CHAPTER IV.
REASON FOR MY SUDDEN CALL TO LEAVE SYDNEY—THE LITTLE OLD LADY OF THE "WAKATIPU"—SHE HAD WAITED A GENERATION TO RENEW HER COVENANTS—ANOTHER "HELPFUL VISION"—A MYSTERIOUS HALF-SOVEREIGN—SAVED FROM DEATH IN A SWIFT RIVER.
Elders William McLachlan, Thomas Steed, Charles Hurst and Fred. Hurst had been the last Utah Elders to labor in the New Zealand missionary field previous to the date of my landing there. They had rendered good service to the cause, and I discovered that the foundation which they had laid was broad and deep, and cemented in gospel truth.
After a few days visit with Brother Nordstrand at Styx, I went to Southbrook, where I found Elder James Burnett Jr., the young man who had been left in charge of the mission by the brethren about a year before.
With him and with others I labored up and down the country in that locality, and in the ensuing three months twenty-five souls were brought into the Church in the Canterbury Province.
One of my first meetings was held at Prebbleton. While speaking there, I felt led to detail the strange succession of circumstances attendant upon my coming so early to that field. When I sat down a good sister named Mortensen arose and said:
"Brother Shreeve, I can tell you why you received the command to come to New Zealand immediately. It was in answer to our fervent prayer. For more than three months previous to your arrival here we had been anxiously supplicating the Lord to send us an Elder from Utah."
About two months after I landed in New Zealand I was traveling in company with Brother John Walker, when he said to me:
"There is a woman living in this neighborhood, who, I understand, once belonged to the Church. I am acquainted with her husband. Let us go over and see her."
I assented to his proposition and went to the house designated. When we entered we saw a little old woman sitting by the stove, smoking a pipe. She arose with some embarrassment at receiving visitors. But the moment she fully confronted me, I saw that she was the little old woman who had visited me in imagination on board the Wakatipu, while sailing across Cook's Straits.