S-PAN-YOL

I hope that Michael forgives me for this post :)

Last night, after attending the annual White Elephant, Pink Taco party at Terri and Alicia's place, and briefly stopping over at the Athey house to wish Kathi a happy birthday and watch Shaine and Kevin open presents, Mike and I went over to my place. We spent some time reading the Book of Mormon, and since I had left my other English copy somewhere, I was reading in Spanish while he read in English. After we were done, this led to me pulling out my Spanish-English dictionary as well as the October 2001 copy of the Liahona in Spanish (which I have because the elders on the cover were the Barcelona mission APs).

Now, Michael has told me that his Puerto Rican companion complimented him on his pronunciation while he was on his mission. I, however, was NOT as generous. Hearing Mike read Spanish was one of the funniest things I have heard in awhile. Partially because he was reading the names in Spanglish and (please forgive my vernacular) sounded semi-retarded, he was inserting and removing letters from words, and partially because he was emphasizing the wrong syllable. Yes, Elias, which is pronounced A-lee-ahs in Spanish was still Elias. Setenta became sententa, and, had we gotten there, I am sure that teLEfono would have become teleFOno. We were laughing so hard that Lisa could hear us all the way in her room with the door closed. Bless his heart, he was trying, but he clearly did not serve a Spanish-speaking mission. Maybe someday...