Week 33: Lost in Translation

Monday, September 10, 2018

Week 33: Lost in Translation

Elder (Prezident) Raymond was deep in study of the scriptures, when all of the sudden, he said, "Uh oh. I forgot to assign talks for this Sunday. Looks like you and I are speaking." You're kidding.

Turns out Brother Tichy, a former Czech/Slovak missionary, called and told us that he was going to visit with his family and that he would be willing to give a talk. Nice, that took the pressure off. Then we just needed to translate his talk to English (for his family) as he was giving it, and that would occupy the whole of the meeting. We were off the hook.

At the start of the meeting, Prezident Raymond invited one of the kids to give a report on the Wallace Toronto Service Project (more on that later). He asked if I would translate for him, to which I gladly agreed. With both of us standing at the podium, the kid began: "So the project was really successful, and we helped a lot of people." Okay, easy. I translated it. Then the kid's confidence in me grew, so he let it go: "We did....... got together some textbooks for the school........... bushes......." The kid took no breaks. At the end of his summary, all eyes were on me, but I didn't even remember what he said in English.

"Uhh... repeat, please?" I said, which caused some laughter. So he repeated, but I wasn't catching on. Elder Raymond took over, and I got to take the walk of shame back to my seat.

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Wallace Toronto was mission president over then Czechoslovakia for 30+ years, the longest-serving mission president in the history of our church. His autobiography is called A Cherry Tree Behind the Iron Curtain. Read it and tell me how it is, because I can't read it for another year and a half. Anyway, the Wallace Toronto Foundation organizes service projects in the Czech Republic and Slovakia annually. We got to participate.