The annual Delta Fair and Music Festival in Memphis, Tennessee has the mission of producing an exciting, interactive and educational festival that brings members of the community together with safe, wholesome family entertainment while also celebrating and promoting the rich art, music and history of the Delta. This festival is widely promoted as “Everyone’s Fair”, and is a prime environment in which to foster the idea of creating better lives throughout the community. This is where The Way to Happiness comes in.
Distributing The Way to Happiness
The Way to Happiness is a moral code based entirely on common sense, consisting of twenty-one easy to understand and apply precepts. Individuals who have read this booklet and applied these precepts quickly learn how powerful they are, and how much they can help the individual improve their relationships, happiness and life. That said, individuals have to be aware of this booklet in order to use it, and the Delta Fair and Music Festival is a prime location in which to distribute it for broad use. During this past year, over three hundred fifty booklets were handed out, and the results were nothing short of amazing.
One young man at the fair approached the booth where The Way to Happiness was being distributed and he asked for help. His mother was a vendor at the fair, and as he tried to help his mother by going around and talking with other vendors, the young man had encountered a particularly unfriendly vendor who had resorted to yelling at and threatening him. Using basic precepts laid forth in The Way to Happiness, the volunteer at this booth helped the young man recognize what he could do in order to handle this unfriendly individual. The volunteer actually took some time to help the young man understand the precept “Seek to Live with the Truth” and how he could use good communication with another individual, even when that individual refused to use good communication with him. The young man thanked the volunteer for his time and help, and moved off on his way. Later in the day he returned, a big smile on his face, and told the volunteer that using what he had learned had worked. When the unfriendly vendor approached the young man, the young man persisted in using good communication anyway, and this resulted in the unfriendly vendor apologizing for his behavior and accepting a copy of The Way to Happiness from the young man.
Another vendor at the fair, a street preacher, had obtained a copy of The Way to Happiness early on in the festival, and had used the precepts in his sermons. He returned to the volunteer’s booth and thanked him for the booklet, telling him that individuals with whom he had shared this booklet had felt that it truly helped them do better in their lives. He directed them to pick up their own copy and continue to study and apply other precepts. Shortly thereafter, a young couple arrived at the volunteer’s booth and told the volunteer that they had been directed there by a street preacher who had encouraged them to obtain their own copy of The Way to Happiness.
The volunteer even met up with some past friends to whom he had given copies of The Way to Happiness, friends who were back to thank him for his help and request more copies that they could share with their friends. Handing out one booklet to one individual resulted in such an improved condition in that individual’s life that he returned with four of his friends, who each wanted their own copy. And in this way, the power of this small booklet is rapidly spread–working hard to improve lives in every community and in every nation on earth.
