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

"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.

I learned that her name was Sister Emmas, and in conversation she stated to me that she had become a member of the Church a generation before, in the town of Bristol in England. It was there that the miracle of restoration of sight was performed under the administration of Elder John Hackwell, upon the eyes of the children of William and Elizabeth Bounsell. Sister Emmas had been an eye witness to this miracle. She was then firm in the faith; but the young man whom she married—being anxious to get her away from the influence of the hated "Mormons" had carried her to this remote nook in New Zealand, thinking that he had separated her from the Church forever.

She had often prayed to be visited by members of the Church and to be united with her people. Some years before I met her a man had worked for her husband for a brief time, and then departed. After he was gone she learned that he was a "Mormon." He had interested her greatly while he labored for her husband, and she had been unable to account for the interest she took in him. After he was gone the matter was explained to her satisfaction; and she looked anxiously for his return—but in vain, for she never saw him after that hour.

In later conversations I spoke to her of her appearance to me on board the Wakatipu, and by comparison of dates I learned that on or about the very day when she appeared to me, she had been praying most earnestly that the Lord would bless her with a visit from a "Mormon" Elder. She had often sat by her window and looked out with straining eyes and anxious heart for someone to come to her, and bring a renewal of the glad tidings which she had heard thirty years before in England.

While I remained in that region Sister Emmas was very kind to me. She frequently helped me with money, and I was always a welcome visitor at her house.

She loved to talk about the things of the gospel, but I found that she was but a child. She had heard nothing of the teachings of the Church except those earliest taught in England, and the sublime doctrines of baptism for the dead, and other things revealed to the Saints later than her day in the Church were entirely new and strange to her. Often when I was talking she would clasp her hands, and look at me with the utmost surprise, saying:

"Well, well! Now, they didn't teach that when I joined the Church—I didn't understand it that way."

But she seemed always willing to learn, and was indeed a faithful soul. Her husband, however, continued bitterly opposed, and after some time both she and I agreed that for the sake of her peace it would be better if my visits to their house ceased. But before we finally parted the good old lady said to me:

"You will know when I am dead—I will let you know; and then, if there is anything which you can do for my eternal blessing, I pray you to do it."

On the 27th of February, 1879, I went to the North Island, in the hope to do some successful labor there. At Wellington I stopped at a hotel kept by a Mr. Daville, a relative of Brother C. W. Carter of Salt Lake. On the night of my arrival I retired to my room, wet and cold. I was wearied, but wakeful, because of my anxiety. I knew that several efforts had been made in times past to open the work in this region; but they seemed all to have been unsuccessful, and I doubted my own ability to accomplish any good. I felt prayerful, but still despondent.

While I lay, wide awake, in my bed I suddenly saw a hand and arm, clothed in a white sleeve which extended down midway between the elbow and the wrist, and holding a torch in its hand—thrust out from the side of a dark fireplace which was in the room.

At first there was but a spark of light at the top of the torch, but gradually the flame grew greater and the light stronger, until it filled the whole room; and then from out the darkness behind the arm and torch stepped the figure of a little girl.

I recognized it instantly as that of my young sister Sophia, who had died six years before in England, while I was in Utah. At the time of her death she was eight and a half years old, and had but recently been baptized into the Church. She came toward the bed, and I saw that she was dressed in beautiful white raiment. From her whole person a pleasing light seemed to emanate. She approached the bed and leaned over it, placing her arms around my neck and kissing me upon the lips. Then, still with her hands clasped, she leaned back and looked intently into my face, saying at the same time:

"Tom, don't be afraid! Whenever you are in danger I will come to warn you."

She bent forward and kissed me again; afterward leaning back to take another look at my face. Repeating the same words as before, once more she kissed me; and then slowly withdrew her arms and moved back from the bed. She approached the arm, which still held the torch, and as she did so I saw that the light of the torch paled before the greater glory which surrounded her person. When she neared the fireplace the arm stretched out around her, and she stepped back into the darkness. She waved her hand three times with a farewell gesture toward me. Soon she was enveloped in the darkness of the fireplace, and the light of the torch grew for a moment brighter; then suddenly it vanished and I found myself leaning upon my elbow in the bed and gazing fixedly at the blank darkness where the glorious presence and the light torch had disappeared. So real and certain had been the presence of my sister that after she was gone I still felt the pressure of her warm arms around my neck.