I want to relate a couple of things that make the LDS different than other churches.
1. The LDS church doesn’t have politics the way other churches I have attended. The hierarchy of the Church is set and the President is ordained the same way as when the church started. There are no behind the scenes political manuevers to see who would be President of the Church, President Monson knew that when Gordon B Hinkley passed away he would be President. The next President is already chosen. If he passes away before President Monson then his successor will be President.
However every church member votes to sustain every calling in the church. From the librarian to President of the entire church.
2. Members are called to be Bishop, Stake President, Sunday School teacher, Librarian, Choir Director etc. Each member has a calling. No member is paid. The Bishop might be an auto mechanic, and the librarian might be a multimillionaire. All members tithe 10% and no one except the Bishop or his councelors know how much that is. No one is given a calling based on how much they tithe. The callings are based on service. No money is ever collected during the church service.
After attending another church where they paid the Minister,Choir Director, Assistant Minister, youth minister etc. and how they debated and squabbled overthe amount they should make, this was a refreshing change. Men who passed the collection plate were chosen based how much they gave to the church, and had nothing to do with how righteous they were.
100% of all money collected for charity and welfare goes directly to the needy. No administrative costs are paid out of those collections. They are collected separatly once a month by members fasting for two meals and giving what they would have spent on food as fast offerings.
All able members volunteer to be janitor. Families sign up to clean the church once a week. The young men empty the waste baskets after church. It doesn’t matter if the Church is in the richest part of country or the poorest part. Giving service by cleaning the church is a sacrifice members willing make and teaches young people humility.
??? Read any early Church history lately?
The Church started in April 1830, and Joseph Smith took on the position of the only "Apostle" 4 months later, followed by the position of the first President of the Church in January 1832. The Quorum of the Twelve came into existence in 1835 (10 Apostles named in February and 2 more in April). In addition to the well-known and protracted power struggle following Smith's death (3.5 years with no official Prophet/President of the Church), there was no First Presidency at all between August 29, 1877 (death of Brigham Young) and October 10, 1880 (the selection of John Taylor as his successor), or between July 25, 1887 (death of John Taylor) and April 7, 1889 (the selection of Wilford Woodruff as Taylor's successor). Thus until 1898 (death of Wilford Woodruff, followed almost immediately by the naming of Lorenzo Snow as the next President/Prophet), there was always a gap of 2-3 years, during which there was no Prophet or First Presidency, nor certainty as to who the next one would be.
The tradition of naming the President of the Twelve to be the new Prophet has been in place since the beginning, but the tradition of automatically naming of the longest serving Apostle to be the new President of the Twelve has fuzzier origins, due the tendency of early Apostles to get excommunicated or disfellowshipped, and in two cases subsequently restored to the position of Apostle.
The early Quorum of the Twelve was a hotbed of conflict that would make modern political campaigns look tame. Of the first 12 Apostles, 7 were excommunicated, with 3 of those being later rebaptized, and one of those being later returned to the position of Apostle (Orson Pratt). An eighth, Orson Hyde, was disfellowshipped twice, and both times soon restored to both fellowship in the Church and the position of Apostle.
Third Prophet John Taylor only became President of the Twelve when Brigham Young declared that Orson Hyde and Orson Pratt had lost their seniority among the Twelve when they were disfellowshipped and excommunicated, respectively -- a decision apparently made simply because Young had decided he'd rather have Taylor be President of the Twelve than Hyde. Young decided this, not at the times of Hyde's and Pratt's removal from or readmission to the Twelve, but at a time 32 years after Pratt's readmission to the Twelve and 28 years into Hyde's tenure as President of the Twelve (a position which Hyde had been named to shortly after his second round of being disfellowshipped from the Church and readmitted to the Twelve). Both had become Apostles before Taylor, and both had been restored to that position before Taylor's ascension to the Presidency of the Twelve in 1875. Pratt was still living in 1880 (and was the only surviving member of the original Twelve) when Taylor became Prophet. Had Pratt retained seniority per the date of his original appointment to the Twelve, he would have been President of the Twelve, and subsequently Prophet.
The modern Church has a very smooth and predictable system for choosing the new President and Prophet, though that system -- the selection of the Apostle who is both the longest-serving member of, and President of the Quorum of the Twelve -- is a matter of tradition only, not revelation or official policy, and is by no means guaranteed to continue. In fact, there was a very real possibility that if Monson had passed away prior to Hinckley, all h*!! would have broken loose within the Twelve, as a majority sought to avoid naming the presumed successor as the new President/Prophet.
The main drawback to the current tradition of basically automatic succession by the longest-serving Apostle is the transformation of the Church into a gerontocracy, at least outwardly. The political squabbling goes on behind the scenes under this system, rather than out in the open. But the public face of the Church, including to its own members, certainly doesn't have anywhere near the vibrant energy it did under Smith and Young, who were 31 and 46 respectively, when they took up their positions as President/Prophet. I wouldn't be surprised if at some point in the future, the guaranteed gerontocracy principle isn't abandoned, when a majority of the Twelve feel inspired to select someone other than their President to become the new Prophet.