Mongolian, French, Arabic to elders. Ammon's service. Mon, Jan 22, 2007.

01/22/2007. Journal entry. During our lunch, the junior companion elder mentioned that he and his previous companion had found a Mongolian family while tracting. They weren't able to communicate well, but their daughter spoke some English, but they didn't accept any English material as they couldn't read it. The senior companion didn't know about it, since he just got transfered into the ward.

I told the elders that there's a man from Mongolia who recently joined the church on the other side of town, and that there's a member who served a mission in Mongolia, and still speaks Mongolian who lives in the next town over on the west side of Indy.

I gave the elders a Mongolian Book of Mormon, and they said they would try to find that family again when they go tracting in that area, which they were planning on doing soon anyway.

I also gave the Elders four paperpack KJV Bibles and four more English hard-cover Books of Mormon for their supply, and encouraged them to give out books while tracting, not just pass-along cards. I explained how I usually offer a Bible first before presenting a Book of Mormon to an English-only speaking person.

As we talked about tracting (knocking on doors) I suggested they offer to shovel snow for people as a free service, instead of just starting out with proselyting approach. I drew a parallel between that and Ammon offering to be King Lamoni's servant in the book of Alma. Ammon thereby got an "in" with the King prior to sharing the gospel with him. Whereas his brother Aaron started right out preaching repentance in another area and was rejected.

I offered to buy them snow shovels, and they accepted the idea.

Later in the day, I went out and bought a couple snow shovels. I checked the forecast at www.wunderground.com, and there's a chance of snowfall on Wednesday (the 24th). Around 9:00pm, when they were due back, I stopped by their apartment and dropped off the shovels. I also gave them four more hard-cover Books of Mormon, and suggested they pray for snow.

One of the cars parked in front of the elders' apartment had a personalized license plate with an Arabic-sounding name on it. I asked the elders if they knew that person and if he spoke Arabic. They knew him, and said he was from Algeria. Since they speak French and Arabic in Algeria, I went back out to my car, retrieved French and Arabic copies of the Book of Mormon, and gave them to the elders, and suggested they present them to their neighbor.