The Gift of Tongues

When our stake president set us apart as missionaries he blessed me
with the gift of tongues and I wondered how that would come to pass.
We were going to California, and didn't everyone in America speak
English? I soon found that the Oakland San Francisco area is a very
diverse area with many cultures. The mission officially teaches 11
languages, with missionaries from about 25 different countries. In
the supply room were 100 different languages of the book of Mormon.
Mostly we taught in English, Spanish, Chinese, Tongan, Laotian,
Tagalog, Fijian,. Amharic (Ethiopia) and Igbo (Nigeria) were also
asked for. But the gift of tongues came into play in other ways
which I didn't expect. One of my duties was inputting baptism records
and sometimes a 19-20 year olds handwriting is not the best. I
learned to say nihow (Chinese hello) and ola (Spanish hello), and I
learned to like otai, a Tongan drink. I learned from a black woman
where "way out in the way way" was. We also learned the language of
poverty and welfare as we worked with a family who lived in the
flatlands of Oakland. I worked on a project for a visiting GA where
each missionary was to write a short paragraph and email to me. I
quickly found that while our foreign missionaries knew how to speak
and read English, they didn't know how to write English, and I would
have to interpret what they wanted to say. One set of sisters had
never written an email before. Many American elders and sisters
didn't understand how to write a complete sentence either. Many
elders and sisters wrote in text language with no capitals or
punctuation. We eventually put together a document that could be read
and understood. I also participated in singing the National Anthem at
the Oakland A's game and the Golden State Warriors game. Teaching
many cultures to sing the United States national anthem is truly an
exercise in the gift of tongues.

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