Wilford Woodruff - Church Service

Church Service

Woodruff and his brother Azmon were baptized by missionaries of the Church of Christ on 31 December 1833 in Richland, New York. Other members of the Woodruff family, including Wilford's father, joined the church in 1839.

Shortly after his baptism, Woodruff accompanied Joseph Smith, Jr., and his brother Hyrum on a journey from Kirtland, Ohio, to the Missouri as a member of Zion's Camp. Woodruff remained in Clay County, Missouri, until January 1835, when he was sent to preach in Arkansas, Tennessee, and Kentucky by Edward Partridge. Woodruff originally had Harry Brown, who later went to be with his family in Kirtland, as a companion. Most of the mission was spent preaching in small towns and villages in western Kentucky and Tennessee.

On May 30, 1837, a month after his marriage to Phoebe, Woodruff left Kirtland along with Jonathan Hale and Milton Holmes to serve a mission in New England. The main places they preached were The Fox Islands, Litchfield County, Connecticut and York County, Maine, according to their accounts. Phoebe joined Wilford in Farmington, Connecticut, on July 16. In that city he baptized some of his relatives. Although Phoebe did not accompany him on all of his journeys over the next year and a half, she stayed at various locations in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Maine, locations that he to some extent made his base of operations. In 1838, Woodruff led a party of fifty-three members in wagons from the Maine coast to Nauvoo, Illinois.

In 1839, at the age of 32, Wilford Woodruff became a member of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles. He became a member of the Nauvoo city council and served as chaplain for the Nauvoo Legion, a local militia. Woodruff was also a member of the Anointed Quorum and Council of Fifty and received his Endowment from Smith in the Red Brick Store prior to the completion of the Nauvoo Temple. Woodruff and Phoebe were sealed by Hyrum Smith in Nauvoo but, due to a loss of records, this ordinance was later repeated by Heber C. Kimball in Salt Lake City. After the death of Joseph Smith, Woodruff was an active participant in the westward progression of the LDS Church. He was a member of the first pioneer company of Latter-day Saints to arrive in Utah's Great Basin in 1847.

In 1856, Woodruff began serving as church historian and served in this position for thirty-three years. A religious conservative, he offered charismatic sermons during the period of Mormon Reformation in 1856 to 1858.