Miami Book Fair and Missionary Success
By Geoffrey Biddulph
Volunteers from the Church handed out more than 400 Books of Mormon and 1,000 pass along cards and helped more than 100 people with their family history at the Miami Book Fair Nov. 7-9.
The Book Fair, which takes place on the streets of downtown Miami, involves hundreds of literary and other groups who set up booths to sell or hand out books or information. Famous authors also speak at the event, which attracted about 500,000 people.
Members of the Miami Spanish stake and the Homestead stake gathered at two booths from 9 a.m. until 6 p.m. all three days. Volunteers handed out free Books of Mormon and pass along cards and gave their testimonies of the restored gospel to the dozens of people who passed by the booths during peak hours. In addition, several family history experts helped non-members
explore their roots.
The volunteers gathered 246 references, which were given to the missionaries. At the end of each day, an heirloom copy of the Book of Mormon was offered in a raffle.
“I gave my testimony to more than 100 people,” said Jose Renteria, high councilor of the Miami Spanish Stake. “One guy stood looking at the poster of Christ in the Americas for about 10 seconds, and we gave him a Book of Mormon and he asked for a missionary to visit him. We felt he was a serious investigator and we hoped he would win the heirloom copy of the Book of Mormon that day, and, what do you know, he did.”
Zoe Martinez, family history specialist at the Flagler ward of the Homestead stake, helped dozens of non-members with family history searches. She used a laptop loaded with family search software. In addition, volunteers steered people interested in family history to the many church-run family history centers in the South Florida area.
The most successful day of handing out Books of Mormons was Sunday afternoon, when several young sons and daughters of members offered the scriptures to passersby. The children gathered literally dozens of references and handed out scores of Books of Mormon.
As the fair wound down on Sunday afternoon, some of the most serious investigators came to the booth. They were the cleaning people, most of them Haitian, who were anxious to get Books of Mormon. They took more than a dozen copies of the scripture in Creole and in French, the two languages read by most Haitians.
“This is an important book,” said one Haitian woman.
