Elder William R. Bradford, emeritus General Authority Seventy, former president of the Houston Texas Temple and the Chile Santiago and Chile Santiago South missions, died on Jan. 24, 2019, in Bountiful, Utah. He was 85.
While serving as president of the Chile Santiago Mission, Elder Bradford was called to serve as a new member of the reconstituted First Quorum of the Seventy in October 1975. In that general conference, Elder Bradford bore his testimony, saying, “My father taught me not to be a toe-dipper, but to plunge in and bathe all over in the gospel.”
In a Nov. 1, 1975, Church News article, Elder Bradford shared how missionary work was a part of every aspect of his life. “I have spent most of my life in the mission field and I look forward to being a missionary for the rest of my life,” he said.
Born in Springville, Utah, to Rawsel W. and Mary Waddoups Bradford on Oct. 25, 1933, Elder Bradford moved to Hawaii at the age of 12 when his father served two missions there. His grandfather Bradford was a missionary in Hawaii in 1906, serving six years and doing considerable work on the temple there. His grandfather on his mother’s side, William M. Waddoups, served as the first president of the Laie Hawaii Temple from 1919-1930. He also served as a mission president in Hawaii, Samoa and New Zealand.