DVD at Central American restaurant. Thu, Nov 9, 2006.

11/09/2006. 745. A friend from another city (about 2 hrs away) was in town today, being a "band mom" as her teenage daughter's school band participated in a band competition in town. After her daughter's band was done performing, she had some free time to meet me while her daughter and the other band members stayed at the venue to observe the other bands perform.

This friend is a faithful member of the church who, though a couple years younger than me, was my mentor when I first joined the church in 1982. I had joined the church in Indianapolis, but a job transfer took me to her city only a few months after I was baptized. She was the exact kind of friend that President Hinckley says every new member needs. Her apartment was "YSA central" back in those days.

Over the intervening years, she married a man from Central America, had a child, got divorced, and stayed true to the faith through it all.

After I came back to church in 2002 after my 15 year (ahem) "vacation", she was one of the first people I looked up.

So we emailed and phoned to arrange to meet today, and I picked her up near the band venue.

She had lived for a while in her husband's country in Central America, and developed a love for their people and food. There are at least two restaurants in Indianapolis owned and operated by immigrants from that country, so I included those in our eating options, and she wanted to go to one of those.

I forgot to take in books as we entered, but after we started eating, I went back outside and retrieved Spanish and English Bibles, Spanish and English copies of the Book of Mormon, and a multi-lingual "Finding Faith in Christ" DVD.

My friend speaks very good Spanish, so she chit-chatted a bit with the waitress, and we ordered in Spanish. On one of her trips to check on us, I offered the books to our waitress, but she politely declined my offer, saying she already had a Bible and didn't have time to read.

After we paid her at the cash register up front, I then offered her the DVD, and she accepted it without hesitation. With so much reading material (books, magazines, and newspapers) available locally in Spanish, and all the Spanish-language channels on satellite, there is not the hunger for reading material among Spanish-speakers that there is for speakers of other languages.

In the clamshells of the DVDs that I give out, I include my card, and an info-flyer listing the local chapel addresses, meeting times, local mission office number, church web site (www.mormon.org), and one of the church 800 numbers.