I Prepare You

Today in sacrament meeting a departing missionary spoke. He is going to the Ivory Coast, and, incredibly, to the exact same mission as another missionary who just departed from our ward. We have five missionaries who have left in the past several months, and the probability that two or more of them go to the same mission is less than 2% (given the 506 current missions). The missionary today mentioned in his talk that he is grateful to be going to a French-speaking mission, for was part of the French immersion program in school here in Utah. So he was able to bear his testimony at the end of his talk in French and he will be able to communicate with the people from the start. Out of these five missionaries recently called in our ward, all of which (I believe) took part in the French immersion program, three of them are speaking French on their missions. Certainly 60% is far greater than the approximately 4% of missions (my estimate) that speak French. Clearly the Lord is using the knowledge He gave these French-speaking missionaries in their youth to help them be effective instruments in His hands and fulfill this promise: “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). The dual immersion program in Utah certainly has lots of benefits, and I can’t help but believe that one of them is to prepare missionaries to more effectively teach the gospel of Jesus Christ to people across the world in many different languages. 

               When I was about seven or eight years old, I had a French tutor who, for a while, gave me French lessons. I do not know what motivated my parents to do that. We had no strong connection with French that I'm aware of in the family until my older sister served a French-speaking mission in Switzerland and France. Though I don’t think that tutoring continued very long, it undoubtedly helped me decide to take French when I got to middle school (instead of the more popular Spanish). For some reason I was drawn to French, and I continued taking French classes through high school. Though I was not fluent, by the time I finished high school I had the grammar down fairly well. Despite that, I was not really expecting to serve a French-speaking mission and was actually a little disappointed at first when I got called to France (thinking, I guess, that I wanted a more third-world kind of destination). But looking back I am so incredibly grateful for the opportunity to serve in France, and I know my French training in school helped me to be more effective with the language and learn it more quickly. The Lord had, I believed, prepared me for that amazing opportunity. In 1832 the Lord said this to Church leaders, “Wherefore, a commandment I give unto you, to prepare and organize yourselves by a bond or everlasting covenant that cannot be broken…. Behold, this is the preparation wherewith I prepare you, and the foundation, and the ensample which I give unto you, whereby you may accomplish the commandments which are given you; That through my providence, notwithstanding the tribulation which shall descend upon you, that the church may stand independent above all other creatures beneath the celestial world” (Doctrine and Covenants 78:11-14). They were organized together so the Lord could prepare them for the mission He had in store for them. And I believe He does the same for us—He prepares each of us for what He wants us to accomplish in our lives with our unique talents. When we wonder sometimes to why certain things are a part of our lives, we might listen for these words from Him: "This is the preparation wherewith I prepare you."