Religion: Mission to Europe

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Missionaries Colton and Harris have attracted prospects by organizing an English-language class and a softball team, sometimes prepare the way for interviews by leaving folders in mailboxes. In a first conversation, they avoid Mormon doctrine ; in the second, they are likely to put forward some Mormon ideas and to end by saying: "We know we can't convince you, but we'd like to ask you to make the effort to ask God about the truth of what we are saying."

Mme. Marceline Zannelli and her husband, a maitre d'hotel, were both Roman Catholics when Missionaries Colton and Harris knocked on her door. "I told them to come back and see my husband. They did and we discussed religious matters for two months. Finally I was baptized in Marseille. No, not in the sea, as they suggested; it was too cold. So we settled for the swimming pool in Nimes. I had never heard of the Mormons a year ago."

Colton and Harris have made a dozen converts in Nimes during the past nine months. "That may not seem like very many," commented a Midi-Libre journalist in what was meant for praise, "but these young Americans are better recruiters than the local French Communists."