Flooding the Earth with the Book of Mormon: Punjabi to neighbor. Sat, Mar 31, 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.

Saturday, March 31, 2007

Punjabi to neighbor. Sat, Mar 31, 2007.

03/31/2007. 808. As I got into my car in the parking lot where I live, I noticed a man wearing a brightly colored turban in another part of the parking lot. I was on my way to watch general conference at church, and at first decided to keep on going so as not to be late. Then it occured to me that I might not seem him again, so I turned the car around, and drove next to where he was standing on the sidewalk.

He was from the province of Punjab, was a Sikh, and spoke Punjabi. I still had a couple Punjabi Gospel Fundamentals in the car, so I reached into the back seat and pulled one out, and took it out of the wrapper and gave it to him, along with a Punjabi edition of the Joseph Smith Testimony pamphlet. He was very grateful for something to read in Punjabi.

We chatted a bit, and then I had to pull away to let another car out. I parked, and told him I'd get the English version from my apartment. He waited for me while I ran back to my place and got an English copy of Gospel Fundamentals. I gave it to him, and he didn't want it at first as he didn't read English very well, but I tried to convey that he could use them to learn to read English, and he eventually accepted it.

He was recently arrived from India, visiting family, and he was not fluent in English. He was very friendly and humble, so I hope I didn't come on too strong. But I wanted to take advantage of the chance to meet him, give him my contact info, and get on to general conference.

In the material was an info-flyer with the addresses of the local chapels and mission office number, and a card with my name, phone number, and email address on it.

Labels: neighbor, Punjabi