The Gift of Tongues

It is remarkable how quickly our Spanish speaking missionaries are able to pick up the language. Imigrant Spanish speakers from the same country gather together in cities and towns throughout our mission. Our Spanish missionaries will be working with one Latin American culture and then get transferred and have to learn new idioms and accents from a different culture. I recently received this from one of my Spanish speaking missionaries who comes from Idaho:

This last week, we were walking to an appointment that we didn't need to be there for about another 30 minutes for, because of an unexpected change in travel plans, etc, and just trying to talk to everyone. We passed a younger man who was smoking, said hi, and continued on. He stopped us with, "Hey, can I ask you guys a question?" Of course we were more than happy to talk to him.

His question was about what we really do, and what church we go to. He has a neighbor that just left to do a mission like what we are doing, and he wasn't sure what it was all about. So, we explained to him that we are missionaries for 2 years, all the fun other little details, and I mentioned that we both speak Spanish.

"Oh really?" he says. Then, in Spanish, "Y como tu hablas el espanol?" (Basically, "How well do you speak Spanish?")

I replied in Spanish with something like, more or less, and said a few other things.

His jaw seemed to drop and he said, "Have you ever lived in a Spanish country?"

I told him no.

"Eso es mentira!" he said. ("That's a lie!") "Where are you from?"

I told him Idaho.

"Yeah, but where are you from, like what country."

I told him the United States. "No. That's a lie," he continued.

At this point I couldn't help but laugh. I pulled out my driver's license; he still didn't believe me.

"It's impossible for you to speak like that. How have you only been learning Spanish for a year, and you don't have an accent? It's impossible. You're lying."

Anyways, eventually I think he either believed us, or just accepted that we weren't going to change our story. We went on to explain more about our church and the Book of Mormon. He seemed really interested in everything we had to say, and asked us for a Book of Mormon. We dropped one off at his mom's store, like he asked us to, and we plan on getting in touch with him this week to see if we can start working with him more.

The Unexpected

As a missionary you must be ready for the unexpected. This is from the same companionship on the same day.

“So, the other day my companion and I were waiting for the bus when a Honduran lady got off and started to talk to us. She was surprised that we spoke Spanish, so we explained to her why, and had a short conversation. Out of the blue, she says, "Can you guys get married?" We were a little taken back at that, but we replied yes, we can get married but we have to wait till after the mission. "And how much longer do you have?" she proceeded to ask. My companion told her that he's got 15 months left and I've got a year. "Ok. Well, the thing is that I need someone to marry my sister, so that she can get her papers. We would be willing to pay you." We were shocked, and I had to hold back a startled laugh. She was asking us to marry her sister!! hahaha. She exchanged phone numbers with us, and said to call her. We're going to see if we can try to teach her instead of marrying her sister. hahaha.

“One day too, we were on the bus headed to an appointment and were standing next to a guy in a wheelchair. We were talking quietly and then stopped. My companion started to whistle quietly one of the hymns, and hadn't been whistling for more than 5 seconds when the man in the wheelchair exploded. He used every swear word in the book, I think; telling my companion that he can talk to me, but he can't whistle. "There's no dogs here! Take that back to the hills, or wherever you're from!" Those are some examples of the things he said, but of course the edited version. My companion was the better man and tried to kindly explain to the man that he should just ask and not get so angry. Nothing happened after that; we arrived to our destination safely and had a good evening.”

Opposition

Quite often as people hear the Gospel and desire to repent, there are obstacles and stumbling blocks thrown in their path. I hear from the missionaries all the time about how cars break down on the way to church, someone breaking an arm so they can’t keep their appointments, etc. This brief comment from a missionary telling me about their week seemed to express it quite well.

“It's a bit crazy with illness right now. One of our investigator's daughter is in the hospital with pneumonia, another's girlfriend over dosed on some pills. One member broke her leg very badly skiing and now her father has passed away. Another member is in the hospital recovering from open heart surgery following a heart attack, and another one is hospitalized due to a blood clot in her leg and a bleeding ulcer. That sounds terrible but they all should recover. Opposition in all things I guess.”

Miracles

My missionaries talk often about miracles. They see the hand of the Lord working among His children such as the following I received in my weekly emails. I fully believe that the greatest miracle we ever see is the changing of a human heart to righteousness.

There was an investigator we met with our ward mission leader 3 weeks ago who had been way interested in our message. When we met back with her she slammed the door and said it was a bad time. That was not the most exciting return appointment for a golden investigator. We continued to call her to no avail. This past Sunday as we were walking we felt that we should knock on a few doors on this street. We found a man who was in need of the gospel. Later we took a member with us to meet with him. The member invited him to come to church and he accepted. As we were doing service at the same apartments where our formerly talked about 'Golden Investigator' lived she was sitting outside. We went over to talk to her. She hung up the phone saying, 'here they are now, the missionaries are here.' Unsure as to what to expect we said hello and she said, ‘you won't believe it’, we asked, ‘what?’ She responded, ‘I am coming to church. You guys are teaching my boyfriend’ This past Sunday they both made it to church.”

There are so many account of things that just “seem to happen,” they cannot be passed off as coincidence. The Lord of the vineyard works right alongside His servants. (Jacob 5:72)

Transfers

Transfers happen every six weeks. Those who have completed their missions go home, new missionaries (we call them "goldens" in this mission, not "greenies") come in. It starts a domino process. I have learned that some will be happy and some will not. Here are two letters I received after the transfer last week:

Missionary #1 "I am so, so ecstatic to get to serve with my companion for another six weeks. And so is the ward! When we told everyone in Relief Society during the “Good News Minute,” everyone cheered! Ha ha, it’s flattering, but not why I wanted to stay. I sincerely and genuinely love this area and all these people. I’ve resolved within myself to make this my best transfer yet."

Missionary #2 "Staying in _____ for another transfer is really going to help me with this. I was hoping to move to another area after my fourth transfer here, but I am reminded of "I'll Go Where You Want Me to Go" or I'll stay where you want me to stay, DEAR Lord. It's God's will. Not mine. I'm the type where I get antsy after several months, and like change. But that's my will. Not God's."

Missionary Cars

The Standard joke I heard and still hear about being a mission president is “that’s like being on a three year scout camping trip.” I always reply “my scouts didn’t have cars.” The roads in this mission are nearly always packed with cars going 10 to 30 miles an hour over the posted speed limit with no gaps between them. I often think of a Nascar race while I’m driving. Into this environment I place a nineteen year old fresh from an Idaho farm whose only real experience is driving tractors and potato trucks, behind the wheel of a brand new mission car.

One missionary after hitting a guardrail and causing significant damage to the front end of the car complained that the speed limit was too high. “I was going the speed limit, but that was too fast to make the corner. They should lower the speed limit.”

Another didn’t see the car in front of him stop and smashed the whole front end—the car was totaled. It had been driven less than 200 miles.

So what is it like being a mission president? It is the most exhilarating, spiritually uplifting experience I have ever had in all my years serving in church callings. Nothing can compare with the feeling of walking into a room full of missionaries all with their scriptures open studying; words cannot express the strength of the spirit of the Lord that is always present. I have come to know that the Savior watches over and truly loves His missionaries. Nowhere else in the world can be found such dedicated young men and women sincerely wanting to serve others and make a difference in the lives of people. I think it was President Gordon B. Hinckley who replied to the question, “Why do you send 19 year old young men on missions?” the reply, “Because it works.” And so it does.

Just one example from a missionary:
"Later that night we received a voicemail from ___ [who had just been baptized] where he simply thanked us over and over again. It was so sweet and so sincere. I know that that is why I am here. We didn't do anything as far as his conversion, however, he was in the right spot at the right time and simply sharing the message with him has completely changed his life for all eternity. He knows it is true, and that is enough for me to know that this is the Lord's work and it is my purpose to share it. To change lives. It's amazing! I love it! I love being a missionary!!"

Feeding Missionaries

I am still chuckling about this elder's comment. The wonderful converts love the missionaries and feed them their favorite foods. Some times the ethnic foods are a bit strange to the missionaries.

"oh last week we went over to another recent convert and had dinner there. it was by far the worst dinner i've had on my misson, it was fried fish smothered in this weird red stuff and cow feet in peanut soup. it was really gross, i saw my companion gag a few times. made a good journal entry.:)

Weekly emails

Each week I read about 160 emails from my missionaries. A few are very disheartening , but most are uplifting and full of faith. I also get many chuckles. Many are are a few short sentences, some are pages long. I think the longest I have ever received was 3300 words long. Though some may think it would be boring, I find it fascinating to feel what they feel and to share in their joys and disappointments. Most write quickly with many grammatical errors and misspellings, but they write from the heart. I respond to about 50 percent of them especially when they ask me a question. I am going to try, from time to time, to give a sample of what they write and some of the questions I respond to. I have way more on my to do list than I will ever have time to.

Here is a sample of what I write to the missionaries that get stopped by the police for "soliciting" without a license.

We are not door to door salesmen--we do not solicit
"The United States Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld the constitutional right of missionaries and others to share their religious views door-to-door. This right was upheld as recently as 2002 in a case involving the Jehovah’s Witnesses. The Supreme Court said that it is unconstitutional to require missionaries to get a permit before they can go door-to-door to share a religious message." That being said, many law enforcement officers do not know this or if they do tend to ignore it. If one of them stops you from going door-to-door, note the time and address and without being belligerent, see if you can get the badge number of the officer. Send all this to me and I'll address it with their Chief of Police.