Wilford Woodruff
Wilford Woodruff was the fourth president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) from 1889 until his death. Woodruff's large collection of diaries provide an important record of Latter Day Saint history.
Woodruff was one of nine children born to Aphek Woodruff, a miller working in Farmington, Connecticut. Wilford's mother Beulah died of "spotted fever" in 1808 at the age of 26, when Wilford was just fifteen months old. As a young man, Wilford worked at a sawmill and a flour mill owned by his father.
Woodruff joined the Latter Day Saint church on December 31, 1833. At this time, the church numbered only a few thousand believers clustered around Kirtland, Ohio. On January 13, 1835, Woodruff left Kirtland first full-time mission, preaching without "purse or scrip" in Arkansas and Tennessee.
The contents of the LDS Church's adult priesthood and Relief Society instruction manual during 2006 were taken from Woodruff's writings and sermons.
“Opposition to God and His Christ, opposition to light and truth has existed since the beginning to the present day. This is the warfare that commenced in heaven, that has existed through all time, and that will continue until the winding up scene, until He reigns whose right it is to reign, when He shall come in clouds of glory to reward every man according to the deeds done in the body.”
“My earnest prayer is that the blessings of our God may be over us in time, that when we get through and shall pass behind the veil, we shall have done all that was required of us, and be prepared to dwell with the sanctified and the just made perfect through the blood of the Lamb.”
“Do not be discouraged because you cannot learn all at once; learn one thingat a time, learn it well, and treasure it up, then learn another truth andtreasure that up, and in a few years you will have a great store of usefulknowledge....”
“It should be our chief study to treasure up the words of life that we may grow in grace and advance in the knowledge of God and become perfected in Christ Jesus, that we may receive a fullness and become heirs of God and joint heirs of Jesus Christ. [See Romans 8:16–17.].”
“While we sometimes feel and have felt in days that are past and gone, to complain because we meet with oppression, persecution, and affliction, yet I wish to say to my brethren and sisters that these things are the heritage of the Saints of God. … I have never read of the people of God in any dispensation passing through life, as the sectarian world would say, on flowery beds of ease, without opposition of any kind.”
“As the taste for what may be called book-learning increases, manual labor should not be neglected. The education of the mind and the education of the body should go hand in hand. A skillful brain should be joined with a skillful hand. Manual labor should be dignified among us and always be made honorable. The tendency, which is too common in these days, for young men to get a smattering of education and then think themselves unsuited for mechanical or other laborious pursuits is one that should not be allowed to grow among us....Every one should make it a matter of pride to be a producer, and not a consumer alone. Our children should be taught to sustain themselves by their own industry and skill, and not only do this, but to help sustain others, and that to do this by honest toil is one of the most honorable means which God has furnished to His children here on earth. The subject of the proper education of the youth of Zion is one of the greatest importance.”
“No obstacles are insurmountable when God commands and we obey.”
“Those men who laid the foundation of this American government andsigned the Declaration of Independence were the best spirits the God ofheaven could find on the face of the earth. They were choice spirits, notwicked men. General Washington and all the men who labored for the purposewere inspired of the Lord."Topics: independence, government”
“Upon the shoulders of you mothers rests; in a great measure, the responsibility of correctly developing the mental and moral powers of the rising generation...I have often said it is the mother who forms the mind of the child. Take men anywhere, at sea, sinking with their ship, dying in battle, lying down in death almost under any circumstances, and the last thing they think if, the last word they say is "mother." Such is the influence of woman.”