Elder Glen L. Rudd, the author of Pure Religion, the Story of Church Welfare Since 1930, made a great impact on the Church's welfare program. In a personal letter, President Gordon B. Hinckley wrote, “No one knows the history of the welfare program more thoroughly than do you.”
The LDS Church's "Mr. Welfare" has died.
Elder Glen L. Rudd, 98, was the oldest living man who had served as a General Authority Seventy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when he passed away Friday, Dec. 30, from complications after breaking his hip.
Elder Rudd managed Welfare Square in Salt Lake City for 25 years and was a friend to church presidents throughout his adult life.
He also had special ties to the LDS Church in New Zealand. He first served there in 1938 as a missionary under future LDS apostle Matthew Cowley. He returned 27 more times, as an advisor on the Labor Missionary Project that built the Hamilton New Zealand Temple and the Church College of New Zealand, as president of the New Zealand Wellington Mission, as president of the Hamilton New Zealand Temple and as area president.