On January 19, 1841 Joseph Smith voiced a revelation that declared Nauvoo as the new gathering place for the Saints. Much had happened since we left Joseph in section 123. After the expulsion from Missouri, 5,000 Saints scattered traveling east across Missouri to safety in Illinois, 200 miles east of Far West, Missouri 1838, with a population of 1,800. They took in 5,000 Mormon refugees. The citizens of Quincy did much to welcome the Saints officially resolving to “extend kindness” to the Saints, to speak out against those with prejudices against the Saints, help them find employment and housing, and their last resolution: “Resolved, That we recommend to all the citizens of Quincy, that in all their intercourse with the strangers, they use and observe a becoming decorum and delicacy, and be particularly careful not to indulge in any conversation or expressions calculated to wound their feelings, or in any way to reflect upon those, who by every law of humanity, are entitled to our sympathy and commiseration.”

This generous example stands through time. 

Quincy was an important respite for the Saints, but they soon began to move about 50 miles to the north to another bend in the Mississippi to a place originally called Commerce. There they cleared trees, drained swampy land, built houses, planted crops and began to build a city. What we now know as section 124 became a sacred charter for that city Joseph Smith called Nauvoo. This revelation centered the Saints, enabled them to think of Nauvoo as a new home, and sharpened their focus as they worked to build up the city. 

As the Joseph Smith Papers tell us: [this was] One of the few revelations from the Illinois period to be later canonized by the church, the 19 January revelation served as divine direction for the Saints for the duration of their time in Nauvoo. Mayor John C. Bennett read it at the general conference of the church in Nauvoo on 7 April 1841. The text was published in the 1 June issue of the church’s Nauvoo newspaper, Times and Seasons, as well as in the September 1841 issue of the Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star, printed in Manchester, England. The Saints in Illinois referred to the revelation frequently in print and in public settings.

The post Abide #17: Doctrine and Covenants 124 appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

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Everything changed for Joseph Smith and the Latter-day Saints in a few short months in 1838. 5000 Saints gathered in the burgeoning city of Far West, Missouri to celebrate the 4th of July. Confident and secure in their main settlement, Sidney Rigdon declared that if a mob came again, it would be a “war of extermination.” His words proved prophetic–the Missourians would remember that language. Governor Lilburn Boggs signed Executive Order number 44 the 27th of October declaring that “the Mormons must be treated as enemies and must be exterminated or driven from the state.” After the Hawn’s Mill Massacre and the siege at Far West, 66 Latter-day Saint men were arrested. Joseph Smith, Hyrum Smith, and Sidney Rigdon, as well as Caleb Baldwin, Lyman Wight and Alexander McRae were eventually jailed in the Clay County Jail at Liberty, Missouri for “crimes of high treason”–an offense that did not provide the possibility of bail. BH Roberts would later call the jail a “prison temple,” yet it was a squalid, dirty, and dark place. They spent four months there as the Saints were scattered across Missouri hoping to find safety in the city of Quincy, Illinois.

Joseph wrote his first general missive to the saints in the middle of December. After a long winter in the jail with “screeking iron gates,” Joseph wrote again to the Saints as the spring began to thaw, not knowing they would soon escape. The Doctrine and Covenants sections we know today as sections 121, 122, and 123 are all portions of a larger letter written to the Saints on March 22nd. Not being able to stand up straight in the jail, in the letter Joseph also described how, “Our souls have been bowed down and we have suffered much distress … and truly we have had to wade through an ocean of trouble.” 

Joseph directed the letter “to the church of Latterday saints at Quincy Illinois and scattered abroad and to Bishop Edward Partridge in particular,” however he sent the missive to his wife Emma because he wanted her “to have the first reading of it.”

The 17-page letter was quickly circulated amongst the Saints. As members would often do with revelations, some created their own handwritten copies. Mary Fielding Smith described the letter as “food to the hungry.” 

The post Abide #16: Doctrine and Covenants 121-123 appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

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Sections 116-120 reveal a Church and prophet trying desperately to make the best of a bad situation. By the date of the last revelation a third of the Quorum of the Twelve would apostatize. The Lord directed that the Church move its headquarters from Ohio to Missouri. The Latter-day Saints changed their main county of residence. 

In the midst of this, God gave them answers, but not ones that did not immediately seem to pay off in the short term. However, the Lord’s revelations pointed to things working out in the long run. Identifying the place where Jesus would return before the Second Coming. Sending out missionaries to bring in new members. The importance of councils and counseling with them to allow for a wide variety of perspectives and voices to make a decision. Or, thinking even bigger picture, sometimes we just have to remember that the Lord’s timeline is a LOT longer than ours. 

The post Abide #15: Doctrine and Covenants 116-120 appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

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