[Maureen]

After Joseph Smith III got a bit older, he felt inspired to start the Reorganized Church, mostly due to the efforts of Briggs and Gurley and some of their associates.

Not quite inspired to start. Here's a more precise explanation:

…As the years passed, many of those who had left Nauvoo with various groups began to gather together. They had tried to find leaders who followed the original doctrines but concluded that none existed. So they banded together in a loose affiliation they called the New Organization.

Jason Briggs and Zenos Gurley were two of the leaders in this organization. Briggs had been involved in other splinter groups but found disappointment in each. In 1851, he had a spiritual experience on his farmland prairie that gave him new hope for recovering the spirit, beliefs, purpose, and structure of the original church. He wrote his experience and began to share it with friends. Although some had some questions about his authority to receive a revelation for the entire group, they prayed and received testimony of its truthfulness.

Zenos Gurley had a similar experience. In 1851, he had a visionary experience in which he was told that God would raise up a prophet. Eventually he received a copy of Briggs’ revelation, and the two groups joined together in 1852 to wait for a descendant of Joseph Smith to become their prophet.

Joseph Smith III was only eleven years old when his father was murdered. After that experience, he had nothing to do with any of the splinter groups that left Nauvoo, nor did he have any interest initially in joining with the New Organization. When Briggs and Samuel Gurley came to visit him in 1856 to invite him to become church president, he was not flattered. His initial reaction was to reject their invitation strongly. After further reflection, he told them that before he could accept their invitation, he would have to have a testimony of his own.

During the next four years, he struggled with this decision, finally receiving his testimony of the rightness of the call in the fall of 1859. He and his mother attended the 1860 conference in Amboy, Illinois, where he shared a statement about his struggle. Then he was presented to the people and unanimously accepted as their prophet, seer, and revelator.

Our History - Years of Confusion and Disorganization

M.