Lorenzo Swensen (1887-1955) and Beatrice Eloise Wride (1893-1979)

Incoming Correspondence, 1941

Paul to Folks, [1941] Dec 4

Bath, New York
December 4,

 

Dear Folks,

Please don’t expect a letter every day because after all I only promised to write once a week and already I have gotten ahead for several months. You know that it takes more than a day or two to get letters out there so don’t get impatient. I will try and not wait too long in answering your letters.

We have certainly been having wonderful success. Most of the people are very friendly and we have been invited in to many homes and have made a lot of very fine friends. We were nearly scared the other day however when we went to one house. The lady had a very mysterious air about her and she acted rather strange. She invited us into a dark room and shut the door. We didn’t know what to expect. She treated us very nice and seemed rather interested but we were glad to get out. I really laid down the law to her in the strongest possible language andshe took it all in. She even invited us back, but we met her on the street tonight and told us that we were cynics and a few other things andsaid that we wouldn’t see her again, but we aren’t that easily put of so we are going to see her the first thing Monday Morning.

We gave an illustrated slide lecture tonight at a home. We had several families represented and the people seemed very interested. It was mainly on the scenic spots in Utah but we gave them some good gospel along with it and they liked it enough that they invited us back again sometime. This afternoon we also visited the Catholic Father. He treated us very nice and we had a very nice chat. We had to leave too soon however because he had a wealthy person there who wanted to confess his sins so we couldn’t keep him from collecting a little money. That is the wrong attitude and idea but that is what happens anyway. We have met several of theministers and will meet the rest of them just as soon as we can catch them at home. They seem to have a knack of evading us, maybe they are afraid of us.

It seems that the D.P. won’t give us any week-ends to ourselves. We wanted to take Saturday of and go down to Corning and see the glass works but instead we have to go to Elmira to a missionary meeting. It will be a nice experience but I would much rather have the day to myself. We will have to stay down there and speak in the service on Sunday evening. We were planning on visiting some more of the churches here in Bath but it looks like the people in Elmira are stuck with a couple of sermons.

It has been such a short time since I last wrote that there hasn’t been enough time for very much to happen so you will have to be satisfied with a short one this time. That last one should satisfy you for a long time to come. I’ll write and let you know all about the meeting and sermon in Elmira after they are all over with.
Love and with it,
Paul
Tell the rest of those relations down there that I am still waiting to hear from them. impress on their minds that there are a lot of them and only one of me and I would like very much to hear from them.
P.S.