Excerpts from
Juvenile Instructor - 1887
Written by Thomas A. Shreeve (1851-1931)

Instead, however, of our getting away Wednesday morning at four o'clock, at that hour a furious gale was coming up the strait. So terrific was its power that the captain could not entertain the thought of going out of port; so we remained over twenty-six hours, and left Wellington at six o'clock on Thursday morning.

On Friday morning, about six o'clock, we reached Port Littleton, from which place I had learned that a train started for Christchurch, on the way to Rangiora, an hour later. It was my intention to go on shore with my luggage and take a seat in this train before seven o'clock.

But, as I was about to set foot upon the gangway, I felt a sudden prompting, as distinct as if it were a voice, speaking to me:

"Don't go ashore now. You must wait for a time."

I learned that another train would leave during the morning, and then I went back into the cabin with my luggage and remained nearly an hour. While waiting I seemed to hear a voice as of someone speaking behind me:

"Now is your time to go ashore."

I took all my luggage on my shoulders and in my hands, and walked across the deck and gangway, and was just setting foot on the quay, when a man rushed up to me and said:

"Excuse me, sir; but do you know of anyone by the name of Shreeve on board this vessel?"

I dropped my luggage, reached out my hand, and said:

"You are Brother Nordstrand!"

He replied:

"Yes; and you are Brother Shreeve! Allow me to welcome you to New Zealand."

I did not know at the time why I said "Brother Nordstrand." Of course I had never seen the man before, and the only possible acquaintance I could have had with his name, was, that I had glanced once or twice, some weeks previous, at a report which contained the names of the New Zealand Saints. Paying but little attention to this matter at the time, I did not remember that Nordstrand was among these names, even if I saw it. I had no idea that any person would come to meet me. And yet I spoke his name and reached out my hand to him with as much confidence as if we had been old acquaintances, only separated for a year or two.

If this experience on my own part seemed marvelous to me, upon reflection, I was still more surprised when Brother Nordstrand related the events which caused him to meet the Wakatipu at Port Littleton. He said:

"I live at Styx. This morning in a dream, a personage—a young man of pleasing appearance, clothed in a white robe—visited me and instructed me to go to Port Littleton this morning and meet the steamer Wakatipu, and find among her passengers a man named Shreeve, who was a "Mormon" Elder coming to visit the Saints in New Zealand. The vision was so vivid that I was roused from my sleep; and, when it was ended, I sprang out of bed and looked at the clock. I found the hour to be 4 A. M. Two hours later I saddled my horse and rode to Christchurch, a distance of six or seven miles. There I took train for Port Littleton, nine miles away, and arrived here to meet you."

The sole information and instruction upon which Brother Nordstrand acted was that conveyed to him in this dream. In a later conversation I learned that in the same vision he had been shown all the consequences which would attend upon my ministration in New Zealand. The event proved that this dream to Brother Nordstrand was one of the greatest blessings of my life. I encountered much tribulation in New Zealand; no more from the bigotry of the world than from the perfidy of my own brethren. But through all the trouble Brother Nordstrand was my devoted friend. He had never a moment of doubt, because all which happened had been by him foreseen.

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.