TODAY IN CHURCH HISTORY: 11 October

[Hemidakota]

1831 - A conference of Elders was held at the Johnson home in Hiram, Ohio, where the Prophet Joseph taught "the ancient manner of conducting meetings, of which knowledge most of them were ignorant. A committee of six was appointed to instruct the several branches of the Church" (History of the Church, 1:219).

1835 - Joseph Smith, Sr, father of the Prophet, had been sick for several days and was near death.

During morning prayer, Joseph heard the voice of the Lord telling him his father would live. During the evening, David Whitmer and Joseph laid their hands on him and blessed him to recover. Father Smith arose, dressed himself, and praised the Lord, healed of his illness. Joseph rejoices in having his father to advise him, "esteeming it one of the greatest earthly blessings to be blessed with the society of parents, whose mature years and experience render them capable of administering the most wholesome advice" (History of the Church, 2:289).

1838 - After several days of mob violence and siege, the Saints living in DeWitt, Missouri, surrendered and gathered a few of their remaining items and left in seventy wagons for Far West, Missouri. Many homes had been burned, oxen and cows were killed, and their rights denied by the government that was suppose to protect them. This was a foreshadow of what was to come during this difficult time for the Saints in Missouri.

1936 - Lowell L. Bennion, an instructor at the Institute of Religion at the University of Utah, establishes the first chapter of Lambda Delta Sigma, a fraternity/sorority group for young Latter-day Saints.

1986 - In the first ever Church wide Young Women activity held throughout the world, an estimated three hundred thousand young women at thousands of sites around the world release helium-filled balloons containing personal messages.