We finally made it to Nauvoo, which is exciting, but it was, of course, much more exciting for the Saints who'd been in Kirtland and Missouri and then thrown out. They had to go someplace during the winter of ’38–’39. And they came here to this swamp, miserable and forlorn. And they built up a beautiful town. And we're about to talk about what happened in 1842.

I’m Alyse Collins, and a goal that I have for myself this summer is to be able to stand up on my paddleboard.

Clackamas Lake is about 15 minutes from my home in Vancouver, Washington, and so I am hoping that I'm going to be able to paddle all around the lake looking like a perfect natural on my paddleboard standing up. When I’m not on the lake, I'm going to be helping students study abroad. I work at a local university in international education, and that actually combines perfectly with my love of international travel.

In order to prepare for my trip to Nauvoo,

I decided to do some readings about the founding of Relief Society, and I took a look at the minute book of the original Relief Society meetings,

and I was really interested to see that a lot of the issues that the Relief Society dealt with back in those days are very similar to the work of Relief Society today.

This is Sarah Kimball’s home and her kitchen. Wow. She was young when she lived here.

Her parents had lived in the vicinity of Palmyra. Joined the Church there.

They moved to Kirtland. She was a teenager in Kirtland,

and she moved here. And she married Hyrum Kimball. This story in this house is of two women who noticed a problem and found a solution. Let's talk about it.

And here's the parlor. Oh, we would have come if we were guests. Yeah.

So Sarah Kimball was an amazing organizer. And when she moved to Utah, she served in two different Relief Society general presidencies. Wow. And she worked hard for the vote and was among those Utah women who were the first in the nation to exercise the right to vote.

But here in this house, Margaret Cook, her seamstress, was the one who had the idea of helping to do something for the construction of the temple.

And Margaret was about 30 years old and unmarried and supporting herself by sewing.

And so she was sewing for Sarah,

and they could see from the windows the construction on the Nauvoo Temple.

So Margaret said, I wonder if people could donate fabric, and then I would be willing to donate my labor and sew shirts for the people working on the Nauvoo Temple. And Sarah liked that idea. She said she was willing to donate fabric, but maybe more people would be, too. These sewing circles were things that happened in the US at that time. Okay, great. So they got together. They invited some friends over that they thought would want to participate. And they met in this parlor. Okay. And then they asked Eliza R. Snow to write up their plans into a formal constitution. Is that what actually was taken to Joseph Smith, then? She took it with Sarah Kimball to Joseph Smith, and he said, great.

He spoke in glowing ways, the way they did back then, best constitution I’ve seen.

But then he said, the Lord has something better for you.

Is that the beginning of Relief Society? That's the beginning of Relief Society. Wow.

This is where it all began. This is the room. So now we’re headed to the red brick store,

Joseph Smith’s store. It’s on the banks of the Mississippi River.

And this is where those women who founded Relief Society experienced the something more that Joseph Smith had mentioned to Eliza R. Snow.

This was a landmark building in the community. This is where leaders of the Church met, on the second floor. This is where the Relief Society had many of its early meetings. This is where the first several temple endowments were completed.

So people here really started to experience a more full vision of the gospel and what it meant to be Latter-day Saints

than they had, up until this point in Church history.

This building is owned by the Community of Christ, and we're grateful to them for giving us permission to film here today.

The Relief Society meetings held in this building don't look like they do today. There was no curriculum, no scripted lessons. They would problem-solve together and bear testimony.

Didn't you serve as a Relief Society president?

Yes I did. I actually was called to be the Relief Society president and I was so surprised. In fact, when I was sustained, I remember standing up for the sustaining vote and people said that I looked like a ghost. I was so white and I was just shocked. And why? Why were you so shocked? I just felt like, Wow, isn't there someone better that could do this calling? I'm not married, you know, like, what will I relate with?

And actually, my bishop told me the same thing. He said, Sister Collins, you know what? What is going on? You know, you are the person that the Lord wants in this calling.

And I was okay doing the work of the Relief Society president.

I just didn't want anyone to know. I’m more of the anonymous, kind of behind-the-scenes type of person. And so I was like, can we just not announce this? And I’ll just kind of do everything behind the scenes. It didn’t work that way, obviously. because people don’t know who you are, right?

They kind of have to know who the Relief Society president is.

So what did you find meaningful in the work? As I've been thinking about this, I grew a lot through that calling.

There were things that I was asked to do that I thought were beyond myself. There were things that . . . responsibilities that I had, things that I'd never done, like meeting with a family and helping them get food, and comforting people in mourning when someone loses a loved one. Yeah. Just the ministering effort as well, directing that.

I think Emma Smith probably felt some of that, too.

We had never had a Relief Society president.

Right, right. And so I was blessed actually, with a long history of Relief Society presidents, people to look back on. When they first wrote a constitution for the Relief Society, Joseph Smith said, your minute book will be your constitution. And Eliza R. Snow kept the minutes. Most of them, not all of them. And she really took that to heart and took careful notes about who said what and everything that went on. I think you mentioned you've read those minute books online. Is that right? Yeah, I did, I just saw those. It's on the Gospel Library app. It was really interesting to see everything that was recorded. I had no idea about those early days and what actually occurred during the meetings.

Was there anything that you connected with?

Well, yeah, I mean, I guess the fact that things back in those days, even though, I mean, it was back in the 1840s and you would think that there was so much that was different.

Still, I think a lot goes on that’s in common with our day today. I mean, there's still the basic needs of, you know, caring for the poor or those that just need our assistance.

Some of the situations that were recorded in those minutes,

it was requiring the sisters to step outside of themselves. And I think there was a quote, I can't remember who said it, but they were expecting extraordinary opportunities to serve. Yeah, who was that? That was Emma Smith.

Eliza R. Snow was saying, oh, don't go overboard in your descriptions.

And she said, we expect this will be extraordinary, right.

And it really, I think, challenges us even today to rise up and to do God's work with whatever talents or aspects that we have to give. Yeah.

The temple grove was really important.

It was a large space where large groups could meet, and they didn't have any buildings big enough to accommodate them.

So, Kate, is this the original temple grove?

No, it's a grove right near the temple. But the real temple grove is being reforested right now. Okay, so what kinds of things happened in the temple grove? Large groups would meet and listen to people speak, would listen to Joseph Smith speak. And the Relief Society ended up moving here because it grew so quickly, so fast. They couldn’t fit in the red brick store anymore.

So they would meet here. And that meant that their meetings became seasonal. So they’d meet in the spring, summer, into the fall, but during the winter they wouldn't formally meet. Okay. Wow. I didn't know that. Should we head up to the temple? Yeah. Let's go.

It's gorgeous. I actually came here as a child with my parents and my two sisters, and when I came here, initially, the temple wasn't created, so it wasn't as we see it now. There were just the cornerstones. And just to see the sacrifices that the pioneers had made to think about that. It’s like a monument to them. It is and it’s a story of the sacrifice and the faith and their devotion to their Heavenly Father. It really did impact me.

One of the stories Nauvoo has to tell is the story of women and men working together and people counseling together. Even though Joseph Smith was receiving revelation from God, he wasn't handed an instruction manual. He had to figure it out along with what he was given, and he had other people to help him figure it out. And I think that's also the story of the founding of Relief Society.

They saw a need. They responded to the need. And they came together, and they just had a vision of what could be possible, and they had the faith to make it happen.

We gladly declare that the promised Restoration goes forward through continuing revelation. The earth will never again be the same

as God will gather together in one all things in Christ.