Flooding the Earth with the Book of Mormon: Chinese at restaurant. Mon, Nov 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.

Monday, November 05, 2007

Chinese at restaurant. Mon, Nov 5, 2007.

11/05/2007. 911. I went to the south side to visit one of the elderly widows who was in the ward I used to be in. She was a regular at the singles Family-Home-Evening, and one of the fun-to-be-around live wires. Due to weakness and injury, she's in a nursing home, and will likely be moving into her son's home or an apartment when she gets out of there.

According to one of the staff, she was out at a doctor's appointment when I got there, and then would likely go out to eat with her son's family. So I decided to go look for an ethnic restaurant in that part of town. I don't normally travel in that area, so I figured I could find something I hadn't been to.

I was on my way to a restaurant I remember reading about, and saw a Chinese buffet that I hadn't been to before, so I pulled in there.

I put a Chinese Book of Mormon on my table while I ate, and the waitress noticed it when she came around. We chatted a bit, but she declined my offer to give her the book, or a DVD in Chinese. She said something that indicated she might already be Christian (as opposed to Buddhist or agnostic as most Chinese are), but I didn't have a Chinese/English Bible in my bag.

After paying I said to her that I might have a Chinese/English Bible back in my car, and she indicated a little interest. So I went out and found one (a bilingual New Testament actually) in the trunk. I went back in and presented it to her near the front desk, and she enthusiastically accepted it, and was a bit excited about it. It reinforced my opinion that we need to start with offering the Bible before offering a Book of Mormon. Especially since the word translated as "Book" in the Chinese title comes about "Bible". So it looks like we have a literal "Mormon Bible" instead of "Mormon Book."

The cashier/hostess was also interested, so I pulled out a Chinese (simplified script) Book of Mormon and an English Book of Mormon out of my book bag to show her. She was mildly interested and accepted them.

Labels: Chinese, restaurant