I was called as a General Authority Seventy in April 2006 and was released and became an Emeritus General Authority in October 2018. With my many weekend stake conference and other assignments, I occasionally felt impressed to address in my teaching the importance of helping all of God's children to recognize and respond to the voice of the Spirit, knowing this to be the enduring source and means of deep conversion and the exercise of faith in Jesus Christ. While participating in the development of the Come, Follow Me curriculum at Church Headquarters I began to feel a greater urgency with the topic and began to address it more regularly in my weekend assignments. In doing so, I found that in addition to drawing lessons and examples from the scriptures, sharing my wife's and my experiences in rearing our family seemed to be particularly meaningful in communicating the message. This was evidenced by regular requests from members following conferences for copies of anything I might have written on the subject, but I had written nothing at the time.
Following my release, I felt it was time to put some of what the Lord had taught me in writing. My wife and I had talked about these things with our children over the years and they were now in all lifecycle stages of rearing their children. At the time of this writing we have 46 grandchildren and three great grandchildren. Although they had experienced many of the things discussed in the book while growing up in our home, they also voiced desires to have something in writing to which they and their children could occasionally refer. Thus, this book was written. It is written to a broader audience, with the hope that it will be useful to many.
Craig Allen Cardon was sustained as a General Authority Seventy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 2006. He served as a member of the Africa West Area presidency, an assistant executive director in the Priesthood and Family Department, the editor of Church magazines, and as a member of the Pacific Area presidency. He became an Emeritus General Authority in 2018. He chaired committees in the Priesthood and Family Department that, under the direction of the Twelve Apostles, developed the new "Come, Follow Me" church curriculum and the new children and youth initiatives. These experiences informed much of what he shares in Growing Up unto the Lord. He received an Accounting degree from Arizona State University and a Master of Public Administration degree from the Harvard Kennedy School with a Methodological Area of Concentration in Leadership and was named a Littauer Fellow. Prior to his call in 2006 he was an entrepreneur with multiple business interests. Craig Allen Cardon was born in 1948. He married Deborah L. Dana in 1970. They are the parents of eight children. As of 2020 they have 46 grandchildren and three great grandchildren.
