Flooding the Earth with the Book of Mormon: English at gas station. Thu, Nov 30, 2006.

Flooding the Earth with the Book of Mormon

(One drop at a time.) My journal entries about offering copies of the Book of Mormon, the Bible, and other LDS church books, mainly to immigrants in their native language, mainly in Indianapolis, Indiana. With 106 translations, the Book of Mormon (along with the Bible) is a good "Rosetta Stone" for learning English or other languages, in addition to being a missionary tool.

My goals in keeping this blog/journal are: to encourage others to offer people copies of the Book of Mormon and the Bible, to illustrate the incredible number of recent immigrants who are eager for bilingual material, to illustrate the ease of encountering them and offering them material, and to make known the wonderful deeds of the Lord (Ps 105:1, Isa 12:4) in arranging many of these encounters. I realize that the concept of offering foreign language books to strangers is just plain weird to many people, so here are some hints if you are intrigued by this and wish to try it. Respectful comments and constructive criticism are invited.

The goal of the book placement effort is to provide, in a friendly non-threatening way, gospel material to someone who is willing to receive it in their native language and English.

To the recipients of these books who read this: I thank you again for allowing me to be of service to you. I encourage you to read the material, and pray to God that He confirm the truth of it to you. The Bible and the Book of Mormon are both the Word of God. Living according to their teachings brings happiness.

Thursday, November 30, 2006

English at gas station. Thu, Nov 30, 2006.

11/30/2006. 763. I was on my way home late at night, and felt a "tug" to stop at a gas station that I haven't been to before. I recently moved, and had just finished cleaning the old apartment. There are lots of places near my new home that I haven't visited yet.

The cashier did not appear to be an immigrant or a speaker of a foreign language. There were no other customers in the store, so I assumed that if what I felt was really a prompting, then she was the person who I was supposed to meet.

After I paid and as she was about to give me back change, I said something like "I like to give out Bibles. Do you need a Bible? They're free." She replied that she did need a Bible. I asked if she'd like a King James Version, or a more modern translation. She said the King James version. I offered her a Book of Mormon to go with it, saying that my church believed in both, and she agreed to accept the Book of Mormon too. I said I'd get them from my car.

I didn't have my paperback bibles with me, as I had taken the boxes of bibles out of the car to make room to bring back stuff from my old apartement. So I got out a large-print LDS King James Version bible that I bought on sale from the Distribution Center for only $6.50, which I had in one of the boxes of Books of Mormon.

I went back in and presented them to her, and showed her the list of local chapels, and the Mission Office number if she'd like more information about the church. She asked if we had a Christmas program, and I mentioned that there was a Christmas musical program coming up December 9th. I suggested she call the Mission Office for more info, but I also gave her my card with my name/number.

Labels: English, gas station