That’s not to take anything way from you Bruce, I respect your intelligence very much. But as you know from long experience, our respective underlying assumptions seem quite often to be at odds with each other, making it hard for us to achieve a meeting of the minds. But hey, we’re still friends, right? : )

Gospel Principles — 31110-355 — $3.00
The Prophet Joseph Smith’s Testimony — 32667-355 — $.40

The order form lists it as “Gospel Principles” but it’s really “Gospel Fundamentals”, and you pair it with the English edition which has a catalog # of 31129-000. You have to order those by mail or by phone, as they are not order-able on the
ldscatalog.com web site.

Check the table of contents of any church book whose catalog # starts in “31110″, and if you see 36 chapters (you don’t have to read Marathi etc., just count the lines in the TOC) it is “Gospel Fundamentals” and if you see 47 chapters it is “Gospel Principles”.

Hindi is the national language, so most people in cities in India will read and speak Hindi in addition to their state language (Marathi, Kannada, Gujerati, Bengali, Sinhala, Urdu, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, etc.)

Exciting!

My blog illustrates that the vast majority of people who are willing to accept an offer of a free church book in their native language are total strangers who I will never meet again. It would be inappropriate of me to ask for their personal contact information such as full name, address, and phone number.

And people generally don’t want to give out that information to strangers. And they shouldn’t, at least not to a “civlian” or individual such as myself, only to official representatives. That’s for safety’s sake.

Now for someone with whom we already have a relationship, or we regularly patronize that place of business (and they regularly work there) of course we can and should follow up. But with the stranger, it’s best to give them _our_ contact info, along with church contact into (phone numbers from pass-along cards, web address, chapel addresses, local mission office). Then we can say: “Please call me in a couple weeks and tell me what you think”. Or: “If you like what you read, please call the church at this number on this card.” Or: “If you want to learn more, just show up on any Sunday at one of these churches on this list.”

It would also be inappropriate for me (or anyone) to _deny_ someone the opportunity to receive a free copy of the Book of Mormon because of the fact that I won’t likely meet them again. Sometimes, upon meeting immigrants, I think “How can I _not_ offer them the Book of Mormon when I have it in their native language, and I already know that 90% of them really enjoy receiving it?”

“I’m sorry, I’m not going to offer that man from Kenya a free book in Swahili because I don’t have a way of following up with him.” That would not work in my book.

One of the “Grand Secrets” of this foreign-language angle of flooding the earth with the Book of Mormon is that the less you care about whether or not they read it, the more willing they will be to receive it! (People are like cats in that regard. Ignore a cat, and it might come sit on your lap. Force it on your lap, and it will flee.) Any hint of desperation or mental coercion on the part of a person distributing any kind of material (religious or for any cause) can turn the recipient off. That’s why I say I _offer_ books. I don’t “give” a book unless the person first agrees to receive it. I very very rarely do a ‘Here, take this’ kind of giving-out.

Another “Grand Secret” is that the person to whom you offer a Book of Mormon may not be the Lord’s intended or ultimate recipient of it. They may sell it for $.10 at their yard sale. Their child may read it in 9 years and get converted. (Which I’ve read about in church publications.) Vincenzo di Francesca found a partially burned discarded copy of the Book of Mormon on the street, and came to believe in it.

Thirdly, as stated a few times by the Lord in scripture, He wants everyone to hear/read the gospel, whether they are going to accept it or not. That presents problem with most of us, we want to spend time only with “golden” investigators, or “progressing” investigators. We want to be efficient and not waste time on people who are not going to progress towards baptism. However, we use that as an excuse to not make any kind of contact or offer of material. The corollary to that is I don’t really spend time beyond an extra 60 seconds at a store or gas station. Maybe 2 minutes if they get chatty. Geoff was already in that man’s taxi, so it was no extra time spent on Geoff’s part at all.

Yes, most converts will be people who are already friends of members. Pres Hinckley stated as much. However, that does not release us from the charge to offer the gospel to _every_ creature. And I testify (and I’ll meet you on the West side of Indy to give you my testimony face-to-face if you want) that once you’re willing to talk to _anybody_, then the Lord will lead you by the hand to specific people whom He wants to have a “seed”.

One of my big regrets is that by not being a member I can’t speak at firesides and try to light or share this fire and these insights with others that way. That’s one reason I’m trying to do it anonymously on the web, so people like Geoff and Brian can try it out, see if it works for them, and they can discover and share “flooding” techniques.

I meant, of course, that I *don’t* say that spirits have no possible explanation.

You write, ‘I think you are stopping maybe a hair breadth short of actually coming out and saying “Yes, I believe spirits have no possible explanation that we humans would comprehend. They will always be a mystery to us.”’

I disagree with your statement as phrased. You might be able to phrase it in a way that I could agree with. But I say that spirits have “no possible explanation” since in my view “being” and “mind” are explanations that we humans comprehend.

The kind of explanation that I deny is possible or necessary is one that depends on physical laws. There could well be some other kind of explanation that we will begin to comprehend once we arrive (God willing) in Heaven. I just don’t think it will involve laws describing physical events formulated based on sensory input.

You write (in a separate comment), ‘I think “science” is equivalent to “searching for explanations through a formal methodology.”’

In that case I don’t see what grounds you have for excluding philosophy and theology from the ambit of science. However I don’t mean to start a new argument over this.

I did watch the Deutsch video and I don’t recall him saying that observation and experimentation are not essential to science (correct me if I’m wrong). I realize that science involves conjecture, but the way conjecture is tested is by observation and experimentation. When the test results don’t bear it out then the conjecture is changed or dropped. Isn’t that basically how it works?

Of course science also involves reason, logic and philosophical assumptions. For example science has to subscribe to the philosophical assumptions of realism in order to have any reason to exist in the first place. It has that in common with Aristotle/Aquinas — which, of course, is no coincidence.