Letter to Cornelius Schettler, 19 March 1894
P.O. Box, B. Salt Lake City, Utah. .
Elder Cornelius D. Schettler,
Dear Brother:
I have taken it upon myself to write a few lines to our young
Elders who went together from Salt Lake upon their first mission to
Germany. We have had a number of letters from Owen, and I have liked
very much the spirit of them.
Mrs. Woodruff and myself took supper with your father and
mother on the 14th and we had a good time. Herman and Irene made us
splendid music. A good deal was said about Cornelius' mission and the
other boys. Of course, you are now beginning to make your first mark
in the ministry. I have been there before you and I know what it is;
though you have the language to learn, which I did not. I went on my
first mission without purse or srcrip. I went through the wilderness,
waded swamps, traveled alone as a priest, and baptized many that I could
not confirm. You are a Seventy and can attend to all the ordinances
necessary in organizing branches of the Church. I have great hopes in
you young men. I suppose you naturally will have some difficulty in
preaching to these foreign governments considering the laws and politics.
But I think there is a good deal of the blood of Israel in Germany and
Switzerland. We have everything to encourage us in searching out hthe
honest in heart among the nations. The Lord told Oliver Cowdery that if
he spent his whole life in saving one soul how great would be his joy in
the eternal world over that one soul. I have felt that I have great
cause to rejoice in that respect; I have had the credit of bringing more
