"As we went from place to place to proclaim the Word of God, we suffered with heat and with cold; but God sustained us in the work, and at last He began to bring the means in for the work. When this means came in we found many places for it. But affliction came into our house. My husband became a paralytic, but our prayers went up to God, and He raised him to health again. This long affliction brought us to want again. But the Lord told us what to do. {Ms35-1885.10}
We had a home; and as we found those who were in affliction and had no home, we would open our home to them and let them share our comforts. One widow came to me and said, “I don’t know what to do with my children, I cannot make them obey me.” There was a wealthy man living by her side, and at one time he took me out to show me his buildings and he said, “I have not room for all my goods.” Then he said, “I do not know what will become of that poor widow across the way, another winter she will have to suffer.” I turned to him and said, “What about your granaries, has not God given you this to help the widow and the fatherless?” Well how many are just as thoughtless as that? {Ms35-1885.11}
I went to the widow and told her that I would take the girl. I did so, and afterwards here came the boy, walking forty miles to our home. Well this is how we got our means; as God saw the use we made of the means He gave us, He intrusted us with more. My husband was a financier. I made the statement last night that we had invested $30,000 in the cause, and this is the way we have done it; when we saw a place where the cause needed means, we would hand it out. When we went over to the Pacific Coast, many were raised up to obey God, and then we wanted means to build a meetinghouse; but the people were poor, so we sent over to Michigan, telling them to sell all that we had; and there we invested our means, and a meetinghouse was built in San Francisco and [another in] Oakland. Often when returning from a long journey, we would look to see if our house had burned down in our absence. And my husband would say, “Never mind if the house does burn, we have a treasure laid up in heaven.” {Ms35-1885.12}