I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. LDS, if you will. Often and for many decades referred to as The Mormons, a name which has fallen out of favor with the Church for a variety of reasons that I won’t get into..

I have been a sometimes lazy and often casual follower of Christ, but deep inside, I realize that there is no other hope or path that will take me where I wish to go but the one He showed us.

I served a 2-year mission for the Church in Spain. As a shiny new missionary with a lot of hope and fear, and a reluctance to speak out in a language I did not have any confidence with, I overheard a pair of men talking about me and my fellow missionaries and our abilities with the language. The said that one of us spoke pretty good Spanish, for an American, but that I never said anything.

I decided in that moment that I was going to do better, be better, and that I would master that language. I started filling a little notebook with new words that I heard or read – no fewer than 10 words per day – and I would learn their meanings and practice their usage. I read books (scripture mostly) in Spanish and English side by side. I listened to random conversations on the streets. And I started talking to people with less trepidation at my inexperience and more hope for guidance and correction as my skill grew. I sought out jokes, tongue-twisters and children’s fables, nursery rimes, silly songs, and hymns in Spanish  I talked, listened, and even ate Spanish at every opportunity.

I learned the vocabulary, the grammar, the rhythm, and the soul of the language. I wanted to be able to communicate well enough that my speech would never get in the way of my message, that through my voice, people would only hear the love and respect that I had for them and their culture and the joy of the words of Christ.

There were many people, a people, and a country that I grew to love. Several lives were changed through the work I did, but none more profoundly than my own.
One memorable day, three of us missionaries were talking to a random woman on the streets of Madrid, and she wanted to guess where we were from. She correctly identified that one of us was a native Spaniard from Sevilla, the next was clearly and American from somewhere out west, then, pointing at me, she said that this one sounds Spanish, but I can’t tell from where.
When I came home, the first thing my mother said to me was, “You sound like a foreigner.” I high compliment indeed.

Over the intervening decades, I have travelled a bit, and I am frequently taken for a Spaniard when I speak Spanish. My accent remains intact, even when my vocabulary grows a bit rusty.

I am happy with that accomplishment, but my journey is not complete. There is another language, culture, rhythm, and syntax that I need to improve on. When I peak Spanish, people hear in my voice  the respect I have for the Spanish people. When I speak of Christ, I want people to hear the voice of a disciple, and may that vocabulary never rust.