My block is up on a hill and the houses have a lot of steps to reach the front door. We regularly have 2 middle aged women who are Jehovah's Witnesses, and they are indominable. They climb all the way up here on foot and I see them all the time and I know they're harmless. They are not lazy, that's for sure. I feel so bad for them trekking all the way up to my door, that I opened it once and let them give me the spiel, even though I told them I was another faith. They were very polite and asked if they could leave the tract they were carrying, and one asked what my name was, so I told her.
Now, they ring my bell, when I open the door, they call me by my name, and I just cannot be rude because they truly mean no harm. Last time, I was in the middle of making lasagna, so I had to brush them off, and I felt a little bad.
Most people around here are either out of the house working every weekday, or so old that they won't open the door. So I figure, what the heck, I'll make their day and be polite. I always tell them that they're preaching to the choir and they laugh. I just think it's almost impossible to convert anyone by ringing their doorbell.
I read somewhere that when Mitt Romney was young, he, like most Mormons, spend a year as a missionary and they have to do the same thing...go up to strangers, ring doorbells, etc. He said he didn't convert one person that entire year, and he felt like a failure, but by the time the year was over, he had no fear about speaking in public, approaching strangers, overcoming objections, faciing outright hostility, being pleasant even when you feel deflated, etc.
It was probably the best real-world business or political training anyone could ask for.
