Flooding the Earth with the Book of Mormon: Recap of customized pass-along cards.

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, August 14, 2010

Recap of customized pass-along cards.

I thought I'd do a post of all the various custom pass-along cards that I've come up with. All of these are business-card sized, 3.5" wide by 2" tall. Some were done at Office Depot, one at Office Max, and some on my home computer and printer.

The reason I use these in addition to church-produced pass-along cards is that these fit in my wallet. The church-produced cards are not business-card size. Another reason is that the church-produced cards don't have the local mission office on them, and don't mention that the Book of Mormon is available in many non-English languages.

The copies of the Book of Mormon that I give out usually contain 3 cards:
1. The church's Book of Mormon card inserted at 3 Nephi chapter 11.
2. The customized business-card sized Book of Mormon card at 1 Nephi chapter 1.
3. My personal calling card inside the front cover.

Plus, I put a list of local chapels on a 8.5x11" flyer inside the front cover, and mark both 3 Nephi chapter 11, and Moroni 10:3-5 with post-it notes.

If I'm in a situation where I can only give out a pass-along card, I can just use an appropriate one from my wallet.

Here is the main one that goes in all material I give out. These were done online at OfficeDepot.com:

The 317-802-9650 number, which was the local mission office, is now 580-0479. 888-537-2200 is the toll-free number from the church's official "call for a free Book of Mormon pass-along card."

The next has the same information, done online at OfficeMax.com:

For English-only speaking people, it can be easier to start out with an offer of a Bible:

or:

888-537-1212 is the toll-free number from the church's official "call for a free Bible" pass-along card.

Also important to include, is your own contact information. I prefer not to write anything directly on the books, so I include a personal calling-card: