Weekly emails

Each week I read about 160 emails from my missionaries. A few are very disheartening , but most are uplifting and full of faith. I also get many chuckles. Many are are a few short sentences, some are pages long. I think the longest I have ever received was 3300 words long. Though some may think it would be boring, I find it fascinating to feel what they feel and to share in their joys and disappointments. Most write quickly with many grammatical errors and misspellings, but they write from the heart. I respond to about 50 percent of them especially when they ask me a question. I am going to try, from time to time, to give a sample of what they write and some of the questions I respond to. I have way more on my to do list than I will ever have time to.

Here is a sample of what I write to the missionaries that get stopped by the police for "soliciting" without a license.

We are not door to door salesmen--we do not solicit
"The United States Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld the constitutional right of missionaries and others to share their religious views door-to-door. This right was upheld as recently as 2002 in a case involving the Jehovah’s Witnesses. The Supreme Court said that it is unconstitutional to require missionaries to get a permit before they can go door-to-door to share a religious message." That being said, many law enforcement officers do not know this or if they do tend to ignore it. If one of them stops you from going door-to-door, note the time and address and without being belligerent, see if you can get the badge number of the officer. Send all this to me and I'll address it with their Chief of Police.