Correspondence
Home Mission
G.S.L. City, June 28, 1856
Editor of the Deseret News:
Dear Sir:
I arrived home yesterday at noon from a mission south, in company with Elder Jacob Gates, after an absence of thirty three days. We visited the principal settlements in the counties of Utah, Juab, Fillmore, Beaver, Iron and Washington; terminating our outward journey at Harmony.
We preached to the Saints in most of the principal places; were treated with the utmost hospitality and kindness, had good attention, a good measure of the Spirit of the Lord, and the people appeared to be in good spirits. The weather was extremely hot and dry, a disagreeable and parching south wind prevailing most of the time. A spirit of extreme industry was manifested everywhere—the people straining every nerve to put in, and take care of their crops. At Harmony they will be short of water.
The new county of Beaver is fast filling up with an enterprising and industrious population. They have opened, fenced, and planted large fields, and some have fenced, cleared, and planted blocks in the city, and erected temporary houses there. Beaver valley is calculated to sustain a large population, on account of its inexhaustible supplies of water and its abundant fuel and timber.
If we may take the liberty to find any fault with the people of that place, or indeed with those of any of the southern settlements, it would be that they work too hard, and have hardly time to pray or think.
The Indians were generally peaceable, and some of them hard at work cultivating the earth.
I pray that the people where we have been may be blest with peace and the good Spirit of the Lord in abundance, and that a blessing may attend their labors and rest upon their flocks, herds, fields, and gardens.
My health is much improved by the journey, and I found my family in their usual health, for which I thank God.
Respectfully,
P.P. Pratt
[Deseret News, July 16, 1856]
[Journal History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, June 28, 1856, 6]
[transcribed and proofread by David Grow, Aug. 2006]