| 680 His wife soon followed him into the church and was ever an active and zealous member of the same. He had preached the night before his baptism in his capacity as an evangelist of the association to which he belonged; and the night after he preached as an elder of the church, continuing his meetings without interruption. At the April conference of the same year, he was ordained to the office of Seventy, which office he held for several years, during which he was a constant and zealous laborer in the ministry.
In the spring of 1873 he was called by revelation to the office of an apostle in the Quorum of Twelve; and on April 10, at the General Conference, he was ordained under the hands of Elder J. W. Briggs and others. His ministerial labor extended into the Northern, Southern, Eastern, and Western States, covering a majority of the states from ocean to ocean. In 1884 he extended his labors into the Pacific Ocean, going to the Society Islands, where he remained for some years. Thence to Australia, assisting Elder Joseph F. Burton and others in placing the church in a better condition, when he returned to the Islands and labored there until 1890. At the spring conference of 1890 he was assigned to the Pacific Slope Mission as associate minister in charge with Heman C. Smith. He remained in this field a part of the year, and moving eastward, stopped for a time in Colorado. Thence on to Missouri, where he located at Independence. In the spring of 1891, together with J. R. Lambert, he was placed in charge of Iowa and Missouri. They subsequently divided the field and Elder Smith had charge of Missouri.
On December 3, 1891, his wife died at Independence. She was the mother of four children, all of whom died while in childhood, none of them living to be more than nine years old. She contracted the disease that terminated her life while in the Society Islands exposed to hardship and fatigue, reviving some while in Australia, only to relapse when she returned to the Islands; and she came to America broken in health. It was thought that the climate of California might have the effect of restoring her to health, but in this she and her husband were disappointed. Seeking the climate of
(page 680) |
