When Wilford Woodruff was a child, he and his family befriended Robert Mason, a man who was known for his distinctive religious beliefs. President Woodruff recalled:
He believed that it was necessary to have prophets, apostles, dreams, visions and revelations in the church of Christ, the same as they had who lived in ancient days; and he believed the Lord would raise up a people and a church, in the last days, with prophets, apostles and all the gifts, powers, and blessings, which it ever contained in any age of the world.
He frequently came to my fathers house when I was a boy, and taught me and my brothers those principles; and I believed him.
[He] 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.
I will here relate one vision, which he related to me. The last time I ever saw him, he said: I was laboring in my field at mid-day when I was enwrapped in a vision. I was placed in the midst of a vast forest of fruit trees: I was very hungry, and walked a long way through the orchard, searching for fruit to eat; but I could not find any in the whole orchard, and I wept because I could not find any fruit. While I stood gazing at the orchard, and wondering why there was no fruit, the trees began to fall to the ground upon every side of me, until there was not one tree standing in the whole orchard; and while I was marveling at the scene, I saw young sprouts start up from the roots of the trees which had fallen, and they opened into young thrifty trees before my eyes. They budded, blossomed, and bare fruit until the trees were loaded with the finest fruit I ever beheld, and I rejoiced to see so much fine fruit. I stepped up to a tree and picked my hands full of fruit, and marveled at its beauty, and as I was about to taste of it the vision closed, and I found myself in the field in the same place I was at the commencement of the vision.
I then knelt upon the ground, and prayed unto the Lord, and asked him, in the name of Jesus Christ, to show me the meaning of the vision. The Lord said unto me: This is the interpretation of the vision; the great trees of the forest represent the generation of men in which you live. There is no church of Christ, or kingdom of God upon the earth in your generation. There is no fruit of the Church of Christ upon the earth. There is no man ordained of God to administer in any of the ordinances of the gospel of salvation upon the earth in this day and generation. But, in the next generation, I the Lord will set up my kingdom and my Church upon the earth, and the fruits of the kingdom and church of Christ, such as have followed the prophets, apostles and saints in every dispensation, shall again be found in all their fulness upon the earth. You will live to see the day, and handle the fruit; but will never partake of it in the flesh.
President Woodruff continued: When [he] had finished relating the vision and interpretation, he said to me,
I shall never partake of this fruit in the flesh; but you will, and you will become a conspicuous actor in that kingdom. He then turned and left me. These were the last words he ever spoke to me upon the earth.
He had this vision about the year 1800, and he related it to me in 1830the same spring that this Church was organized.
This vision, with his other teachings to me, made a great impression upon my mind, and I prayed a great deal to the Lord to lead me by his Spirit, and prepare me for his Church when it did come.
When Wilford Woodruff joined the Church, he wrote a letter to his friend Robert Mason. I
told him I had found the Church of Christ that he had told me about, he later recalled. I told him about its organization and the coming forth of the Book of Mormon; that the Church had prophets, apostles, and all the gifts and blessings in it, and that the true fruit of the kingdom and Church of Christ were manifest among the Saints as the Lord had shown him in his vision. He received my letter, and read it over many times, and handled it as he had handled the fruit in the vision; but he was very aged, and soon died. He did not live to see any Elder to administer the ordinances of the Gospel unto him.
The first opportunity I had, after the doctrine of baptism for the dead was revealed, I went forth and was baptized for him.
