Study and Learn

One famous story about President Nelson was summarized in this article: “In a meeting President Nelson attended in 1979, President Spencer W. Kimball told those in attendance, ‘We should be of service to the Chinese people. We should learn their language. We should pray for them and help them.’ President Nelson desired to follow the counsel of the prophet, so he immediately began studying Mandarin, in addition to his prayers for the Chinese people. Shortly after President Kimball’s admonition, one of President Nelson’s morning prayers led him later that day to meeting Professor Wu Ying-Kai from Beijing at a thoracic surgery meeting in Boston, Massachusetts. Their relationship blossomed into an exchange of university visits—Professor Wu to the University of Utah in Salt Lake City and President Nelson to the Shandong School of Medicine in Jinan, China. President Nelson made two additional visits to Chinese universities and was credited with introducing open-heart surgery to China in 1980.” President Nelson’s final heart operation was done in China on a famous opera star, an incredible outcome of his simple desire to follow the prophet and learn Chinese. He surely had many reasons to rationalize that the 1979 counsel was not for him—not the least of which was how extremely busy he was in his career, church calling, and family—but he didn’t, and miracles resulted. His attitude was clearly like that of Nephi’s: “I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them” (1 Nephi 3:7). President Nelson went and did, and the Lord provided a way to open doors in China. How fitting is it that it would be President Nelson who would announce the Shanghai People’s Republic of China Temple just over four decades after starting to learn the language. 

            I don’t believe that this means every member of the Church needs to learn Chinese specifically, but I do think it is an indication that we should learn other languages and cultures and be prepared to help take the gospel throughout the world. The Lord commanded us to “study and learn, and become acquainted with all good books, and with languages, tongues, and people” (Doctrine and Covenants 90:15). Similarly He suggested that we should “obtain a knowledge of history, and of countries, and of kingdoms, of laws of God and man, and all this for the salvation of Zion” (Doctrine and Covenants 93:53). He repeated in another revelation that we should seek “a knowledge also of countries and of kingdoms—That ye may be prepared in all things when I shall send you again to magnify the calling whereunto I have called you, and the mission with which I have commissioned you” (Doctrine and Covenants 88:79-80). Thus we learn of other cultures and try to speak their languages so that we can be prepared to share the gospel with them, just like President Kimball invited people to learn Chinese in order to be able to take the gospel to them. The Lord made this promise about the last days: “For it shall come to pass in that day, that every man shall hear the fulness of the gospel in his own tongue, and in his own language, through those who are ordained unto this power, by the administration of the Comforter, shed forth upon them for the revelation of Jesus Christ” (Doctrine and Covenants 90:11). As we seek to understand other languages and cultures, we can become part of the fulfilment of that promise.