Elder Badlam, Dear Brother: We have received two long interesting letters from you, one from Panama and one after you had been in San Francisco about six days; also one from Chagress, making three in all. I have written several to you, which I have sent by private conveyance, in shaips that go around Cape Horn, and sister Badlam has sent several by steamer; but I have not seen any she has sent to you, and do not know what she has written, as I have generally been gone when she has written, and, not knowing how much church news she has sent you, I feel it to be my duty to fill a sheet to you and send it by mail, and perhaps I ought to have done it before this. You have been very diligent in writing to me and your family, and your letters have been highly interesting. I feel thankful that you have got along so well and been prospered on your journey and arrived in safety at San Francisco. I have felt to pray for you continually, from day to day. Since you left here I have been gone from home most of the time, and have only remained at home about long enough to answer my correspond- ing letters, write my journal, and close up such work as seemed necessary to be done, and then I am off again. I have visited Boston, or even Cambridgeport, but little since you left, only going and returning from my journeys. I was much interested in the account you gave me of Pana- ma and journey from Chagres, also your success on the ship with the pas- sengers, and the account you gave after you landed. The New York Herald publishes every week a number of letters from the gold diggings of San Francisco, but they are very conflicting in thei^r^ statements. I expect dry goods must be very cheap by this time in San Francisco. In order to do by you as you have done by me, I will go back to the time you left and give you a ^little^ history of events as they have passed along with me since we parted. Soon after you left I wrote some lengthy letters to the Presidency in the Valley, spoke of your course, and the object of your going to San Francisco, that you went with my counsel to. We were notified by the keepers of the Boydston Hall that we could have