Vietnamese at restaurant. Wed, Jan 31, 2007.

01/31/2007. 787. I crossed town to take a teen from my old ward out to dinner. We went to an Asian restaurant. It was run by a Vietnamese family. Shortly after we sat down, another couple from his ward came in, recognized us, and sat next to us.

I asked our waitress where she was from and she said Vietnam. I asked about what other languages the other employees spoke, and she said just English and Vietnamese. I had only one Vietnamese Book of Mormon in my bag, so I went out to the car and retrieved another just in case. I put one Vietnamese and one English Book of Mormon on the table beside me. Later on the waitress saw them and asked about it. I didn't even have to start the conversation about the books.

She was genuinely interested for a while, and recited the title and sub-title of the Vietnamese edition, and picked it up without me having to offer or suggest it to her. She actually took the Vietnamese book to a location where there was better light so she could read it, and she flipped through it, but brought it back and said she didn't have time to read.

Later, just as the cashier came by to collect, I suggested to the older brother from the ward that he ask her if she liked to read Vietnamese. He must have had the right touch, because she stayed and showed even more interest, and we chit-chatted with her a bit. She talked about her grown children, and her grand-children. She ended up taking both the Vietnamese and the English copies. She asked where the church was, so I said where it was, and pointed out the info-flyer inside the books with the address, the mission office phone nuber, and my phone number.

I'll grant the possibility she accepted the books just to be polite, but it sure seemed to me that she was interested in reading something, anything, in Vietnamese. I'm pretty confident she'll at least browse through the Vietnamese book.