Daily Archives: October 6, 2006

Language

05 October 2006 -When we put in our papers for a mission we did not specify where we would like to go. However in my mind I was hoping that we would not get called to somewhere that was hot, humid and I had to learn a language. When we opened the package from the Church and Mary read that we were going to Jakarta, I realized that Lord had decided that I needed to learn humility.

Soon after finding out where we were going, I started looking on the net for information about our mission area. The first really good news I found was that the language used the Roman alphabet and was basically phonetic. This meant I would not have to figure out what a bunch of unfamiliar scribbles meant, nor would I have to learn how to sing a language.

Now after three weeks of working with Bahasa Indonesian, I have come to know that my inability to learn French while in high school was not a fluke.

 My main problem is that I can not keep the vocabulary or grammar rules in my head. Which makes it hard to say anything. Add to that a problem with saying the word correctly and language lessons become frustrating.

 It got to a point on Monday that I was ready to give up. But instead I just decided that there was no way I could keep up with Mary so I would just go along at my own slow pace and hope that she learned it well enough to be our interpreter. We talked about it and she is going to learn as fast as she can and in our daily language study she will help me.

On Tuesday as I was praying about the mission and my problem with learning the language I would have to lean on Mary’s language skills to get us through until I learned the language. I realized it was probably the first time I had to rely on her to achieve anything in the church and that it was a good idea. She has always had to rely on my Priesthood and even had to give up being RIII relief society president – which she greatly loved – when I became bishop. Once I came to that position I could more or less relax – lessons with our tutor is still frustrating – and just do my best.