Louisa was often called on to bless the sick:
A promising young woman is sick whom I have visited. She needs treatment of some kind, all the medicine I have is a bundle of hops, and a little sage. I use herbs and encourage them to have faith in their efficacy. An elderly woman came to me in the night, wished me to go and see her sister who was very sick. I arose from my bed and went with her. . . . I prayed and laid my hands on the sick woman. I told her she should be better in the morning and so it proved. . . . Consecrated oil which we brought with us from home, has been blessed to their use often, all on account of the faith they have in it. (Louisa Barnes (Mrs. Addison) Pratt, Journal, 219). (Maria S. Ellsworth, “The First Mormon Missionary Women in the Pacific, 1850-1852,” in Voyages of Faith: Explorations in Mormon Pacific History, ed. Grant Understood [Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 2000], 40)
