With the high anxiety and stress of the Apostlic mantle he bore he carried boils throughout his body the majority of his life. He also had a heart attack in which future Apostle Russell M. Nelson permormed a "perfect operation," which he described as a miricle in itself, and rare for a surgeon to experience in a lifetime. Afterwards, Bro. Nelson wrote Elder Kimball a letter assuring a perfect bill of health and a side note that while performing the operation it was revealed to him that Elder Kimball would someday be President of the Church.
No event in the twentieth-century Church matched the excitement attending President Kimball's announcement of receiving a revelation on the priesthood in 1978, ending more than a century of limitation on admission of Church members of black-African ancestry to priesthood office and temple ordinances. The announcement made no doctrinal statement, but simply said that the Lord had indicated that the time for change had come. The change was implemented immediately, giving great impetus to missionary work in Africa. The announcement of this revelation was added to the Doctrine and Covenants as Official Declaration-2.
