Comments on: Escribiring About the Mission

By: Kaimi

Kaimi — Thu, 27 Oct 2005 05:48:56 +0000

Nine years post-mish, and I still snap my hand to show excitement or to say “hurry up.”

By: Andy

Andy — Mon, 03 Oct 2005 04:26:18 +0000

My mission was in costa rica and shaking the spanish after that kind of immersion takes a while.

By: Brett

Brett — Mon, 03 Oct 2005 00:23:59 +0000

Mike,
I never told the dude that God wanted him to go to church. I knew he meant that he had no interest in the chuch. But like Rusty, I would throw it out there playfully when people would say it.

By: MIke in MI

MIke in MI — Sun, 02 Oct 2005 23:15:55 +0000

Fair enough Rusty. Unfortunately, over the years I’ve run into too many missionaries/former missionaries who didn’t get it. I forgot I’m dealing with a different crowd here, and I mean that in a good way ;)

By: Rusty

Rusty — Sun, 02 Oct 2005 20:31:56 +0000

Mike,
Give us a little credit, man. Living in Guat/Mexico for two years we have a pretty good idea what that phrase meant (and you’re right that it was a polite way of saying no). My response was a playful way to end the discussion, to which they usually laughed at because they realized what the saying is actually saying (something they most likely had not considered before). I didn’t actually expect him to reconsider.

By: Mike in MIchigan

Mike in MIchigan — Sun, 02 Oct 2005 18:44:33 +0000

Brett:

But is your investigator’s reasoning any less valid than that used by many missionaries to convince people to come to church? That is, if the book makes you feel good, than it is from God. I realize for believers there is a big difference, but to people outside of the church there really isn’t so different.

“Si Dios quiere” in the case you mention isn’t leaving the decision up to God–it’s a polite way to tell you no, I don’t want to go to your church. You’re lucky you weren’t thrown out on your ears if you followed it up by telling them that God wanted them to go to church.

By: Rusty

Rusty — Sun, 02 Oct 2005 18:24:06 +0000

Brett,
Same phrase in Guat. We’d always quickly respond that yes, God DOES want you to go to church. For some reason that didn’t convince them.

We were teaching a guy that clearly wasn’t getting it. I asked him if God was standing in front of him and told him to change his religion would he do it. His resonse? I’ll have to ask my pastor. This was after he informed us that the way he got his priesthood was his pastor had three pieces of paper, two with “no” written on them and one with “yes”. He flipped over the one with “yes” so he has the priesthood. In that light our method of laying on of hands and worthiness is such a waste of effort.

By: Brett

Brett — Sun, 02 Oct 2005 17:37:31 +0000

Mexicans would say “si Dios quiere” when we invited them to church. Basically this was a cop out. I remember this one time a guy didn’t have gas to take a shower, so he couldn’t come to church. His response was that “Al la mejor es un senal que Dios no quiere que vaya a tu iglesia.” Right…

By: Chad Too

Chad Too — Sat, 01 Oct 2005 12:05:25 +0000

We had plenty of this in Japanese as well. It doesn’t hurt that an estimated 10-15% of Japanese is simply Japanized English to begin with. For example “to communicate” is “Kommyuniketo-suru” with ‘suru’ being the infintive “to do.”

Along the same lines as the other comments, there were words that I only knew in Japanese (train station = eki to me. Always will). In the middle of my homecoming address I had to do the vocabulary interpolation trick because I literally had no idea what to call the Ward Mission Leader in English. He was always “dendou shuunin.”

I also face those words that were so perfect in Japanese but have to one-word English equivalent. “Mottainai” means “too good to waste,” “kankeinai” is a one-word that means “it has no connection or importance to me,” etc.

Verbs connected to a -masho suffix mean “let’s do ____.” I use “boogie-masho” (let’s boogie)at home all the time when I want to lightheartedly remind the family that we’re running behind.

Last not not least, In Japanese you don’t “tell” somebody something, you “teach” somebody something. People look at me quite strangely when I ask them to teach me their phone number, address, etc.

By: Rusty

Rusty — Sat, 01 Oct 2005 08:43:18 +0000

My brother Bret spells it with one “t”. No confusion.

Pesado in Guat just means heavy.

One thing I always found funny about Spanish is the inherent way you echar la culpa, the way you take the blame off yourself. For example, you don’t forget something, it’s forgotten to you (se me olvidó). You don’t dislike something, it displeases you (no me gusta). You don’t not get along with someone, it doesn’t get along with you (no me cae bien). You don’t lose something, it gets lost to you (se me perdió). Culminating into my favorite thing the Guats would say to us, “primero diós llego a la iglesia” (if God wills it I’ll go to church).