Flooding the Earth with the Book of Mormon: Missed opportunities. Tue, May 22, 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.

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Missed opportunities. Tue, May 22, 2007

05/22/2007. Journal Entry. I was running errands on the West side of town near where I used to live. Before eating supper at a Chinese restaurant, I walked to the Starbucks nearby to buy a newspaper. There were some Africans sitting outside but I didn't say anything. Lately, I've been afraid that the people I approach are ones that I may have already spoken with. I haven't come up with a good conversation starter in those instances. Starting out by asking if we've spoken before, or if I've given them a book before doesn't seem to be as natural as when meeting someone for the first time.

I've been to this Chinese restaurant before, and wanted to do a follow-up, but the guy I spoke with before wasn't there. So I wasn't sure if they were new owners, or these were just family members of the other guy. I could have done a follow-up here. I think it was different owners, because the food wasn't as good as before.

When I left, one of the African guys who had been sitting in front of the Starbucks was getting something from his car which was parked next to mine. But I chickened out and it was another opportunity that I blew.

Labels: missed op