Flooding the Earth with the Book of Mormon: (Redacted) language at restaurant. Thu, Apr 5, 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.

Thursday, April 05, 2007

(Redacted) language at restaurant. Thu, Apr 5, 2007.

04/05/2007. 810. After dropping off the Chinese books with the sister missionaries' land-lady, I stopped by the chapel on that side of town to sit in on the stake single adult committee meeting. I'm not a member of the committee, but they let me sit in on occasion. One of the female single adult reps for a ward had previously told me she'd like to go to a restaurant with me when I attempt a book placement, so I asked her out to dinner after the meeting.

We went to an ethnic restaurant near where she lives. I don't want to say the name of the language since that may identify the restaurant. One of my goals in this blog is to maintain the privacy of the recipients.

The food was excellent. (By the way, if I know you, and you want to get a list of my recommended Indy area restaurants, send me a feedback email here.)

I had brought in 5 items with me, and had placed them on the empty chair next to me, a Liahona magazine, two foreign language copies of the Book of Mormon, an English Book of Mormon, and a copy of the newly released multi-lingual DVD "The Testaments".

When the waitress came by to collect payment for the check, I offered her a Liahona magazine in her language. She didn't say "no," or "no thanks," but that seemed her intent. She may have been more confused by what I was offering, than actually wanting to decline.

After a few more minutes of conversation with my dinner date, we headed for the door, and at that point the waitress came back into the dining room. I decided to make one more offer, this time with the DVD. Sometimes the video material is an easier "sell" than printed material. She did positively accept the DVD, so I decided to then offer her the Book of Mormon in her language and in English. By that time, I think she understood, or at least caught the bilingual nature of the material, as her English was not very good outside of restaurant vocabulary.

Labels: restaurant