Can Senior Missionaries Learn a New Language? My morning walking path takes me past the entrance to the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah. One July morning I saw a group of senior missionaries boarding a bus for the airport and on to their different fields of labor. As I walked, I began making up a silly little song to the tune of “Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree”: I looked out the window and what did I see? That was my idealistic view of senior missionaries long before I joined their ranks. I had not learned a language in my youth, and I thought maybe I should get a head start before our mission. I decided to sign up for a Russian class at BYU. Doug was fluent in that language so I thought we might receive a call to Russia. The class was taught by Bob Blair, a favorite of the students. During the first class, he spoke nothing but Russian-a technique that evidently works well for the younger, smarter students, but totally overwhelmed me. As we left the class, I was in tears and told Doug, “There’s no way I can take this class while I’m serving as Relief Society President!” Later I started private Spanish lessons at home but found it difficult to grasp the grammar and conjugations. My enthusiasm for learning a language was waning. Our Mission Call Several years later, the time came to send in our papers for a senior mission. There is nothing quite like that two weeks when you are waiting to see where you will spend the next 18 months! Then suddenly one morning:
Chile Santiago West Mission–where everyone speaks Spanish. Now I definitely had motivation to learn a language. Because of Doug’s great love for languages, I wanted to work hard at it-show him I could do it-and share in his passion. In 2002 when we received our call, senior missionaries were staying eight or nine weeks at the Senior MTC, spending up to nine hours a day in intensive language study. To get a head start, I went to the MTC twice a week for private tutoring prior to our official entry there. It was difficult, but it was my main focus now, and I knew I had to learn it. During our first weeks in the MTC I kept repeating positive affirmations many times a day: “I can do this! I can do this!” During our last few weeks, I found myself saying, “Can I dothis?” I wasn’t sure, but I was committed now.
Our Mission President, Ole Smith, assigned us to the city of Talagante, Chile, population 50,000. As far as I could tell, no one therespoke English. It was going to be sink or swim. From the beginning, I spent hours a day on language study, feeling I could not succeed if I could not communicate. I felt sad when the saints spoke to me, and I could only respond with the most basic conversational phrases. I soon found that hugs, smiles, and charades are what I would live by for a while. Spanish is easy to read and pronounce so I was able to make a contribution during our visits in Chilean homes by singing hymns, reading scriptures, saying prayers, and bearing testimony-things I learned in the MTC. It fell to Doug to do the actual teaching. In our pre-mission life, I had been the more talkative one and Doug the more quiet one, but we had a complete role reversal in Chile: He did all the speaking, and I just smiled a lot and Not long after we began our mission, we attended a funeral for the mother of our branch president. The chapel was filled and the meeting was about to begin when the branch president walked up the aisle and said to me, “Will you please sing a solo today?” I was dumbfounded as I watched him walk to the pulpit to begin the funeral. I grabbed my hymnbook and desperately searched the unfamiliar Spanish hymn titles. Then I said a prayer and started looking at the music to see if I recognized any of the hymns. I saw the music for “Each Soul That Touches Mine For Good” and hoped it had the same message in Spanish. I am not a soloist and I knew they had no keyboard, but when the time came I walked to the pulpit and sang an a cappella solo on three verses of “Quienes nos brindan su amor.” It was an average performance at best, but the Spirit must have compensated for what I lacked. On the next Sunday, which was fast and testimony meeting, 10 members of the deceased’s family (including non-members) stood in line behind the pulpit, and each one thanked me profusely for the spirit of the song that had comforted them. Language FrustrationIn my weekly informe to President Smith, I expressed my disappointment that I could not communicate better. I increased my study time to five or six hours a day. I felt somewhat desperate to “get it.” President Smith was always encouraging, saying: “Don’t worry about the Spanish. You’ll slowly pick it up as you are more exposed to it. It’s always harder than anyone expects. If you’re not getting it yet, that means you’re normal.” But I could see time passing and my frustration grew. In one informe to President Smith, I wrote: How many ways can you spell H-U-M-B-L-E? Having a hard time with espaol He answered, Hermana Perry worries too much President Smith Some Things That HelpedPresident Smith’s wife, Dena, suggested that it might be beneficial to give me a break from Spanish occasionally. President Smith suggested that we come into Santiago once or twice a month and have home evening with the English speaking missionaries who served in the temple, church office building, and other callings. It was truly a relief for me to be with them and speak English for an evening now and then. On one of our forays into Santiago, I was able to spend some time with Ted Lyon, President of the Chilean MTC, and I asked him for any pointers he could give me for learning Spanish faster. I told him that in spite of my long hours of study, 19-year-old “greenies” from the MTC were passing me by very easily with their language ability. President Lyon was a professor of Spanish at BYU, and I thought if anyone could help me, he could. His advice was both encouraging and discouraging. He said that studies have shown that when a senior missionary is learning a language for the first time, it will take them four to five times as long as it will take a 19-year-old. He then gave me several helpful suggestions to aid in my language study. From his office, we walked over to the Area President’s office. While we were waiting for an appointment, I watched as Hermana Ann Jameson(wife of Elder Ron Jameson, Executive Secretary to Elder Holland) answered the phone several times and answered questions in beautiful Spanish. I was in awe and said, “Hermana, how have you been able to learn the Spanish language so well? I try so hard, but sometimes I think I might have a breakdown over it!” She said, “Welcome to the club! This is our third mission-I had my breakdown on our first mission!” That statement helped me so much because then I knew it was possible to eventually speak as well as she did. On Thanksgiving Day, all the North American leaders and senior missionaries met together for a delicious feast in the back yard of one of the mission homes. It was our good fortune to have Elder and Sister Holland sit next to us. During the course of the meal, Elder Holland said to me, “You and Doug are doing such a great work out there in Talagante. If there is anything at all we can do to help you, please let us know.” With tongue planted firmly in cheek, I responded, “Well, I would appreciate it if you would bless me with the gift of tongues.” With a smile, he leaned over and whispered in my ear, “You don’t know how many times I’ve wanted to place my hands on my own head for that very purpose, but I think He is going to make us learn Spanish on our own.” Relaxing a Little About the LanguageI began to focus on what I could do with my level of language ability. We taught keyboard and conducting lessons to scores of students. Doug did the primary teaching, and I assisted at the keyboards, correcting and encouraging the students in simple Spanish. I purchased an English as well as a Spanish course book so I could read a paragraph silently in English and then say it aloud in Spanish and know what I was saying. We developed four different choirs where Doug was up front doing the teaching and directing, and I was accompanying on the piano. When Doug was called as a counselor in the district presidency, I had more time alone when I could study and read. I finished reading El Libro de Mormn for the first time and learned so much from the side-by-side English/Spanish printout Doug had made for me. I read Jess el Cristo and many other books in Spanish. I took Spanish lessons from a dear Chilean friend, Carmen Lastres, in return for English lessons. I found a little Spanish grammar book in which the author claimed that if one were to memorize 2,000 strategic words in a language, that would be enough to get by. Night after night, I memorized until I knew the meanings of his 2,000 words. I tried to get over my fear of making mistakes when I spoke. I found that the natives were happy to correct me, and it was a great way to learn. I developed a sense of humor about making mistakes, and this served me well. If I couldn’t remember how to conjugate a certain verb, I would just throw out the infinitive and let the Chileans conjugate it. I wish I had learned some of these things much earlier in our mission. The Language of the SpiritSomewhere toward the end of our mission, I learned that Elder Richard G. Scott had said that for senior missionaries learning a new language, it would be about a 10-year process to fluency. I believe I was too intense about the language for the first part of our mission. I have known of many couples where neither of them has spoken the language of their mission, but through love and caring and helping where needed, they have made such a positive difference. Very capable friends of ours who were called to Russia realized that they were spending too much time and energy on the language without much success and decided to relax a little bit about the language and just love and serve the people. When we returned from our mission, we learned that senior missionaries no longer received language training at the Missionary Training Center. They just stay there for a week or so and then are sent to their “There is one language. . . that is common to each missionary-the language of the Spirit. It New Words for Senior Missionaries
(Part 3 will talk about the post-mission experiences of Senior Missionaries) To find Janice Kapp Perry’s eight Spanish CD’s, click here. No Comments | Post or read comments FEATURES |
December 4, 2024
December 4, 2024
