We want to thank all of you who were praying for us as we attempted an evangelistic outreach at the Clarkston (Martin Harris) Pageant. The outreach was good while it lasted but, it didn't last very long...

We arrived at the Clarkston Public Cemetary a little past 6:00 P.M. with 5 men from Twin Falls, ID, 1 man from the Brigham City Church and 3 of us from Ephraim. After taking some pictures at the Martin Harris gravesight, we positioned ourself in the public cemetary and began passing out Christian tracts.

When the LDS officials in charge of the pageant saw what we were doing, they freaked out. They sternly told us to stop passing out our literature and leave.We calmly (and quietly) explained our constitutional rights (freedom of speech and freedom of religion) and continued to pass out tracts.

Next, they threatened to call the County Sheriff and have us arrested if we did not leave.Again, we calmly (and quietly) explained that we were on public land and had every right to pass out religious literature. (At this point we thought they were bluffing because it took the Sheriff about 30 minutes to arrive.)

During those 30 minutes, we passed out more tracts than we would normally pass out in an entire evening at the Manti Pageant. It was amazing, 3 out of every 4 people would smile and take our tracts. Joel was right, these people had never been handed a Christian tract or evangelized before.

Then, the Sheriff and three deputies arrived and things got pretty tense. The Sheriff immediately told all of us that we were tresspassing and that we must leave or we would be arrested. Some of the men discussed with him the fact that we were on public land (and I continued to pass out tracts as fast as possible.) First, he told them that the cemetary was owned by the Mormon Church (which was a complete lie). Later he changed his story and told them that the entire cemetary had been leased by the Mormon church. He then requested that everyone give him their ID which took quite a bit of time (and I kept handing out tracts as fast as possible.) Finally he gave us all the option to leave or be arrested.

This is AMERICA and the Mormon church does not have the right to infringe upon constitutional rights just because they don't like what we are doing. We all felt that this situation needed to be challenged so, I told the other Christians that I was not going to leave unless the Sheriff arrested me.The others, wisely decided that it would not be to our advantage for all of us to get arrested for the same thing so they opted to leave.

When the Sheriff approached me I told him that I was completely within my constitutional rights to continue what I was doing. He basically told me that I was going to leave one way or the other - I could leave of my own free will or he would arrest me.I (very politely) told him that I would not leave and he arrested me.

I was charged with criminal tresspass. The truth, however, is that the only reason I was arrested was because I was an evangelical Christian who was peacefully opposing the Mormon religion and they didn't like it.There were hundreds of other people walking on the same ground who were not arrested.

This was the first time I have ever been arrested and it was not a pleasant experience. Being handcuffed and crammed into the back of a police car was very uncomfortable (even painful). I almost had to spend the night in jail because the bail was set at $587 CASH and the others had a hard time coming up with that much cash. I now have mug shots and have been officially finger printed which definitely makes a person feel like a criminal. (I wonder if a person can get a copy of his mug shots?)

The Alliance Defense Fund has come to our assistance and has found a good Christian attourney to represent both Joel and Myself in court. Thank you ADF. Please keep us in prayer as we have some very important days and decisions ahead of us.

For those who may be interested, the following Web address is an API news article about the Thompson arrest: http://kutv.com/topstories/local_story_234105434.html