Elder Calvin B. Smith email written 08/10/2009

Here's Calvin's email this week. He did finally give us his exact address
so we could go on the internet and "earth google" where he lives. We did
have to bribe him with gift certificates to McDonalds which we mailed out
today. We were able to look on the internet and see that there was a
McDonalds and an Arby's less than 2 miles from where he lives. Also there
was a small mall less than 2 miles from where he lives that has a J C
Penneys and other stores.

Curtis


----- Original Message -----

Hey Mom, Dad, Cameron and Candace!

Thank you for sending the package with your letters! I love you guys so
much! The Turkey Jerky is really awesome and I shared it with my companion.
Please do not send newpapers in the packages, its too tempting to read it.
I didn't know we were not allowed to read the newspaper and I started
reading it, and my companion kindly corrected me. I guess we are strictly
only allowed to read Church approved matterial. I guess if you want to use
newpaper as padding, please shred it first. I hope you are getting my
letters ok, I still marvel at the mail system, that a small envelope can be
sent from coast to coast with out getting lost.

I have been pretty fortunate so far, I have not suffered any "real"
afflictions. The most "persecution" I get is people yelling profanities at
us on our bikes from thier cars. I have not yet been insulted by some one
on foot. Most of the time people yell stuff like "What would Jesus do?" and
they don't wait for an answer, or "You're going to H. E. double hockey
stick," except they say the word, or "SATAN. Rules!", and last is "Religion
is going to ruin the world." Its very disturbing, but I try not to think
about it. I think it just comes from a lot of ignorant people who just do
not know what we believe

Things are going pretty well here. We are spending most of our time trying
to find the Lords people. We have a very interesting contact strategy.
Because EVERYONE down here believes in God and the JWs are everywhere we
have to distinguish ourselves. A typical contact to someone on the street
goes something like this,
-"Hi, I am Elder Smith and this is my companion Elder Erickson, today we are
looking for the Lord's people, those who are humble, meek of heart, and are
searching for further blessings from their Lord. Are you one of these
people?"
-(typical answer) "No, I'm not interested, I have already found Jesus, he is
in my heart."
-"Well, would you like to be one of those humble people?"
-(typical answer) "Maybe"
-"Great, our message is that the Lord has restored the fullness of his
gospel on the Earth, through a prophet, just like Moses in ancient times,
but in our day, and his name was Joseph Smith. Have you heard of the
prophet Joseph Smith?"
-(typical answer) "Oh, I know all about him, I'm not interested."
-"If you knew that the Lord had called a prophet in our day, would you
follow him?"
-(typical answer) "Uh, no, but thank you for stopping by, you boys do good
work."
(yep people will straight up tell us that they are not humble and would not
follow a prophet of the Lord.)

I know that contact sounds bold, but that is what we have been dirrected to
do. We have to have a way to distiguish the Lord's elect from the average
everyday Christian in SC. We go through a lot of people with this contact
method, but when we do find people who want to listen to us, they are
ussually pretty solid. We contacted 182 people this week and taught 15
lessons. I think we only have about 3-4 people who actually might want to
be baptized, but we will give everyone a chance.

I hope everything is going alright back home, I am praying for you Dad!

Love,
Elder Calvin Smith