Early church service Shortly following his ordination as an elder, Richards was called on a brief three-month mission to the Eastern United States. Immediately upon his return, he was called on a more extended mission to Great Britain. This put him among the first missionaries of the LDS Church to go to Britain. Richards served a total of four years on his mission to Britain. He helped with the Millennial Star's publication. With his high level of education, Richards was often counseled by Heber C. Kimball to focus on the basic tenets of the gospel. Richards was the moving force behind establishing the first branch of the church in Manchester. He was appointed first counselor to the president of the European Mission, Joseph Fielding. Marriage and Family Richards married Jennetta Richards on September 24, 1838, while on a four-year mission to England. Their first child, named Heber John, was born on July 17, 1839, but died of smallpox just five months later in October. They had two surviving children, a son, also named Heber John, born in Manchester, England, in 1840, and a daughter, Rhoda Ann Jennetta, born in 1843 in Nauvoo, Illinois. Jennetta Richards was in poor health, and after traveling across the Atlantic Ocean in April 1841, Richards took her to live with his siblings in Richmond, Massachusetts, while he went on to Nauvoo, Illinois. Richards was a close confidant of Joseph Smith, and became a practitioner of polygamy. There is indication that his first plural wife was 26-year-old Marinda Nancy Johnson Hyde, who was already married to Orson Hyde (Hyde was away on a mission at the time). Richards returned to Richmond and retrieved his wife Jennetta, arriving back in Nauvoo on November 21, 1842. On January 18, 1843, Richards married sixteen-year-old Sarah Longstroth and fourteen-year-old Nanny Longstroth, who were sisters. Joseph Smith officiated the wedding. Richards married eleven wives in total. Willard and Jennetta Richards were sealed on May 29, 1843, and were among the first couples to be sealed. After struggling with illness all her life, Jennetta died on July 9, 1845, at age twenty-seven. Apostle Richards was ordained an apostle on April 14, 1840, by Brigham Young. In 1841, he moved to Nauvoo, Illinois, to be with the body of the church. He was in Warsaw, Illinois, from September to December and did not take up residence in Nauvoo until December 1841. He was