June 11th

June 11, 1829 - Joseph Smith obtains copyright for the Book of Mormon. Even before the translation of the Book of Mormon is finished he deposits the title page R. R. Lansing, clerk of the Northern District Court of New York.

June 11, 1837 - Wilford Woodruff writes: "I returned with several Elders to Elder Stodards to spend the night & there was a woman present who was possessed with the devil. She was oft times dumb & greatly afflicted by the evil spirits that dwelt in her. She believed in Jesus Christ of Nazareth and us as his servent & called upon us to cast the devil out of her. According to her request four of us lade hands upon her & commanded the devil in the name of JESUS CHRIST to depart out of her & it was immediately done & the woman arose with great joy & gave thanks & prase unto God for according to her faith she was made whole from that hour."

June 11, 1839 - James Mulholland records that Joseph Smith "commenced to dictate and I to write history" based on the 1838 history by clerk George Robinson. The new manuscript contains Joseph Smith's well-known account of his first vision "early in the spring of eighteen hundred and twenty."

June 11, 1842 - Joseph Smith publishes the "Mormon Creed" in THE WASP: "Mormon Creed -- To mind their own business and let everyone else DO LIKEWISE."

June 11, 1843 - Joseph Smith preaches in the unfinished Nauvoo Temple, "Jesus did every thing possible to gather the people and they would not be gathered and he poured out curses upon them. Ordinances were instituted in heaven before the foundation of the world in the priesthood for the salvation of men, not [to] be altered, not to be changed."
William Clayton writes: ". . . Margaret received a letter from Aaron [Farr] which made her feel bad. It also gave me unaccountable sorrow." Clayton's plural wife, Margaret Moon had been engaged to Aaron Farr, who was absent on a mission.

June 11, 1844 - Probable date that Joseph Smith III is ordained as his father's theocratic successor. Warned the same day of a conspiracy to murder them, William Law and associates flee Nauvoo with their families.
Joseph Smith, on the day after the NAUVOO EXPOSITOR is destroyed, "Instructed Bro [W. W.] Phelps to write a proclamation to the citezens [sic] of Nauvoo to keep quiet &c."

June 11, 1864 - Brigham Young preaches that part of the endowment ceremony can be given to Aaronic priesthood boys to "receive the ordinances pertaining to the Aaronic order of Priesthood." Holders of Melchizedek priesthood would then receive that part of the endowment separately. LDS leaders periodically discuss this change, but continue to require young men (some as young as ten) to be ordained to the Melchizedek priesthood.

June 11, 1876 - At St. George, Utah, Brigham Young preaches, "as to the Mountain Meadows Massacre if he had not been foiled by Judge [John] Cradlebaugh and other federal officials He would have hung every guilty person concerned in the bloody deed." Men in congregation are involved, and by arrangement several testify against John D. Lee.

June 11, 1878 - At the "old folks excursion" various prizes are given. "Wilford Woodruff took the prize as having Baptized & brought the most people into the Church numbering over 2,000."

June 11, 1881 - Heber J. Grant writes that Lysander Gee (b. 1818) "told me that he had known Oliver Cowdery personally & that to his knowledge Cowdrey [sic] had committed adultry [sic] before he lost his faith."

June 11, 1903 - In the weekly meeting of the First Presidency and Apostles, "Elder [Abraham O.] Woodruff said that he believed we could now clearly see that a mistake had been made in the division [of the Southern States Mission, the Middle States Mission] not only from a financial point of view but from a consideration of the health of the elders."

June 11, 1906 - A majority 7 to 5 of the Barlow committee makes a report to the U.S. Senate recommending that Apostle Reed Smoot was not entitled to his seat in the Senate. They found that he was one of a "self-perpetuating body of fifteen men, uniting in themselves authority in both Church and state," who "so exercise this authority as to encourage a belief in polygamy as a divine institution, and by both precept and example encourage among their followers the practice of polygamy and polygamous cohabitation;" that the Church authorities had "endeavored to suppress, and succeed in suppressing, a great deal of testimony by which the fact of plural marriages contracted by those who were high in the councils of the Church might have been established beyond the shadow of a doubt;" and that "aside from this it was shown by the testimony that a majority of those who give law to the Mormon Church are now, and have been for years, living in open, notorious and shameless polygamous cohabitation." Concerning President Woodruff's anti-polygamy manifesto of 1890, the majority of the committee reported that "this manifesto in no way declares the principle of polygamy to be wrong or abrogates it as a doctrine of the Mormon Church, but simply suspends the practice of polygamy to be resumed at some more convenient season, either with or without another revelation." They found that Apostle Smoot was responsible for the conduct of the organization to which he belonged; that he had countenanced and encouraged polygamy "by repeated acts and in a number of instances, as a member of the quorum of the twelve apostles;" and that he was "no more entitled to a seat in the Senate than he would be if he were associating in polygamous cohabitation with a plurality of wives." The full senate seats Smoot in spite of the committee's report.

June 11, 1961 - President David O. McKay begins ordaining members of First Council of Seventy to office of high priest so that they can ordain high priests, bishops, and organize wards and stakes. This is done in spite of the Prophet Joseph Smith's pronouncement that it is "contrary to the order of heaven" for members of the Council of Seventy to be high priests.

June 11, 1973 - The First Presidency issued a letter approving the organization of three wards exclusively for non-student singles not living at home. This experiment was initially intended to involve only Salt Lake Valley residents. However, by 1976 permission to establish a singles ward was extended worldwide. To be considered the ward must have a membership potential of more than 200 singles between the ages of 18 and 35. In 1982 this requirement was modified to read: "if the population could assure the function of the ward would be carried out property."

June 11, 1978 - Two days after the announcement that Blacks are no longer denied the priesthood based on race the SALT LAKE TRIBUNE editorial reads: "Granted, the church leadership was supposed to be merely speaking the revealed word of God and thus there should have been no quibbling before Friday's announcement. But as sure as God gave good, intelligent people a head and a heart, we all know many modern Mormons have privately found the exclusion of blacks from the Priesthood an uncommonly heavy cross. . . . But the LDS, young and old, their non-Mormon neighbors, and black Americans are now free-free at last of the cold-blooded curse of ancient attitudes."

June 11, 1991 - BYU students discover bomb disguised as book in Harold B. Lee Library. It is similar to bomb which damages LDS chapel in Provo, Utah, earlier in year.

June 11, 1996 - Groundbreaking for temple in Madrid, Spain.

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