Ward profiles

Bishop Gilson on the ‘incredible adventure’ of discipleship

“It's an amazing adventure to figure out, ‘What does the Lord want me to do?’” says the Valley View YSA Ward bishop

Bishop Darin Gilson wants young single adults to know that “being a disciple of Jesus Christ is the most incredible adventure of this life.”

Bishop Gilson leads the Valley View YSA Ward in Salt Lake City, Utah, where he’s worked with hundreds of young single adults since his call to the ward in November 2023.  And he hopes he’s helping young adults shift their views of discipleship — seeing it not as a burden, but as the most important thing they can pursue.

“People say, ‘I want to change the world’ … But I think the real way we change the world is by our discipleship,” Bishop Gilson said. “It's one person at a time, one act of service at a time, one act of love at a time. That's how the world is changed, and I think it's an amazing adventure to figure out, ‘What does the Lord want me to do?’”

Bishop Gilson was born January 15, 1968, in Price, Utah. At age 2, his family moved to Salt Lake City, where he grew up.

He recalled being raised by “goodly parents” who created a righteous household for him and his four older siblings. His testimony was also shaped by a Young Men’s leader who taught him how to truly study the scriptures.

Later, his missionary service became an integral part of his testimony. Bishop Gilson served from 1987-1989 in the Santa Rosa California Mission, Spanish speaking.

“Even though I was in the United States, [my mission] still felt kind of groundbreaking because we were trying to establish Spanish speaking branches of the Church in California at the time,” Bishop Gilson recounted.

Upon returning home, he began attending the University of Utah, where he double-majored in economics and political science with a minor in Spanish.

During that time, multiple friends told Bishop Gilson that he needed to meet a girl named Susie Droubay. Eventually, he called her for a date and they hit it off.

They dated for several weeks before Bishop Gilson left for an internship in Washington, D.C., followed almost immediately by a summer study abroad. But the pair kept in touch through phone calls and handwritten letters, which both Bishop and Sister Gilson said allowed them to get to know each other.

Upon Bishop Gilson’s return to Utah, he and Sister Gilson began dating again and were married March 20, 1991, in the Salt Lake Temple. They are the parents of one son and three daughters.

Bishop Gilson said he was attracted to Sister Gilson’s purity, wholesomeness, gentleness and goodness. “I could almost see it in her before I even knew her. … That’s what made me want to go out with her in the first place.”

For her part, Sister Gilson loved Bishop Gilson’s strong testimony and motivation to work toward his goals. “It just always felt right, from the very beginning.”

Sister Gilson has some powerful faith of her own. Born and raised in Salt Lake City, she grew up with a nonmember father and a less active mother. Her Church activity was the result of neighbors and friends who invited her first to Primary and then to Young Women’s. 

“I just felt something different there. I loved being at Church,” Sister Gilson recounted, adding, “So not growing up in the Church, in a way, but still really having an experience in the Church — my testimony just developed all through that.”

Following the Gilsons’ marriage, Sister Gilson graduated in finance from the University of Utah, an industry she worked in for two years before moving to Philadelphia, where Bishop Gilson earned his MBA at the University of Pennsylvania. 

The Gilsons’ growing family then moved to Texas for Bishop Gilson to begin his consulting and private equity career. After three years in Houston, they relocated to Salt Lake City, where they’ve been ever since.

Bishop Gilson’s previous callings include youth Sunday School teacher, Young Men’s leader, high counselor, and a counselor in two bishoprics, including serving as a counselor to Bishop Pingree in the Valley View YSA ward from 2017 - 2020

Through all his experiences, he’s learned that being yoked to the Savior is “the recipe for peace and joy. It doesn’t mean it’s the recipe for ease. … But you will have peace and joy as you’re going through this journey of life, because you know to Whom you’re yoked.”