Flooding the Earth with the Book of Mormon: Chinese at restaurant. Fri, Feb 6, 2009.

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.

Saturday, February 07, 2009

Chinese at restaurant. Fri, Feb 6, 2009.

02/06/2009. 1111. This was a road trip to visit a customer in another city, then on to visit family. I intended to stop for lunch somewhere along the Interstate highway. I felt inspired to take a certain exit at a small town, and was on the look-out for an ethnic restaurant. I found a Chinese place in the commercial district near the Interstate, entered, ordered a lunch combo, paid, and sat down. I placed a Chinese and an English Liahona on the table, along with both kinds of Chinese editions of the Book of Mormon, and an English Book of Mormon. I read the English Liahona while I waited.

When the lady brought my food, she noticed the material and commented about it. I said it's from my church, and it's free, and offered it to her. She accepted both the Chinese and English Liahona, and the simplified script Chinese Book of Mormon, but she politely declined to receive the English Book of Mormon. I wasn't able to quite get across the bilingual nature of using the Book of Mormon to learn to read English. This was a situation where a bilingual (diglot) Book of Mormon would really have come in handy.

Their grade-school or middle-school-aged son was milling about the restaurant, and he started a conversation, and I hoped he could catch the idea and explain it to his parents. He was bilingual in English and Chinese, and could read English, but couldn't read Chinese. But he wasn't interested in learning to read Chinese, or didn't think he could.

I had some DVD's and a bilingual Chinese/English New Testament, but kept those in my bag. It's worth a follow-up next time I make a trip that way, and I'll offer them the other material.

Labels: Chinese, restaurant