A Brief History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

In the spring of 1820, 14-year-old Joseph Smith Jr. retired to the woods near his home in Palmyra, New York, and offered a simple prayer to our Father in Heaven. This humble prayer set into motion a series of events that brought The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from its obscure beginnings in upstate New York to prominence as a worldwide Christian church.

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Joseph Smith Jr. was born December 23, 1805, to Joseph Smith Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith in Sharon, Vermont. Between 1823 and 1827, he was directed by heavenly messengers to the location of gold plates that contained a written history of the ancient inhabitants of the Americas. In 1827 Joseph began translating the characters engraved on the plates, completing the translation in June of 1829. The first edition of the Book of Mormon was printed in March 1830; on April 6, 1830, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized in Fayette Township, New York.

Over the next 14 years, the membership of the Church increased significantly, but religious persecution forced the Latter-day Saints to move from New York to Ohio, then Missouri, and later to Illinois. On June 27, 1844, the Prophet Joseph Smith was martyred in the jail in Carthage, Illinois, sealing with his blood the testimony of his work. As persecution grew, the Saints were again forced to leave their homes; in the winter of 1846, they left Nauvoo, Illinois, crossing the frozen Mississippi River. They continued to move westward, eventually settling in what later became Salt Lake City, Utah. Over a period of a few short years, more than 70,000 Mormon pioneers crossed the plains to join the Saints in the Rocky Mountains.

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Today the Church is a worldwide organization with more members outside of the United States than inside. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has more than [14 million] members worldwide and is one of the fastest-growing churches in the world.

(This is copied from a pamphlet titled Scouting & The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints)