, and we have two granddaughters right now serving in Brazil," he said.
Missionary work, he said, "is the lifeblood of the church."
"We simply explain our message, try to help people understand it, and just invite them to come and see what we do and what we're like," he said.
While his mother's side of the family has been in the church for generations, his dad converted relatively late in life.
"My father, as a young man, studied a few years to be a Catholic priest," he said.
"Bednar is a Slovakian name. You cannot find anybody more Eastern European Catholic than my father and his family. His sister was a nun, so I am maybe the only apostle who has a potential Catholic priest on one side of my family and Latter-day Saint apostles on the other side of the family," he said.
One of three children, David Bednar was the youngest of the bunch, arriving 16 years after his sister and 14 years after his brother.
"I really believe I was born to help my dad learn about the restored gospel of Jesus Christ," he said.
From an early age, "I would just torment him. 'Dad, when are you going to be baptized?' And he would say to me, 'David, I am not joining this church for you. I'm not joining this church for your mother. I will do it when I know it's the right thing to do, so get off my back.'"
During childhood the questioning became almost a daily ritual and it continued, by phone, even after he married and left home.
"Susan would say 'David leave him alone. You're driving him crazy with that all the time,'" Bednar said.
His dad ultimately converted while his son was in graduate school at Purdue University in Indiana.
He rushed back to California, at his father's request, so that he could baptize him.
Bednar and his wife, the former Susan Kae Robinson, were married at the church's Salt Lake City temple in 1975.
They moved to Arkansas in 1980 where he served, for four years, as an assistant professor of management at UA.
After two years at Texas Tech University, he returned to Fayetteville to serve as associate dean for graduate studies the College of Business Administration at UA, later directing a management decision-making lab at the university.
Over the years, his commitment to church service never wavered.
In Arkansas, he served as a bishop, president of the Fort Smith Arkansas Stake and president of the Rogers Arkansas Stake.
He would go on to serve as one of the church's regional representatives and an area authority as well as President of Brigham Young University-Idaho, beginning in 1997.
On Oct. 2, 2004, he was sustained as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, one of the church's highest callings.
"This is not a job you apply for. ... But if the calling comes, you give it your whole heart, might, mind and strength, every waking hour of every day, and it's the most joyful thing you could do," he said.
Asked what the position entails, Bednar said, "A member of the Quorum of the Twelve has one responsibility -- we travel the earth bearing sure witness of the living reality and divinity of God the Eternal Father, and of His son, Jesus Christ, and we oversee the affairs of the church in all the world."
With 17 million members globally and 315 temples either built or on the drawing board, there's a lot of ground to cover.
"Three weeks ago today, Susan and I were in Slovenia. From Slovenia we went to Croatia. From Croatia, we were in Germany. Then we went to Azerbaijan, back to Germany and then to Warsaw, Poland. So we spend three to four months of the year traveling internationally, overseeing the church, making sure that things are in alignment with the doctrine of the church. I have an office in Salt Lake City. But our role is not administrative. It's not organizational, although we do some of those those things. Ours is a spiritual ministry to bear witness of Jesus Christ," he said.
Bednar has co-written a book titled "Organizational Behavior: Understanding and Managing People at Work." Asked if it contains any principles that would help churches, Bednar suggested turning to the Scriptures instead.
"The gospel of Jesus Christ is the most incredible management curriculum you could ever have," he said. "If you want to know what leadership is, study the life of the Savior."
Asked when he and his wife plan to retire, Bednar, 71, said, "Never. We do this till we draw our last breath."
The Bentonville Arkansas Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will be open to the public, except on Sundays, between today and July 1. Additional information and tickets can be obtained by going to bentonvilletemple.churchofjesuschrist.org/.