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Remarks delivered on September 17, 1837 at a Church conference held in the Kirtland Temple
Source: George W. Robinson record in the Kirtland Council Minute Book, LDS Archives.

Sunday Evening, Sept. the 17th, 1837

Minutes of a conference of Elders held in the House of the Lord this evening. Pres. Joseph Smith Jr presided . . . the conference was addressed by the chair on the subject of the gathering of the Saints in the last days and duties of the of the[sic] different quorums relation thereto.

New Stakes to be Appointed

It appeared manifest to the conference that the places appointed for the gathering of the Saints were at this time crowded to overflowing & that it was necessary that there be more stakes of Zion appointed in order that the poor might have a place to gather to.1

[The conference appointed Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon to search out locations for new stakes.]


Notes

1. A reference to a revelation regarding the establishment of eleven new stakes. Mary Fielding, writing to her sister Mercy on October 7, 1837:

Some important things were shown to Brother Joseph in vision previous to his going off relative to the enlargement of our borders which has indeed become indispensably necessary for the inhabitants of Zion both here and in the west are crying the cities are too strait for us give place that we may dwell. The people are crowding in from all parts and as President Rigdon said in his last discourse here they will gather and earth and hell combined cannot hinder them for gather they will. Hence the necessity of planting new stakes which they received a command to do before they left and it is expected that after they have set in order the Church in the west they will fix upon 11 new stakes before they return but this is not spoken of in public for reasons you will be aware of. If this were generally known it would probably make there way much more difficult. [ Kenneth W. and Audrey M. Godfrey, Jill Mulvay Derr, eds. Women's Voices (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1982), pp. 60-68.]
The vision is possibly related to D&C 101:43-62. See notes at 19Jul40.
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