Moment #566. Spanish x2 at restaurant. Thu, May 4, 2006.

05/04/2006. I picked up the two missionaries and took them to lunch. We were going to go to a place where I had taken the previous elders and had placed books before. This was going to be a follow-up. On the way there I noticed a middle-eastern type grocery store that I hadn't seen before, and made a mental note of it.

The place we intended on going to wasn't open for lunch today, so we went to one up the street. I had eaten here before, but not since I started the book-placement project.

The waitress, a warm, friendly, motherly, middle-aged woman, was fluent in English and Spanish. She first spoke English to us, but I said, in Spanish, that we needed to practice Spanish. The two elders had both been in the 9-week MTC Spanish program. They serve both in our English-speaking ward, and in the Spanish-speaking branch that meets in our building.

I had set out a stack of book on our table, English and Spanish New Testaments, English and Spanish copies of the Book of Mormon with the latter on top. When we were done eating, there were no other customers there, so it was a perfect opportunity to engage the waitress and cashier in conversation.

As the waitress walked by, one elder pointed to the Spanish Book of Mormon and asked her a question. The waitress politely said she was Catholic. Her reply was more informative, not contrary to dismissive. It left open further conversation.

So after I paid, the Elders took the 4 books and went up to the cashier and started a conversation with her and our waitress.

I still had another set of the same 4 books in a plastic bag on the chair next to me.

The Elders started out great, so I left them alone and went to the restroom. When I came back, the waitress had accepted the 4 books, and the Elders had also given the other 4 books to the cashier. Coolness.

We then headed to the middle-eastern store.