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BYRON PORTER JOURNAL
This is an account of Byron Porter's short term MIA mission to Idaho
1902 - 1903.
Submitted by Beth Porter- Clearfield Utah.
I left Salt Lake City December 13, 1902 for Fremont County, Idaho. Stopped all night in Idaho Falls and reached Rexburg Dec. 14th…Found but little snow in Rexburg. Reported to President Wm. Johnson and President Bassett Dec. 15th. December 17th: Went to Salem. Slept with James Mason at T. Grover's. December18th went with Elder Orson to… and YMMIA practice.
December 19th: Went visiting the people. Tried to corner a young man in a stable but he escaped through a window and did not catch him. Two other young men promised to go better. December 20th: Visited several young men who have been neglected. Most of them seemed to feel better and made good promises. Some of them were married.
December 21st: Went to Rexburg to M.I.A. conference. Spoketo the people in the afternoon. December 22nd visited two of the wild young men of the ward. Left them feeling well. They then all promised to attend the meetings. Also visited the only family in the ward who are not in the church. Left them feeling well, and they promised to attend the Y.M.M.I.A. meetings.
December 23rd visted the Mace bys. Read the… the them. Got them interested in the history of the Prophet Joseph and they promised to subscribe for the Era. Visited Mort Mortensen, an outsider. Bore my testimony to him. He seemed very nervous. Left him with tears in his eyes. Visited Pete Mortensen and wife. Tears came to their eyes as we sang "What was witnessed in the Heavens."
December 24th: Did some visiting and went to Rexburg. December 25th: Went sleigh riding. December 26th: Visited a High Priest's family. He did not pray , either in secret or in family. Talked to him on prayer and offered to sing and pray with them. One sang but did not pray. His son and wife said they tried to get him to have prayers, but he would not. He said he would try to do better.
December 27th: Visited several who promised to join the Mutual and do better. December 28th: Went to MIA meeting. Quite a number who had promised to come were there and joined the MIA. December 29th: Visited some who had promised to join the MIA. Talked to some on profanity. December 30th: Visited and talked to some on the gospel. Some promised to go to MIA. December 31: Made a few visits.
January 1st 1903: Seen Brother Virgin and his son and.. Went to the dance with Miss G.. Went home with A. Dallling. January 2nd: Went to Parker with Bro. Larson. Visited one young man who gave us to understand that he would do better and join the meetings.
January 3rd: Visited the Sorenson family. Talked and sang which brought tears to their eyes. The lady was driven from home in the wolf country. She gave her ticket to a boy who was crying to go to Utah. She went back. Her father invited her home again.
She was the means of getting him converted. First by letting her ask the blessing and praying with him.
January 4th: Spoke twice in Sunday School and once in meeting.
January 5th: Made several visits, among them Bishop Miller's son, who promised to join and take part in the meetings. Also young E… who seemed quite bitter against the Mormons. I had a long talk with him and left him feeling better and not to condemn the principle because of the actions of men. He used to be all right when in the BYU Academy but went to mining camp. Had not been treated well by Mormons. Seemed to have strong will power and said if he did anything he would work hard. Concluded to study the principle and not the link them with the bad actions of people.
January 6th: Made many visits. Ate supper with an Indian family. The boy promised to join the MIA. Had a long talk with young F. Flint. He and his wife want me to come back and talk about the principles of the gospel. January 7th: Visited alone. January 8th: Went to Rexburg. January 9th: Go the list of boys visited in Salem. January 10th : Visited a number of young men, among them the Rick's boys, who promised to join the MIA.
January 11th: Went to two meetings and spoke in both. Visited Bro. Workman and took him and another man to meeting. January 12th: Went to Egin and the to Plano and visited 3 married men. Two of them promised to join the MIA. One of them is an outsider. January 13th: Visited a number of men and boys. Got several promises.
January 14th: Went to Egin and visited 5 young men. Got 3 promised to join.
January 15th: Visited several young men. Some promised to join. One rehersed to us the bad example the bishopric had set for the young men to follow which resulted in a bad condition of the ward. Jan. 16th: Went to Salem. 17th: visited.. family January 18th: Spoke twice in Salem. 19th: Went to Burton. 20th: Visited 7 young men. Got several promises.
January 21st: Visited 4 young men. Got some good promised. Found a great deal of foul and profane language at the dance in Lyman. Jan. 22nd: Did some visiting. Jan. 23rd: Went preaching to Brothers Gee and Andrews. Got some good promises. Ran into an old Methodist who said "John preached in the wilderness where there was no one to baptize." He didn't believe much in the bible. January 24th and 25th: Went to conference at Rexburg. January 26th: Went to Lyman Visited 5 young men who promised to join MIA. January 27th: Visited 15 young men.
January 28th: Visited 7 young men in a blinding snow storm. Held a cottage meeting at night. January 29th: Went to Archer and met the Bishop who seemed to think that the MIA was in good order. I went to the President who was discouraged and had no one to help him but the secretary. He had.. not to try to hold anymore meetings. Went back to the Bishop to see what could be done towards more fullly organizing. He seemed mad at me and the President. Said he would like me to do my duty and visit the wild young men as I had done in the other wards.
He told the President to go ahead or else resign. Things looked black for me I talked to him awhile and told him I would do my duty. I and the President went out and in 6 hours had a complete organizing and were accepted by the ward.
January 30th: Visited 19 young men. Most of them promised to join. Went to dance and went to Burton with Brother Hersig. January 31st: Walked most of the way from Burton to Salem in a heavy wind and snow storm. In snow all the way from 4 inches to 4 feet in a drift, a distance of about 15 miles. I carried a heavy valise.
Febuary 1st: Went to two meetings in Salem and spoke in both. February 2nd: Visited two young men and two young ladies who went home with me. February 3rd: Went to Teton City. February 4th: Visited 18 young men. February 5th: Visited 9 young men. Saw Mrs. Leavett..wife. February 6th: Visited 10 young men. Most of them were willilng to join the MIA. At night went to Rexburg.
February 7th: Went to Teton at night. Visited Elders, Seventies and High Priests meeting. They used the manual of 1901. Febuary 8th : Went to S.S. afternoon meeting and MIA. Spoke in all of them.. I got them to select 2 class leaders and 3 missionaries. February 9th: Visited 8 young men which finished Teton.
February 10th: Went to Rexburg with M. Jensen. Got an obstacle in one ete and a girl in the other. February 11th: Went to Parker. February 12th: Went to St. Anthony and did some visiting. February 13th: Visited some young men. February 14th: Visited young men in the forenoon. Went to Marysville in afternoon. February 15th: Assisted the Bishop and President. All meetings were closed on account of smallpox. Snow is 3 and 4 feet deep in road. If teams tried to pass they would tip over. Some houses were encircled with drifts 8 or 10 feet deeps. A tunnel cut through from house granary. About 2 miles to the north are low mountains covered with pine trees. On the east are the teton peaks. People were threshing until nearly Christmas, hauling the machine on bobs. It took 6 horses to pull it.
February 16th: Visited some of the people and the head teachers of districts and made arrangements to hold cottage meetings in 4 districts. At night I went to Bishop's council meeting and they decided not to hold any meetings but let me go somewhere else. February 17th Went to St. Anthony on a load of grain. It was snowing. I left without breakfast and traveled 21 miles. Brother Barrett said he sold some 150 Ibs of tobacco in Marysville every month. The people also buy some in St. Anthony. There is lots of bad language in Marysville. Stopped at Ernest Bramwells at night. He brought a young man home with him. Found him in a saloon. He came in drunk and crying. He is going on a mission in a few days. He felt very bad that he had been overcome by adversary and had given way to temptation.
February 18th: Went to Wilford. February 19th: Assisted some young men and at night held a public meeting. Wilford ward is not in good condition. Only a few who take part. February 20th: Went visting among the people. Visited Brother Mitchell, whose family nearly starved a few years ago. They ate everything they had at night and didn't know where the next meal was coming from. All neighbors were out of flour as well. February 21st: Went to a party at Brother Jensen's in Salem. February 22nd: Visited the academy. February 24th: Took a circular walk up to Teton and down to Salem. Stopped all afternoon and until 11:00 o'clock with Maimie while here folks were still at Rexburg. Stopped all night with them. February 25th: Visited Jim Windmill, a Danish father , who prayed in native tongue. His little boy asked, "Do you think the Lord can understand that."
February 26th: Went to Wilford. Got them to select some local missionaries. Also went to St. Anthony. February 27th: Went to Twin Groves. Stopped with President Godfrey. February 28th: Went visiting the people. Visited Mr. Nyberg's family. Talked with Mr. Nyberg for about an hour on principles of the gospel. He thinks he and his son and two daughters will be baptized next summer.
March 1st: Went to three meetings. The people are slow in getting to the meetings. Good many break the Sabbath, haul hay and play cards on fast day. March 2nd: Went to Salem. Visited Jim Windmill. March 3rd: Visited Mort Mortensen for about an hour on the gospel. Went to see the three musketeers at night. March 4th: Went to Rexburg and saw the play "Strogoff" in the afternoon and "Faust" at night. In Faust the devil could not get Margaret to tempt or work with her because she was pure and innocent and did her duty. He was bound with her bt worked through others and got them to tempt her until she got proud, then he could begin to work with her.
After Faust made a pledge, or oath, with him to serve him, he could then make him do anything. He used him to get others to sin. Between acts we could see the devils shadow walking back and forth on the stage. So we can in live. He placed jewels and diamonds before Margaret and had Faust work with her by degrees until he got her to give her mother a drug to put her to sleep so that Faust could come to her home. He caused her downfall and her mother died the same night from effects of the drug. He then got her brother and Faust to fight a duel and he directed Faust so that he killed her brother. He helped school boys to make fun of their school mate until they got him to drink with them.
March 5th: Went to St. Anthony. March 6th: Met Octave Ursenbach. Went to Twin Groves and visited Mr. Nyberg.
March 7th: Went to Chester. March 8th: Went to 3 meetings, one and night for YMMIA. I talked for about three quarters of an hour. Had a good meeting. Got two missionaries called. Got the meetings started again. Found Chester in a bad condition. They had no meetings for 5 or 6 weeks. Young people play cards nearly every night until about 4 o'clock in the morning. Young men go to work in the summer but lose all they make betting in cards.
Nearly all use tobacco and profane. Parents use tobacco and break the Sabbath. Young Men smoke and play cards in meeting house. Puff smoke in Bishop's face when he reproved them. I sopke on profanity and card playing and necessity of mutual improvement.
March 9th: Went to St. Anthony in a blizzard.
March 10th: Went to Salem on train. Samuel Orme got his leg broken that day.
March 11th: Went to Rexburg
March 12th: Got my release.
March 13th: Went to Island Ward.
March 14th: Visited some peole. Found Sister Lutz whos mother was a Porter.
March 15th: Went to Sunday School and meeting and MIA meeting at night.
March 16th: Went to Rexburg with President Berry. Also walked to Salem.
March 17th: March 18th: Went to Rexburg in a one horse buggy. The horse fell down in a lake and I got out in the ice water and pulled him to shore.
This is the end of Byron Porter's missionary journal
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