Dist Center ran out of Books of Mormon. Fri, Aug 25, 2006.

08/25/2006. Not completely, just for four translations. They recently ran out of the Tagalog Book of Mormon. An order I placed in July was back-ordered. But they are shipping now.

They also ran out of Urdu Book of Mormon Selections, and removed that item from the ldscatalog.com web site. The news that I received is that an Urdu translation of the full Book of Mormon is in the works, and should be ready by the end of the year. However, based on past experience, that means it may be printed by the end of the year, and available to missions, but won't be available on the ldscatalog.com web site for several months after that.

Now they are out of the Simplified Script Chinese and the Maori translations of the Book of Mormon. They are still on the web, available for order, but the confirmation I received after placing an order said they were back-ordered.

I'd say this is good news. People are distributing the Book of Mormon in various languages faster than what had been envisioned by those who decide how many to print up, and at what points to re-print.

I would also like to use this to encourage ward mission-leaders and mission presidents to stock their supplies with at least a few copies of the Book of Mormon in all languages which are present in their area. Our local mission office recently had a request from a missionary for a Book of Mormon in Urdu, and the office was able to fulfill that request.