The Gift of Tongues :)

I am studying the Spanish language or Espanol as it is referred to from within the Spanish language. I chose to study Spanish for many reasons. I first was exposed to Spanish at an academic level when I was in the 6th grade. We had a “hands-on” approach to learning Spanish songs and the alphabet, etc. I continued to study it through my Jr. High and High School years. This made four years of advanced Spanish study. I always found the language fascinating but struggled to grasp it at a conversational level.
When I was 19 years old I chose to serve a 2 year proselyting mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. For those who are not familiar with this organization, young men and women are encouraged to give a few years time to voluntary service work which includes the preaching of Christ’s gospel. However, the individual “Missionary” cannot choose where to serve, rather the individual is called to serve in a specific part of the world. I was called to the Iowa Des Moines Mission and was told that I would learn to preach the gospel in the Spanish language. So I embarked to the Missionary Training Center (MTC) in Provo, Utah where I began my 2 month language training. While in the MTC, I learned to perform several basic tasks in the Spanish language: pray to God, share a favorite scripture, give directions, introduce myself, bear testimony of the truth of Christ’s gospel. It was a fantastic experience and very rigorous as one might imagine. For 2 months, I spent every day in the classroom perfecting my ability to communicate in the Spanish language. I found it very helpful to read the Holy Scriptures (Holy Bible, and Book of Mormon) in the Spanish language. I also found it helpful to pray only in Spanish as this forced me to learn how to express myself in a foreign language.
Each day I found myself coming closer to understanding the language and continued with trust that if God had called me to speak this language, then he would assist me and make it possible. My teachers continually commented that I was grasping a lot of Spanish and this partly was due to my past exposure to it.
After two months in the MTC, I departed from the Salt Lake City airport and arrived in Des Moines, IA without the slightest idea of what to expect.
The day after my arrival I was paired up with my “trainer”. He is referred to as a “trainer” because it was his responsibility to teach me how to be a missionary and to assist me in learning more Spanish. Each morning our schedule permitted us to spend a few hours studying the Holy Scriptures and one hour of Spanish study. For the two years I tried to take full advantage of this hour for learning the language. My trainer taught me the importance of using Spanish often and tried to avoid using English whenever possible. I quickly learned that “street-Spanish” is very different from the formal Spanish I had been taught in the classroom. In my first week in the mission field I heard this saying often “e’toy bien bien, se q’e el libro de mormon e’ la ‘erda’. Wow! That didn’t seem like anything I had learned in the MTC. The true Spanish would have been “Yo estoy muy bien y se que el libro de mormon es la verdad.” It means that “I am doing well and I know that the Book of Mormon is true.” I quickly learned that I would have to listen and speak a lot if I was to grasp this language.
I often found it difficult to express my true feelings in Spanish and felt frustrated at the concept of conjugations and vocabulary differences. I continued to pray for assistance and studied daily. My trainer helped me to learn how to bear my testimony of what I knew was true and share a little of the scriptures with the people we were teaching. With time, my tongue began to be loosed and I felt the power of God opening up my understanding. He gave me the power to preach the gospel and sent forth the Holy Ghost to bear witness of the truth to all who heard. He helped immensely and after six months of being a missionary I felt that my skills were beginning to approach fluency. I understood many jokes and often told many to lighten the mood. I worked daily to develop my accent so that the Hispanics would not instantly know that I was a “Gringo”. I found a book at the public library in Norfolk, Nebraska called Construction Spanglish. The book contained many “Spanglish” words and phrases that have come to be common place in the United States amongst Spanish speakers. This book helped me to learn quick ways of remembering common vocabulary. It taught simple tips like “in Spanish the word for shovel is pala, so just think about your ex-girlfriend named Paula. ‘You really did dig her didn’t you?’, now you can remember that ‘pala’ is ‘shovel’.” These tips helped immensely and soon I found myself speaking more and more like a Hispanic and less and less like a Gringo. It also helped that some of the companions I had were born speaking Spanish. Sometimes they were trying to learn English and so we would speak to each-other, I in Spanish, and them in English. We would correct one another of the mistakes we made. I learned to accept the fact that I would make mistakes and grew to find humor in them. I remember that one time we stopped to ask a man from Mexico if he needed help, because he was working on his car. I had just learned the word for “pliers” which is “pinzas”. So I asked him if he had any, but I made a mistake and instead said “Pinches”, which is the equivalent of the F word. It was very funny and the man knew that I didn’t mean anything by it. I learned to enjoy the mistakes I made and allowed them to improve my understanding.
Overall I learned to speak Spanish rather quickly and it was all thanks to the help of God and my own nature of working at something without quitting. For the next year and a half I worked daily to perfect and improve the level of comprehension and speaking that I was capable of. By the end of the 2 years, I spoke a genuine mix of Spanish as spoken in Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Colombia etc. I had developed a strong accent to speak and pronounce the words correctly. This was very helpful in making quick friends with the Hispanics as they appreciated the time and dedication that I had put in to learn their language. Many allowed us inside their homes where we taught them about the Book of Mormon and the Prophets that God has continued to call to lead and guide his church here on the earth. Many listened and were baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I know that the things we taught them are true, and I know that it was only possible through the grace of God who assisted me in learning a foreign language to a deeply fluent level in the short span of two years.
Is this story anything less than remarkable and miraculous? I wanted to show my gratitude and appreciation to God and continue to perfect and use the Spanish language that he had taught me in my two years of service. That is why I am studying Spanish here at ASU. There is a great program here, and there is such a need in nearly every workplace especially here in the Southwest portion of the United States.
It makes perfect sense to me that I was called to serve a mission when still a teenager as that was the time when my brain was still growing and thus it was much easier to grasp a hold of a new language. I think that there are many people of advanced age that continue to learn new languages, but for the most part, of those I know they learned a language in their younger days and that taught them the pattern to learning a new language. I would definitely agree that it is easier to learn another language at a younger age. Spanish is a great language and I hope to retain much of my capabilities in this language for my whole life.