108 Fun Facts About LDS Prophets

Joseph Smith said his First Vision came in a grove near which New York village?

Palmyra drew the Smiths around 1816; they were still clearing their forested farm just south of the village in 1820, and its surviving woods are now called the Sacred Grove.

In which state was church founder Joseph Smith born?

Vermont was his birthplace in 1805; hunger after the frost-ruined 'year without a summer' of 1816 drove the family to western New York.

Joseph Smith was jailed in 1844 after ordering the destruction of what?

A printing press, a dissident newspaper's, was wrecked on his order as mayor after its only issue attacked him; he gave himself up over the press and was then charged with treason.

Which political office was Joseph Smith campaigning for at the time of his death?

President of the United States was his goal in 1844: he proposed freeing the slaves with money from federal land sales, shrinking Congress and overhauling the prisons.

After Joseph Smith's death, which former counselor in the First Presidency offered himself as the church's 'guardian'?

Sidney Rigdon hurried back from Pittsburgh to press his claim, but that August the Saints voted to follow Brigham Young and the Quorum of the Twelve instead.

Which phrase, credited to Brigham Young on first seeing the Salt Lake Valley, now names a Utah state park?

This Is the Place Heritage Park sits at the mouth of Emigration Canyon, where Young first saw the valley. The line was first credited to him 33 years later, when Wilford Woodruff recalled it as "This is the right place, drive on."

Utah marks Brigham Young's entry into the Salt Lake Valley on July 24 as what holiday?

Pioneer Day marks July 24, 1847, when Young, sick with mountain fever, reached the valley; his advance company had arrived two days earlier and was already irrigating land for crops.

About how many women were sealed to Brigham Young as wives?

55 women were sealed to him by one historian's count and 56 by another, and not all were marriages in the usual sense: only 16 of the women bore his 57 children.

Besides leading the church, which public office did Brigham Young hold from 1851 to 1858?

President Millard Fillmore named him Governor of the Utah Territory in 1850; he gave way to Alfred Cumming in 1858 as the Utah War ended, accepting President Buchanan's pardon.

Before becoming a full-time church leader in 1835, Brigham Young earned his living in which trades?

Painter and carpenter were trades he learned as an apprentice in Auburn, New York, after his mother died when he was 14; a house he helped build there later became the home of William Seward, Lincoln's secretary of state.

Which future church president was severely wounded in the Carthage Jail attack that killed Joseph Smith?

John Taylor was shot several times and survived; Willard Richards, also in the room, escaped almost unharmed, and Taylor became the third president in 1880.

The third church president, the first born outside the United States, was born in which country?

England was home until he was 23: a Methodist lay preacher there at 17, he felt a sudden conviction that he must go to America to preach.

Which hymn was sung twice in Carthage Jail shortly before the Smiths were killed?

A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief, set to words by James Montgomery, was sung twice by a fellow prisoner that afternoon; the mob stormed the jail minutes later.

Wilford Woodruff's 1890 Manifesto officially ended the church's support of which practice?

Plural marriage was given up three years after the Edmunds-Tucker Act dissolved the church as a legal body and let the federal government seize its property, with many leading polygamists already in prison.

Which pastime did Wilford Woodruff discover in Britain in 1845 and praise in his diary?

Fly fishing was shown to him on the River Ribble by a 70-year-old local angler; his diary called it the greatest art in fishing, and at 85 he was still catching trout in Utah's mountains.

The Genealogical Society of Utah, founded under Wilford Woodruff in 1894, is known today by what name?

FamilySearch grew from the society founded months after Woodruff told members to stop being sealed to church leaders and to trace their own ancestors instead, which sent them hunting for family records.

Which president is credited with the couplet "As man now is, God once was: As God now is, man may be"?

Lorenzo Snow said the couplet came to him by revelation in 1840 and that for years he confided it to almost no one but his sister Eliza; his teachings were the church's course of study in 2013.

Which principle became a hallmark of LDS membership under the fifth church president (1898-1901)?

Tithing was reemphasized after the president's 1899 visit to drought-stricken St. George; he preached it for the rest of his tenure as one-tenth of income, easing the church's debts.

The sixth church president (1901-1918) was the son of which of Joseph Smith's brothers?

Hyrum Smith, the founder's elder brother, fathered the sixth president; the boy's mother, Mary Fielding, was a British convert, and he was orphaned at 13, the last president to have personally known Joseph Smith.

Which president's vision of the dead became Doctrine and Covenants 138?

Joseph F. Smith received it in October 1918, weeks before he died; it was 58 years before it entered the scriptures, first in the Pearl of Great Price in 1976 and then in the Doctrine and Covenants.

The sixth president was born in Far West, a church settlement in which state?

He was born in November 1838, weeks after Missouri's governor issued the extermination order against the Latter-day Saints.

Which initiative, launched in 1936, is counted among Heber J. Grant's greatest legacies as president?

The church welfare program, launched in 1936 during the Depression, was meant, in Grant's words, to do away with idleness and the dole and restore industry, thrift and self-respect.

In 1901, Heber J. Grant was sent to open the church's mission in which country?

Japan yielded so little that when Grant was called home in 1903 the church president told him he had not accomplished anything there, then sent him on to lead the British mission instead.

Under Heber J. Grant, keeping which practice became a temple recommend requirement in 1921?

The Word of Wisdom dates from 1833, yet for two generations leaders tolerated members who drank coffee and tea or chewed tobacco; in 1921 Grant made abstaining a condition of entering the temple.

George Albert Smith arranged church relief shipments to Europe with which US president?

Harry S. Truman asked in 1945 how long the supplies would take to gather and was told they were ready, already stockpiled by church members, quilts included. Smith died in 1951 on his 81st birthday.

George Albert Smith helped bring the church into which youth organization?

The Boy Scouts of America took in the church's own scouting program in 1913, a tie that lasted until 2019; Smith later received the BSA's Silver Buffalo, one of its highest awards.

The ninth president, who served from 1951 to 1970, issued which famous slogan in 1959?

Every member a missionary was his April 1959 charge to the whole church, a phrase he had first used in the 1920s while presiding over its European missions.

Which president is credited with the saying "No other success can compensate for failure in the home"?

David O. McKay was quoting J. E. McCulloch's 1924 book Home: The Savior of Civilization when he gave the line in general conference in 1935; it became a touchstone of church teaching on family life.

Which relative was church president when Joseph Fielding Smith joined the Twelve in 1910?

His father, Joseph F. Smith, was church president from 1901 to 1918 and called him to the Twelve in 1910; he later spent decades as Church Historian.

As an apostle, Harold B. Lee chaired which 1960s overhaul of the church's programs and lesson manuals?

Correlation in Lee's hands grew from a charge to his committee to align the lessons each organization wrote for itself; it became a review of every program, cutting duplication and placing all of them under priesthood leaders.

Which restriction did the 12th president's 1978 revelation end?

The priesthood ban on Black men, which also kept Black members out of temple rites, ended in June 1978; a temple rising in Brazil, where many faithful members had mixed ancestry, had pressed the question.

Which president spoke in a hoarse whisper after 1957 surgery removed one and a half vocal cords?

Spencer W. Kimball lost the cords to throat cancer while an apostle; back at the pulpit with his new rasp, he broke the tension by saying he had gone east and fallen among cutthroats.

Which 1969 book was written by the apostle who later became the 12th church president?

The Miracle of Forgiveness grew out of its author's years of counseling members as an apostle; its treatment of sin and repentance was stern enough that he reportedly said later its tone may have been too strong.

Which cabinet post did Ezra Taft Benson hold for all eight years of the Eisenhower administration?

Secretary of Agriculture was a job Benson said nobody in his right mind would seek; Eisenhower, who had never met him, offered it anyway in 1952, and he held it for all eight years while still an apostle.

As president, Ezra Taft Benson challenged members to "flood the earth" with what?

The Book of Mormon was the subject of Benson's 1988 call to flood the earth with it; he made the book the theme of his presidency, urging members to read it daily.

Which organization tried to draft Ezra Taft Benson for president in 1968?

The John Birch Society's supporters formed the 1976 Committee to push a Benson ticket for 1968, with Strom Thurmond as running mate, though the effort never reached a ballot.

Which president died in March 1995 after less than a year in office?

Howard W. Hunter led the church for only nine months. The year before he took office, he stood his ground at a BYU pulpit while a man claiming to hold a bomb threatened him, then went on with his talk.

The 14th president's dance band, the Croonaders, played a two-month 1927 cruise to which region?

Asia it was: at 19 he took his five-piece band across the Pacific to play for the ship's dinners and dances. Four days before his wedding he packed his instruments away, judging a bandsman's life no fit for a family.

As an apostle, the future 14th president negotiated the land for and dedicated which BYU facility in 1989?

The BYU Jerusalem Center drew protests from ultra-Orthodox Jews who feared it would be a base for missionaries; it went ahead after church leaders signed a promise not to proselytize, and was dedicated in May 1989.

Gordon B. Hinckley oversaw the reconstruction of the church's historic temple in which Illinois city?

The rebuilt Nauvoo Illinois Temple was dedicated in June 2002; the original was abandoned after the 1846 exodus and later destroyed, and more than half the temples standing at Hinckley's death were built under him.

Which document did Gordon B. Hinckley release on September 23, 1995?

The Family: A Proclamation to the World was read by Hinckley to a worldwide women's meeting as a warning against what he called sophistry passed off as truth; it has never been added to the scriptures.

Which US president awarded Gordon B. Hinckley the Presidential Medal of Freedom?

George W. Bush presented the medal at the White House on June 23, 2004, and told the room that Hinckley, who still worked every day as church president, was turning 94 that very day.

The Conference Center built under Gordon B. Hinckley seats roughly how many people?

The Conference Center seats 21,000 and took over general conference from the Salt Lake Tabernacle in April 2000; its pulpit was made from a black walnut tree Hinckley had planted in his own yard 36 years earlier.

Thomas S. Monson was only 22 when he was called to which church office?

Bishop at 22, Monson led a Salt Lake City ward of more than 1,000 members, over 80 of them widows; he kept visiting them for the rest of their lives and spoke at their funerals.

Thomas S. Monson began his career selling advertising at which Utah paper?

Deseret News hired Monson in 1948 to sell classified ads after he turned down offers from large out-of-state companies; he rose to general manager of its printing arm, the Deseret News Press.

From 1968, Thomas S. Monson spent two decades visiting isolated church members behind the Iron Curtain in which country?

East Germany would not let members travel to the temple in Switzerland, until officials asked, "Why don't you build a temple here?" It opened at Freiberg in 1985, the first in a communist state.

Before his church service, Russell M. Nelson was internationally known in which profession?

Heart surgeon Nelson was on the University of Minnesota team that pioneered open-heart surgery with a heart-lung machine in 1951, and in 1972 he operated on a future church president.

Which home-study curriculum came with Russell M. Nelson's shorter Sunday schedule in 2019?

Come, Follow Me gave families scripture study to do at home, which is why Sunday meetings shrank from three hours to two in January 2019: Nelson called for a home-centered church, supported by what happens in its buildings.

Russell M. Nelson was the first prophet to reach which milestone?

His 100th birthday came on September 9, 2024, and the church marked it with a worldwide broadcast; already its oldest president ever since 2022, he died a year later at 101.

By April 2025, how many new temples had Russell M. Nelson announced during his presidency?

200 was reached with the 15 temples he named in April 2025, more than half of the 382 the church had then built or planned; nineteen came in his first year, among them the first for India, Nicaragua, Russia and Cambodia.

In 2018, Russell M. Nelson retired home teaching and visiting teaching in favor of an approach known as what?

Ministering, which Nelson called a newer, holier approach to caring for others, also changed who serves: for the first time young women of 14 to 18 could be assigned as ministering sisters.

Before his call as an apostle, Dallin H. Oaks was president of which institution from 1971 to 1980?

Oaks led Brigham Young University from 1971 to 1980, succeeding Ernest L. Wilkinson, and left to become a justice of the Utah Supreme Court.

After law school, Dallin H. Oaks clerked for which Chief Justice of the United States?

Earl Warren took Oaks on as a clerk straight out of the University of Chicago in 1957; within 25 years the former clerk had himself twice been on a president's list for a seat on the Court.

Ronald Reagan considered Dallin H. Oaks for the Supreme Court in 1981 but nominated whom instead?

Sandra Day O'Connor became the first woman on the Court; Oaks, who had also been on Gerald Ford's list in 1975, stayed on Utah's Supreme Court until he was called as an apostle three years later.

On becoming president in October 2025, whom did Dallin H. Oaks name as his First Counselor?

Henry B. Eyring had been First Counselor to Monson, then moved to Second Counselor in 2018 when Nelson named Oaks first; Oaks returned him to the first chair, with D. Todd Christofferson as Second Counselor.

By longstanding convention, who becomes the next church leader when the sitting president dies?

The senior apostle, as President of the Quorum of the Twelve, presides once the First Presidency dissolves and its counselors rejoin the Twelve, and has become president at every succession.

How is seniority among the Twelve Apostles determined?

By time since joining the Quorum, a rule the Twelve settled in 1900: Brigham Young's son had been ordained an apostle years before he was given a seat, and from then on rank ran from the seat, not the ordination.

At which special general conference session do members formally sustain a new church president?

A solemn assembly, held at the first general conference after a new president is set apart, has members stand in groups, quorum by quorum, to sustain him by raised hand.

Latter-day Saints sustain the church president as a "prophet, seer, and" what?

Revelator completes the title 'prophet, seer, and revelator'; the Doctrine and Covenants applied it first to Joseph Smith, and the Twelve Apostles are sustained with the same title.

Which Utah emblem gave its name to the Salt Lake City house Brigham Young built in 1854?

A beehive sits atop the Beehive House, which doubled as the territorial governor's mansion; Deseret, the settlers' name for their would-be state, means honeybee, and the hive is still on Utah's flag.

In which Canadian city did John Taylor meet Parley P. Pratt and first encounter the church in 1836?

Toronto was where Taylor, who had preached for the Methodists, followed Pratt from place to place for three weeks, writing down his sermons and checking them against scripture, before he and his wife Leonora were baptized in May 1836.

Lorenzo Snow received his final year of schooling at which Ohio college?

Oberlin, a new Presbyterian-founded college, soured him on organized religion: "If there is nothing better than is to be found here in Oberlin College, good bye to all religions," he wrote. Months later he was baptized.

At just 15, Joseph F. Smith was sent on his first mission to which Pacific islands?

Hawaii, then the Sandwich Islands, took him in 1854, after he left school over a clash with a teacher who tried to whip his sister; within a hundred days he was speaking Hawaiian.

What permanently impaired George Albert Smith's eyesight as a young man?

Sun glare while surveying for a railroad in the desert damaged his eyes for good; decades later he led Utah's Society for the Sightless for 16 years and oversaw a new home for the blind.

Which motto on a Scottish building inspired missionary David O. McKay?

What E'er Thou Art, Act Well Thy Part was chiseled over the door of an unfinished house McKay passed as a homesick missionary in Stirling; the church later acquired the stone for its history museum.

Harold B. Lee and Ezra Taft Benson attended the same church academy in which state?

Idaho: Lee was born in Clifton and Benson in Whitney, and both studied at the Oneida Stake Academy in Preston. At eight, Lee spilled lye over himself; his mother saved him by dousing him in pickled-beet vinegar.

Spencer W. Kimball grew up from age three in Thatcher, a small town in which state?

Arizona became home when Andrew Kimball was sent to Thatcher to lead the stake there; his Salt Lake City-born son grew up milking cows, weeding gardens and painting buildings.

In which city was Howard W. Hunter born in 1907?

Hunter was born in Boise on November 14, 1907; the boy's father, not yet a church member, made him wait until he was 12 to be baptized, by which time his friends had already been ordained deacons.

Joseph Smith said which angel guarded the golden plates buried near his home in western New York?

Moroni, in church teaching, was the ancient warrior-prophet who wrote the last words on the plates and buried them himself, centuries before he returned as an angel.

Joseph Smith married which woman in 1827, who was later directed to compile a hymnbook for the new church?

Emma Hale was later elected the first president of the Relief Society, and after her husband's death she stayed in Illinois rather than follow the pioneers west.

Brigham Young earned which nickname for leading the pioneers across the plains to the Salt Lake Valley?

American Moses fitted because, like the biblical figure, he led his followers on an exodus through a desert to what they saw as a promised land.

Brigham Young proposed in 1855 that poorer emigrants cross the plains on foot pulling what instead of using wagons?

Handcarts were expected to cut the cost of the journey by a third, but two companies that set out late in 1856 were caught by heavy snow in Wyoming.

Ezra Taft Benson is remembered for a general conference sermon, drawing on C. S. Lewis, that condemned which sin?

Pride was his target, and the sermon relied heavily on Mere Christianity, written by the author of the Narnia books.

Apostle Dieter F. Uchtdorf, a German church leader, joined Lufthansa in 1965 to work in which profession?

Airline pilot was his second flying career: he had already spent six years as a West German fighter pilot, and he made captain at Lufthansa by the age of 29.

Ulisses Soares, who in 2018 became the church's first apostle from South America, was born in which country?

Brazil is his home: he grew up in São Paulo, where the first congregation his family attended met in a rented space above a bakery.

Wilford Woodruff dedicated which landmark in 1893, exactly forty years after its cornerstone was laid?

Salt Lake Temple took four decades to build, and Woodruff had set its capstone a year earlier by operating an electric switch.

Joseph Smith's followers dedicated their first temple in March 1836 in which Ohio town?

Kirtland's temple was owned by another denomination, Community of Christ, for over a century before it passed to the Utah-based church in March 2024.

As a boy, Heber J. Grant practiced throwing for hours against his barn to make a team in which sport?

Baseball seemed beyond him, since others thought him too physically awkward, yet the team he finally joined won the Utah territorial championship.

Thomas S. Monson made a habit of visiting all 85 of which group in his 1,000-member Salt Lake City ward?

Widows stayed on his visiting list long after his local assignment ended: he brought them gifts each Christmas and eventually spoke at every one of their funerals.

Russell M. Nelson served a two-year term in the U.S. Army Medical Corps during which conflict?

Korean War service sent him to all five MASH units then active, with a research team working to improve the treatment of the wounded.

Joseph Smith's 1842 letter to newspaper editor John Wentworth included which thirteen-point statement of belief?

The Articles of Faith were written for an outsider: Wentworth had asked on behalf of a friend who was writing a history of New Hampshire.

D. Todd Christofferson, later an apostle, clerked for Judge John Sirica during the trials from which political scandal?

Watergate filled his first job: he joined Sirica straight after law school in 1972, while the judge presided over much of the legal proceedings.

Gordon B. Hinckley sat down in 1996 with interviewer Mike Wallace for a segment on which CBS news program?

60 Minutes led to a lasting friendship: Hinckley stayed close to Wallace until his own death, and two years after the interview he was a guest on CNN's Larry King Live.

In the mid-1950s Thomas S. Monson was secretary of the Utah State Roller Club, whose members bred which birds?

Pigeons known as rollers have been selected for their ability to tumble or roll in the air, turning rapid backward somersaults as they fly.

Russell M. Nelson developed elementary proficiency in which language after a church president urged leaders to learn it?

Mandarin helped him build ties with doctors in China, where a medical college made him its first honorary professor in 1985.

Which US president sent about 2,500 soldiers west in 1857 in the standoff with Brigham Young called the Utah War?

James Buchanan was widely felt to have botched the affair, later nicknamed Buchanan's Blunder, and it ended in 1858 with a pardon for the settlers.

Which schoolteacher was the principal scribe as Joseph Smith dictated his translation of the golden plates in 1829?

Oliver Cowdery was also the first person baptized into the new movement, but he was excommunicated in 1838 after his relationship with its leaders broke down.

Joseph Smith and his companions were held for more than four months in 1838–39 in the jail of which town?

Liberty kept them in a lower dungeon room while their guards used the room above, and the food was scanty and of poor quality.

Dallin H. Oaks edited the law review at which school, where he returned as a law professor in 1961?

University of Chicago took him back as a professor after three years in private practice at Kirkland & Ellis, and he became a full professor there in 1964.

Apostle James E. Talmage was given a room inside a temple to write which 1915 study of the Savior's life?

Jesus the Christ came out just under a year after he started writing, although church leaders had first asked him for the book a decade earlier.

Ezra Taft Benson shared his name with which relative, an apostle appointed by Brigham Young in 1846?

His great-grandfather Ezra T. Benson joined the Twelve in 1846, and the younger Ezra followed him into the same body of apostles almost a century later, in 1943.

Gordon B. Hinckley announced which 2001 program, modeled on a pioneer-era scheme that lent emigrants money?

Perpetual Education Fund is an endowment that gives loans to students in developing nations, as the Perpetual Emigration Fund once lent poor converts the cost of reaching Utah.

About 500 volunteers recruited with Brigham Young's backing in 1846 marched nearly 1,950 miles from Iowa to which city?

San Diego ended their march as U.S. Army volunteers, and Young used the soldiers' pay to buy supplies for the families heading west.

Joseph Fielding Smith, a prolific writer who published 25 books, held which office from 1921 until 1970?

Church Historian was his title for 49 years; in 1961 he preached that man would never reach the moon, and reporters asked him about it when he became president.

Which apostle sat in the U.S. Senate from 1903 to 1933 and co-sponsored a famous 1930 tariff act?

Reed Smoot kept his seat only after a four-year controversy: a Senate committee recommended against him, but the full Senate voted to seat him.

Dallin H. Oaks chaired the board of directors of which national broadcaster from 1979 to 1984?

PBS had him as its board chairman for five years, and he went on to chair the board of the Polynesian Cultural Center for eight.

In 1835 Joseph Smith asked which group to select the first members of the Quorum of the Twelve?

The Three Witnesses announced their choices on February 14, 1835, and then ordained the twelve chosen men themselves by the laying on of hands.

Russell M. Nelson took part in the first face-to-face meeting of a church president with which pontiff?

Francis received him at the Vatican on March 9, 2019, the day before the church dedicated its temple in Rome.

Brigham Young, who died in office in 1877, holds which record among the presidents of the church?

Longest-serving is his title: he was president for 29 years, after already leading the church for three years as head of the Twelve.

In 1947, a century after the pioneers reached the Salt Lake Valley, church membership first reached which milestone?

1 million members was reached 117 years after the church was formally organized in 1830, and the total has since passed 17 million.

In 1897, days after turning 90, Wilford Woodruff became the first church president to record his voice, on which medium?

Wax cylinders caught him reading a prepared testimony into a phonograph that his son-in-law, the head of a music company, had brought to his office.

Which president's term, one of the briefest in church history, ended with his sudden death at 74 in December 1973?

Harold B. Lee had been president for less than 18 months; four decades earlier he had been the youngest stake president then serving in the church.

George Albert Smith died in Salt Lake City on April 4, 1951, a date that was also which occasion?

His own birthday, the 81st, arrived weeks after a stroke had left him mostly paralyzed on the right side of his body.

George Albert Smith took part in 1949 in the first-ever broadcast of general conference on which medium?

Television first carried the sermons in October 1949, and by 1961 they were also being interpreted into Dutch, German, Samoan and Spanish.

George Albert Smith was the first church president to visit which country in office, to reconcile a breakaway group?

Mexico was home to the Third Conventionists, a group that had left the church, and his visit completed their reconciliation and return.

Gordon B. Hinckley announced in 1995 the temple that became the church's 100th in operation, in which city?

Boston's temple was dedicated without its planned steeple because neighbors had sued; the state's highest court ruled for the church the following May.

In 2022 Russell M. Nelson became the church's oldest apostle ever by surpassing which former mayor of Palo Alto?

David B. Haight lived to 97, yet he was already 69 when he was ordained an apostle in 1976, years after his time as a California mayor.

Thomas S. Monson joined the reserve of which U.S. military branch in 1945, expecting to serve in the Pacific?

The Navy trained him in California, but the fighting ended before he could be stationed overseas.