---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Smith, Joseph F.
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 15
number: 3
published: 1912-01
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Smith, Joseph F., "Official Appointments," *Improvement Era* 15, no. 3 (January 1912): 280.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1503unse
  transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers.
  identifier: improvementera1503unse
start_page: 280
end_page: 280
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1912-01)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1503unse
  publication_year: 1912
  note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1912, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# Official Appointments

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Official Appointments The following official notice appeared in the Dcseret News,
December 7 At the regular council meeting of the First Presidency and apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, held in the Salt Lake temple, this seventh day of December, 1911, at which Presidents Joseph F. Smith and Anthon H. Lund, and eight of the Twelve Apostles, were present, Charles W. Penrose was selected and unanimously sustained as second counselor in the First Presidency, to fill the vacancy occasioned by the demise of President John Henry Smith, and he was set apart to this office and calling under the hands of President Joseph F. Smith, all the other authorities named assisting.
 Also James E. Talmage was appointed and unanimously sustained to be one of the Twelve Apostles to fill the vacancy caused by the appointment of Elder Charles W. Penrose as second counselor in the First Presidency.
 JOSEPH F. SMITH,
 President of the Council.
 Elders Heber J. Grant, Rudger Clawson, Reed Smoot and George A. Smith were absent from home when this action was taken, but have since expressed in writing their hearty approval of the action of the Council.
 Members of the Church, and the public generally, are so familiar with the men promoted to these new positions, that little need here be said of them.
 Elder Penrose, a veteran worker in the Church, has been prominently before the people for sixty years, having begun his public ministry in England, in 1851,
where he continued as missionary for ten years. Since his arrival