Farmington Dear Son Wilford It is now Thanksgiving eve with us, & we have been waiting in earnest expectation for a number of weeks to hear from you again. I should have written you eer this, had it not been for the consequent ersults of the late trouble at the west zvivz the determinations of the church to remove to a more hospitable clime &c &c, & as we your Parents verily supposed, their son Wilford would never engage in this great enterprize without first visiting ^his native^ land because firstly, they were conscious that he not only had children in his native Land but also some property there which they concluded he must of necessity attend to before he left these united States, & secondly that he had Parents there who had for some time past been looking to him as one who, in some not very distand period would probably be able & willing to assist them in gathering with the Saints & their other dear children who had gone thither & whom they much wished to see, & that now as the church had determined upon a remove across the Rocky Mountains to California surely they thought it could not be long before he would be returning to the West & make calculations to call on them to stir them up & assist them in preparing for the great event viz to aid them on to the West & give them a little time to rest & visit their Children untill the opening of the spring when they wocould all both Parents & Children be prepared to take their final leave with the church & in the strength of Israels God engag in the Rocky Mou scaling the flinty Mountains I thought soon after we had the account that the church would all remove, & told your father, that I would write as it was high time we had, but that it was not certain but that you might have had the news sooner, as soon a[s] we & that you might be returning before a Letter could get to you & knowing your zeal in things pertaining to the Kingdom of God we finally thot best to omit writing you, your father had often said I wonder Wilford dont write us or, that we do not recieve a communication from him, if he is coming on this fall & this, we surely thot you would do & when your father said, I dont know how W. will be visit for the means to assist us in going the answer was at hand, viz that I thought & felt that as he had from time to time assisted the Saints especially when in England to come to America that that they might go to the Land of Zion & that now, as he would in all probability desire to help his Parents & other relatives to go with the church that the Lord wold open & prepare the way before him by granting him means sufficient to accomplish the desired object. Indeed your father & myself have fell much on the subject I can say that it has looked very pleasent to me to think of going even across the Rocky Mountains