2009-6-2 08:42:00
We printed up 10,000 copies of the writings and sent them out in several different mailings. The first mailing was around 2000 homes. A day after sending them out we sat by the phone waiting for it to ring. What kind of response would we receive we wondered. Would we get some calls from a few of those who are seeking the truth but know not where to find it?
We soon found out. A day after the mailing the phone did ring, but it wasn't from anyone seeking the truth. An angrier bunch we had never encountered. Those who called did so to let us know how upset they were that we had sent them such trash and that they were going to burn it. Many of them said they had called the post office to complain and warned us to never send them a piece of mail again.
Fortunately for us it was not against post office regulations to send unsolicited mail or we would have been in big trouble.
We didn't get the response we wanted but we decided to forge ahead with the complete mailing anyway and we sent out the whole 10,000 pieces.
After we got over the shock of there not being anyone seeking higher knowledge we got kind of a kick in answering the phone and dealing with the angry Mormons.
Then, a short time later we found out we had a greater impact than we thought. We talked to an active member of the church and he told us that the churches in the whole area were alarmed at the mailing and had notified headquarters in Salt Lake City, Utah, about it. One of the head apostles then came to Boise, Idaho, and gave advice to the members and leadership about the problem.
He said that they were beside themselves about how we got all the names and addresses of the members in the area and wanted to put a stop to any more proliferation.
Actually, we would have done more mailings, but we ran short of money do they didn't have to worry, but they didn't know that.
Out of the 10,000 mailings we received one friendly call. He was a guy on the fringe of the church who was interested I what we were doing, but didn't want to support us. He did come to some of our meetings and visited with us now and then.
After concluding that mailing directly to the LDS wasn't going to find the seekers we decided to hold some seminars on interesting scriptural subjects and invite the masses instead of just the LDS.
This didn't work either. We'd have maybe a half dozen people show up which was nothing to get excited about.
Then I had another bright idea. We would run short classified ads in national magazines using Onias' two parable/revelations as a hook. We reduced the wording to the fewest possible words to save money. It ran as follows:
"Mormons! New revelations sent free!"
This was followed by our address. We ran the ads in The National Enquirer and about five other tabloid classifieds that were sold in grocery stores.
Again we waited in anticipation. Would we find some of those Mormons who were looking for truth?
We were pleased to finally get some reasonable response but somewhat amazed that most of it came from people who were not members of the LDS church. This was strange we thought. We advertise specifically to Mormons and non-Mormons respond.
When Curtis and I were active in the Church we figured that the LDS people were above average in seeking after truth, but now we began to wonder.
To those that were interested we sent them the two parables of Onias first and then followed up with several things I had written. We sent them the original draft of "Infallible Authority" and my first treatise on The Gathering called "The Literal Gathering of Israel." We also used the story "Journey's End" which is now in The Archives.
After a little time passed we began to accumulate a sizable mailing list with a significant number expressing interest in our work. Several even moved to Boise from various parts of the country. Most people though didn't want to move to Boise to see us and we began to receive an increasing number of request for us to go see them.
In particular there was a group in Phoenix that wanted us to come down and the leader of the group told us that if we just made it down there that they would provide a place to stay and the funds to return.
After thinking about it we decided to make a trip. Our first stop was going to be the Salt Lake City, Utah, area where we had a number of people wanting to see us. Then we would swing by the Los Angeles, California, area and meet with some people there and then on to Arizona and back.
Before we left we got the harebrained idea to go without any money or credit cards. And where did we get that?
Jesus sent his apostles out without "purse or script" and told them people they taught would provide for their needs. Then in the days of Joseph Smith all the missionaries went without any funds and people provided for them despite their notorious reputation. We reasoned that if they could do it then we could do it. The fact that we had very little money at the time also made the idea appealing. We figured though that we should start with enough gas money to reach Salt Lake City, then we would depend on the people as did the apostles of old.
"The person who makes a success of living is the one who see his goal steadily and aims for it unswervingly. That is dedication."
-- Cecil B. DeMille (1881 - 1959)
Copyright © 2009 by J.J. Dewey, All Rights Reserved