Difference between revisions of "Joseph W. McMurrin"

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Joseph W. McMurrin was a general authority of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He served on the First Council of the Seventy from October 5, 1897 until his death on October 24, 1932. He also presided over the California Mission of the Church from 1919 until his death.

McMurrin was born in Tooele, Utah Territory on September 5, 1858, and was reared in Salt Lake City. He learned the stone cutting trade and worked as a stone cutter for the Salt Lake Temple while a teenager.

After serving a mission for the Church to St. Joseph, Arizona, for two years, he hauled freight from Salt Lake City to various mining camps. He contracted to build a portion of the Oregon Short Line Railroad through Wyoming. He then served a mission to Scotland where he baptized two of his aunts.

Back home in Utah, he acted as a bodyguard to Church leaders during the anti-polygamy period. In 1885 he was shot by a US Marshall through his vitals, but survived after being given a priesthood blessing by John Henry Smith.[1]

President James E. Faust told the story in a general conference talk in 1982:

Early in the history of this valley Joseph W. McMurrin was placed in charge of guarding some of the leaders of the Church. At a meeting in Social Hall in Salt Lake City, an intruder under a claim of authority tried to enter the hall; and Joseph W. McMurrin, being true to his trust to guard the servants of the Lord, restrained him from going through the door. President Heber J. Grant relates that the intruder “finally got his hand loose and took his pistol and, pressing it against Brother McMurrin’s body, fired two bullets … through his vitals. Those bullets lodged just under the skin in his back. He was attended by Dr. Joseph Benedict who told Joseph W. McMurrin that no man could live after two bullets had passed through his vitals, and then added: ‘If you wish to make a dying statement you should do so immediately.’

“I went with John Henry Smith to Brother McMurrin’s home and saw where the flesh was burned away around those terrible gaping wounds. I saw where the bullets had gone clear through him. I heard John Henry Smith say, ‘By the authority of the Priesthood of the living God which we hold, and in the name of the Lord, Jesus Christ, we say that you shall be made absolutely whole, and that there shall be no physical weakness left upon your body because of these terrible wounds that you have received while guarding the servants of the living God.’”

On November 21, 1931, President Grant concluded, “Joseph W. McMurrin is alive and well, and has never had any physical weakness because of those terrible wounds.” (Gospel Standards, Salt Lake City: Improvement Era, 1969, pp. 310–11.)[2]

McMurrin married Mary Ellen Hunter on April 1, 1880, and they were the parents of seven children. In 1886 she served with him when he was head of the London Conference. Ten years later McMurrin served as first counselor of the European Mission presidency. He is credited with being one of the key people to implement single women being called as missionaries.

Source

• Wikipedia, “Joseph W. McMurrin”