July 31st

July 31, 1832 - Joseph Smith writes: "and now I conjure and exhort mine accusers and the hypocrite in Zion in the love of Christ yea in the name of Jesus of Nazareth"

July 31, 1847 - Orson Pratt and Henry G. Sherwood began the first survey in Salt Lake City. It is completed three weeks later.

July 31, 1857 - Brigham Young marries Sarah Delight Stocking, who had turned nineteen three days earlier, to fifty-year old Wilford Woodruff. This is Woodruff's third wife named "Sarah." In addition to his marriage to Sarah Delight, Woodruff records a dream of Heber C. Kimball's "I Called upon Brother Kimball early this morning & had some Conversation with him. He told me a dream. He said He thought He had some Hogs caught with ropes & he was driving them up a mountain. He had one vary fat hog. He said we had better kill him. He would never be as good again to kill as now. He told some one to take Care of him for a while till he could attend to some others, and they let him get away from them & the hog ran up the mountain with all his might. When Brother Kimball saw him he took after him & told the brethren to help ketch him & kill him but they Could not ketch him so he got away. He gave me what He thought to be [an] interpetation of the dream. The Hogs were our Enemies & one of them run away."

July 31, 1861 - Major James H. Carleton writes to Army Headquarters: "Nearly all Mormons are foreigners. Among these are Welsh, English, Norwegians, Swedes, some Germans, and a few French. They are evidently of the lowest and most ignorant grade of the people in the several countries from whence they have come. Mixed in with these are a few low, unprincipled Americans. The most intelligent and crafty of these, commencing with Brigham Young, are the directors and rulers of the whole mess. . . their government is solely a hierarchy, and notwithstanding, in theory, they are assumed to be a population obedient to the laws of our common country, practically they score and deride, and set at defiance all laws that interfere with their safety or interest, save those promulgated by the great council of the church."
Brigham Young's office journal records: " Br[other] W[illia]m Clayton read the Pony dispatch to the members of the Club. The first Presidency were present. This dispatch noticed considerable loss of life [in the Civil War], and confusion[.] [T]he Company took comfort in the reflection that their old enemies were getting fewer in number."

July 31, 1864 - Brigham Young preaches: "The gifts of the Gospel are given to strengthen the faith of the believer;--'They shall speak with new tongues,' saith Jesus. The stranger who is ignorant of our history inquires:--'Have you the gift of tongues in your Church?' Yes, and were I to permit it now, hundreds of the Elders and the sisters would rise up in this congregation and speak in new tongues, and interpret as well as the learned of the age; but I do not permit it."

July 31, 1886 - Philo Dibble tells meeting of high priests that "Joseph Smith had been to Prest John Taylor and conversed with him in his body about the crusade against us, and that he felt grieved at the course his son Joseph [III] was taking." Joseph Smith III preaches in Utah (June 17 - Dec. 21, 1885). This vision occurs during one of the nights Taylor stays at John Carlisle house: July 14, Sept. 28 - Oct. 1, 1885, or Jan. 10-19, 1886.

July 31, 1896 - Apostle Franklin D. Richards writes in his Journal: "Sisters Z[ina] D[iana] H[untington] Young, Jane S. Richards, Bathsheba W. Smith & M[artha] I Horne & Emily T. Richards being together--The 3 Presidents & I & later John H. Smith we listened to the views of the Presidency to the sisters as to the course they should pursue in their political relations & labors as suffragists & as Democrats, very clear pointed & energetic instructions as to political principles and to practice."

July 31, 1954 - CHURCH NEWS publishes Counselor J. Reuben Clark's talk to all LDS seminary and institute teachers in which he declares that "even the President of the Church has not always spoken under the direction of the Holy Ghost."

July 31, 1971 - CHURCH NEWS reports that registered nurse Marilyn Lyons and Dr. Blair L. Bybee, church's first medical missionaries, are departing for assignments in Tonga and Samoa by direction of Welfare Services Missionary Program. First Presidency letter of Jan 22, 1973 solicits missionaries from U.S., Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and Latin America. Redefined as "welfare missionaries," 768 Mormons without medical degrees are giving humanitarian aid and instruction throughout world by 1980. Decade later more than 350 "health missionaries" with medical or health degrees are also serving in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Caribbean, Pacific islands, and Eastern Europe.

July 31, 1986 - Gary Sheets and relatives install a memorial bench on the birthday of his wife Kathy (who was killed by one of Mark Hofmann's bombs), on the grassy corner of the nearby wardhouse lawn overlooked the woods and stream beside their driveway. Sheets Had previously asked the bishop for permission to install the memorial bench and was told, "No, I can't give you permission. Sheets "decoded" the message, to mean "It's easier to repent than get permission" to which the bishop smiled.

July 31, 1992 - Counselor Gordon B. Hinckley is speaker with RLDS president Wallace B. Smith at RLDS Auditorium in Independence, Missouri, where Mormon Tabernacle Choir also performs concert "to the sell-out audience of 5200."

July 31, 1993 - SALT LAKE TRIBUNE reports that LDS missionary-couples in Nauvoo, Illinois have worked "for 88 consecutive hours without sleep" to help protect historical properties of RLDS church in Nauvoo from rampaging Mississippi River.

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