President Leo P. Talbot

(1994 to 1997) Sydney South

For Leo Percival Talbot, the call to serve as president of the Australia Sydney South Mission has personal meaning. Serving in the mission area reminds President Talbot, the first Australian to preside over the Sydney mission, of his ancestral roots.

Although the former regional representative for the Perth and Adelaide Regions was born in Melbourne, his family history gives him a sentimental claim to the suburbs southwest of Sydney. After his ancestors arrived in Australia in 1792 on the Fourth Fleet, their subsequent fourteen children and eighty grandchildren helped populate the areas of Campbelltown, Liverpool, and Parramatta. Serving in the Sydney South mission will be just like returning home, President Talbot says.

President Talbot joined the Church in 1966. One year later he married Carmel Miriam Packham in the New Zealand Temple. Sister Talbot's support has sustained her husband throughout twenty-eight years of Church service and will now be invaluable as they serve their mission together, says President Talbot. "Without my wife I couldn't even contemplate serving a mission," he says.

President Talbot's early employment was principally in production and data processing. In 1980 he moved into entrepreneurial business activities and developed training materials that were marketed worldwide.

The Talbots have four daughters. The eldest daughter, Fiona, is married and expecting a third child. Samantha is studying at Brigham Young University, where her sister Daniell is studying with her husband. The youngest daughter, Naomi, will graduate from high school this year.

THE ENSIGN / AUGUST 1994