Show TRAVELING IN ILLINOIS pinckneyville perry county august lyth 1895 on tune june first 1895 1 left my home idaho falls idaho to fill a mission to the northern states we arrived safe at pulleys mills williamson county 11 illinois anois the headquarters of the indian conference I 1 was assigned to labor at taswell crawford county indiana my companion was brother brigham brig harn H telford of cache county utah we started on our labors holding meetings and conversing with the people on the principles of the gospel we made lots ot of good friends and succeeded in allaying a great deal of prejudice we also were blest in many ways and had the of baptizing two honest sou souls s into the church brother wilforde cragun of view weber country utah was duly appointed my companion we entered our labors by fasting and praying to our father in heaven that he would open the way for us to get the gospel before the people we began distributing tracts going to every house we could find and leaving two tracts which we urged the people to read and compare with their bibles we were greatly blest and had lots of invitations to the homes of the people more than we could fill brother cragun was next called to go to sulphur wells to labor there and brother william F tolley was appoint ea ed to labor with me in orange county we commenced distributing tracts and holding meetings where we had opportunity port unity we were greatly blessed and the lord raised up friends to us we held three meetings at french aichs orange county commenced by speaking on the first principles of the gospel and after the meetings we had four applications for Bap baptism ism abid in a lew days ays we led them into the water A great many are investigating the gospel and we hope its seeds will take root and grow and some day bring forth fruit I 1 was called to labor with brother germon buchanan of johnson kane county utah with headquarters at pinckneyville Pinckney vitle perry county illinois we began our labors by holding meeting and leaving tracts inviting the people to read them we soon found the people were a little prejudiced against us and the principles of the gospel in this part we are thankful the lord has been with us and we think we have allayed a great deal of prejudice there are some saints here and they are very kind to us and are doing all they can for the furtherance of thet the gospel most of the schoolhouses school houses are closed against us but we hold meetings it at private houses and have a good time last week we had the privilege of baptizing four more honest souls into the church and there is a good prospect for others to soon follow their steps we think a good work will be done here in the near future while we have been laboring in perry county illinois we have made lots of of good friends Iri ends some of them are leading men of this county and when we go to leave them our bill is come again and bring us more reading matter we are endeavoring to give as many of the voice of warnings as we can afford and also as many pratt works as we can and our experience is that when the th people will read orson pratts prates works it if they are honest and seeking for truth they will say they think we are right g and they want to investigate further we W e think that now is the time to preach the gospel here the people eople begin to know us as we are acx and we think the time is near when they will begin to look up to the latter day saints as being superior to any other we often bear our testimony to the people and tell them that the stone cut out of the mountains without handstand hand sand that it will roll forth till it fills the whole earth and we tell them that the kingdom of god which the latter day saints are preach preaching i g is that stone and it has began to roll aa and will continue till it fills the earth we are well and feel to press forward and do our duty we are united in our labors JOSEPH empey |