On the 170th anniversary of the Saints entering the Salt Lake Valley, a longtime question has now been answered. How long after Mormon pioneers entered the Salt Lake Valley was land surveyed and designated as the official location of Temple Square? A week? A month? According to a recently discovered journal belonging to pioneer surveyor Jesse Carter Little, the location of Temple Square was known the day pioneers entered the valley, July 24, 1847.

The Church Office Building in Temple Square. Courtesy of the LDS Media Library.

In April, Rob Thurston of Provo, Utah, age 60, made an amazing discovery about his great-great-grandfather, Jesse Carter Little. He found his ancestor’s journal containing entries made along the journey west to the Salt Lake Valley. But the journey to acquiring the journal was an adventure in and of itself.

“When I was a young boy about age 7, I used to go down to Manti, Utah, to where my grandmother lived,” Thurston said. “In her old house I used to like to play hide-and-seek and hide under the stairs.”

In the small confines of the room under the stairs, Thurston remembers seeing an old cream-colored box filled with aged letters and photographs. At the time, the letters were of particular interest because of the stamps that could be cut out and added to his stamp collection.

It wasn’t until this past April that memories of the cream-colored box came flooding back in Thurston’s mind. “I asked my mother whatever happened to the box,” he said. “She wasn’t exactly sure but recalled that it was given to a BYU professor to take a look at. The professor was contemplating writing an article about the items in it and also indicated he would see if they held any worth.”

The only problem with the box was it was given to the BYU professor, who Thurston declined to name, in 1977, 40 years ago. “I thought, ‘That’s it, they’re gone,’” Thurston said. “And to top it all off, my mother could not remember the name of the BYU professor.”

After a lot of hard work, Thurston found out the name of the professor, who, fortunately, was still working at Brigham Young University. He called the professor and mentioned the cream-colored box. Sure enough, the professor still had the box and remembered his mother. Thurston made an appointment to see him.

At the office of the BYU professor, Thurston recovered the box. It had been on a shelf for many years. “I remember what the professor told me,” said Thurston. “’There really isn’t anything in there. I didn’t see anything of value. Go ahead and take it.’”

Thurston took the box home and opened it. It held more than 180 items.

“Not knowing exactly what I had, I took the box to a document expert to help me understand. I was told that there were a number of significant things.”

The box contained a treasure trove of journals, letters and photographs from Thurston’s ancestors. “It gave depth to my ancestors I knew nothing about,” he said.

“There was a letter from Brigham Young I was excited about and a bunch of letters from an ancestor named Jesse Carter Little. He was the one ancestor I knew. He helped found the Mormon Battalion, and he met with President James K. Polk to get funds to help the Saints come west.”

The pinnacle of the discovery was an 1846 journal kept by Jesse Carter Little from the first pioneer company coming across the plains with Brigham Young. It contained tons of detailed information about the company’s trek west. “He recorded how many miles they went, where they reached, location names and coordinates for longitude and latitude with a sextant and compass,” Thurston said.

The most interesting entry was the one dated July 24, 1847. Little was in the advance party that entered the valley, and he recorded the following on two lines in his journal. Line one reads: “Salt Lake Valley 114 miles from Fort Bridger.” The second line reads: “Northern boundary of the Temple Square 40 degrees latitude and 111 degrees longitude.”

To check the accuracy of Little’s journal, the distance from the address of Fort Bridger to the address of Temple Square was calculated using Google Maps. It yielded 118 miles versus the journal’s 114. Plugging the longitude and latitude coordinates from Little’s journal into the U.S. government’s NASA website latitude/longitude finder yields the location of Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah.

“For the last 85 years these treasured items were either under the stairwell of an old house or in the office of a BYU professor. Finding these items was important. In my family, we are calling this the miracle of the cream-colored shirt box.”

Walking to General Conference in Temple Square. Courtesy of the LDS Media Library.

Ryan Morgenegg is a writer for Deseret News.

Ashley Morales

Frequently whimsical and overly optimistic about how much time it will take to do things, Ashley Morales is deeply passionate about the gospel and all kinds of creativity. Her hobbies include philosophically analyzing nearly every book, play, video game, and movie that she consumes, writing music and short stories, promising herself that she will finish writing her novels, going to sleep too late, eating foods she’s never tried, putting off cleaning her house, browsing Zillow, spending as much quality time as possible with her wonderful husband, trying to be a good mother to her fantastic children, and never finding the balance between saying too much and too little. One day, she hopes to leave a positive mark on the world and visit every continent (except Antarctica) with her family.

Did you know that there were special dedicatory sessions of the Salt Lake Temple set aside just for children?

Primary kids throughout the Church had sacrificed to contribute to the temple that took 40 years to build, so President Wilford Woodruff set aside five special sessions on April 21 and 22, 1893, exclusively for young Primary and Sunday School children. By the end of the five sessions, between 1,300 and 1,400 children and their teachers had attended. Among those attending was a young LeGrand Richards, who would later become a member of the Quorum of the Twelve. Here are two rare images of this historic Church event:

Images from byustudies.byu.edu, from Wallace B. Broberg and Richard Neitzel Holzapfel.

Guest Author

I, William Marsden, son of Abraham Marsden and Hannah Thornton…was born…on the 16^th of March 1814, in the town of Oldham, County of Lancashire, England. My father was by trade a cotton spinner. I was brought up in the cotton business, and followed the same until I was twenty-five, years of age. My parents were strictly Methodists, they belonged to what was called the New Connection Methodists.

Conversion and Mormon Missionary Service

At the age of twenty four I joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I was baptized on the 7^th of October 1839 in the river Irnvel, Manchester County of Lancashire, by James Mahon, Priest. I was also ordained a Priest January 5, 1840, by Parley Peter Pratt and Brigham Young, two of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The next day being Sunday, President Brigham Young requested me to go to Oldham to preach to the people as they did not have any Latter-day Saint preacher there. I did go having to make the journey on foot, a distance of seven miles. I invited Thomas Yates and James Mahon, Priests, to accompany me which they did. Thomas Yates and myself continued to labor there. In six weeks there were six persons baptized, each one belonging to a different denomination. I continued to labor there until a branch of the Church was organized. The branch was organized on Sunday February 17^th, 1840. I then went to labor in new places, wherever I could get an opportunity to preach to the people.

On the 16^th day of October 1840, I was ordained an Elder under the hands of Brigham Young and Willard Richards. The blessings pronounced on me were that I should have power over unclean spirits, and cast them out, and to heal the sick. I labored in Oldham and nearby places until April and in May I was appointed by Parley P. Pratt on a mission of Leeds in Yorkshire. I was there two weeks and returned home to Manchester County, a distance of 30 miles, the journey I performed on foot, being without purse or script [sic], and found sickness in my family.

A few days after my arrival home, my son Abraham died. Previous to being sent to Leeds, I was in the employ of a Mr. Francis Parnell, who by reason of my religious faith, discharged me, he being a prominent officer in the Methodist Church, and thought it a disgrace to have in his employ any Latter-day Saint, in consequence of which I was I was very poor, yet the Saints came to my aid and assisted me so that I was able to bury my dead. Soon after I was counseled by Parley P. Pratt to emigrate to America and there earn means to send for my family.

Mormon Emigration to America

Consequently I sold my household furniture, and by small donations from my friends was able to emigrate. I left the shores of England, from the Liverpool docks, by the ship “Clifton” on the 23^rd day of September, and landed in New York the 12^th of November 1840. I searched a few days for employment, but could not obtain any.

Under the direction of the church leader in the area, William preached in New York City and New Jersey.

Labored in the town of Patterson, baptized quite a number of persons, then back to New York and then to Trenton, New Jersey on the 18^th of December 1840, and found my cousin Thomas Thornton.  He was a blacksmith by trade. I remained with him 16 days, which time I worked in a cotton factory for a Mr. Ives.

William journeyed, preaching the Gospel to Philadelphia and then again in New Jersey where he met Brother Mulford who said he would pay all expenses if William would accompany him to Nauvoo, Illinois.

I left Burlington on the 12^th of April 1841, traveling on the canal to Pittsburg, and arrived at Nauvoo about the last of April. On my arrival there President Brigham Young invited me to his house. He found me employment during my stay of 17 days, then my family arrived from England. My wife Jane Appleby Marsden, my son Samuel, my daughter Hannah Mariah, also my brother Samuel and his wife Sarah Wilkinson, they all sailed from Liverpool, England in the ship “Hanover” to the New Orleans, from there by steamboat up the Mississippi River to Nauvoo. They landed in New Orleans on the 1^st day of May 1841, and arrived in Nauvoo on the 15^th of May 1841.

Myself and family stayed with President Young for about 3 weeks, during which time my brother and myself made a house to live in. Brother Brigham let me have a city lot, and I being poor and destitute of tools of any kind, we borrowed an axe and got some hazel-brush and drove sticks in the ground and wove in brush like basket or wicker work. We then dobbed it with black mud inside and out, it had a board roof, the chimney and fireplace being made of sod, the size of the room was 10 by 12 feet. I then went to Oquawka, Henderson county, with Richard Hardman. We dug a well for Simon Owens, for which we received two cows with young calves. We worked there two weeks, and then I returned home to Nauvoo, bringing my cow and calf with me, which was very acceptable to my family, as they had been living on coarse corn meal and sour milk.  The milk was obtained through the charity of the neighbors. …

On the following November 11^th, my father and mother arrived in Nauvoo from England. I met them there and brought them to my house where they lived most of the time. My wife and I received our endowments in the Nauvoo Temple. Both my father and mother died on the 11^th day of November 1849 and were buried in the Oquawka, Illinois cemetery. They died of cholera. I also buried my wife Jane and three of our children.

On the 29^th day of April 1855, I left the state of Illinois for Utah, traveling by ox team with my family…arrived at the City of Salt Lake, September 3^rd, 1855, and on October 3^rd, I moved to Provo, Utah and I became acquainted with Lucius Nelson Scovil. On the 16^th day of September 1856, I married his daughter Sariah in the temple in the Salt Lake City.

Wheat Molasses

October 8, 1857, all the Militia was ordered out to Echo Canyon to confront the U.S. Troops sent out to Utah unlawfully by President James Buchanan. I was appointed Colonel of the Southern division. May 7, 1858, I guarded President Young and family on account of the US Troops. Next day I presented President Young a gallon of molasses I had made from wheat. President Young made a note of this on the Church record as I was the first man in Utah to make molasses from wheat.

Cotton Machinery

June 24, 1858, I went to Salt Lake City with Ebeneazer Hanks and visited with Brigham Young. He told me to manage and assist Hanks to get machinery to manufacture cotton. I commenced to make drawings for the cotton machine. I went to the machine house in Sugar House Ward, remained there and superintended the making of machinery until it was completed. Part of the iron we used was scrap iron left from Johnston’s Army at Camp Floyd.

October 15, 1861, I left Provo City for Parowan, Iron County, with my family and I superintended the cotton factory until October same year. Later January 1864, I spent superintending the factory until May 1869. I made the first cotton ever made in Utah by machinery.

I supervised and established a cotton factory in Parowan and was superintendent over the cotton factory for many years.

Delisa Hargrove

I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I have moved 64 times and have not tired of experiencing this beautiful earth! I love the people, languages, histories/anthropologies, & especially religious cultures of the world. My life long passion is the study & searching out of religious symbolism, specifically related to ancient & modern temples. My husband Anthony and I love our bulldog Stig, adventures, traveling, movies, motorcycling, and time with friends and family.

Before departing Illinois with the first group of Saints, President Brigham Young had seen a vision in answer to his prayer seeking guidance about where to lead the Saints. In this vision, he saw an angel standing on a “conical hill.” The angel was Joseph Smith (martyred prophet), and he was pointing to where the Saints’ city and temple should be built. Upon arrival in the Salt Lake Valley, Brigham Young recognized Ensign Peak as that conical hill.

The name given to the hill, Ensign Peak, comes from Isaiah 11:11–12:

And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left . . . And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.

From the time the first brethren climbed the hill, Ensign Peak has held special significance for the inhabitants of the Salt Lake Valley. Many festivals and celebrations have been held there, and in 1934, a monument was erected memorializing its significance. The 18.47-foot monument (the Saints arrived in 1847) was built of stones collected from stakes (organizational units of congregations) along the Mormon Trail.

Decades later, the Salt Lake City Public Services Department and the Ensign Peak Foundation (a non-profit organization of private citizens), and the Mormon Historic Sites Foundation banded together to raise money to build a historic trail up the peak and a nature park of 66 acres surrounding it. This immense project, which included hiking trails, historic signs, two vista points, and the reclamation of eroding soil, was completed in 1996. President Gordon B. Hinckley dedicated the Ensign Peak Nature Park on July 26 of that year, setting it apart to be “a place of pondering, a place of remembrance, a place of thoughtful gratitude, a place of purposeful resolution” (“Park at Ensign Peak Dedicated,” LDS Church News, (August 3, 1996).

Latter-day Saints believe their pioneer forebears were led to the Salt Lake Valley by God. Brigham Young had the vision of Joseph Smith standing in the valley where they were supposed to go, but the Saints had no other pilot or guide. None of them had ever been to the Utah wilderness or knew anything about it, but they were led by a living prophet of God who knew the place when he arrived because he had been shown it previously. After climbing Ensign Peak with those eight men, he said, “This is Ensign Peak. Now, brethren, organize your exploring parties, so as to be safe from Indians; go and explore where you will, and you will come back every time and say this is the best place” (Journal of Discourses, 26 vols. London: Latter-day Saints’ Book Depot, 1854–1886), 13: 86). These men did explore many other areas in the Utah Territory, but all returned to declare their original stopping point the “best spot.”

Ensign Peak also served as a temple for at least one of the early Saints. Because the Saints had left their temple in Nauvoo, and it took several years for them to complete another temple, Addison Pratt had no temple to go to in order to receive his endowment before leaving to serve a mission. He “was taken to the summit of Ensign Peak and given his endowments, that he might return to those islands of the sea in which he had labored, with greater spiritual power” (Brigham H. Roberts, Conference Report, April 1915, 130). Brigham Young specially consecrated the peak for this purpose.

Additional Resources:

“A Defense and a Refuge,” Boyd K. Packer, Ensign, October 2006.

“A Banner Is Unfurled: Mormonism’s Ensign Peak,” Ronald Walker, Dialogue—A Journal of Mormon Thought.

Ensign Peak Park

Mormon Historic Sites

dwhite

Doris White is a native of Oregon and graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in English and a minor in Editing. She loves to talk with others about the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized on April 6, 1830, in New York. At this organization, the Lord revealed to Joseph Smith a commandment that the Saints should keep a record of the history of the Church (Doctrine and Covenants 21:1). Later it became a position in the Church—Church Historian—to be in charge of the record kept. This commandment applies individually as well. Church members are encouraged to keep personal journals of their lives and of the Lord’s hand in their lives.

New Church History Library

Today the Church Historian and Recorder is Elder Steven Snow of the Seventy, who replaced Marlin Jensen as historian in 2012.

Marlin Jensen, when he was originally called to serve as historian in 2005, seemed an unlikely choice because of his lack of experience in the field. However, he threw himself into the task and accomplished significant things, including overseeing the groundbreaking for the Joseph Smith Papers Project (an initiative to research, collect, and publish all manuscripts and documents created by or under the direction of the Prophet Joseph Smith, which will take several years to complete), putting thousands of the Church’s documents online, reorganizing the staff and moving them into a new, state-of-the-art building (see below), and insisting on an open and honest account being laid forth of the controversial Mountain Meadows Massacre.

Jensen said of the importance of keeping records, “The primary purpose of Church history is to help Church members build faith in Jesus Christ and keep their sacred covenants” (“Giving the Past a Future,” Ensign, October 2009, 42). The Church recently completed a new facility in which to store all these records. The new Church History Library was dedicated in June 2009 and is located in downtown Salt Lake City, just to the east of the Conference Center. The close location to both the Family History Library and to the Church History Museum gives patrons easy access to countless documents.

“Marlin Jensen has done more to further the cause of Mormon history than any person of the current generation,” said Terryl Givens, an LDS writer and professor of literature and religion at the University of Richmond in Virginia. “He will be missed as much for the quality of his character as for his contributions. His unflinching honesty and his confidence that church history needed no whitewashing or sanitizing set the tone for a whole new generation of LDS academics” (“Changing of the Guard in Mormon History,” Peggy Fletcher Stack, Salt Lake Tribune, January 19, 2012).

The standard for accuracy in Church history has not decreased since Elder Snow’s call. Assistant Church Historian Richard E. Turley, Jr., received the prestigious 2013 Herbert Feis Award from the American Historical Association, recognizing his significant contributions in guiding the Church’s history operations which include archives, museums, 25 historic sites, and an almost unparalleled records management system.

During Turley’s time as a leader the Church History Department, the department developed and continued to exact high-level standards focusing on the acquisition, organization, preservation, and dissemination of materials relating to the founding and development of the Church. No matter who is currently in charge of the Church History Department, the task is huge.

Leaders of the Church have long recognized that the history of the Church involves much more than just dates and names, but rather encompasses the history of all its people. Members from all around the world, from the time of the First Vision in 1820 to the present, have had faith-building, spiritual experiences which have contributed to the building of the kingdom of God on the earth. People have made sacrifices, have made covenants, and have been richly blessed, knowing their stories can strengthen the faith of Church members today.

The Church History Library provides nearly 25 miles of shelving to store all kinds of records: books, journals, photographs, microfilm, other media, and miscellaneous documents. The library’s old facilities in the Church Office Building were inadequate in size and scope. Now the library has the proper facilities to provide adequate temperature, humidity, and air-quality control to precious documents, plus fire and seismic protection.

New Church History Library Lobby

It is not only the goal of library staff to collect and store important Church documents, but to provide these documents to researchers, who might be professionals or amateurs. Archivists don’t want to simply preserve this information; they want people to use this information. Patrick Dunshee, manager of marketing and communications for the Church History Department explains, “Our desire is to help patrons increase their faith as they connect to their past” (“Giving the Past a Future,” Ensign, October 2009, 20). Family history can be conducted here which can bring new life and meaning by looking at personal records and pictures. When records were moved to the new building, every item was given a bar code and was scanned, thus enabling much more efficient and effective research and maintenance. Though not everything is open to public access, due to considerations such as privacy, confidentiality, and copyright laws, patrons are given access to the library catalogs and indexes. With 125 employees and nearly 200 full-time and Church-service missionaries, ample research help is also available. The library will also be offering myriad programs to teach people more about the resources available.

Sources:

Changing of the guard in Mormon history

Church Historian Receives Prestigious History Award

Assistant Church Historian Honored by National Group

President Henry B. Eyring shares his experiences of keeping a daily journal:

dwhite

Doris White is a native of Oregon and graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in English and a minor in Editing. She loves to talk with others about the gospel of Jesus Christ.

During the next several weeks much building took place, as well as much exploring. It was the determination of Brigham Young that the Saints should know the land and the people well, and he intended for the Saints to settle not just the Salt Lake Valley, but everywhere they could in the entire Great Basin (an area between the Rocky Mountains and Sierra Nevadas, the Columbia River, and the Colorado River, about the size of Texas). Wilford Woodruff recorded, “He intended to have every hole and corner form the Bay of [San] Francisco to Hudson bay known to us and that our people would be connected with every tribe of Indians throughout America.” Brigham Young left the Salt Lake Valley soon after arriving, to attend to business elsewhere and to continue gathering the Saints. Before be left, Brigham Young called John Smith to serve as the stake president of the Salt Lake Stake. After John Smith arrived and called counselors, he also organized a high council, which council served in both a spiritual and civic capacity and was the only government until January 1849. For the Saints there was no separation of church and state because they considered all their activities to be part of building the kingdom of God.

Under John Young’s leadership, the fort in Salt Lake was expanded by two ten-acre blocks and an adobe wall was built surrounding the fort. There were 450 log cabins built, as were many roads and bridges. Many crops were planted in the “big field,” an area of 5,133 acres. Captain James Brown of the Mormon Battalion arrived from California with $5,000 in pay and a group was assigned to return to southern California to buy cows, mules, wheat, and a variety of seeds with part of that money.

The first winter in the valley was mild, but conditions were still poor. Mice, wolves, and foxes pestered the Saints, and during March and April, the heavy spring snow and rain which surprised the Saints caused living conditions to deteriorate even more. Said M. Isabella Horne, “It was no uncommon thing to see a woman holding an umbrella over her while attending to her household duties. The Fort presented quite a ludicrous appearance when the weather cleared up. In whatever direction one looked, bedding and clothing of all descriptions were hanging out to dry.”

Food had become very scarce and provisions of all kinds were short. Adding to their sufferings, all the Saints’ crops were damaged by frosts followed by a drought in May and June. This was followed by swarms of crickets attacking and devouring what was left of the crops. Despite the Saints’ best efforts, they could not get the crickets to leave. After much prayer on the Saints’ part, seagulls miraculously flew in from the Great Salt Lake and began consuming the crickets until there were none left, saving what was left of the Saints’ meager crops. The Saints were able to salvage enough of the crops to last them through the next year.

Since the martyrdom of the Prophet Joseph, the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles had been governing the Church, but in October 1847, Brigham Young was prompted that it was time to reorganize the First Presidency. It was three years from the death of Joseph Smith until the First Presidnecy was reorganized, which the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles voted on unanimously in December 1847, when Brigham Young was called and sustained as the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, calling Heber C. Kimball and Willard Richards as his counselors.

Upon President Brigham Young’s return to the valley, he encouraged the further development of the valley through other Mormon settlements. He also had a philosophy that the land should not be monopolized, but should be used most productively for the good of all the Saints. Therefore, farm lands were distributed fairly to all the settlers. President Young forabde the private ownership of water and timber, or indeed any natural resources which were important and vital to the whole community. For the most part the Saints cooperated with this system, and eventually private business enterprises developed to help regulate the resources.

The first currency used was gold coins which were minted from the thousands of dollars worth of gold dust which members of the Mormon Battalion brought back from California. Later on paper currency was also made based on the Church’s gold supply.

On February 2, 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed, ending the Mexican War, and signing over to the United States all of the territory comprising the present states of California, Nevada, Utah, most of New Mexico and Arizona, and parts of Wyoming and Colorado. As soon as Church leaders realized their land had become territory of the United States, they began planning to apply for statehood. In early 1849 the first civic government was formed with Brigham Young as governor, Willard Richards as secretary of state, Heber C. Kimball as chief justice, Newel K. Whitney and John Taylor as associate justices, and Daniel H. Wells as attorney general. The Saints named their territory not Utah, but the State of Deseret. (“Deseret” is a term from the Book of Mormon which means “honeybee.” Brigham Young envisioned the Saints building a land which would be a “hive of activity.”)

The harshness of the winters following the Saints’ arrival in the Salt Lake Valley caused some of the Saints to talk about leaving. President Heber C. Kimball said to them, “Never mind, boys, in less than one year there will be plenty of clothes and everything that we shall want sold at less than St. Louis prices.” President Young, never one to show much sympathy for those who were complaining, said, “God has appointed this place for the gathering of His Saints, and you will do better right here than you will by going to the gold mines. . . . We have been kicked out of the frying-pan into the fire, out of the fire into the middle of the floor, and here we are and here we will stay. . . . As the Saints gather here and get strong enough to possess the land, God will temper the climate, and we shall build a city and a temple ot the Most High God in this place. We will extend our settlements to the east and west, to the north and to the south, and we will build towns and cities by the hundreds, and thousands of the Saints will gather in from the nations of the earth. . . . As for gold and silver, and the rich minerals of the earth, there is no other country that equals this; but let them alone; let others seek them, and we will cultivate the soil.”

Both these men’s words came true within a year. The next year the elements were tempered, there was a bounteous harvest, and fourteen hundred Saints immigrated to the valley. In addition, 10,000–15,000 people passed through Salt Lake City to seek gold in the West, and merchant companies which had prepared to haul goods to California to sell to the gold rushers found out other companies had sent goods by ship which had already arrived in California. Thus, they sold their goods to the Saints at devalued prices rather than lose everything in California. As more immigrants passed through, the Saints were provided work mending their wagons, working as teamsters, laundresses, and millers. The Saints also established ferries on several rivers for groups headed to California. They truly began to propser in the desert and make it blossom as a rose.

Exploration and colonization continued to branch out from the Salt Lake Valley in all directions. Colonies had sprung up in Utah Valley, the Oquirrh mnountain range, the Cedar and Tooele Valleys, what became Davis and Weber counties, Sanpete Valley, and Juab Valley. The cities of Brownsville (now Ogden), Provo, Lehi, Alpine, American Fork, Pleasant Grove, Springville, Spanish Fork, Salem, Santaquin, Payson, Manti, and St. George were formed, among others.

Growth was also still arriving from the East and abroad. In 1849, the Church established the Perpetual Emigrating Fund (PEF). The goal was to have enough contributions to start a fund to outfit the poor Saints who had gathered to Iowa and enable to them to travel West. This fund eventually extended to the Saints in Europe as well, enabling them to have the funds to gather to Zion. Upon arrival in the Salt Lake Valley, they could then work their debt off or pay it back in cash, thus making the fund perpetual and allowing it to benefit all the Saints.

Since the First Presidency had been reorganized, the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles were free to once again spread the gospel of Jesus Christ as His special witnesses. This they did, serving missions both on the American continent and abroad. Saints began to gather from all corners of the globe. As more people came, and with the help of the Lord through his prophets, seers, and revelators, Salt Lake began to flourish and the Saints were relieved from their persecutions and their sufferings.

This section will include special topics about Mormon history.

Joseph Smith Sr. Taken Advantage of in Ginseng Investment

Joseph Smith Sr. tried hard to provide for his family, but evil-hearted men often took advantage of such an honorable character. Early in his marriage to Lucy, Joseph Smith Sr. invested heavily in ginseng root, which grew wild in Vermont, to export to China, but his profits were stolen by Mr. Stevens from Royalton.

The Impoverishment of the Smith Family through a Bizarre Vermont Winter

The Smith Family was doing very well financially, when the town they lived in was struck by typhoid fever, and they had to spend all their savings on medical care for their children. Soon after, upon moving to Norwich, Vermont, three successive years of crop failure impoverished them even more. The third year they were in Vermont, 1816, saw a year with no summer, and caused a mass exodus from Vermont to other, more fertile areas.

History of Mormon Temples

The temples of the Mormon Church are one of its most unique and distinguishing characteristics. They stand as symbols of Mormons’ beliefs in the afterlife and in the purpose of life here on earth.  Since the beginnings of Mormon history, the prophets and members of the Mormon Church have sacrificed to build these sacred buildings and worship within them.  In comparison to most other Christian churches, Mormonism stands virtually alone in affirming the importance of its leaders having the proper authority, given of God, to administrate the Church. This authority, called the priesthood, gives leaders the ability to guide Christ’s Church and to build and operate temples for the salvation of the living and the dead.  In a revelation given to the Prophet Joseph Smith, the Lord Jesus Christ declared, “my people are always commanded to build [temples] unto my holy name” (Doctrine and Covenants 124:39).  (Read more)

Mormonism in Germany

Mormon missionaries and leaders have been preaching the message of the restored gospel in Germany since 1841, and over the years, tens of thousands of converts have joined the Mormon Church. In the early years, persecution drove the Mormon converts to move to America, where they could practice religious freedom, but today, nearly 40,000 Mormons live and work in Germany. (Read More)

History of Mormon Missionary Work

Since the Prophet Joseph Smith first shared his message about the First Vision, Mormons have been doing missionary work. This work is one of great faith and sacrifice and illustrates the power of Mormon beliefs and the commitment of those who follow them. Mormons have sacrificed much to spread the message that Jesus Christ’s gospel has been restored through living prophets. (Read More)

Personal Accounts from Early Saints

Many of the early converts to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints suffered and sacrificed much. Here, in their own words, are some of their stories of crossing the plains to enter the Salt Lake Valley, of their time spent at Winter Quarters, of helping to establish Zion in the West, and of the work of the Mormon Battalion.

Development of Salt Lake City

As the Saints began to arrive in the Salt Lake Valley, they had to begin their lives from square one. They explored their surrounding areas, began to build homes and buildings, created a currency, organized a government, and began providing ways for fellow Saints to gather to the Salt Lake Valley.

Development of the Church Welfare System

With the coming on of the Great Depression, Church leaders recognized an apathy and idleness developing in some of the struggling members. In order to make sure poorer members did not simply live off of the government, Church leaders instituted the Church Welfare System to “help people help themselves.” The system is still in place today.

Anita Stansfield

Anita Stansfield began writing at the age of sixteen, and her first novel was published sixteen years later. For more than fifteen years she has been the number-one best-selling author of women’s fiction in the LDS market. Her novels range from historical to contemporary and cover a wide gamut of social and emotional issues that explore the human experience through memorable characters and unpredictable plots. She has received many awards, including a special award for pioneering new ground in LDS fiction, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Whitney Academy for LDS Literature, and also a Lifetime Achievement Award from her publisher, Covenant Communications. She has fifty-six published books. Anita is the mother of five, and has three grandchildren.