Flooding the Earth with the Book of Mormon: English at Nursing home. 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

English at Nursing home. Mon, Nov 5, 2007.

11/05/2007. Journal Entry. I finally got back to the nursing home, and my widow friend was back, along with her daughter in law. I took her a belated pumpkin (with a face drawn on, not carved) for Halloween, but it's okay to have pumpkins out through Thanksgiving. I had given her one a few years ago last time she was in a nursing home recovering from surgery and she liked the idea.

It occurred to me to give her some material to have at the ready should she have any gospel conversations at the nursing home. There was a TV and VCR/DVD player in the lounge area. So I went out to the car and brought back in 6 church DVD's. There was one she hadn't seen yet, "The Testaments". And she could show them in the lounge if anyone was interested. I also gave her a TNIV paperback Bible (from Int'l Bible Society) and a Book of Mormon to offer anyone should they ask about the church.

I suggested she could just donate them to the nursing home library or activity room when she leaves.

There are several church members who work at the nursing home, too.

I struck up a conversation with her room-mate about cats since she had a cat magazine on her table. Do you ever feel awkward visiting a friend in a hospital or nursing home, and never know what to say or how to greet their room-mate? It seems impolite to just ignore them and pretend they're not there. Yet you don't want to intrude on the other person.

Well, I decided a long time ago to not pretend someone isn't there. And chances are the room-mate would appreciate being acknowledged. And it's possible they don't receive visitors or enough visitors anyway. So I make it a point to say something to the room-mates of the people I visit in nursing homes and hospitals.

Labels: English, nursing home