Fluent

Craig's sister Chelsea is living in downtown Salt Lake going to school and working at the Church Office building. She was asked by the church to translate some of the conference talks into Marshaleese. She served her mission in the Marshall islands last year and clearly learned the language well! I was so proud of her. She was in a special booth with hundreds of other translators communicating to saints around the world into over a hundred languages the words of the inspired speakers. I remember when I returned home from Japan on my mission I certainly felt comfortable speaking Japanese to people but I did not in any way feel fluent enough to translate for the church! Well done my dear sister-in-law!

A Little Lesson:
The translators are given the talks a few days before the conference in order to become familiar with the words they will be translating. However Chelsea explained to me that as you go along reading your translation while the speaker is giving their talk, at any moment the speaker can add or subtract words from their prepared sermons, leaving the translator scrambling to keep up with the changed sentences. It requires fluency as well as quick thinking. Apparently, President Monson can hand in a talk to the translators as few as twenty minutes before he will speak! Chelsea explained that on Saturday morning someone came into the translating room shouting "REVISION! REVISIONS!" on one of the talks about ten minutes before they were to speak. I had no idea so much was going on behind the scenes to make it possible for millions of lds people from foreign lands around the world to hear conference, as I sit and watch it in English on the stake center screen year after year!