What's the correct context for, say, item #1?
The Law of Adoption was often practiced in the early days of the Church to seal families to prominent Church leaders.
When faithful members of the LDS Church are married in the Temple their union is described as both a
marriage and a
sealing - because the marriage covenant between the couple is sealed for time and throughout all eternity.
Not only married couples are
sealed to one another in the LDS Church.
For example, any child born to a married/sealed couple will automatically be considered
sealed to their parents to enjoy the parent/child relationship for time and throughout all eternity. This is called being "born under the covenant".
A faithful couple who becomes
sealed after already having children can go to the Temple with their children and have the family
sealed for time and throughout all eternity. A couple can also have adopted children sealed to them in this way.
I mentioned this to point out that not all
sealings are marriages. Most
sealings are had or performed for the purpose of unifying families through the sealing power by the Holy Spirit of Promise.
Everyone who is
sealed together receives certain promises which mainly include the right to continue to enjoy the relationship with the
sealed person that was had on Earth after death.
A sealed father to his son will always have that relationship. A sealed husband to wife and etc.
However, it is important to note that one family cannot be unified with another without a Temple
sealing for either time and eternity or just eternity and this can only be had between a man and a woman.
A man cannot be sealed to another man, unless it is parent to child. Same goes for women. Only mothers to daughters.
A mother of one family cannot be sealed to the mother of another family.
If two families wish to be unified throughout all eternity - to enjoy the same relationship together that they had on Earth - a man in one family must be
sealed to a woman in the other.
These types of "adoption"
sealings don't really take place anymore because the membership of the Church has grown and we now have Temples all over the world, so no one sees the need.
But in the early Church with members being driven out of the U.S. and their Temples being destroyed or taken - they saw a need.
Sorry for that long explanation, but it will come in handy as I new address your question.
Item #1 neglects to mention that it was Helen's father, Heber C. Kimball, who instigated the coupling,
"Just previous to my father’s starting upon his last mission but one, to the Eastern States, he taught me the principle [p. 1] of Celestial marriage, & having a great desire to be connected with the Prophet, Joseph, he offered me to him; this I afterwards learned from the Prophet’s own mouth."
The Apostle Heber C. Kimball wanted his family to be forever associated with the Prophet. He wanted that same relationship they enjoyed to perpetuate beyond the grave. Not all
sealings were made for the purpose of procreation.
Needless to say, but this was a hard decision to make, but it was Helen's to make after both her parent's gave consent. Now we get to the promise that Joseph made to her,
"I will pass over the temptations which I had during the twenty four hours after my father introduced to me this principle & asked me if I would be sealed to Joseph, who came next morning & with my parents I heard him teach & explain the principle of [p. 1] Celestial marrage-after which he said to me, “If you will take this step, it will ensure your eternal salvation and exaltation & that of your father’s household & all of your kindred."
First off, the promises of "eternal salvation and exaltation" are offered to everyone who is
sealed by the Holy Spirit of Promise. As long as those who were
sealed remain faithful to their covenants, this promise is ensured.
This was not a specific promise made to a specific person. This teaching and promise is had in Doctrine and Covenants 132, and all faithful members are free to enter into this covenant and receive these promises.
You can read it here:
Doctrine and Covenants 132
The Prophet was simply teaching a young woman a core belief of the LDS Church that she had not yet been made aware.
The only difference here is that this
sealing was not of a single man to a single woman, but through the Law of Adoption, it was Heber C. Kimball's family unifying with the Prophet's family and therefore both families would be seen as one and both would receive the same blessings intended for the other.
When people don't stop to consider how the LDS Church regards Temple sealings and think that a
sealing is nothing other than a "marriage" as the world knows it (i.e. "God-sanctioned sex"), then people are going to make a bunch of false assumptions.
There is nothing in this story that implies that the Prophet's relationship with Helen was sexual in any way. In fact, all the correspondence between the two that we do know of also included her family.
Two years after the Prophet's death she remarried and had like eleven kids. She never had a child by Joseph Smith.
President Nelson's marriage to his first wife was for eternity; he didn't need to remarry after her death to make that happen. You're lying, lying, lying, lying, lying, and you're just going to keep lying till there are no more lies left, aren't you. I'm done adding fuel to your fire.