Amharic. Wed, Jan 25, 2012.

01/25/2012. 1305. I was at a financial institution and the person who was helping me spoke with a beautiful accent. She looked and sounded East African. I guessed the wrong country, but she said she was from Ethiopia. She spoke Amharic. After chatting a bit about local Ethiopian restaurants, I offered her a book from church (the Book of Mormon) in Amharic, and she enthusiastically agreed to receive it. She said it was okay to give it to her there. So after our business, I retrieved an Amharic copy and an English copy from the car. She seemed pretty excited to see it. I pointed out the phone numbers inside in case she had any friends who wanted a free copy too. At that point another customer came up, so I excused myself.

Flooding the Earth with the.... Bible.

I've written before that my mission president, over 25 years ago, sent my companion and I to Chinese restaurants with Chinese copies of the Book of Mormon. No baptisms resulted, but we had some "Hmmmm" moments. I forget if we paired them with Spanish copies or not.

I still attribute that as my main inspiration for this Book of Mormon distribution project. Here is another item which I believe influenced my thinking on the importance of scriptures.

I've recently given thought to a book that I read in my youth, God's Smuggler, by Andrew van der Bijl, a.k.a. "Brother Andrew."

Starting in the 1950's Brother Andrew smuggled Bibles and other religious literature into communist countries. He started an organization called "Open Doors" that currently ministers to persecuted Christians worldwide, and distributes millions of Bibles annually.

The LDS church owes much to various other churches and denominations that have prepared most of the undeveloped world to receive the fullness of the restored Gospel. Although LDS missionaries went to Latin America early on (prior to 1850), serious efforts to establish a presence did not begin until the 1970's. Yet the Catholic church had a presence that coincided with the arrival of the Europeans. And, Protestants (especially Evangelical denominations) made considerable inroads in Latin America starting in the 1950's.

In the African continent, the LDS church had a presence only in the country of South Africa prior to 1978, and actively proselyted only caucasians prior to the revelation on priesthood. Again, the presence of Catholics and Protestants long pre-dated the LDS church's effort.

Many peoples and nations who had little or no knowledge of Christ in their culture were given a basic understanding of God, Christ, the Atonement, the principles of repentance and forgiveness, redemption, and resurrection, by our brothers and sisters in other churches.

Therefore, those who later received the Mormon missionaries had already received the basics. Those other churches did a lot of the ground-work, infusing significant swaths of many cultures with a basic knowledge of Christianity, which essentially saved the LDS church decades of time and effort, and made the one-on-one preaching and teaching as done by individual LDS missionaries much easier and quicker. Most of the hard work of cultural transformation had already been done, compared to the "pre-Christian" state of those peoples and nations.

---

Other Bible societies of which I am a fan are:

International Bible Society, now called Biblica. (Sells non-English Bibles.)

American Bible Society. (Sells Bibles in many languages here.)

United Bible Societies.

Shona at Post Office. Fri, Dec 2, 2011.

12/02/2011. 1304. After volunteering at the storehouse in the morning, I went to a Post Office to run an errand. As I was going in, two young adult women were leaving, and were speaking English, but with an accent. I turned around and went back out, and before they got in their car, and from a respectful distance, I asked where they were from. They said Zimbabwe. I asked if they spoke Shona. They said they did, and were surprised that I knew about Shona. I said there were a lot of Zimbabweans in town.

I said that the reason I asked is that my church has free books in many African languages, and that I had a free copy in Shona if they would like it. They agreed to see it, so I retrieved a Shona and an English copy from my car, and presented the books to them. They gratefully and enthusiastically accepted the books. I said there were phone numbers inside if the wanted another copy, or if they wanted to learn more.

It was a very pleasant encounter.

Chinese declined. Tue, Nov 22, 2011.

11/22/2011. 1303. I was taking a break while volunteering at the storehouse and went out to eat at a Chinese restaurant that I hadn't been to before. It was a very good meal. After I paid I offered the Chinese Book of Mormon to the waitress/owner, but she politely declined.

Chinese at restaurant. Mon, Nov 21, 2011.

11/21/2011. 1302. I was shopping at a store and ran into a friend I hadn't seen in a while. He was going to eat supper by himself at a nearby restaurant, and so we could catch up, he invited me to go along. I had already eaten supper, but went anyway.

I had been there before, and offered material, but the nearby Chinese restaurant was under new ownership, so I took in a Traditional Chinese Book of Mormon and a Simplified Chinese copy, along with an English copy.

After the meal (I just snacked), I offered the waitress the Book of Mormon, and she graciously accepted the Traditional Chinese and the English copies. She said she wasn't very good at reading English, so the books would be a good learning experience for her.

On the way out, I also offered the Book of Mormon to the owners, but they politely declined.

Korean, declined. Mon, Nov 21, 2011

11/21/2011. 1301. I stopped at a gas station to buy a newspaper on the way to another store. The cashier was Korean, but declined my offer of a Korean Book of Mormon.

Ewe, French, at store. Sat, Nov 12, 2011.

11/12/2011. 1300. I was at a checkout counter of a large national chain. The cashier had a name tag indicating an African name, and he spoke with an accent. I asked if he spoke French (Parlez vous francais?), and he said yes, and asked how I guessed. I said because of his name-tag and his accent, and many African speak French.

He was from Togo, so I asked if he knew so-and-so, the guy from Togo (and Ghana) who joined the church in our ward a couple years ago. And he did know him and his family.

We talked about languages and church material, and he was open to receiving something. So after paying I went out to my car and retrieved a couple DVD's, and Ewe and English copies of the Joseph Smith Testimony pamphlet. I went back in and presented them to him (there was no one in his check-out line at the time). He was pleasantly surprised to see the Ewe pamphlet, and he graciously accepted the material.

Spanish at restaurant. Tue, Nov 8, 2011.

11/8/2011. 1299. I had supper at a really good Mexican restaurant on the other side of town. It had been a while since I've been there. I forget if I had offered material there before, but the waitress was new, and I knew I hadn't given her anything.

After eating and paying, I was the only customer there, so I offered her a free Bible in Spanish and English and some other material from church. She agreed to receive them. I went out to my car and retrieved a Spanish New Testament, and English TNIV Bible, a Spanish Book of Mormon, and a multi-lingual "Special Witnesses of Christ" DVD.

She gratefully accepted them, and told me a little bit of her current spiritual and church investigation. I showed her the list of LDS chapels on an info flyer that I had put into one of the Bibles, and I pointed out the Spanish Branch, and the English speaking ward closest to where she lives.

French, Wolof at gas station. Mon, Nov 7, 2011.

11/7/2011. 1298. I was driving home, and there was a gas station on the corner on the other side of the street. I was planning on going straight through the intersection, but I received a strong prompting to stop at the gas station, so I checked to see that there was no traffic to the left and in back of me, and made a last-second left turn and pulled in.

I bought a cup of hot chocolate. The other cashier spoke with a heavy accent, so after I paid I went over to him and asked where he was from. He was from Senegal and spoke French and Wolof. I offered him some church material in French and Wolof, and he agreed to receive them.

I went out to my car and dug around a while, but I couldn't find a French Book of Mormon. But I did have a Wolof Gospel Fundamentals, a French Liahona magazine (the international edition of the Ensign), and a "Together Forever" DVD that has a French audio track. I went back in and present them to him, and he graciously accepted them. I mentioned that there were phone numbers in there (on the flyers) that he could call if he wanted more information.

Korean, English to elders. Fri, Nov 4, 2011.

11/4/2011. Journal Entry. While traveling around the far side of town, I spotted two elders putting air in their bike tires at a gas station/convenience store.

I stopped to chat and see if they needed any church literature to give out.

They did need English copies of the Book of Mormon. The local mission office has cut back on the number of copies of the Book of Mormon they give to the full-time missionaries. I suppose that local members in the wards where missionaries serve need to make up the difference. They used to get 10 copies every 6 weeks, and now it's only 5 copies every 6 weeks.

I gave them one of my English copies, and showed them how I mark it with Post-It notes (at 3rd Nephi 11 and at Moroni 10:3-5), an info flyer, and custom-made pass-along cards.

They had recently received a referral request for a Korean Book of Mormon, but hadn't received the Koren copy from the office, so I gave them one of my Korean copies.

Swahili at store. Mon, Oct 31, 2011.

10/31/2011. 1297. I was shopping at one of my regular stores, and there was another customer who was speaking in English (to her daughter) with a delightful accent. I did not recognize the accent, but it was sort of a British accent, not directly from England, that made me think of people who learned English as a second language from teachers in former British colonies.

I asked her where she was from and what languages she spoke. She was originally from Kenya, and spoke Swahili and another regional language. I offered her a book in Swahili from church, and she agreed to receive it.

I left my shopping cart in the store and retrieved a Swahili Book of Mormon from my car. I waited until they had paid for their purchases, and we went back outside to talk in front of the entrance.

It turns out she had been exposed to LDS literature before, including the Book of Mormon, as she had lived with LDS "host parents" in her youth.

She gratefully accepted the book.