TODAY IN CHURCH HISTORY: 31 July

[Hemidakota]

1838 - The Kirtland Camp held council concerning the murmuring among the Saints and the difficulties experienced by the Camp in their travels. Many of the men in the camp went to work nearby to earn enough money to help get them to Missouri. The group took a job to build a half mile of turnpike road nearby so the Camp traveled a short distance and camped in a beautiful grove. Also, the Prophet Joseph Smith attended the circuit court session as it met in Far West. Later, Judge Austin A. King, circuit judge, visited with the Prophet. (History of the Church, 3:48)

1842 - The Prophet Joseph set in council with several of the brethren to discuss the illness of Bishop Vision Knight. During the morning his health faded quickly, and Brother Knight died about noon.

1846 - The ship Brooklyn, with over two hundred Latter-day Saints aboard, arrives at Yerba Buena (San Francisco), California. They are the first Saints to set foot in California, which at that time, was still part of Mexico.

1847 - Beginning at the southeast corner of the temple block, Orson Pratt began to survey and lay out the future city of Salt Lake.

1938 - The first stake in Washington is organized in Seattle.

1985 - Li Xiannian, president of the People's Republic of China, and his wife, tour the Church's Polynesian Cultural Center in Laie, Hawaii, as part of their tour of the United States and Canada.

1998 - President Gordon B. Hinckley embarks on an eight day, twelve-city tour in six provinces of Canada.

1999 - Nearly 22,000 members gathered in a soccer stadium in Guayaquil, Ecuador, to hear President Hinckley speak about living worthy to receive the blessings of the temple.

2005 - President Gordon B. Hinckley begins a seven-nation around the world tour speaking first to about 200 members at the airport at Vladivostok, Russia, and then flying on to Seoul, Korea, where he spoke at a regional conference attended by nearly 10,000 members.