Editor’s note: The original December 2023 version of this article was lost. The Lee Daily Register rebuilt it in October 2026 from the Church and news sources cited below, and added what happened afterward.
When The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints named Elder Patrick Kearon to its Quorum of the Twelve Apostles this week, attention also turned to his wife, Jennifer. The couple met in London more than three decades ago and have been married since 1991.
Kearon, 62, was called and ordained on Thursday, Dec. 7, filling the vacancy left by President M. Russell Ballard, who died Nov. 12, according to the Church Newsroom. He said the call was “so very daunting and humbling to me.”
From Saratoga to London
Jennifer Kearon, who was Jennifer Hulme when she met her husband, was raised in Saratoga, California, and is the youngest of eight children. She earned a bachelor’s degree in humanities, with an emphasis in English literature, from Brigham Young University, according to her BYU Speeches biography.
Before she graduated, she spent six months studying in London, where she met Patrick Kearon. The Newsroom said they met two years after his baptism, which took place on Christmas Eve 1987 after he met missionaries on a London street.
The two were married on Jan. 12, 1991, in the Oakland California Temple. They then settled in England, where they lived for 19 years.
Family and moves
The Kearons have four children. Their oldest child, a son named Sean, died in infancy; the BYU biography says he was 19 days old and died during heart surgery. The Newsroom lists the other three children as Elizabeth, Susannah and Emma.
After Patrick Kearon became a General Authority Seventy on April 3, 2010, the family moved to Utah, then to Germany, and then to Utah again, according to the BYU biography. The church’s official biography says he spent five years in Germany, serving in the Europe Area Presidency and as Area President. The BYU biography says Jennifer Kearon enjoys reading, art and music.
His path to the Twelve
Patrick Kearon was born July 18, 1961, in Carlisle, England, according to his official church biography. The Church Newsroom describes him as a British and Irish national who was raised in the United Kingdom and the Middle East, where his father worked in the defense industry. The Newsroom says he first came to understand the church while living in California with a Latter-day Saint family.
Before full-time church service, he worked in the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia and the United States and ran his own communications consultancy. The church biography says he joined the Presidency of the Seventy in 2017, and the Newsroom says he had been its senior president since August 2020.
What happened next
The church’s list of Kearon’s general conference talks includes “God’s Intent Is to Bring You Home” from April 2024 and “Welcome to the Church of Joy” from October 2024, according to the church’s speaker page.
Jennifer Kearon has also spoken publicly. BYU Speeches lists one talk by her, dated Sept. 17, 2024. Church News reported in January 2026 that the couple were scheduled to speak to young adults worldwide in a devotional on Sunday, Feb. 1, which would also commemorate the 100th anniversary of the church’s Institute of Religion. We did not find a report on the event itself.
