Moment #688. Latvian declined. Aug, 2006.

08/2006. Like the previous encounter, this falls under the heading of "always talk to strangers."

I was carrying stuff from the car into the building where the festival was going to be. Outside the building, an elderly man was dropping stuff off for recycling. We greeted each other, and he spoke with an accent that I didn't recognize, but it sounded European, perhaps German. I said "I don't recognize your accent. Where are you from?"

He said Latvia. We got to talking, and he had an intersting history of how his family and many other Latvians were refugees during World War II and how many of them ended up in Germany, and then later in the United States. He said the Latvian community in town has dwindled due to their children moving away after graduating college. I mentioned some of my family's Eastern European history.

I offered him a church-book in Latvian. He said he had plenty of books in Latvian. So a book in Latvian was not a novelty to him. I forget if I even mentioned that it was the Book of Mormon. I probably should have, as the name itself may pique further interest, and the mere offer becomes a testimony for future reference.