BYUH students and a bishop share their experience learning a language using the Book of Mormon
A consistent effort, a desire to connect and being fearless of making mistakes is what it takes to learn a foreign language and more, said two BYU-Hawaii students and a bishop. They said the Book of Mormon helped them learn their mission language which allowed them to fulfill their purpose, preach the gospel and serve those around them.
An acquired God-given skill
Jaime Aaron V. Acuña III, a freshman from Tagbilaran, Philippines, majoring in computer science, said he served his mission in the Tonga Nuku’alofa Mission. He said a big part of learning his mission language is the gift of tongues, the spirit and reading Ko E Tohi ’A Molomona, or the Book of Mormon translation in the Tongan language consistently.
When he was applying for his mission, Acuña said there was a question asking if the applicant is willing to learn a new language. Acuña said, “I chose ‘very interested,’ and to be honest, I love my mission, but there was a time I thought it was a dense decision.” He said when he arrived on his mission, he learned instantly how hard it was going to be. “You have other responsibilities to attend to. Other than learning a new language, you also have to immerse yourself into the area you have been assigned to,” he continued.
Acuña said learning the language was difficult, and he tried and prayed a lot. He said seeing other foreign missionaries learn the language gave him hope. “Eventually, my prayers turned from asking God to help me learn the language to asking God to help me get through the day because I know [the skill to speak the language] will eventually come,” he said.
Acuña said he used a book written by Eric Shumway on learning the Tongan language as a reference when he was having a hard time. He planned to read the whole book once he arrived in his area, but once he met his American trainer, who was known to have a very good grasp of the language, “He encouraged me to use the Book of Mormon. ‘The only secret is the Book of Mormon. Just read it, ‘my companion would say,” he continued.
Reading the Book of Mormon alone is not an effective way to learn a different language, Acuña added. “I read a verse and try to understand it as much as I can. Then I look for the words I do not understand,” he continued. He said he kept a mini booklet where he listed down the words he didn’t know and then compared them to the dictionary and the English Book of Mormon.
After understanding the words, Acuña said he reads the verse again until he is able to understand it. Aside from reading, he also studied the list he had listed in his booklet, he continued. “I try to memorize all of them. My MTC teacher calls it Lau fakakolipoki, which means reading like Kolipoki, the missionary from the movie The Other Side of Heaven,” he continued.
“I really have a testimony of how the Book of Mοrmon helped me learn my mission language,” said Acuña. He said the Book of Mormon provided him a way to learn words and practice his pronunciation by reading out loud. He said he first learned the formal manner of the language rather than the casual words used for conversations. “I was able to speak the language fluently after six months. It was weird because outside of teaching, I could barely speak,” he continued.
Acuña said his mother tongue and his mission language stem from the same branch, the Austronesian language. “I’ve noticed that counting in Bisaya (a dialect in the Philippines) and Tongan is almost the same and a lot of words are very similar,” he said. He didn't notice it being used before in his language until he saw it in other Austronesian languages, he continued.
“The hardest was overcoming my introverted self,” said Acunia. He said his trainer forced him to speak a lot because he’s not really outgoing. When he got separated from his companion, he had to get out of his comfort zone, he continued.
“There are blessings the Lord is willing to give us, but those blessings come from our efforts,” said Acunia. He said he would not have been able to acquire the gift of tongues if he did not do his part. “I was surprised by my performance. I realized that the Lord will bless me if I strive,” he continued. Acunia said the grace of God helped him accomplish his purpose as God’s missionary.
More than just a language
Lehua Foma'i, a junior from Alaska majoring in biology, said the church began the Come Follow Me program when she was in her fourth year in seminary. She said, “They changed my last year, which would have been the Old Testament to the Come Follow Me, and that year was focused on the Book of Mormon.”
Foma’i, who also served a full-time mission in Bolivia Santa Cruz Mission, said her goal was to≥ finish reading the Old Testament throughout her mission because she was not able to read it before. She said, “I started realizing it was not very productive. It’s not helping me, I should not read it in English.” She said she talked with her mission president and she told him about her goal.
She said her mission president gave her advice and told her she should not focus on finishing the Old Testament, but instead, she should read the Book of Mormon every single day. “From that moment on, I started to read the Book of Mormon, maybe a few chapters for my personal study,” she continued.
Reading the Book of Mormon helped her develop a better relationship with the book itself and her mission language, Foma’i said. “Because I was able to speak the language better and help the people more,” she added. She could bear her testimony better and express her feelings to those around her, Foma’i continued. “Through learning the language, I was able to invite the spirit a lot more,” she added.
She said, “There were nine stakes in Bolivia, and I served in two of them, Santa Cruz and Beni.” Beni is located in the borders of Brazil, and they speak both Spanish and Portuguese, where she also learned Portuguese, she added.
“Many people who were living [in Beni] were illiterate. They don’t know how to read, and they don’t know how to write,” said Foma’i. She said they had a difficult time extending invitations to read the Book of Mormon to the people they serve given the circumstances. “We would teach them little by little, or we would help them watch the videos on the gospel library and that’s how they learn how to read,” she continued.
Foma’i said she met a lot of people who learned how to read and was able to gain their personal testimonies of Jesus Christ and His gospel by reading the Book of Mormon with them. The people they were serving in Beni were often the best people to teach because they are humble, she continued. She said the experience inspired her to really learn her mission language.
Foma’i said it took her about four months to learn Spanish. She said, “I studied Spanish before my mission for six years. But it was never to the point where I could say I was fluent.” She said a lot of high schools offer second languages, but nothing compares to being immersed in the culture and the people. “It’s not the same. Even if I studied it before my mission, it didn’t mean I could speak the language,” she added.
“It was easier for me to read and understand than to speak and write,” said Foma’i. She said the Spanish and Portuguese structures, grammar, alphabet and accents are very different from those of English. She said reading the Book of Mormon from cover to cover and reading out loud helped her improve her language skills. “It will help you to pronounce things better, and it will help you memorize certain phrases because if you’re using certain words, they always go with specific phrases,” she continued.
Foma’i said she stopped using English in both writing and in reading. “Don’t even read anything in your first language… I had companions who spoke English. I did not speak English with them. I strictly spoke Spanish and Portuguese,” she added.
Foma’i said she still does her personal studies and listens to conference talks and even music in Spanish. “I like speaking with people who also speak Spanish or Portuguese every chance I get,” she continued. She also keeps in contact with their converts, ward members, her mission president and his wife and all of her companions, she added.
Getting better by doing
Michael Aldrich, bishop of the Laie 4th ward who served in Germany, said the missionaries used the Book of Mormon a lot for two things: learning vocabulary and proper pronunciation. “We would play games where we would take a verse in English and translate it into German. Then, we would translate it to English and compare it and see how good or normally, how bad we did it,” he continued.
Aldrich said they used a grammar book which covered a lesson or two. “We did language exercises then we would go to the scriptures, and we would start off having our personal study where you’d take 20 mins to half an hour,” he continued. He said after their personal studies, they would get together and share what they learned in German.
When you speak another language, he said translating is not only about what a word means, but it must make sense. He said, “A lot of it is learning how to think about those gospel principles and explain them in a second language, in ways that other people can understand.”
Aldrich said, “Right after we landed [in Germany], the mission president said, ‘Welcome to Germany, put your stuff here, you’re gonna go out with these Elders, and you’re gonna go talk to people.’ That was it. On our very first day.” He said there were ten of them and they were split up into companionships. He recalled, “The experienced missionary said, ‘Hey, my friend has a message for you!’ Then the person looked at me, and I said something poorly in German.”
Reading the BOM in German helped him get the flow and learn the proper pronunciation of words, said Aldrich. He said, “It helped with familiarizing ourselves with the language, especially with the church language that we used.” Aside from the Book of Mormon, he said they also used the Bible and a grammar book from the Missionary Training Center. “We had six missionary lessons way back then, we didn’t have the Preach My Gospel,” he said.
Missionaries used the Book of Mormon not only to learn the language but also to explain the gospel in German, he added. “About eight months in, I had a German companion who didn’t know much English. I would speak German all the time,” he said. It came to a point when he lost his American accent, and people thought he was a local, said Aldrich.
Aldrich said breaking down something you have done naturally growing up and building it up to learn a second language was difficult for him. He said, “I speak English, you don’t think about grammar, you grow up with the grammar. I know how to say it, but I am not thinking about its form.” He said it was funny because he thought he knew English, but he only knew how to speak it.
When a person can speak a second or third language, he said they think differently. He said, “If you get to the point where you’re not translating in your head, it just flows and changes how you think.” After his mission, he said people would ask him questions, and he would translate the words in German in his head. “Especially if it was church-related because I have been teaching for two years,” he continued.
Aldrich said he can still remember the German grammar and the structure. “But my memory of the vocabulary has nose-dived because I don’t use it much,” he continued. He said it was seven years ago since he used it regularly when he was in Austria.
“It took a while for me to gain the courage to talk, engage and immerse myself in it. That’s why having the German Book of Mormon and the Bible was helpful,” said Aldrich. He said when a person is learning a language, they should not be afraid of messing up. “Don’t be embarrassed. You’ll say silly things, or weird things and just laugh about it. You should have fun doing it,” he continued. “It’s cool! You're learning, and you are growing. You only get better by speaking, writing, reading and listening,” he added.