[3] For one summer while studying law, Hamula completed an internship in Mesa, Arizona.

Hamula has spent most of his career working for the Arizona-based law firm of Gallagher & Kennedy.

He served as counselor and then, from 2011 to 2014, as president of the church's Pacific Area headquartered in Auckland, New Zealand.

[9][10] While the church's news release did not specify the reason for his excommunication, it did state that it was not the result of personal apostasy or disillusionment on Hamula's part.

Hamula is the first general authority of the LDS Church to be excommunicated since George P. Lee in 1989.