Ministry in the Bay Area

In January, February, and March, James and Ellen White ministered to the churches in Oakland, numbering eighty members, and San Francisco, with somewhat less.3BIO 13.1

The San Francisco church had moved ahead in the erection of a house of worship on Laguna Street. O. B. Jones, the very capable builder whom James White had brought from Battle Creek to erect a building for the Pacific Press, was asked to construct the San Francisco house of worship. The outlook was encouraging. J. N. Loughborough, president of the California Conference, wrote in describing the progress in San Francisco:3BIO 13.2

This church one year since regarded it almost an impossibility to build a house of worship; but the house is now erected, and the basement rented for a sufficient sum to meet all the interest on the money it was necessary to hire to complete the house.—Ibid., January 6, 1876.3BIO 13.3