author
Joseph F. (Joseph Fielding) Smith
1838–1918
Raised amid the upheavals of early Latter-day Saint history, he became a steady, influential church leader whose life stretched from the Missouri persecutions to the early 20th century. He later served as the sixth president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and was remembered for his long public service and deep ties to the faith's founding family.
1 Audiobook
Gospel Doctrine: Selections from the Sermons and Writings of Joseph F. Smith
by Joseph F. (Joseph Fielding) Smith
About the author
Born in Far West, Missouri, on November 13, 1838, Joseph Fielding Smith was the son of Hyrum Smith and Mary Fielding Smith and a nephew of Joseph Smith. After his father was killed in 1844, he crossed the plains with his family to Utah as a child. Those early losses and hardships shaped much of his later life and leadership.
As a young man, he served a mission in the Sandwich Islands, now Hawaiʻi, and over the years took on major responsibilities in church leadership. He became an apostle in the 1860s and, in 1901, succeeded Lorenzo Snow as the sixth president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
He led the church until his death in Salt Lake City on November 19, 1918. Histories of his life often note both his personal connection to the earliest days of the movement and his role in guiding the church into a new century.