November 1840 the first missionaries arrive in South Wales. Early missionaries preaching across the Welsh-English border included: James Palmer, John Needham, and Richard Steele.
The Welsh Mission was officially founded in 1845 with the arrival of Dan Jones, a native of Wales and fluent in the Welsh language, to preside over the Welsh Mission as he had been called by the Prophet Joseph Smith before the martyrdom.
After several thousand Welsh Saints had emigrated to Utah by 1864, it became a Conference of the British Mission. Wales became a District of the Bristol Conference in 1907. in 1919, the headquarters for the Bristol Conference were relocated to Cardiff, Wales. In 1921, the Welsh Conference of the British Mission was reestablished with headquarters in Cardiff.