It seems like most Spanish speakers believe in God, and they are interested and open-minded about many concepts in the Urantia Book. At the May LeaLA in Los Angeles, one of the largest Spanish-speaking book fairs, very few people asked “who wrote the book?” They very much enjoy the spiritual vitamins (although those could be improved upon as well…Agustin Arellano from Mexico has hundreds of ones in Spanish that are excellent!)

Flor Robles, one of the outreach participants, was a dynamo! She never sat down, never stopped to rest from talking to the people. She is one of the reasons so many books got sold. Of course, Spanish is her first language, and that really helps. Bob and Jerry and I all speak Spanish fluently, but as a second language, so it takes us a little longer to get our ideas across. Nonetheless, people were patient with us and we managed to sell quite a few books as well.

It wasn’t just the selling of Urantia Books, but the conversations we had. I personally tried to get the gospel message across to everyone I spoke to that we are all children of God in God’s family, and that God lives within us and we can communicate with him directly. I’d say that just about everyone I was able to share the gospel with, agreed with me. Latinos are very spiritual people, and it was wonderful sharing with them.

I often told people that El Libro de Urantia had the entire life of Jesus — every year of his life. People liked that, they didn’t question it or debate how something that’s not in the Bible couldn’t be true.

What is written on the back of the Foundation’s El Libro de Urantia is really great! There were times when the booth was crowded and all of us volunteers were engaged in talking to individuals, while others were looking at the book on their own. Several people would read the back cover, and then just based on that, decided to purchase the book. I think it would be a good idea to print up the back cover onto paper as handouts. It’s really beautiful how it summarizes key spiritual truths.

Flor had brought along a bunch of her own J.J. Benitez books, and we put those on display in the back of the booth. Many, many people stopped at the booth because they noticed these Benitez books and thought they were for sale. We then were able to tell them that Benitez received his inspiration from the Urantia Book, and we would show them a paragraph in one of his books where he mentions “Urantia.” We would say, “Benitez wrote fiction, but El Libro de Urantia is the source of the truths that your soul responds to in the Benitez books. And so we ended up selling many El Libros to those fans of J.J. Benitez. I highly recommend that we display Benitez books whenever we participate in a Spanish book fair.
A few of the people whom I remember:
A woman named Daisy with whom I had a good conversation in English. I could tell that she was ripe for The Urantia Book, she obviously had done a lot of reading and research in other religions, but she said she hadn’t yet found what she was looking for. She ended up buying a book, and it made me so happy!

I also remember that I had given spiritual vitamins to a family that included an older woman who appeared to be about 80 years old. The older woman really liked what she read in the spiritual vitamin, and came over to check out El Libro de Urantia. She read the back cover and looked through the book some, and then asked her daughter to purchase the book for her, which she did. As the daughter was paying for the book, she said, “My mother reads a lot of books. She will definitely read this one if she says she will.” Bob bookmarked the beginning of the Jesus Papers in the book she bought.

All in all, it was wonderful experience for me, and I am more energized than ever to share these beautiful truths of the Urantia teachings with others who are seeking higher truths.

Sincerely,
Joy Brandt