News from Our Mission in the Pacific

Island of Toobouai, Society Group, }

February 20, 1845. }

ELDER B. YOUNG -VERY DEAR BROTHER IN CHRIST:-I wrote you a long letter while on the passage and closed it at this place, and gave it to brother Grouard, requesting him to forward it from Tahiti. But he heard me read the letter, and he made objections to some of it, for I had expressed my feelings pretty warmly respecting some of the officers and passengers of the ship. I told him if he had a mind to copy the letter and leave out those hard places which he objected to, he might, but send me the original by the first opportunity. I have received a visit form him within a few weeks; while here I asked him about the letter. He told me he had written you a letter in his own name, but had said nothing about mine, nor did he bring it to me. What his objects were in so doing, are best known to himself. But as I have mentioned in several letters that I had written to you, I thought it proper to give this explanation, that you might know the reason you had not received it.

When I came here, I found four Americans in company about to commence building a vessel. They were then gathering materials from the wreck of a French ship, that had been cast away here a few months before. They soon after employed three foreigners to help them; two Americans and one Scotchman. To these

I commenced preaching, and in a few weeks I baptized six of them, and the seventh requested our prayers. But as he has been an old resident among these islands, he at last boldly confessed that he loved women and rum too well to give them up yet, and he would run the risk a little longer; though he does and always has, treated me with much kindness and generosity. They have got along very well with their vessel; her frame is all done and ready for planking, and they have got above half of them sawn [sawed], and will soon accomplish the other half.

She is built of tamana wood: this is a species of mahogany, and is very durable. She is modelled [modeled] for a staunch fast sailor of about one hundred tons burthen [burden]. Their skill in ship building has by far surpassed my expectations. They are anxious to know what you would advise about her; whether to sell her after we get to Columbia river, (for we expect to go home that way; several of them have native wives that belong to the church, and they all wish to go to Nauvoo, and we think that will be the nearest and best way home.) or keep her in the church to aid the spread of the gospel in the Pacific, and the gathering of the saints from among these islands.

The Lord has greatly blessed my feeble efforts to spread the gospel. I have baptized fifty-seven persons on this island, and they are all here now but one; he went to Tahiti.-Among them are the queen, who is heiress to the crown, a deputy king and his wife and daughter, a girl about fifteen, the head chief and his wife, these are adopted parents to the queen, and several of the subordinate chiefs: so you see the reins of government are within the church, and it has blundered me into a very awkward position, for if your will allow me to speak jestingly, I am prime minister of the island. My counsel is sought for in most law cases, though it is my endeavor to keep clear of them as much as possible. But there is a pack of outlaws of both sexes that make much disturbance, and when I am on an opposite side of the island, they will come there sometimes at midnight and wake me to know what to do.-But as the Mormon influence on this island is already exciting the jealousy of some Mormon eating ship masters from the United States, I think it wisdom to keep clear of their laws as much as possible; at any rate I think I have nothing to do with them, and I often tell them I did not come here to make laws or to see them executed, but to preach the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ; and when I had done that I had discharged my duty, and those that come into the church will have to be ruled by the laws of the church, and that is the end of the matter: but I am not allowed to rest here, and so I have to do the best I can. But a little advice from you on all of these subjects, I can assure you, would be very acceptable.

Will it move a feeling of compassion for us when I tell you that neither of us have received a word from any of our friends in America since we left there! Surely, can it be that we are forgotten by you all? We did every thing, I thought, that we could do before we left New Bedford, to have the brethren there forward letters to us, and we have been away nearly a year and a half, and not a word yet, and ship after ship has been here direct from there, and not a word from any body but Mormon eaters, and they have news enough for us; such as Joe Smith is dead, and Daniel Butler has denied the faith and gone back to New Bedford, and the church is all broken up and going to the devil. But all the satisfaction such fellows get from me is, that if one half of the church is shot, and the other half have denied the faith, I know the work is true, and by the help of God I am determined to make all the noise I can about it, and spread this gospel to the ends of the earth, the Lord giving me time and strength to do it.

Though, by the by, I am very happy to say that not all that visit here are of this cast; there are some noble exceptions. While Bro. Grouard was here, we were visited by a ship called the Caroline, Captain Daniel McKenzie, of New Bedford; he was twenty-eight days from the Sandwich Islands; while there he was much at Dr. Winslow's, one of our fellow passengers on board the Timoleon; they had received a letter from me a few days before: in it I had given a sketch of my success here, and also spoke of the English missionaries; their visit here, my bearing testimony to them of the truth of this work, &c., &c.

He had read the letter, and hearing my name (as he said) often mentioned by the doctor and his wife, it had created an anxiety in his mind to visit this place. I found him to be the most agreeable, intelligent, and interesting ship master that I was ever acquainted with. He staid [stayed] several days, and said he should have been glad to have staid [stayed] a month. He is a religious man; we investigated the latter day considerably; he was much pleased with it, said it was the most like the gospel of Christ of any creed he had heard of yet, and he was determined on investigating the matter more fully. I let him have the last Book of Mormon I had to spare, the last Voice of Warning, and the last O. Pratt's pamphlet. I am never applied to for a Book of Mormon, but my indignation is kindled

against those good brethren in Philadelphia that bought Brother Hanks' books from him, and I believe our good Brother Grant was at the head of it.

Here we are now, at this remote corner of the earth, without any books, and ships sailing to almost every place, are calling on us for them. I shall never forget the disadvantage that unkind act has been to us. And perhaps they will try to justify themselves by saying they were trying to help us along. Will any man that is a Mormon pretend to say he is helping us along by digging the eyes out of our heads? But I hope those that come out to relieve us will be provided with books, and that they will fall in with no pirates on the way. And, by the by, when are we to be relieved? by the way we get news, it seems that we are forgotten by all in America; and if that is the case and no elder is sent, am I bound to stay on this little island for life? If I get no news from home till the vessel is done, I take it for a sign that my mission is up, and that I am at liberty to go away in her, and scramble up what I can to go with me. I know that Brother Rogers is head of the mission, and that I am to obey him; but I have not had a letter from him in six months: but I have often told the people that there would an elder come to take my place, and they are depending on my word, and I do not like to disappoint them.-They often ask if you will send a man that they like better. They would like a friendly, candid, virtuous man; bad as they are, they will reject any thing like licentiousness in the conduct of an elder-such an one they would soon banish from the island. It is but a small part towards making saints of them to get them no farther than to barely baptize them. They are so established in their old sinful practices, that like the children of Israel that went out of the land of Egypt, they that were twenty years old and upwards never reached the promised land, (two excepted). But still, I know that faith and patience work wonders, and I am not yet discouraged.

Perhaps you might ask how I get along in the language? I would answer, that I can explain almost any passage of scripture after a fashion; but their language is so deficient, and the translation of the Bible is so imperfect, that it is hard to make them understand the plan of salvation. I honestly believe that all that has been done by the English missionaries, has been done, not with an eye single to the glory of God, but with an eye single to the lining of their own pockets. They have not less than three editions of the Tahitian Bible and Testament, and now they are gone home for the fourth. The people on this island have to take the first edition (which they call the best) to translate the last by, or they cannot understand it; and every new edition they raise on the price; the last are two dollars apiece.-What knowledge we have obtained of the language is by hard study, and not by the "gift of tongues." And I can tell you, that those that are sent to people to whom they can preach in their own language, got rid of a job that we have to contend with, that I can assure you is by no means an agreeable one. But I feel to thank the Lord, for we have been helped-and we are getting along pretty well. But I think elders that are sent to preach where they have to acquire the language first, should be young men, for they generally learn easier than those that are past the meridian of life. I think that if I ever again get where I can travel and preach in the English language, I shall know how to prize such privileges.

These islands are a large field of labor: there are also some groups of islands to the eastward of those, that can read the Tahitian Bible; and where the English missionaries are not located they will readily receive an elder, and if the French held possession here it is pretty sure that the English will all leave, as a portion have already; and then the door will be left open to all the islands. As I suppose you have frequent communication from Brothers Rogers and Grouard, I need say no more on this subject.

As you have been on a foreign mission yourself, I presume you know how to feel for us; but I expect all communication was not cut off from you as it has been from us, though you were in a foreign land. I feel very anxious to receive letters from you; you may direct to the care of the American Consul at Tahiti, and they will be forwarded to me. I feel very anxious to know whether my family are yet in the land of the living; I have not heard a word from them since September 1843. Please tell them they are remembered before the throne of Grace from day to day, and I trust I am not forgotten by them. One of the greatest sources of comfort I have in this my lonely situation, is the assurance that my name is had in remembrance in their prayers from day to day. Tell them to cheer up and be happy in this my protracted stay, and remember that if we are faithful unto the end, the day is at hand when these long separations will be at an end.-"Though it tarry, it will come." I daily feel the need of the prayers of the saints, and I hope my wife will not be unmindful as she meets with those praying circles, to stir them

up by way of remembrance in our behalf. I hope she will be steadfast in the faith, and learn our children so to be, till we shall meet again. I wish to be remembered to them with a husband's and father's affections, also to Bro. P. B. Lewis: tell him I hope he has not bestowed his money on us in vain; and this I say to all that put forth the helping hand toward us, may the Lord add his blessings to them all.-I wish to be remembered with brotherly affection to all that inquire after me.

As I have written a long letter to Brother Jonathan Crosby, which I shall send in company with this, I need not go into farther particulars, and if he and his wife should be to the east when the letter arrives, tell my wife she may have the privilege of taking it out of the Post office, if she wishes. I have written three letters from this place to her, and one each to Brothers W. Richards and W. W. Phelps.

There is a whale ship here from New Zealand, bound to Tahiti; she leaves to-morrow-I shall send my letters there, and they will be forwarded from there to America. So no more at present-As ever, I remain your friend and brother in Christ,

ADDISON PRATT.