August 4th

Aug 4, 1832 - William McLellin writes to relatives of his conversion to Mormonism. McLellin describes how two separate teams of Mormon elders visited him in his home at Paris, Illinois, in July 1831. The preaching of David Whitmer, . . . a member of the second team to visit Paris, so deeply impressed the gospel message on McLellin that he immediately left his settled life to follow Mormonism: "My curiosity was roused up and my anxiety also to know the truth. And though I had between 30 & 40 students and the people generally satisfied with me as Teacher—yet I closed my school on the 29th July and on the 30th I mounted Tom and left for Indepen[dence]." McLellin becomes one of the first Twelve Apostles but later apostatizes and becomes an opponent of Mormonism.

Aug 4, 1838 - Stake president John Smith writes that "the Danites met the third time in Adam on diahman [Adam-ondi-Ahman, Missouri] since the 22 July." His first counselor Lyman Wight is a Danite colonel.

Aug 4, 1844 - Sidney Rigdon tells Nauvoo's general meeting that he should be appointed guardian of the church "to build the Church up to Joseph as he has begun it,"

Aug 4, 1853 - Apostle Amasa M. Lyman begins acting as medium in spiritualistic seances in San Bernardino, California. After being dropped from Quorum of Twelve in 1867 and excommunicated in 1870, Lyman holds seances with such prominent Mormons or former Mormons as T. B. H. Stenhouse, E.L.T. Harrison, William S. Godbe, William H. Shearman, Henry W. Lawrence, Theodore Turley, Sarah B. Pratt, Andrew F. Cahoon, Arthur Stayner, John V. Long, Nathan Tanner, Sr., and Emma Brown Teasdale (wife of future apostle George Teasdale). Founding prophet's son David H. Smith also joins some of these seances while visiting Utah.

Aug 4, 1877 - Brigham Young obtains cancellation of his debts in Ogden, Utah, dating back to 1849.

August 4, 1882 - J.D.T. McAllister writes: "took Train with President Taylor and party for Logan. between Ogden and Willard my nose bled about half an hour Pres[ident]t [Wilford] Woodruff and [Apostle] J[ohn] H[enry] Smith administered to me. it stopped."

Aug 4, 1897 - Lorenzo Snow tells apostles: "Patriarch Joseph Smith, the father of the Prophet, had stated in his [1836] patriarchal blessing, that he should have power, when not able to visit the sick, to send his handkerchief to them, and that the afflicted by touching it should be made whole." Snow adds "on one occasion" a Mormon in Kaysville, Utah, "was healed immediately upon receipt of the handkerchief."
Apostle Heber J. Grant records: "[Apostle] George Teasdale felt that every man who had taken an oath to sustain the constitution of his country and subsequently voted in favor of the Edmunds Tucker law, was a covenant breaker. Plural marriage was one of the principles approved by Almighty God, and the Church of Christ cannon be fully established on the earth without this principle. Referred to many of our young girls who were marrying outsiders, and said that he believed that God would yet open the way so that our young women who were willing and anxious to become virtuous wives and honored mothers would have the privilege of doing so, and there would be no necessity of marrying non Mormons. . . . It is becoming a very serious question as to what is to be done with our young girls who do not wish to marry non-Mormons. Felt impressed in his very soul that God will open the way so that the bonds of the Gentiles may be removed, and our young people will be permitted to live all the principles of the gospel."

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