Moment #607. Chinese at restaurant. Wow. Sat, Jun 17, 2006.

06/17/2006. Okay, I had two "Wow" moments, so I really shouldn't be suprised at another. I was still on the far side of town heading back home. I debated eating lunch over there or waiting until I got back home. There were two Chinese restaurants between me and the Interstate, a nice one, and a hole-in-the-wall place. The Spirit definitely said eat before going home, and I tried to figure out which one to go to. I wanted to eat at the nicer one, and looking back, I think my desires to do so over-rode a prompting to eat at the hole-in-the-wall place.

Fortunately, the nicer place wasn't open for lunch on Saturdays. So I turned around, but before heading back, I stopped at a gas station that I hadn't been to before. It was a brand that hires a lot of foreigners, plus I needed a newspaper to read during lunch. I don't know if stopping there was a prompting or not.

I went in, and bought a newspaper. The staff was English-only speaking, so I was disappointed. But I probably should have said something, because the cashier was super friendly and "gave off light." But I wasn't mentally prepared for an English presentation. There were no other customers inside, so it could have worked. I'll have to remember to go back there next time I'm in that neighborhood.

I went back to the other Chinese restaurant, and the inside wasn't as bad as the outside looked. The prices were good.

The cashier at the Chinese restaurant was a humble friendly man. I ordered, sat down, and put out my Chinese books, and the new "Finding Happiness" DVD, and started to read my paper.

The cashier brought my food, but didn't seem to notice the books. I blew a chance to talk to him at that point.

As I ate and read my paper, a weird thing happened. Some people talk about having these kinds of experiences in the temple. People talk about it outside the temple, so I hope I'm safe mentioning it here. I think those readers who aren't friendly towards the LDS church have already written me off as crazy, so, sorry. But those of you who are LDS and who do a lot of genealogy or temple work will recognize this.

I perceived the spirits of this man's dead ancestors standing in the restaurant urging me on to present the Book of Mormon to him.

There, I said it. It's true, and I don't care if people think it's crazy. It happened. I'm stating the truth. If you don't think it's possible, you'll realize it's true at some point in the future after you leave this mortal life, when your soul is still alive and self-aware and in the spirit world. The soul (spirit) of a dead person lives on. And sometimes they are near us.

The man came a second time to ask if everything was okay and leave the check. He caught me reading the newspaper and I didn't see him approach until he asked the question. It caught me off guard and I blew the second chance to speak about the Book of Mormon.

He was the efficient type, so after I gave my answer he didn't waste time, and went about his business.

His ancestors were displeased. They were disappointed. They were very anxious about him getting the Book of Mormon.

I took the check, the books and DVD up to the cashier counter to pay. After paying I asked where he was from, China or Taiwan. He said China, so I held up the Simplified Chinese Book of Mormon and offered it. He was definitely un-enthusiastic, but being the humble and nice person he is, and maybe also in the spirit of customer-relations, he accepted it, and the Finding Happiness DVD, and put them off to the side. I offered the English Book of Mormon to go with it, but he said he only read a little English. I went into explanation mode, and stepped over to where he put the books, and opened both to 1 Nephi 1:1, and read the first couple lines. He then caught the idea, and accepted the English.

His ancestors seemed pleased at that point. I'm serious. I had the perception they were rejoicing.

The man definitely had the humility and meekness of the type of person who can recognize the truth of the Book of Mormon, and so his ancestors did have reason to rejoice.

I don't know if I've perceived spirits of deceased people while making placements before. But I have perceived the spirits of the dead in other occasions. In the temple, and once at a hospital when I took an elderly lady there to receive the news from the doctors that her son had died. I had been at a party, where the man collapsed from a heart attack, and I volunteered to get his mother from her home and take her to the hospital. I had never met the man before that party, and had never seen pictures of him.

We accompanied her into a private ER bay after they cleaned him up and took the tubes out of him so she could grieve over him. I perceived the spirit of the deceased man and another spirit, who I took to be his father, standing in the corner. The spirit of the deceased man was making faces trying to get the attention of his mother, and let her know he was okay and out of pain. I thought I was imagining things, and said nothing. The next day his friends put up a web page for him as a tribute and memorial, containing pictures of him at various parties. In all the pictures, he was making faces. It was his trademark.