Lacking in the gift of tongues.

There is a senior couple in our ward who returned from their mission to Russia. The sister was invited to report on her mission in Relief Society, and she began by expressing her relief at being back in an English speaking ward again after 18 months. It seems that, like me, she was not blessed with the gift of tongues, and attending church without knowing the language wasn't all that fulfilling for her.

I imagine this will be the case for me and the girls in the Philippines. A and I have already talked about the importance of making sure we have formal, doctrinally-based lessons at FHE every week, and I'll be stepping up the amount of religion we cover with our daily homeschooling to try to compensate for the initial cluelessness we'll face when we first arrive and understand none of the language. I imagine that within a year, though, they will have picked up enough to understand and participate in the ward. I'm considering hiring a Tagalog tutor for them, even, but that will depend on a handful of factors that I won't be able to gauge until we are in country.

For me, though... Well, yeah. As I said, the gift of tongues has never been mine. I barely squeaked through 4 years of French in high school, and only passed Hebrew due to an act of mercy that I will never forget. After living in the Southweat for 8 years, I've gone from understanding maybe 20 Spanish words (most of those the names of foodstuffs) to a hundred or so. Calling them to my mind in time to speak them in a conversation is another matter entirely. At that, I fail hugely.

I am nervous about this aspect of our move. I am someone for whom the social aspect of church is important. I wish I could say that I go solely for worship purposes. But I don't even know that I should appologize for that. Are we not to be a community of Saints? Are we not to serve and edify one another? I draw a great deal of strength from being part of a community of sisters. I'm not even so much afraid that I won't make friends there. What I'm worried about missing out on is the ability to bounce thoughts off others and engaging in the class discussion. I enjoy that a lot, because I feel like a gain a lot from it.

I plan to be better about studying the Relief Society lessons the week before and covering the text for Sunday School so that I have the context of the discussion in my mind before Sunday rolls around. I think that will help with my comprehension of the lesson and off-the-cuff discussion comments. Even with the preparations, though, I fear it will be isolating for a long while.