Languages

We are experiencing some wonderful times teaching people in different languages. I have mentioned a few before, but wanted to list a couple again today. The first one is a report that Sister B sent as an email to some of the family, so some of you have already seen this.

"Just a quick story.  I have to tell you about a visit we made this evening to our Macedonian family.  They are learning some German, but since church materials, like the Book of Mormon, aren't available in their Macedonian, they can read the Serbian church materials we had already brought them fairly well.  The Elders ordered a Preach my Gospel in Macedonian/Serbian and brought it tonight.  So while they were speaking in simple German, telling them where in the books to read, and trying to teach, I played with their two little girls.  The eldest is in first grade and is learning German and how to read it.  So we had ordered the children's Book of Mormon stories in German.  So between the two of us we read the first chapter which is the Joseph Smith story.  Both girls were fascinated especially with the pictures of God and Jesus.  After we were done, we played our favorite game, taking turns drawing a picture and then writing next to it what it is called in German, English, and Macedonian.  While we were playing their two friends from the next room came in and joined us, telling what the objects were in Arabic.  So are you lost on languages or nationalities yet?  One more to go.  There was a knock on the door, and their adult friends from upstairs came in.  The mom is Italian and her son is part Italian and Turkish.  They speak German very well, and joined in their lesson.  At the end they requested two Book of Mormons.  What an evening!  We had 12 people in their living/bedroom area which is about half the size of your front room.  And it was wonderful!"

The other one was today during church. One of our families has a daughter with children who has a live-in nanny from the Ivory Coast in Africa. This nanny is a young woman, probably about 25 and her native language is French. She has expressed an interest in the church and the Book of Mormon since she visited our Christmas party in December. When she comes to church, the elders teach her during the Sunday school class time. Today we talked about the plan of salvation and I was able to be with them. We used some of the scriptures in the Gospel Library app on my iPad to find the scriptures in French for her. She speaks and understands German pretty well, but it is hard for her to understand some of these religious concepts in German and does better by reading in French. It was a very good lesson and we were able to help her understand the pre-existence and the fall of Adam because of the French scriptures available from the church.

It is interesting to see the collection of languages we have for the Book of Mormon. We ordered a number of languages a while back and they sent us a number of books in languages we really don't need. We now have three copies of the Book of Mormon in Navajo, a number in Tongan, Samoan, Tahitian, Laotian, besides the ones we wanted in the european and african languages. It is a great blessing to have so many languages available. I just wish I understood and could speak more languages.

The Lord is truly helping us to hasten the work!