"There was [a] setting . . . in 1847, when the Saints were accumulating on the Iowa side of the Missouri River. Brigham Young had been here in the Salt Lake Valley with that first company of the Saints, but in December he had gone back to the Missouri to meet with the Saints there. And in a setting in Kanesville, there were nine of the Twelve assembled: two were in the valley here, one had gone to Texas, and nine were there. In that setting, in the Orson Hyde home, the First Presidency was reorganized on December the 5th, 1847, but they needed to have it ratified by the Saints. And so that meeting was postponed for three weeks so they could build a little log tabernacle in Kanesville. And in three weeks, with the workmen there and the members of the Church who had come in by wagons getting ready to cross the Missouri and head for the valley, they built a little tabernacle.

"In that meeting was presented a proposition that the Presidency of the Church would be reorganized, but they needed a sustaining like we've done here today, like that opportunity that is ours to raise our hands and sustain the prophet. So the First Presidency was reorganized; Brigham Young had selected Heber C. Kimball and Willard Richards to be his counselors. Thus, it takes the sustaining of the people to give the leaders of the Church the authority that the Lord has designated by revelation that is necessary."