Flooding the Earth with the Book of Mormon: Chinese at restaurant. Wed, Jan 3, 2007.

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.

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Chinese at restaurant. Wed, Jan 3, 2007.

01/03/2007. 776. I had a late lunch at a buffet that I've never been to before. I find that it's best to attempt book placements outside of the lunch and dinner rush hours. On several trips to and past my table, the waitress seemed to have noticed the Chinese and English copies of the Book of Mormon that I had on the table, but she was busy with other customers so I didn't initiate a conversation. When she brought me a refill of soda, there was only one other table of customers, and she had just attended to them, so I figured I could talk with her without disrupting her.

I asked if she liked to read Chinese, and handed the Simplified Chinese Book of Mormon to her. I forget her response, but I then asked if she was from China or Taiwan. Someone once pointed out to me that I should then be more specific about mainland China or Hong Kong, because now Hong Kong is part of China.

I tried some rudimentary Mandarin with her, and either I didn't get the pronunciation right, or she didn't speak Mandarin. I tried saying "Gay nee" which means "give you" and "mien fay" which means "free" or "no money."

Anyway she accepted both the English and the Simplified Chinese copies, and the "Finding Happiness" DVD. She immediately said something in Chinese to the other employee who was at the cashier counter. She was very grateful, and more curious than enthusiastic.

Labels: Chinese, restaurant