Flooding the Earth with the Book of Mormon: Missed opportunity. Fri, Jun 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.

Friday, June 22, 2007

Missed opportunity. Fri, Jun 22, 2007.

06/22/2007. Journal Entry. (Road trip to visit family, continued. On the return trip home.) I blew it again. First a little background. I don't offer material to every store cashier I meet. I only offer material to (almost all) those who speak foreign languages; and for those who apparently speak only English I offer material only when I feel spiritually inspired to.

This was an inspired stop, I had no other reason or motivation to stop. Which gas station/convenience store to go to at that exit was inspired, or spiritually prompted. It wasn't until I got inside that I recognized it as a place I had been during last year's trip.

And when I paid for my purchase, it was the same cashier as last year. Here was my chance to repent for chickening out last year, the feeling that I needed to offer her some church material was the same. And I chickened out again.

I vainly tried to "make up for it" by talking to a truck driver who had paused outside to have a soft-drink. He was from South America, so we spoke Spanish, but he had to move on.

I felt the withdrawal of the Spirit and didn't go back in. But since I got home, even now as I write this, the thought of making a special trip back there comes to mind. When will I learn?

Again, I only offer material to English-only speaking people when prompted. So those situations stand out. On this trip I probably went to a dozen additional gas stations, visits that I haven't journaled, because I observed no opportunity and made no offers. Most of those stops were of my own volition, not inspired. There were plenty of English-only speaking people I could have made offers to, but didn't because the people and the circumstances didn't fit the pattern. I feel absolutely no guilt at all about those, there's no sense of loss. But this one, I feel guilt and a sense of loss. I was supposed to say something, and I didn't.

06/22/2007. Journal entry. A few exits down the road, I felt inspired to take a certain exit, and go to a certain gas station. However, no opportunities presented themselves, and I felt no further directions. There were no guilty feelings associated with not encountering or speaking to anyone, so I believe it could have been a "timing loop" (to adjust the timing of a future encounter) or a test.

Labels: gas station, missed op