Anthony W. Ivins was an older cousin to Heber J. Grant and they were very close comrads. When there came a vacancy in the First Presiency in 1921, President Grant consulted with President Charles W. Penrose and both they and the Lord were of one mind, and that was to select Elder Anthony W. Ivins as the new councelor in the First Preisdency which occured on March 10th according to the record of Melvin J. Ballard. Anthony's space in the Council of the Twelve was filled by John A. Widsoe on March 17th. Later J. Ruben Clark, Jr. would join President Grant and President Ivins in the First Presidency. It was said of President Ivins, that he was only one of a few that could get so very close to the Lord when he prayed. President Ivins, in a conference report of April 1928, which was during the time when the Hill Cumorah was purchased by the Church gives this report.
"The passages which I have quoted from the Book of Mormon and the more extended discussion of this subject by Elder B. H. Roberts which was published in The Deseret News of March 3, 1928, definitely establish the following facts: That the Hill Cumorah, and the Hill Ramah are identical; that it was around this hill that the armies of both the Jaredites and Nephites, fought their great last battles; that it was in this hill that Mormon deposited all of the sacred records which had been entrusted to his care by Ammaron, except the abridgment which he had made from the plates of Nephi, which were delivered into the hands of his' son, Moroni. We know positively that it was in this hill that Moroni deposited the abridgment made by his father, and his own abridgment of the record of the Jaredites, and that it was from this hill that Joseph Smith obtained possession of them."
(President Anthony W. Ivins, Conference Report, April 1928, First Day—Morning Session 13 - 14.)What more can be said? Such a strong statement as to the 'facts' being presented in Conference by a member of the First Presidency and so supported by the Brethren should go without conjecture. Yet it does continue.
Upon the death of President Ivins in 1934, the vacancy in the First Presidency was filled by President David O. McKay.
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