Becoming an Arabic speaker

So the other night I had fallen asleep doing my homework while sitting on my bed. I have been doing this often, no matter what strange and uncomfortable position I am in--it doesn't matter, I still fall asleep at the most inopportune times. You would think I would learn not to do homework while sitting on my bed. But it is only the last 15 minutes or so of homework that I do on my bed...or a last bit of scripture reading for the day, etc. So I had fallen asleep in this uncomfortable position, and when my roommate came in, she said I said something in Arabic to her. Naturally she didn't know what it was (for all she knew, it could have been Farsi...or just an English mumble, but I like to think it was Arabic), but when she told me the next day what I said, it could very likely have been the Arabic imperative "pray!" This helped me realize that Arabic is becoming not just something I do, but something I am.

And since I am once again delaying my homework to write on my blog, I will draw an intriguing gospel parallel here. How do we get the gospel from our minds into our hearts, from our thoughts into our lives? How does the gospel become who we are instead of just what we do? I think it is a similar process to my success in "becoming Arabic"--I spend much of the day studying Arabic, I often think in Arabic, I do normal activities (praying, reading and studying the scriptures and Preach My Gospel, etc) in Arabic, and I am preparing for total immersion in the language--an in-country experience.

Parallels?

Well, we need to spend much of the day studying the gospel. We need to think in terms of the gospel: its principles, doctrines, and commandments. We need to perform our normal, daily actions in a manner consistent with the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. And, we need to prepare for total immersion in the gospel; either through membership in the church (real immersion, by baptism), or a renewal of our covenants each week as we take the sacrament, and ultimately for the total immersion that will come as we leave this mortal life and proceed on to the next. If I am not ready for total language immersion before I get to Jordan, I will really struggle and I might never be able to catch up. And there are parallels with this as well.

But I won't enumerate them all. Otherwise, how will you learn them yourself?