Wilford Woodruff Journal 1: Father Mason's Prophecy — An Old Prophet Foretold the Restoration Before He Died (c. 1830)

“There was an aged man in Connecticut, however, by the name of Robert Mason, who did not believe like the rest of the people. He believed it was necessary to have prophets, apostles, and revelations, as they had in the days of Jesus, and as we now have in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He frequently came to my father's house when I was a boy, and taught me and my brothers those principles; and I believed him. This prophet prayed a great deal, and he had dreams and visions and the Lord showed him many things, by visions, which were to come to pass in the last days. He told me that he had a vision of the restoration of the gospel, and the building up of the kingdom of God in the last days. He said he saw a man come to his neighborhood, and he preached a gospel that he had never heard before. He said he saw the man baptize people by immersion for the remission of their sins, and he saw the people receive the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands. He said he saw the man organize a church, and he saw the gifts and powers of the gospel manifested, such as healing the sick, speaking in tongues, and the power of God attending the people. He said he saw the man and the people he baptized, and he saw the whole work, and he knew it was the work of God. He said he was an old man, and he would not live to see it, but he said to me, 'Wilford, you will live to see it, and you will be a part of it.' This was a very striking circumstance, as I had spent many hours and days, during twenty years, with this old Father Mason, and he had never named this vision to me before. But at the beginning of this last conversation he told me that he felt impelled by the Spirit of the Lord to relate it to me. In the spring of 1834, I went to Kirtland, saw the Prophet Joseph Smith, and went with him, and with more than two hundred others in Zion's Camp, up to Missouri. When I arrived, at my journey's end, I took the first opportunity and wrote a long letter to Father Mason, and told him I had found the church of Christ that he had told me about. I told him I had been baptized by immersion for the remission of my sins, and had received the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands, and that I had seen the gifts and powers of the gospel manifested, and that I knew it was the work of God. I told him that I had found the man he had seen in his vision, and that I had joined the church he had organized. I sent this letter to him, but he had died before it reached him. He had passed away, and I never saw him again in the flesh.”

— Wilford Woodruff, Leaves from My Journal