Long before a prophet is ordained president of the Church, he usually spends years serving in the Quorum of the Twelve, learning and being refined and prepared for leadership through his many assignments. Such was the case for Brigham Young.
In 1839, "Brother Brigham" accepted the call to serve a mission with others of the Quorum of the Twelve to England. He left home ill and penniless, as were so many others with him. In his book, Brigham Young: The Man and His Work, Preston Nibley recounts the missionary's experiences and excerpts from Brigham's own writings:
"We went to Preston and held our conference, and decided we would publish a paper; Brother Parley P. Pratt craved the privilege of editing it, and we granted him the privilege. We also decided to print 3,000 hymn books, though we had not the first cent to begin with and were strangers in a strange land. We appointed Brother Woodruff to Herefordshire and I accompanied him on his journey to that place. I wrote to Brother Pratt for information about his plans, and he sent me his prospectus, which stated that when he had a sufficient number of subscribers and money enough on hand to justify his publishing the paper he would proceed with it. How long we might have waited for that, I know not, but I wrote him to publish 2,000 papers and I would foot the bill. I borrowed two hundred and fifty pounds of Sister Jane Benbow, one hundred of Brother Thomas Kington and returned to Manchester, where we printed 3,000 hymn books and 5,000 Books of Mormon, and issued 2,000 Millennial Stars monthly, and in the course of the summer gave away rising of 60,000 tracts. I also paid from five to ten dollars a week for my board and hired a house for Brother Willard Richards and his wife, who came to Manchester, and sustained them; and gave sixty pounds to Brother P. P. Pratt to bring his wife from New York. I also commenced the emigration in that year.
"I was there one year and sixteen days, with my brethren, the Twelve, and during that time I bought all my clothes except one pair of pantaloons, which the sisters gave me in Liverpool soon after I arrived there and which I really needed. I told the brethren in one of my discourses that there was no need of their begging, for if they needed anything the sisters could understand that. The sisters took the hint and the pantaloons were forthcoming.
"I paid three hundred and eighty dollars to get the work started in London and when I arrived home in Nauvoo, I owed no person one farthing. Brother Kington received his pay from the books that were printed, and Sister Benbow, who started to America the same year, left names enough of her friends to receive two hundred and fifty pounds, which amount was paid them, notwithstanding, I held her agreement that she had given it to the Church.
"We left two thousand five hundred dollars' worth of books in the office, paid our passages home, and paid about six hundred dollars to emigrate the poor who were starving to death, besides giving sixty thousands tracts; and that, too, though I had not a six-pence when we landed in Preston, and I do not know that one of the Twelve had."
