The Mormon Apocrypha

Of all the latter-day saints in history, perhaps not are as hilarious as J. Golden Kimball, the swearing apostle. He was born on June 26, 1853, to Heber C. Kimball. At the age of fifteen, his father died. TO make ends meet, he became a Mule driver, where he picked up his wearing habit. In 1881, he went to what is know BYU for two years, and after that went on a two-year mission to the American South. After that mission, he married Jennie Knowlton and in 1887 moved to Logan. They had six children, three boys and three girls. In 1892, Kimball was called to be the mission president of the American South mission. During that mission he was called to the seventy. Buring his years in the seventy, J. Golden became well known for his swearing habit, causing him to be one of the favorite general authorities in the church. Kimball died on the 2nd of September 1938 in a driving accident. In April 1909, J. Golden Kimball gave a talk about the importance of Honesty, discussing how God cannot help u...

 Joseph W. Sitati was born in Bungoma, Kenya on the 16th of May 1952.  He married Gladys Nangoni in July 1976. and gave birth to five children. He joined the Church in 1986, serving as a branch president, stake president, district president, counselor in a mission presidency, and mission president. In 2009, he was sustained as a general authority, becoming the second person of African descent to be ordained as one. (The first being Helvecio Martins.) He was released in October 2022, giving one last conference talk. Titled Patterns of Discipleship, it goes over traits a disciple of Christ would possess.  Pattern of Faith This morning our two children and three grandchildren in North America, and about half of the world, saw the brightness of the sun rising majestically in the east. The other three children and seven grandchildren in Africa, and the other half of the world, saw darkness gradually creep upon them as the sun sank over the horizon in the west. This timeless co...

Elder Helvécio Martins was the first person of Black African descent to be called as a general authority of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Born to descendants of African slaves in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Martins joined the LDS Church in 1972, despite his knowledge that the LDS Church did not then allow members of Black African descent to hold the priesthood or to receive temple ordinances. On 9 June 1978, Martins and his family heard of the announcement that the LDS Church was lifting the priesthood ban. After Martins received the priesthood and his temple ordinances, he served in the church as a bishop, counselor to a stake president, and as president of the Brazil Fortaleza Mission. In April 1990, church president Ezra Taft Benson called Martins as a member of the Second Quorum of the Seventy. Martins became the first black general authority in the LDS Church. After serving a standard five-year term as a member of the Second Quorum of the Seventy, Martins was honora...

Reed Smoot was born on 1862, in Salt Lake City, Utah. He attended public schools and the University of Utah, and graduated from Brigham Young Academy (Now Brigham Young University), in 1879. He served a mission in England and got married to Alpha M. Eldredge on Sept. 17, 1884. With Alpha, he fathered six children. He was engaged in several businesses across the Salt Lake Valley before becoming an apostle in 1900. In 1902, he was elected to the Senate. This started four years of battle in the senate, over him being an apostle, the Church's policy over plural marriage over other concerns that became known as the Reed Smoot hearings. In 1907, he was finally allowed to be a U.S. Senator, serving until 1933. After he lost reelection in 1932, he moved back to Salt Lake City. He passed away on Feb. 9, 1941, in Florida. He was quite an influential figure in the early twentieth century church. Repurposed below is his talk from the October 1933 General Conference, about how we are Gods liter...

There have been many great poets in LDS history, and John Lyon deserves to be numbered as one of them. Born in Glasgow Scotland, Lyon became a weaver's apprentice at the age of seventeen. He got married in February of 1826 and had his first child that September. He had twelve children total, with seven living to adulthood.  In 1837, John Lyon and his family met some missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and a few years later in 1844, after reading the book of Mormon and attending some religious sermons, was baptized into the church and ordained an Elder. In 1849, he received a letter from Orson Pratt, calling him to become to serve as a missionary and President of the Worcester area in England, serving from 1849 to 1851. The next year he was called to move Utah to gather with the Saints, finally making his way to Salt Lake City in 1854. That same year he was ordained to the seventy. He also joined the Deseret Dramatic Association and the Universal Scient...