SALT LAKE CITY -- When Wendy Nelson was Wendy Watson, she was a professor of marriage and family therapy at Brigham Young University, so it should come as no surprise that she would provide rare insight in an interview about her husband, Russell M. Nelson, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

"I have seen him changing the last ten months. It's as though he's been unleashed," said Nelson in an interview provided by the Church's news operation and posted on MormonNewsroom.org.

"He's free to follow through with things he's been concerned about but could never do. Now that he's president, he can do those things," she added.

Among changes made during President Nelson's months at the helm: shortened Sunday Services, an announced end to sponsoring Boy Scout Troops, a revelation against the use of the terms "Mormon" and "LDS" and discouraging the production of religious pageants in favor of a focus on gospel teaching.

"He sees things and says, 'What are we doing that for?' 'What are we spending the widow's mite on that for?'"