LETTER OF MARCH 14TH, 1947 March 14th, 1947. Dear Bahá’í Sister: Our beloved Guardian has instructed me to answer your letters dated Sep. 2nd and 16th, and Oct. 22nd and 25th, 1946, and to acknowledge receipt of enclosures sent in some of them, and also material forwarded under separate cover. He regrets very much the delay in replying to these N.S.A. communications, but he has been very preoccupied with various pressing matters the last few months, and his mail has consequently had to wait. In regard to the various points you raised in your letters: There is no objection to individual Bahá’ís sending Naw-Rúz cards if they want to; also the N.S.A. can send them out occassionally, but it should not become a fixed custom. He has already cabled you that he approves of increasing the delegates to the Annual Convention to 19. He feels that Committees should be left free to elect their own officers. Prayers translated by other people may be used and memorized by the friends; they need not be confined to his translations. He considers that the N.S.A. has every right to examine the ballots if there is some doubt as to the election having been properly conducted. By “preservation” of the ballots is meant that they are preserved in the National files. A Convention delegate should certainly be given an opportunity to report to the community his or her experiences at Convention and impressions. As to the whole matter of the incorporation of assemblies: he cannot go into the details of such things, as this is the work of the N.S.A. What he wants is that the spiritual assemblies in New Zealand and Australia should be legally empowered to hold property in their own names; how this can be done, the best way of doing it, are matters for your Assembly and its legal advisers to decide. He feels very strongly that the main thing for your Assembly and all the believers of both Australia and New Zealand to concentrate on are teaching plans. The United States, India, Persia and England are all embarked on ambitious and bold teaching campaigns, and it is a great pity that Australasia, where the Cause is now firmly established and boasts an active National Assembly, should not have a definite plan, with fixed goals, of its own. When the believers are embarked on a definite teaching schedule there will be less time for them to constantly occupy themselves with purely secondary administrative points of procedure. Teaching is their need, and the solution to any problems they may feel they have. He was delighted over the report of the work in Brisbane; this is a step in the right direction, and should be followed through vigorously. Please convey to those who have devotedly served there and brought this group into being his warm thanks and his admiration for their services.