The Gift of Tongues

"Wij geloven in de gave van talen, profetie, openbaring, visioenen, gezondmaking, uitlegging van talen enzovoort." Geloofsartikelen #7

We believe in the gift of tongues, prophecy, revelation, visions, healings, interpretations of tongues and soforth." Article of Faith #7

People not of this LDS faith hearing about my mission think it's so cool that I'm going to Belgium and the Netherlands to serve a mission (well, they think the Belgium/Netherlands part is cool. More often than not, they're not as interested in the "to serve a mission" part.) However, when they learn that I have to learn Dutch, they are flabbergasted.

"Have you started learning it yet? You'll probably need to buy like a Rosetta Stone for that."

"I would start studying that, five months is not a long time."

"You're expected to learn the entire language in six weeks?"

Clearly, these people don't understand that Mormons are superhuman beings. Honestly.

In all reality, though, I grew up thinking the gift of tongues was strictly a missionary gift. And hey, maybe in many senses, it is. I knew that missionaries learning foreign languages would go into the Missionary Training Center and get sent out being able to converse with a completely different language speaking people. I thought "yeah, we're so cool because we can learn languages fast." I knew that God's work would not be hindered by the imperfection of human learning and the inability of instant knowledge. It was not until I grew up a lot, however, that I truly understood the gift of tongues.

Many of the missionaries I know or that I've heard from or about who didn't know their mission language before going on their mission said that they pretty much didn't understand anybody and couldn't really communicate with anyone while they were on their mission for the first 4-6 months. Little children laughed at their broken attempts at speaking and they felt stupid.

Likewise, I've heard stories of people who have had that broken, stuttering, failing language thing going who have stood up in Sunday church to give a talk, or just in front of a group of people, or even just in front of one or two people, who testified with the spirit so strongly that their once clumsy tongue became eloquent, and every conjugation, pronoun and conjunction was pinpoint perfect for those few moments they spoke. Moments like those are moments where the gift of tongues is present.

When we go back a while and consider the process of becoming a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, we remember that we get "[baptized] by immersion for the remission of sins and [confirmed] by the laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost." The gift of the Holy Ghost. That is the gift that keeps on giving. My favorite scripture about the Holy Ghost is found in 2 Nephi 32

"2 Do ye not remember that I said unto you that after ye had received the Holy Ghost ye could speak with the tongue of angels? And now, how could ye speak with the tongue of angels save it were by the Holy Ghost?
3 Angels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost; wherefore, they speak the words of Christ; for behold, the words of Christ will tell you all things what ye should do."

Hold up. THE HOLD GHOST ENABLES US TO SPEAK WITH THE TONGUE OF ANGELS. And that's not all, ANGELS SPEAK BY THE POWER OF THE HOLY GHOST. Wait, there's more! We're always saying "the missionary doesn't convert the person, the spirit does." Well hey, then, maybe we should, like, really, really, try our hardest to keep the Holy Ghost really close to us so that we can speak with the tongue of angels by the power of the Holy Ghost to convert the hearts of the people. Whata concept.

The gift of tongues is essentially the gift and power of the Holy Ghost to be held within us and flow out our mouths. If we speak by the spirit, it shouldn't matter if we're expected to learn Tagalong, or Tahitian, or Portuguese, or Spanish, or French, or German, or Dutch, or even Afrikaans. The spirit is the same in every language.

I truly believe that and can't wait to see it in action.