“Mitt’s really a good man. He’s very smart, but it’s true that he was raised in a wealthy home, in a prominent home, and then accrued even more wealth, and his kids have been raised in an even more prominent family. And that’s actually about the toughest environment in the world to be raised in, and have your head screwed on straight. It truly is. And so people think of that, that he’s not connected with the real world. But he has raised his family to create unbelievably good kids.
But more important than that, in the Mormon church, we don’t pay professional ministers to teach us and to take care of us, but we help other people and teach each other the gospel of Jesus Christ. What that means is - because the members have to take care of one another - you meet everybody. And so Mitt was the bishop of our church, and bishop just means that he had responsibility for about 500 members of the church. And he had a family, he was trying to build Bain at the same time, and to be the bishop meant that he spent, on top of all that, 30 hours a week.
And I don’t know if you ever saw the first Star Wars movie, but Luke Skywalker came in to meet Hans Solo at some kind of cafe, and the band that was playing, there was one of every conceivable form of life in the band, that’s what a Mormon church looks like; one of every conceivable type of person. If you’re the bishop, you’ve got to help all of those people. Under his leadership we built three significant new congregations in the inner city, in three different languages. So he really has seen a lot.”
I love that Clayton compared Mormon congregants to the members of the Star Wars band (every conceivable form of life!). I’m sure some wards aren’t quite that diverse but when you are a bishop you do get to love and serve every stereotype. The Star Wars visual is just a great image!
