Part 5: April 1842

In April 1842 JS spoke frequently at public gatherings, applied for bankruptcy, and corresponded with members and business associates. In addition to presiding and speaking at the church’s 6–8 April in , Illinois, JS delivered discourses on at least four other occasions during the month. Part 5 includes the surviving written accounts of three of them. For example, on 28 April, JS spoke to the —a women’s organization created the previous month—regarding the gift of healing and other miraculous signs that would “follow all that believe whether male or female.” As editor of the Times and Seasons, JS also wrote or approved editorials on religious topics, including a lengthy essay titled “Try the Spirits” in which he warned Latter-day Saints to be wary of false prophets and spirits.

During mid-April attorney of the , Illinois–based firm Ralston, Warren & Wheat arrived in advertising services of assisting applicants for bankruptcy. In August of the previous year, the federal government passed a bankruptcy act that allowed—for the first time in American history—voluntary bankruptcy. Saddled with extensive church debts (in his own name) accrued in , , and , JS joined many other Nauvoo residents in seeking relief through the provisions of the new law. Throughout the second half of the month, JS spent time compiling lists of creditors and assets, giving notice that he filed his petition, and traveling to the seat of , Illinois, to declare insolvency.

JS also received letters throughout the month, some of which continued ongoing correspondence with church members across the country. Both and wrote from outlying of the church and forwarded church members’ donations to assist with construction of the . church leader and land speculator (one of the men from whom the church purchased the land on which Nauvoo was built) wrote to JS regarding land transactions, oversight of which continued to occupy a significant portion of JS’s time. Also in the eastern , missionaries and sent reports of their proselytizing activities and successes. On 22 April over one hundred residents of petitioned JS to establish a second branch of the church in the city.

This part comprises sixteen documents. It includes accounts of several JS sermons and discourses, along with the minutes of the church’s April conference in , selections from the two April issues of the church’s newspaper Times and Seasons, documents generated by JS’s application for bankruptcy, seven letters to JS (though no outgoing correspondence), and a dinner invitation to officers and their spouses.