There are some flip charts and an impressive-looking mission statement pinned on the wall

There are some flip charts and an impressive-looking mission statement pinned on the wall, just next to a picture of Jesus. Typed out in big bold letters, it says: “Our business is farmland Profit motivated: No Excuses Managed for profits Increased productivity. For investment; for strategic and welfare resource, world-wide based.”Marie is dressed smartly in navy and cream, and her business colleagues all wear suits. Clive manages to look smartest of all, in a crisp white shirt and tweed jacket. It could be a Marks & Spencer’s personnel meeting until Marie starts reading: “Our Father, we are grateful that we are here in this area. We especially pray for farmworkers and hope that they work with machines and chemicals in safety…” One or two of them nod reverently, heads lowered and hands clasped.The Mormons own some 14,000 acres in Britain, making them one of Britain’s biggest landowners, along with the Queen and Railtrack.

But they’ve chosen the fertile farmland of Norfolk and Suffolk to really make their spiritual home outside Salt Lake City. Over the last three years, with the least fuss or publicity, they’ve been buying up farms throughout the area. In a close farming community not known for its openness to strangers, you can see why they wouldn’t want to shout about their recent and rapid land acquisitions. They already have their critics – political and religious.A few weeks ago, the Daily Mail claimed that as one of the biggest landowners in the area, the Mormon church is also one of the biggest beneficiaries of the EU farming subsidy – around pounds 1m. There are rumours, which the Mormons vehemently deny, that 10 per cent of their profits go straight back to the church in Utah This news didn’t go down too well in some quarters.

Bill Cash, the Conservative Eurosceptic, described it as “regrettable”. Tony Juniper, the Friends of the Earth director, fulminated about farming techniques, telling one paper: “Brussels is paying a million pounds to a foreign-owned multinational to squirt chemicals over what’s left of our countryside and wildlife.”Rather than lying low after so much controversy, the Mormons have raised their head above the parapet with a national advertising campaign in the Daily Mail and the Evening Standard. “It’s a sophisticated operation,” says their spokesman, Bryan Grant. “We’re sending off literature and a free video to 40,000 homes We’re just putting our toe in the water. We’ll possibly come back and try television.”In East Anglia, though, it may take more than a free video to put a gloss on Mormon operations.

Some of the local farmers want to know why their lucrative land is passing into strange hands; residents are beginning to notice a marked increase in unusual young men dressed in black suits with American accents, standing outside Tesco and trying to collar them to talk about “God’s intention for mankind” They don’t exactly blend in with the locals. Reverend Walter King, team rector in the rural dean of Huntingdon, recalls: “Once, a few of them came and sat in the back of the church while I was giving a service – it was all a bit spooky.” He also worries about the young men in dark suits. “You see them walking down the high street and they stick out a mile They’re from another planet and they’ll stay there. The sad thing is that they seem very detached.”Still, it is essential that the Mormons, or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, as they prefer to be known, do integrate with their East Anglian neighbours. However covert their financial activities may be, their religious motivations are anything but. The Mormons’ raison d’etre is to convert the non-believers, and the real riches they have their eye on in East Anglia, above and beyond the land, is the sheer volume of potential converts.An unbelievably exciting prospect for Elder Marchant and Elder Tuft, 20-year-old Nathan and 19-year-old Jason respectively.

Both are on the streets knocking on people’s doors, 12 hours a day, five days a week. They return each evening to a cramped flat in Huntingdon to study the Bible and do whatever else Mormons do to relax.Elder Marchant, a Sylvester Stallone lookalike in a Tarantino suit, has never tasted alcohol (caffeine is also prohibited), smoked or dated girls “I don’t fool around with that stuff It’s far too distracting,” he laughs. Like all Mormons, he believes in Armageddon and is encouraged to keep food reserves for a year at least. The Mormons appear to spend a lot of time hoarding food – maybe this explains why their churches look like Tescos. Elder Marchant may be well-prepared, but he still lives in fear of Judgement Day “Yes, I am scared,” he laughs. “And I do worry for others.” Thus, his desire to convert the non-believers before the big day, whenever that may be. “It could be any time,” he says vaguely.Watching the two of them in action is a daunting sight – one that could easily put you off ever answering your door again.