Elder Bednar's visit was wonderful, of course. We had three hours with him, which was mostly spent asking and answering questions. I think one of the most memorable things for me was the understanding I gained about teaching with the Spirit, being taught by the Spirit, and letting the Spirit be the teacher. I felt that Elder Bednar taught this most powerfully by his example as he invited us to be active participants in the experience. He made it very clear that he knew he was not the source of our learning. This taught me a lot about how I should approach gospel teaching, but also about how I can open myself to be taught. The process of actively identifying and asking our heart's questions allows us to be sensitive and open to the Spirit's teaching us the things that we need to learn. Sometimes we may actually voice our questions, in discussion settings, but the process works just as well in a meeting like General Conference, or in studying texts like the Book of Mormon, where we can't actually vocalize our questions to the speakers or authors. The reason it can work is that the Spirit already knows everything and everyone involved. When the speaker/author is speaking/writing by the Spirit, and the hearer/reader is trying to hear/read by the Spirit, and actively searching for needed guidance, silent questions can be asked and answered at least as well as if they were spoken aloud. In fact, sometimes questions we didn't even quite realize we had can be answered, because God knows our needs better than we know them ourselves. Anyway, it's a marvelous process, and one that I'll probably be learning to facilitate for the rest of my life.
I had another new and interesting experience this week. This past weekend was district conference for the Ping Dong district. We attended the general (open to everyone) session on Sunday morning. I was asked to translate for a woman from the Phillipines. She's been living in Taiwan for more than 10 years, but she says her Chinese isn't good enough to understand "deep" topics. I'm not sure how much it helped her, but I did my best. I've never translated and listened at the same time. (I think there's some kind of phrase for that, but I don't know what it is). Some speakers were a lot easier than others, because of their speed and the vocabulary they used. My listening comprehension has improved over the course of my time in Taiwan, but it can vary a lot based on who is talking, and what he/she is talking about. It took me back to my summer at the U.N., where I regularly attended meetings and often took advantage of the translation for comments in languages other than English or Spanish. I have a whole new appreciation for the skill set those translators have. Despite the fact that my translation was far from perfect, I felt a lot of blessings and help to be able to listen in Chinese and speak English at the same time, and I was grateful to be of use.
