2000—A Sealer
The little document I took home from this interview made it very clear that only President Hinckley, the President of the Church and Prophet of the Lord, possessed the keys to perform the ordinance for which we were gathered. But President Packer signed it, inasmuch as it was his hands that were placed on my head for the purpose, by direct delegation and under the unique authority of our very authoritative cousin.
BKP
Boyd K Packer 		People ask me, from time to time, when and by whom I was “ordained a Sealer”. Or sometimes “set apart” in that capacity. That always gives me an opportunity to render instruction in one of the fine points of Priesthood government. What President Packer did was not an ordination: “Sealer” is not a Priesthood office, like Elder or Deacon or even Apostle. Nor was I “set apart” to function in a position in the Church organization. He conferred the sealing power on me, thus implementing Malachi’s prophecy that Elijah would come in the last days and turn the hearts of the generations to each other. Just so you get it straight: this was a solemn and momentous event in the (SuchA)life I’m trying to document here, and I get the shivers just recalling it.
Interviews of this sort usually take place in a one-on-one setting, but President Packer and I had company, Elder Neil L Andersen, who had recently joined the numerous ranks of the General Authorities, sat in with us. I presume, without any solid evidence, that his presence was part of his training: since 2004, he has been one of the Church’s Twelve Apostles. LB
Neil L Andersen
This was by no means my first conversation with President Packer, and his many connections with our family went back at least to his enrollment in the second and third grade classes of my Mammy, in her earliest days as a teacher in Brigham City. He’d awakened me in 1968 to impart the news of her death, and on at least one occasion he’d counselled me about my instruction of his sons as a Seminary teacher in Cambridge. Dane McBride recalls that he taught us about the Correlation Program in Paris, so that we could pass on the new dispositions to local leaders in France.

Not surprisingly, he didn’t recognize me. But when I mentioned my connection to Duane and Leola Anderson, he spent most of our remaining time together telling Elder Andersen about them and their service to the youth of the Church.
*My recollections of Elder Packer’s rôle in that project are, alas, fuzzier than Dane’s.
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