My First Spanish Blunder

Kairos/Audience: I generally tell this among family and friends when I want to share a humorous story about my mission and my troubles with the language.  I tell it more often among LDS groups because they usually relate better to it.  It is a light, funny story and is told during parties or group gatherings. 

It was a hot, summer day in the middle of the Mormon colonies in northern Mexico so the cool air that greeted us as we walked in the chapel was more than welcome.  We were assailed by the raucous calls of teenage friends to each other and the general commotion you get when you stuff three hundred adolescents in a small church.  As young Mormon missionaries who had only recently graduated from that school called “adolescencia” ourselves, it was a little awkward to find the middle ground between approachable and respectable.  Thankfully, we made it through the throng to the main podium to await a group of two hundred youth.

Now, there were four of us.  The other three were well-seasoned, having spent at least a full year in Mexico, one almost having completed his two year mission.  I was the exception of the group, rather than the rule.  I had been in Mexico for less than two months.  Our small band had been asked by a group of leaders of our church to give two or three short presentations during EFY.  It was a great opportunity and I accepted that my speaking time would be limited.

I quickly learned that at each presentation, we had to introduce ourselves.  The first couple times, I gave a very basic introduction, “Hi, I’m Elder Brown.  I’m from Montana and I’ve been in Mexico two months.”  But I noticed the older missionaries sharing cool stories and I wanted to, too.  I studied Spanish in high school and thought I could handle it.  The third time, I said, “I have a story about a vieja [old lady]”, who didn’t recognize me and thought I had a twin running around in Mexico.  As soon as I said the word, the audience erupted in laughter.  In high school Spanish, “vieja” means old lady.  In Mexico, it means really sexy lady.  In that area, I went down in history as the first missionary to talk about really sexy ladies from the pulpit. (335 words)

Retelling the Story:

“Open Your Mouth…”

Kairos/Audience: Appropriate for an audience not affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  This story comically teaches how we kindness can comfort us and make us improve.

The rowdy teenagers all roared together in a chorus of laughter after the initial, collective gasp.  I didn’t know what to say.  I didn’t know what I said [parallelism].  “Sticks and stones will break my bones…”, I thought to myself [proverb][anapodoton].  I shrugged it off with a smile and nervous laughter, and finished as best I could.  As I sat down again, my older and more experienced companion whispered, “Sorry, I should have taught you that already.”

As a nineteen year-old Mormon missionary having lived in Mexico for only two months, I had just had my first very public mistake speaking Spanish.  The other three missionaries that were with me had been in my shoes, but were since long past my point of linguistic inexperience [degree].  Our small group had been asked to present a small message two or three times to groups of two hundred adolescents attending a church youth camp and during one of these I had worked up the courage to introduce myself a little more grandiosely.  “One day, there was a woman who we knew that waved us over.  Because I was wearing glasses that day, she asked me ‘Where is your twin who doesn’t wear glasses?’.  That’s when I told the vieja [old lady] that I was the same person.”  And that’s when it happened. 

In high school textbooks, old lady is translated ‘vieja’.  In Mexico, it isn’t.  There, it actually means sexy lady, much to my dismay.  In Mormonism, we have a sacred text that says, “Open your mouth and it shall be filled…” [authority].  “I just don’t know what it will be filled with”, I muttered.  As the room shrank around me [personification], a counselor of the group with warm, brown eyes jumbled towards me. I can still remember his eyes. They were windows into his pure heart [metaphor]. “You speak very good Spanish for two months”, he complimented me without any hint of irony. Then, he turned away. But he had already turned my day around. “Open your mouth and it shall be filled …” “I just don’t know what it will be filled with”, I mused. (354 words).