Flooding the Earth with the Book of Mormon: Russian at laundromat. Wed, Nov 3, 2010.

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.

Wednesday, November 03, 2010

Russian at laundromat. Wed, Nov 3, 2010.

11/03/2010. 1260. Laundry night at the usual place. A guy I hadn't seen there before struck up a conversation with me, asking what languages I spoke. Wow. I told him English and Spanish. He spoke Russian. He was waiting on his dryer, and seemed a bit desperate for conversation as he invited me to sit next to him to talk. He had been in the US for several years, but in Indianapolis only a few weeks.

After we chit-chatted a while, I found out he was Baptist, and was looking for a Baptist church within walking distance. I told him I had a book in Russian from my church, and he was very interested and eager to receive it. So I went out to the car and dug out a Russian and an English Book of Mormon, a Russian Liahona, and a couple DVD's. When I presented them he eagerly accepted them, but he didn't want the English Book of Mormon.

He gave me his name and number on a slip of paper, asking for business in his line of service work. We didn't talk about family, but I assume he's in town by himself. I might call him in a few days to see if I can buy him dinner.

Labels: laundromat, Russian