Elder Calvin B. Smith email 03/01/2010

Hey Family,
I did not get your letters this week, I hope I get them today though. This week was a tough week, but throughout the week I made note of a few stories to pass on, because sometimes I don't have much to write about.

Stories:

-Fish:
My companion has never had any real fish in his life. Last Sunday we were approached by a couple who wanted to feed us during the week, and they explained that they are vegetarians. They told us that they do not each chicken or beef or pork and the only meat they eat is fish. They asked us if we liked fish, I said yes, my companion explained nicely that he was not too fond of fish, and that he had never eaten real fish. He explained that the only fish he had ever had was in a fish stick at the MTC - and he only ate part of it because his district leader would not give him his mail if he didn't eat it. The members told him that a fish stick is not real fish, and that they would be fixing tuna steaks for dinner which they said were a lot like pork chops in consistency. We set a time and date and wrote them down in our planner. My companion was so worried for the next few days. He said that there had to be a way he could get out of eating the fish. He even thought about making himself puke during the day so he could claim that he was sick and bail out of the dinner. I told him "no", and that it wouldn't be THAT bad. He said that he was deathly afraid of fish, and all he could think of was some cold wet slimmy dead fish for dinner. Well, the day and time finally came around. The dinner was scheduled at 5:30pm so we arrived in the neighborhood early so we could knock their neighboors' homes and talk with the members about their neighboors during dinner if we found any one that was interested. We parked out side the member's house and they saw us and asked if we were going to come in early or if we were planning on knocking around. We told them we were going to knock around until the set time we had decided on before, 5:30pm. We knocked around, met some of the neighbors, they were not interested, and went in to the member's home. When we came in the wife put the fish on the grill, and explained that they had wanted to wait until we were there to start cooking the fish so that it would be fresh. The member's apologized and told us that they had searched for the tuna and there was no tuna in town because a local restaurant had run out and had bought up all the other local supplies. SO, we were having Salmon. I could tell that my companion was scared out of his mind when he saw the large sides of Salmon on the grill. After the food was all cooked we ate and it turned out to be an amazing meal! I had never had such amazing fish in my life. It was just perfect in every way. There were no bones, it was grilled and seasoned just right. Even my companion was impressed that it, "didn't smell like fish." Everything the member cooked was made from scratch, it was intense. We had this one kind of squash called acorn squash -I think- and it was really good. Any way, point of the story is, my companion ended up surviving the meal, he said that it wasn't as bad as he thought it would be, but he couldn't get the image of a fish swimming around out of his head as he ate. I think it was more of a mental thing than anything else. I'm just glad he survived and didn't made a scene at the member's house.

Next story - Glory Land Baptist
Here in Hartsville there are a few churches that are well known for Anti Mormon feelings and that openly preach against Mormons. One of these churches is little small church located behind a gas station called Glory Land Baptist. This church has a fleet of custom painted Glory Land red and white school buses that go out a few times a week and round up children. Parents are more than happy to surrender their children to this free church run day care. The free day care sucks in the parents on Sundays. Brilliant way to get a church following. We have heard a lot of stories from other missionaries about this church - about how the pastor had harassed them on a few occasions. Well, we were visiting a less active who had been less active for some time. He told us that he had recently started going to the church closest to him, Glory Land Baptist. He invited us to one of the bible studies they have every Wednesday. We asked him if we would be welcome to which he replied that he was certain that we would be, so we set up a time. We ended up not going to the bible study because we had a conflicting appointment that was more important. We did not hear from that less active member for some time. We were puzzled that a less active would attend the anti Mormon church. Well, this last Sunday, yesterday, we saw this less active at church. We welcomed him and asked him how he was doing. He told us that he almost got into a fight. We asked him for details, and from what we could piece together from his scattered story was that the preacher of Glory Land Baptist church found out that he was a Mormon during one service and got in the face of this old less active member of ours. (he walks with a cane for goodness sakes!) The pastor challenged to fight him physically on the spot so the member just hobbled out of the church with his cane. CRAZY! I can't imagine what the pastor would have done to us (as the face of the "Mormon Church") if we had marched into one of his bible study groups with Book of Mormons in hand!

Well, I am out of time. I will write you all next week.
Love,
Elder Calvin Smith