A Tender Mercy Experienced

Mission: accomplished. Well, not my actual mission, but a surprise that I started to plan and work toward for the past month, at least, and it was a lot of fun.

I gave my final Farewell Address today at my parent’s ward--in Spanish! That is right, en la idioma hermosa de mis padres y hecho eso porque me amo mis padres. I am not fluent, but I know how the words are meant to sound and can read with most of the pronunciation correct, so I asked my friend in California to become a partner in crime and translate my original address from English to Spanish (thank you SO much, Karla!) and read it aloud at the pulpit—this took a lot of practice and I was surprised that I was able to make the progress so quickly. It was such an amazing experience and was told that most of the words came out correctly and that I sounded like I knew what I was saying. It is going to be wonderful when I can make the translation from English to Spanish by myself because I will understand the language as well as I understand English (future goal when I get back from my mission). Now I have an even stronger testimony that the gift of tongues is real.

               I feel like today was a tender mercy from the Lord letting me know that He will help me when it comes time to learning Mongolian and is the difference between where I currently am and what I need to be; all I need to do is put in as much work as possible. It is so similar to the enabling power of the Atonement, but just in regards to language learning, where my effort alone will not suffice, but if I have trust in the Lord and am prepared, the Holy Spirit will bring the message unto the people’s hearts and they will have enough understanding to have the opportunity to accept what is being taught. I feel like today was my witness that the Lord will fulfill His promise to bring the gospel to every people in every language. The gospel has already moved forward in Spanish, but I have never taught in Spanish; now I have.

               Learning Mongolian is not going to be easy nor will I learn the language overnight, but I am not afraid to make mistakes anymore. I want to sound terrible if needed because than the people will know of my strong desire to simply talk with them.

               I am so happy with my life right now and know that it is because I am doing what the Lord would have me do. There are so many terrible things going on in the world, but we have the good news of the gospel and I know that everything will work out.