The first missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to arrive in Wales were Henry Royle and Frederick Cook.

The next year in January, he was made mission president and oversaw missionary work in the country by Wilford Woodruff because Jones knew how to speak, read, and write in Welsh.

[8] In 1846, Jones had begun to publish a Welsh language periodical for the church entitled Prophwyd y Jubili (Prophet of the Jubilee).

[7][10] In 1850 Davis, who had been appointed to oversee church publications in Wales, announced that he would translate the Doctrine and Covenants into Welsh.

Davis would publish a 16-page signature in every other issue of Ugdorn Seion (Zion's Trumpet), which was the church publication following Prophet of the Jubilee.

[10] The Pearl of Great Price, now part of the Standard Works of the LDS Church, was first compiled in England in 1851 by Franklin D. Richards.

This decline was due, in part, by church members emigrating to the United States after their conversion and a decrease in the number of new converts.

Other factors that could have contributed to this decline include the introduction of polygamy into church practice in 1853 and social and political reforms in Wales.

[12] Opposition to Latter-day Saint missionary efforts in United Kingdom existed from the earliest missions but intensified in South Wales and the West Midlands in the 1850s, leading to some violent incidents.

This group was led by Joseph Smith's son Joseph Smith III and consisted of previously scattered branches of the church in the Midwestern United States who had rejected Brigham Young and the Council of Twelve Apostles' leadership and not gone West with the majority of the Latter Days Saints (see succession crisis).

John Parry, one of the members in this group, directed 85 Welsh converts in a special musical number at the October 1849 General Conference.