Report on the Colorado Mission

My brethren and sisters, I desire an interest in your faith and prayers for the few moments that I shall speak to you, that I may be under the inspiration of our Father in heaven. It has been my pleasure to labor for a short time in the Colorado mission, and the time that I have been there has been the pleasantest of my life. The Colorado mission embraces a great deal of territory. Many of the Latter-day Saints do not realize its extent. We go from Canada on the north to Mexico on the south, and from the Missouri river to California, including the states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming and Colorado, and the territories of New Mexico and Arizona. The people who live in this locality are comparatively a new people. The country is also comparatively new — about the same as Utah. The people who have settled it came there for the benefit of their health or for the purpose of making money; and there is a great indifference among them with respect to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We have no persecution to meet. I sometimes wish we had; for I believe if we had a little it might cause the honest in heart to look at us and see what we really are teaching. As it is, it requires a great effort on the part of the Elders to get the people to take any interest in us whatever. We have a very healthy climate. I do not think there has been an Elder taken home dead from the Colorado mission, and, so far as I know, there has only been one case where an Elder has died within a few weeks after his return. We have eight stakes of Zion situated within the borders of our mission, and it is a difficult mission to preach the Gospel in, for we find so many people who have drifted away from the Church, and who have denied that they ever had a testimony. This class of people do us a great deal of injury. On the other hand, we find people who have drifted away from the body of the Church, having forgotten their covenants, but who are brought back into the fold by the labors of the Elders, and they rejoin the stakes of Zion, pay their tithes and offerings, and become active members. In this way we are trying to do some good; but in some instances the efforts of the Elders are not realized because their labors are among this class of people. We find many of our young sisters who have married outside of the pales of the Church. They come to us with tears in their eyes, and say they wish they had their life to lead over again. In my experience in the mission field I have got the first woman to see yet who was happy in this kind of a union, and I have met hundreds of them. We have between forty and fifty Elders doing the work in these five states and two territories, and they are kept busy. Some parts of our mission have to remain without Elders, because we do not have sufficient to preach the Gospel there. There are no Elders in North and South Dakota, nor in Wyoming, at the present time. There are thirteen Elders in Nebraska, where we ought to have at least twenty-five or thirty; but we realize that it is difficult to get the number of Elders to preach the Gospel that should be sent out into the mission fields. It would be a difficult thing for me to estimate the number of conversions, or the amount of literature that has been distributed, as I have not the figures with me. It is difficult to estimate the number of conversions, for the reason that so many have been brought back into the Church, or have been led to renew their covenants. ¶

I know that this is the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and, like the Apostle Paul, I know it is the power of God unto salvation. I have joy and satisfaction in my labors in preaching the Gospel unto the people of the world, and in bearing my testimony wherever it is possible for my voice to be raised. I wish to give my life to the service of the Lord. The only desire of my heart is to do what good I can for my fellowmen, and to ,preach the Gospel unto those who know not Jesus Christ. I have been very much interested in the conference thus far, and to me it is a feast. I can appreciate the words of Apostle Grant, when he f'iu that no one but those who are deprived of these blessings can realize and understand to the fullest extent the blessings that are bestowed upon them by having the privilege of attending these conferences. I know that I am spiritually fed. I know that it does me good when I return to my mission field, and I feel that the Elders who are laboring with me partake of the same spirit and are actuated by the self-same testimony that has been given at this conference. They write to me, "Attend all the conferences, and do not miss any of them; for we feel that when you return to the mission you will carry the same spirit with you." I pray that I shall, and I pray that we will all carry the spirit of this conference with us to our homes, that it may be a blessing to us and our children and to those who have not the privilege of attending the conferences. I ask it in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. ¶