-- May 21, 1922
Benson was named Sunderland Branch president. His responsibilities included mediating misunderstandings among members and missionaries, promoting sales of the Church's British weekly Millennial Star ,supervising local ecclesiastical activities, and maintaining local membership records. He also began wearing eyeglasses about this time. (1)
-- January 23, 1923
New mission president David O McKay called Benson to become the new president of the Newcastle Conference, responsible for the full range of Church-related programs of the entire zone and its branches. Conference president was equivelant to a zone leader and stake president. (1)
-- Dec 24, 1923
Upon returning from his mission to Salt Lake, Benson asked for and received a second patriarchal blessing, this time from the Church's presiding patriarch, Hyrum Gibbs Smith (1879–1932), to serve as a guidepost for his life's next stage. "Be true to thy righteous convictions, be humble in thy devotion; shrink not from duty when it's made known, but keep thy trust in the Lord and thou shalt live even unto a goodly age to fill up the full measure of thy mission and creation."
He spent on average every month close to twenty hours tracting, twenty-nine hours with investigators, fifty-one hours with members, forty-seven hours in meetings, and 129 hours studying. He performed a total of ten baptisms (about double the missionary average), eleven confirmations, two ordinations to priesthood office, and naming blessings for three children. (1)
-- August 25, 1924, to June 1926
Flora serves a full-time mission in the Hawaiian Islands. (2)
-- Fall 1924
Joins his brother Orval in purchasing the family farm in Whitney. (2)
-- About 1924
He ... enrolled at Brigham Young University, where he was president of the Agriculture Club and Men's Glee Club and was named the most popular man on campus. He graduated with honors, majoring in animal husbandry with a minor in agronomy. (3)
-- Spring 1926
Graduates from Brigham Young University. (2)
-- September 1926 to June 1927
Attends the Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts (now the Iowa State University of Science and Technology), graduating with a master's degree in agricultural economics. (2)
-- Sept 10, 1926
He married Flora Smith Amussen in the Salt Lake Temple on September 10, 1926. She was the youngest child of Carl Christian Amussen, a Danish convert who crossed the plains and became a prominent Utah jeweler, and Barbara McIsaac Smith. Flora attended Utah State Agricultural College, where she served as vice-president of the student body, took the lead in a Shakespearean play, and won the women's singles tennis championship. She served a mission in the Hawaiian Islands.
Of his wife, President Benson said, "She had more faith in me than I had in myself" (Dew, p. 96). One Church leader commented that if there were more women in the Church like Sister Benson, there would be more men in the Church like Brother Benson. They became the parents of six children—Reed, Mark, Barbara, Beverly, Bonnie, and Beth. (3)
Endnotes:
1 - Gary James Bergera, "Ezra Taft Benson's 1921-23 Mission to England", Journal of Mormon History 35:4 (Fall 2009)
2 - Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Ezra Taft Benson, Intellectual Reserve, Inc. (2014)
3 - "Ezra Taft Benson," Encyclopedia of Mormonism, edited by Daniel H. Ludlow, by Reed Benson and Sheri Dew. New York: Macmillan, 1992
LDS History Chronology: Ezra Taft Benson
Mormon History Timeline: the life of Ezra Taft Benson
http://lds-church-history.blogspot.com/
