Flooding the Earth with the Book of Mormon: Amharic at gas station. Tue, Mar 17, 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.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Amharic at gas station. Tue, Mar 17, 2009.

03/17/2009. 1124. I was at a gas station getting gas on my way to do some work at the storehouse. Just as I was about to get back in my car, a man walking back to his car from the storefront noticed a version of the Ethiopian flag on the front license plate on my car.

Indiana does not require a state-issued front license plate. And when I came across that license plate at a store, I thought it would look cool on my car. This older version of the Ethiopian flag has the "Lion of Judah" on it, and according to Wikipedia, it remains popular with the Rastafari movement and people loyal to Haile Selassie.

I put it on the car for two reasons. One, I like the "Lion of Judah", because I'm of the tribe of Judah. The second reason is that I was hoping for contact with Ethiopians who would recognize it.

Anyway, this guy, who looked caucasian, asked me if I was from or had been in Ethipia. I replied no, I just liked the Lion of Judah on it. He said that he had a friend from Ethiopia. I asked him if his friend might be interested in a free book from my church in Amharic. I said it was religious matieral. He said yes. So I went to the trunk of my car, and pulled out an Amharic Book of Mormon and gave it to him. He politely accepted it. I pointed out there were toll-free numbers in there if his friend wanted more copies or wanted an English copy to go with it.

Labels: Amharic, gas station