Show VIRGINIA AND TEXAS elder ellas elias S kimball president of the southern states mission forwards the following letters to the the first is written at richmond the capital 4 of df virginia and is addressed to the president of the conference elder J degrey dixon it reads while we have an opportunity we will endeavor to write you our proceedings during the past st week in the city ot of richmond C the capital of the old dominion our health is excellent we have never felt better in our lives either in body or spirit during the past week as you will see by our ten meetings h held eld we have been endeavoring to show to the people of richmond the truths in M mor or monism a subject some of the people here have never thought of before our meetings have all been held on street corners we have been unsuccessful thus far in procuring tro curinga a hall or churuti in which to preach 0 occasionally aca sio nally our meetings have been quite slimly attended but this has not discouraged cou raged us in the least for we realize that god will not hold us responsible for the sins of this people providing we do our part in teaching them the truth and we feel that we have done and are still doing that while some of our meetings have been small on the whole we have nothing to complain of last night we had about five hundred eager listeners who had their ears and mouths wide open ready to catch the words as they flowed from our lips which words were dictated by the holy ghost and delivered in earnestness like peters message upon the day of pentecost we commanded them to repent of their sins and prepare for the coming of the great day of the lord when every son and daughter of abraham will be made to appear before the judgment seat of christ to give an account of the deeds done in the body in all of our meetings and can bassing we felt that the lord was with us and rejoiced in being permitted to testify to the world of ithe ahe truth of the C gospel aspel ospel theford Th eLord so blessed us that we had no fear of men in the least but were calm and perfectly composed we do not feel boastful of these things and mention them only as incidents of our labors here our feelings were expressed by the apostle paul upon ulon one occasion when he said for I 1 am not ashamed of the gospel of christ for it is the power of god unto salvation since arriving in richmond we have done all in our power to procure halls and churches to preach in we have begged pleaded entreated and remonstrated with the people for churches etc but to no purpose not only did we try to secure public buildings but private houses also our desires and mission have been published in the leading papers of the city upon different occasions we have gone before the lord in mighty prayer beseeching him to open up the way for us to obtain some place where we could place the gospel before the people under favorable circumstances but for some reason this great blessing has been withheld and we have been compelled to preach on the streets this morning we have been up to visit dr according to an appointment a in ament made with him had an e excellent ce vo le n t time we conversed with him at great length on the gospel and he certainly does appear to be honest at heart he believes that we are teaching the undefiled dented un religion of heaven and is seeking a testimony of the tact fact upon his request we administered to him for the restoration of his health upon leaving him he gave us each a silver dollar with which we will probably purchase a hall for a few days in which to hold meetings we yet have faith that we shall secure a hall our labors in this city will be completed in a week or two THOMAS C ROMNEY W W HUFFAKER the other is from the capital of texas austin and is written to elder A C dalley dailey conference president at your request we give you a report of our work in austin the capital of th the state estate of texas the work in the city was finished up last evening we having fulfilled the prediction of the prophet jeremiah in taking one of a city and two of a family since conference conle rence on september isah we have visited families made 83 revisits revisit re visits shad had rejected testimony of elders 14 refused entertainments distributed tri buted tracts bolds books loaned and gave away 18 hela so 50 meetings 33 of which were held on the street and 17 in private houses we tried in vain to secure 23 different churches and two halls in which to hold services we feel that we have performed our duty toward this people as we have preached night and day holding as many as three meetings each day we always offered them books and tracts and when jour our books ran out we borrowed some of those we had sold re placing lacing these later by those received from from the office thus always keeping beeping a supply on hand for the people the newspapers and attorneys are our friends the policemen tell us that nothing but good has been reported of us and when it happened that we blocked the street with our meetings they waited until we were through be fore asking us to move to another corner infidels and skeptics told us that we were teaching the best common sense doctrines they had ever heard while professed pro fessel christians frequently re marked the doctrine is all ad rights right but look at the name five months have passed since we first entered the city in fasting and prayer many are the lessons we have learned through experience bemen we men ton a few never rent halls promising to pay for them when you have no visible means of doing s so 0 rather have faith in god and he will provide them for you if he desires you to use them always accept at the opportune time an all that is offered never bargain for things with out money to pay for them when you have seemingly failed up and try it again faith and will power will assist you in performing wonders 4 the subjects we preached on were faith repentance baptism holy ghost atonement organization of the church rayer and that part of the book of V bayer ormon relating to its historical facts apostasy and restoration we left entirely alone we labored with the belief that if we could get people to believe in faith repentance baptism the holy ghost and prayer strong enough to practice them they could easily be converted to all other truths we leave this city with the ice broken and the way paved we have made several good friends and so far as we know no enemies IV JOHN HN boob M 0 MINER |