“I do not know whether we fully understand what is meant by holding up our hands to testify that we will sustain these missionaries. I will tell you how I understand it.

“In the first place, we select the very best men we can find, and we do not want anybody to go but those who have the spirit of their mission upon them, and who feel a desire to magnify their calling and priesthood. And when they go, we wish them to go as honorable men.

“We also want their wives to be treated as honorable women while their husbands are gone. Inasmuch as they or their families need assistance or looking after, we expect the Presidents of Stakes and the Bishops will attend to such matters, that the wives of our missionaries may not feel as though they were outcasts; but as honorable women, the wives of honorable men, and more so than those who are not doing their duty. We want the missionaries’ wives and children made comfortable and taken care of.

“The sisters have voted to let us have some of their wheat for the relief of the poor. Then on the other hand, let us do something for them. It does not matter how much we pray for them, for this is in accordance with our covenants. Some people would rather pray for them than relieve them. Prayers are all well enough; but a little flour, a little pork, a little beef, sugar, store goods, and temporal comforts are a great deal better than all our prayers without this material assistance.

“Let us look after their welfare as we do after our own families, while their husbands are making a sacrifice in leaving their families and homes, and God will bless us.”

– John Taylor, 1880