Two native Scots, Alexander Wright and Samuel Mulliner, became the church's first missionaries to Scotland after they were converted while living in Ontario, Canada, arriving on 20 December 1839.

[5] On 14 January 1840, Mulliner baptised the first converts in Scotland, Alexander Hay and his wife, Jessie, in the River Clyde at Bishopton near Paisley.

It included the first published account of Joseph Smith's first vision, and with the scriptures, became a standard church publication in Scotland.

[11] Pratt distributed this pamphlet for 10 months until he returned home in March 1841, leaving the mission under George D. Watt.

[4] Early church members were usually workers in lowland industrial areas who turned to religion out of a "reflex of despair."

[13] Despite these strong early beginnings, the church would face a decline in membership after the 1850s due to a number of factors.

The teachings and organization of the LDS Church was effectively stagnant until the 1960s when new social and economic conditions were established in the country.

They lectured and published pamphlets accusing the missionary programme of being a disguise for Americans to enslave British girls as polygamous wives.

[16] When the First World War began in 1914, all American LDS Church missionaries in Scotland, as throughout the United Kingdom, were evacuated back to the USA.

[17][18] The movie Trapped by the Mormons, inspired by Winifred Graham's book of the same title, led to widespread anti-Mormon rhetoric throughout the British Isles.

Although Graham and other anti-Mormons continued to denounce the church, the government told them that there was no evidence that missionaries were acting in a way to justify deportation.

However, during the April 2024 general conference, church president Russell M. Nelson announced that a temple will be constructed in Edinburgh.