Love in Any Language

Sometimes I miss my grandma.* I can remember when she and grandpa lived nearby for a short while (so long ago...). I used to love to hear her tell stories. For those of you who don't know, my paternal grandparents were missionaries to various South American countries back in the day. Mostly to Punta Arenas, Chile, since to my grandpa that was "the end of the earth." (somewhat of a story there... I won't bother explaining :P ) Anyway... I would love to sit and listen to all her magnificent stories of what God did for them while they were in various countries. Sometimes she'd sing songs in Spanish. She taught me "Jesus Loves Me" in Spanish :) I guess it's a big part of why I always wanted to learn Spanish.
So fast-forward a decade or so. Grandpa died in '99 and grandma spent the next few years in OR with her children out there. Then along about '03 she came to MO for one of her infamous 2-week-visits :P (I laugh when I say this because I remember so many times when grandma and grandpa would go for a short little visit and end up not coming back i.e. moving :P ) Well eventually she ended up staying. We had quite the adventures while she lived here. Some good and some bad. But that's not what this blog is about :P You see, during this time I was in high school.
In high school I decided to finally officially study Spanish, since I had always loved languages and Spanish was at the top of my list to learn. I had a hefty Spanish textbook which, unlike the self-tutoring I was used to, required a teacher, and one who spoke Spanish was of importance :P Since dad is often busy with things pertaining to Teen Harvest, grandma became my Spanish instructor. This was a most adventurous time for me. While I enjoyed studying with grandma, she would sometimes wear my patience thin (which, I'm afraid, is a generally difficult task :-/ ) by constantly saying the same thing. Commenting on my wonderful accent, how enormous my textbook was, and how important conjugating verbs is. Oh and did I mention they don't teach conjugation well enough these days? Oh bless her soul sometimes grandma would get stuck these ruts at which point my lesson would quickly deteriorate and I would be forced to return to such unlovely and arduous tasks as **gasp** Algebra. *groan* ok so in retrospect, Algebra isn't so bad, but at the time it was such punishment. At any rate, I'm getting off track again :P
Studying Spanish from a Christian standpoint, a huge goal to me was to study the Bible in Spanish. During one of my lessons with grandma, she gave me a Bible in Spanish. Granted, it's a sorta cheapy soft-cover that was made for prison ministry (LOL) but hey! What do I care? God's Word is God's word no matter what it looks like, no matter what language ;) I set right away to packing it around hither and thither, doing my best to try to decipher what it was saying. I found it most fascinating the particular words the Spanish translation used, and it really brought a whole other aspect to my Bible studies. It was awesome, to say the least. And it does have the sentimental value too, of course ;)
After high school, I didn't have so much time to study my Spanish, thanks to jumping right in to college. Also during that time I had to move from grandma's mobile home (we had set up a mobile home for her right behind our house and I moved in there to keep her company and to make more room in our tiny house) into the "big house" aka our newly-built addition. During this time a tragic thing happened-- my little Santa Biblia disappeared. But I was so busy I don't think I noticed...
Finally came the day I finished college *confetti* and I found myself feeling kinda bad I had mostly forgotten what little Spanish I learned in high school. Then one day God flat out told me to "hit the books" so to speak and really learn Spanish. So I dug out my old honkin-textbook and that's when I realized I didn't know where my Biblia was. Devestation. I looked high and low and upside down and under and every-which-way but I couldn't find it. BLAH. Stink. ARGH. Pffftttt. Rawr. **sigh**
Then **angelic choir sings** Aaron found it. Awww what a good widdle brudder. He didn't even know it was missing :roll: guess I should've asked him in the first place, right? Don'tya love it when you're looking for something all over then someone's like "oh I know where it is" and tada! it's right under your nose? ^_^ lol oh well. I's happy 'bout it :D
So now I finally have my Santa Biblia back :D Oh yeah. B-)




So I set off reading it and decided this time I would memorize a few verses. I started with Genesis 1:3 cuz it was nice and easy. 'sides, it has that phrase "Sea la luz!" which, besides its total general awesomness, is fun to use when flipping a light switch :D **feels powerful** hee hee :P
For the sake of learning the language, it is very good to learn some familiar verses so that my brain has an easier time correlating the meanings of particular words, thus making it slightly easier to memorize (besides making it easier to learn new words :P )
One thing I like about my particular Spanish book is that it is a Christian-based curriculuminin so they have verses in it that a student is supposed to memorize for school (even though I'm not "in school" :P ). Unfortunately, in attempt to make it easy they often put only parts of verses. I'm not studying this for it to be easy. So I look up each verse and memorize it in its entirety.
The other verses in order are: John 14:6 (isn't it beautiful?)
Ephesians 4:5-6 [I have not memorized in English per se, but it is familiar enough that it was good to learn in Spanish. It proves to be a bit of a tongue twister, however... or at least, so I thought :P (the part about todas las cosas, y por todas las cosas, y en todos vosotros ;) hee hee... say that ten times fast :P ) ]
And currently I am working on James 3:6, which I have nearly memorized, but it is kinda long... Just gimme another day B-)


And there you have it. The beautiful words of God in another beautiful language (indeed, far more beautiful than American English, no? :P )


* I suppose I should clarify that my grandma is not dead. She currently is living with one of my aunts and I will probably never see her again. She will be 90 on 5/2/'09