Thursday, March 5, 2009

Giving a Book of Mormon for dummies "newest edition"

Before I left on my trip, I knew that I wanted to give a Book of Mormon away. I have always wanted to serve a mission, but my life wasn't meant for me to serve as a full time missionary at this time. While I was on the airplane coming to Boston, I wanted to talk to the lady next to me, but she got really sick and passed out and I had to aware the flight staff because she was scaring me. Not really a great opportunity to share the gospel, oh well, the next flight from New York to Boston might be more promising. So on to the next plane. There was nobody seated next to me in the entire row. No one to talk to, hmmmm. Oh wait here comes a gentleman with a crew of flight attendants. He seems really friendly and very talkative, maybe I could give him a Book of Mormon. He smiled and smiled at everyone around and sat in the isle across from me, I'm not all alone now. The flight attendant that was sitting in front of him was putting some luggage in the overhead compartment and was leaning over him. Unfortunately he "checked her out" and laughed saying, "cool do that again!" Oh no! he is a slime bag. He's lucky he didn't get smacked in the head by this woman since she gave him the look of death. Well I don't feel comfortable talking to him or felt like he is a real religious man. So, put the headphones on and listen to the radio for the next 45 minutes when you get in this situation.

No luck with handing out the book while I was traveling around the Boston area either. I kind of started wondering if it was not meant to be. My flight was then delayed numerous times on the way home and I even had an entire day at the airport with the opportunity to talk with people who were also waiting for their flight to be available, but everybody had their ipods or mp3 players on and did not offer a chance of any type of interaction between other individuals. I started wondering how the full time missionaries must feel day in and day out not having a way of breaking through to people. I never did speak with anyone in the terminals gates. Quite boring! Especially for a talkative hairdresser like myself. Finally I did board the plane going to NY from Boston. Again, I had a row to myself and was with a flight that was connecting to Moscow and most of the individuals were Arabic, German, or Asian. I was very much out of my comfort zone now, really no one to talk to. As we were about to depart, one woman finally came onto the plane and was very talkative and open as to how she was feeling to everyone around her. She ended up in the row next to me and leaned over with her east coast accent and said, "I hope that you are religious because I poured holy water all over me today along with a couple of Margarittas to brave getting on the plane today." Wow, I haven't had a single person speak to me all day and the one person who does, has mentioned religion. What a segway. I told her that she was in luck because I believed myself to be a very lucky person and that I have always brought good luck to those around me. She then engaged into deep conversations with me about way I think, and found out that she was planning on meeting a gentleman in Britain that she was dating online and was hoping for a new life. I explained to her how my mother ended up marrying someone that I lined up for her online, and that things turned out okay for her. After speaking with her during the entire flight, I said, "I am so glad that I had the opportunity to meet you. I wish that I could know how your story ends up since I will never see you again." She said, "well give me your email address and I will write to you." The only piece of paper that I had was amazingly, my book of mormon. I wrote in the cover of the book, "Take this book since you can't carry holy water on the plane, Good luck with your new life and hope all goes well." and then my email. I handed it to her and she was very grateful for the book and said that she said that she might really need the extra inspiration in her life and that she had always wondered what we believed. She continued to walk out of the plane with me and talk with me about what I was doing the rest of the day. I now know that I was suppose to go to Boston and give my new friend, Brenda a book of mormon. I fulfilled something that I have always been challenged to do but never have. What a great accomplished goal for my 30th birthday.

3 comments:

  1. Mari, that is so awesome that you were able to give her a Book of Mormon! The Lord sure does work in mysterious ways.

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  2. Wow what an awesome story! The Lord will provide when we have righteous desires. Thanks for sharing, I now feel like I need to share a Book of Mormon.

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