“M. Joseph Brough,” Ensign, May 2015, 144

During the three years M. Joseph Brough served as president of the Guatemala Guatemala City Central Mission (from 2011 to 2014), he lost both his father and his father-in-law.

Although his wife could have returned to the United States for the funerals, the couple decided in both cases that she should stay in Guatemala and continue with their missionary work. “We knew we were better off staying and working as well as we could,” said Brother Brough, called on April 4, 2015, as second counselor in the Young Men general presidency. “That was exactly what her father and my father would expect of us.”

Brother Brough was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, on December 11, 1963, to Monte J. and Ada B. Brough. He spent his youth in Farmington, Utah, and Robertson, Wyoming. The family moved to Minnesota when Joseph’s father, who would later serve as a member of the Seventy, was called as a mission president. Joseph was a senior in high school when his father completed his service as a mission president. Instead of returning to high school, Joseph took the high school equivalency exam and went straight to Weber State University in Ogden, Utah.

His parents, however, insisted he graduate from seminary with a four-year certificate. It was while attending seminary at Davis High School that he met his future wife, Emily Jane Thompson. They were married on April 25, 1985, in the Salt Lake Temple; they are the parents of four children.

Before the couple married, Brother Brough served as a missionary in the Guatemala Quetzaltenango Mission. His mission president, Jorge H. Perez, became a “most influential man in my life,” he said.

The founder and owner of Rotational Molding of Utah, he earned a bachelor’s degree in finance and a master of business administration from the University of Utah. In the Church he has served as a bishop, ward Young Men president and high councilor.