"And now I, Nephi, cannot write all the things which were taught among my people; neither am I mighty in writing, like unto speaking..." (2 Ne. 33:1)
Nephi loved the writing of Isaiah. He spent a lot of time reading and copying Isaiah's prophecies. Nephi might have liked to be able to write like Isaiah. Instead he was "plainspoken" (or "plainwritten"... whatever). But Nephi wasn't bitter. Instead, he praised Isaiah's writing and, for himself, he "gloried in plainness." Like Paul, he gloried in his weakness.
In a speech called "And with All Thy Mind," Jack Welch said that "we can and must love God with our weakest mental abilities, as well as by playing to our strengths." To love the Lord with all his strength, Nephi had to love him even with what most people would call a weakness. But love is the essence of humility, and when people are humble in their weakness, the Lord turns their weaknesses into strengths.
Nephi and Isaiah are in the spirit world together now, and whenever anyone finishes reading First Nephi and starts choking on the Isaiah chapters, they probably laugh their heads off.
I think I managed an A on my latest Property midterm. I tried to follow the new study schedule Kristine and I made, and the day before the test, when I hit the block marked "Find Study Groups," I went and found one that was just beginning to study Property for about four hours. I soaked up all I could from them, then went to meet my study group and taught them everything I'd just learned. The next day I was brilliant (statement subject to the midterm results that should be delivered tomorrow).
Kristine and I went to the semiannual "Stump the Professor" activity at the law school on Thursday. The professors who had the guts, split into two teams and took any questions, on any random subject, that the students could come up with. Kristine and I had some great ones on music and logical reasoning that we were hoping would slow them down, but there apparently wasn't time to read every question that got submitted. :-P
I quit volunteering at UVRMC on Fridays. I kept getting to the weekend with too much catching up to do, and I was starting to send out e-mails in the middle of the week asking the other interpreters if they wanted to substitute. Then the supervisor at the hospital said I wasn't allowed to email the other interpreters (a policy that is confusing and unrealistic on several levels (each)), and it was suddenly too hard. I wish I could keep doing it; besides loving the experience, I feel like I don't do a lot for other people right now. I am somewhat comforted by Kristine's quote from a general authority's address to college students, that the best service I can do for the world right now is to get an education. But I can't help thinking that at my age, I should be trying to serve by using that education at this point, rather than just getting more.
Just when I was beginning to wonder what was up, I got an email from Chile asking me to prepare an invoice for my translation and email it to the university! Awesome! One more translation project...
I still haven't heard back from my "client" in Chile about the translation I finished for him. I wonder what's going on down there? (Actually, I haven't had time to wonder; I'm just posting this so I can include the link, because I backdated the entry and felt like I didn't get to brag. :-P )
I was accepted to BYU Law School this year. I've been attending classes for six weeks now. Sorry I didn't say anything about it earlier--it's probably the most important thing that's been left out of my journal lately.
Law school classes are fascinating--at least, the first-year classes are. many things are more interesting at the fundamental level, because if you don't find them fascinating in themselves, they do tend to relate more at that level to the things that are fascinating. Property law, for example, is quite a fun class. I don't think I care all that much about property; at least I don't like thinking about it very much. But the concept of it is interesting, and how people come up with laws about it, and the history of it; and those are the things the beginning class is about.
Of course, there's just as much work to do as everyone says. But no one ever mentions how much fun all the work is. And that's not to say that I have all that work done at any given moment. In fact, during the week-long class break that just ended I did not manage to do all, or even a lot, of the catch-up reading I had planned, or get much of a start on the 12-page legal memo that I apparently still don't have the skills to write effectively. But, what I do manage to accomplish, I enjoy.
Last night I finished translating El multiculturalismo: un desafío para el derecho penal moderno, which I have been working on since January. I translated the first half of the article as my "senior" translation project at BYU. When I first discovered it and found that it had been written 2004 (meaning that the author was still alive), I emailed the author to request permission to translate about half the article for academic purposes, and mentioned that I might later be interested in translating the entire work.
At the end of the winter semester I sent the translation of the text to the author in Chile. He was apparently satisfied with my work; he replied that if I was willing, the university had funds to pay for the translation of the rest of the article. We agreed that I would deliver the completed translation the first week of September.
I think my biggest mistake was not asking sooner whether all the footnotes needed to be translated as part of the project. Not really a very prudent omission, that. But despite that error and my native sloth, I managed to finish the project only five weeks behind schedule. Finishing it during law school, though... by the end, I wasn't sure I cared whether he ever paid me or not. But Professor Carnevali was apparently still excited; I sent the final draft at 6pm last night and had a reply waiting by 9am today thanking me for my work and saying he would get the payment process started.
Lehi's dream is a sort of metaphor, a representation God gives him about the probationary stage of the Plan of Salvation. That's pretty familiar material to most of the people who read this journal.
But it all comes in the context of Lehi telling his sons about a rather emotional dream he's just had about them, and that's got to have quite an impact on them. (How their sisters figured into the dream is not mentioned, but if the report is anything like what it was for the boys, I imagine it was quite a day.)
"Behold, I have dreamed a dream; or, in other words, I have seen a vision. "And behold, because of the thing which I have seen, I have reason to rejoice in the Lord because of Nephi and also of Sam; for I have reason to suppose that they, and also many of their seed, will be saved. "But behold, Laman and Lemuel, I fear exceedingly because of you . . ."
*double-take*
Is this really what it looks like? Did Laman and Lemuel just hear their father say, "Sons, I'm sorry, but I've just had a vision... You know that eternal life I've been telling you about? You two... won't be there."
Man... Laman wasn't exactly a child at this point—old enough to marry, apparently—and he probably wasn't anyone's favorite guy. But that's a lot of trauma to heap on someone at any age. In fact, he was probably about my age, and I wouldn't like to get that news—from my dad or anyone else.
Prophecy can sometimes be tough. Alma had to tell Helaman that, despite all the effort he had made and must continue to make, the Nephites as a people were eventually going to dwindle, or diminish, until everyone righteous enough to even be known as a Nephite was gone. Nephi himself had "beheld their fall;" along with the witness of his own salvation, he had seen what would happen to the rest of his family. It seems to have been a vision of the Book of Mormon people that many, if not all, the ancient American prophets shared.
But knowing the dark future of a people is in some ways not as unnerving as knowing the dark future of a person, let alone knowing that it's you. An instinctive response may be to say that it didn't hurt Laman and Lemuel as much since they didn't believe in Lehi's prophecies anyway. But their unbelief was no firmer or more constant than their belief—and who wants to get a stronger witness of a future like that?
This is pretty gloomy scripture study material. But I suspect I'll get some cheering responses from people who understand this better than I do. If that's you, don't be shy. I like to think that as long as Laman and Lemuel were never successful in pulling off any of the murders they planned, they had a chance to repent right up to the end. Now that position needs some shoring up. Is there support the idea that Lehi's vision wasn't the kind of watch-it-come-true prophecy it appears to have been?
Are these the shadows of things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May be, only?
"The squirrels are getting really bad in Davis. They're thinking of giving them birth control." -an update on the latest developments in California, by Daniel Perry's new girlfriend.
It's true. No predators, nobody wants to hunt them... but being undervalued doesn't seem to be getting them down! Kudos... I guess...
I always say that, when children want to play with me during sacrament meetings, I want to set a good example by paying attention to the speakers. And I *do* want to... *sigh* At least I didn't let her feed me the gummybears.
It's been ages since I wrote anything in my journal, and that just ain't cool. I'm not even sure how long it's been (since our internet (which is cooler than your internet) is down), but I know I can think of a couple things that I haven't published lately:
On Thursday, April 2, I was accepted to BYU law school! After years of applying and getting shafted, I was called by Dean Hernandez for an interview, at which he asked me some get-to-know-you questions, glanced at my file, and invited me to attend law school at BYU this fall.
Kristine and I were quite excited, of course. We'd been worrying that we'd have to move someplace new and pay around $90,000 for me to keep going to school, so our reliefat being able to stay in Wymount is considerable. Of course, we kept hoping for that free law school offer from UC Irvine, but we got their rejection letter later that week. I suppose life does need to be just a little challenging.
I finished my senior translation project! Come to think of it, I haven't even looked at my grade. It was one of those situations when you've had enough interviews about the project that you don't really need to ask what your grade will be. I wanted to anyway, of course... It's been a long time since I worried this much about grades. When I was trying to graduate, toward the end of my BA, I was more concerned with just passing. But now that things have really begun to improve in my life, I can once again stress over whether I'll ever have a 4.0 like I used to! Laugh, roll your eyes, or whatever, but there are a lot of... wait a minute. What am I defending myself for? My friends who don't care about grades hardly read this blog anyway. But you know what I mean.
Interpreting involves a lot of waiting. We are paid not only to interpret, but to do so at the convenience of the courts. That means extra money. It also means what one of the Firefly characters described as "adventures in sitting."
Today's interpreting moment is brought to you by the word 'mudflap.' I thought I'd looked up all my cases last night for a vocab check, and today I get 'MC Mudflap Violation.' :-P
For it were not possible that our father, Lehi, could have remembered all these things, to have taught them to his children, except it were for the help of these plates; for he having been taught in the language of the Egyptians therefore he could read these engravings, and teach them to his children, that thereby they could teach them to their children, and so fulfilling the commandments of God, even down to this present time. (Mosiah 1:4)
Why wasn't it possible for Lehi to remember these things? Couldn't the Lord reveal them again? Give him a better memory so he could retain it all? Teach him some celestial mnemonics? Couldn't the principles of the gospel have been extracted so as to make a knowledge of the history of the House of Israel less essential? Lehi was a living prophet, after all. Isn't that more important than 100+ lbs. of brass-engraved words of dead prophets?
Perhaps. But consider:
The Lord still would have had to teach the meaning of gospel principles to Lehi in words, whether on brass or in his mind, because that's what a word is: a unit of meaning. It's common to confuse message with medium in many contexts. In language, for example, a word isn't a minimal string of characters written down or spoken aloud; it's an idea, a unit of meaning. You could even call some words minimal units of meaning, if they consist of only one morpheme. But even those words don't necessarily carry only a minimal amount of meaning, which I'll talk more about in a moment. [EDITs thanks to a friend of mine with a superior knowledge of linguistics. Of course, this whole post is just my amateur-ish opinions on language and scripture, but the 'morpheme' error seems the most obvious and the least defensible.]
Before you can communicate with anyone, you need a common language. This should be obvious.
The more complex your message, the more meaning you need to communicate, and the larger the units of meaning you may want to avail yourself of. Gospel messages can be explained using very simple words from a common language, but they can be explained more powerfully using imagery from a common cultural context (also a definition of 'language').
There's no inherent difference between a word and an allegory. They're both just units of meaning. Many words are themselves allusions to, and carry as much meaning as, some allegories. But those words only work if the allegory has been presented previously. The word 'scapegoat,' for example, has more meaning to someone well-versed in the Law of Moses than to other users of the word.
If it's celestial mnemonics you're looking for, words like 'scapegoat' may be just the thing for you: a single image that draws with it a load of extra information that you don't have to remember or think about all at once—as long as you learned them the first time. Since the Israelites (and, later on, all people) are described as frequently forgetting their God, He gave them a law replete with such reminders.
So, King Benjamin's assertion that Lehi needed the help of the plates is more than just an acknowledgment from one old man to another of the difficulty of remembering. Centuries earlier, Nephi had said to his brothers,
...it is wisdom in God that we should obtain these records, that we may preserve unto our children the language of our fathers; and also that we may preserve unto them the words which have been spoken by the mouth of all the holy prophets, which have been delivered unto them by the Spirit and power of God, since the world began, even down unto this present time. (1 Nephi 3:19-20)
For such a religious people, preserving their language and preserving their prophecy were very much the same objective.
“Alright. I haven't found the time or made the time to type this out in my journal, so maybe this phone post will help me save some time.
“Wednesday morning, I was on my way out to Heber District Court to interpret for some arraignments, and my car hit a patch of black ice and started to spin. I mean, you say that a car's spun out and it makes it sound like it spun really fast, but it actually just happened kind of slow—I'm going down the road, the car starts turning to the left while still moving in a straight line, and I tried to straighten it out and couldn't. And finally it slid off to the left as it was turning to the left and whacked the left side guard rail, which bounced me over to the right side of the road, and I managed to come to a stop. Another car pulled up behind me to try to help, and when we started again I started sliding on the ice—and I think he did too, since instead of stopping he tried to drive around me—and we crashed into each other. So, now Kristine and I are sharing her car all week while Geico fixes mine up all nice and purty-like.
“So, that is that little story, and maybe I'll post some details about it if anyone asks. I didn't really get hurt at all, because when your car is moving sideways down the road and the front of it whacks the guard rail you kind of get jarred to the side a little bit, and not very hard, and you don't get thrown forward into anything. So no whiplash or face hitting the steering wheel or anything like that to speak of. Anyway, that's all for now.”
Epilogue: the crash into the other car was just a tap, so that car didn't even need any attention, and when I reported both incidents to the claims adjuster, she agreed that any damage to my car from the second crash didn't really add any cost to the repairs from the first one. So she billed the whole incident on one no-fault claim, and we only have to pay one deductible amount instead of two. On the whole, it was about the most painless accident I've ever heard of anyone having.
Of course, I was late to work, and pretty shaken when I got there. (I even made a pretty stupid mistake at one point, and was very fortunate to have a Spanish-speaking lawyer there to correct me.) But everyone was pretty understanding; it turns out that even prosecutors and sheriff's deputies are impressed when you say, 'Sorry I'm a little late; I was in two car accidents on the way over.'
One of my law school applications invites me to write about an ethical dilemma I have faced. I define this as a situation in which I did not know what was the _right_ thing to do. I'm sure I have faced such situations (some more significant than others), but for some reason I cannot recall any at this time. Since I would rather submit this application sooner than later, I am asking people who know me if they have any suggestions or memories that would help. Call, text or email at your "earliest convenience." Thanks.
I went up to Salt Lake Last week to interpret a few hearings. While I was waiting outside a courtroom, another interpreter I knew came over to talk to me. He was one of the few male interpreters I know (it’s one of those professions, I guess), so the question he asked me wouldn't have come up in my usual conversations with colleagues.
“Hey, Adam,” he asked, “how come you never wear a suit to court?”
The question surprised me for two reasons. First, it surprised me at that moment that I had let myself get away with “just” a white shirt, tie, nice slacks and dress shoes. My dad, a lawyer and a retired judge, was ultra-conservative in some things and probably would not have let me out of the house without a suit on if I planned to come within a mile of a courthouse. How I managed to allow myself to address a judge in shirtsleeves I have not yet figured out. But that hardly occurred to me when Matt asked me the question.
What caught my attention, and what I forced myself to shut up about, was the sight of this guy, standing there with his soul patch, oddly-trimmed goatee, pink shirt with the top button undone (as hard as I try, I can’t remember whether he was actually wearing a tie or not)—and a suit—asking me why I didn’t dress up more.
[NOTE: None of the following will sound very impressive to anyone who's worked in the court system for more than a year.]
Code Of Professional Responsibility For Court Interpreters
Canon 1 Accuracy and completeness
Interpreters shall render a complete and accurate interpretation or sight translation, without altering, omitting, or adding anything to what is stated or written, and without explanation. ( COMMENT )
Canon 3 Impartiality and avoidance of conflict of interest
Interpreters shall be impartial and unbiased and shall refrain from conduct that may give an appearance of bias. Interpreters shall disclose any real or perceived conflict of interest. ( COMMENT )
I've been having a very relaxing day. Kristine and I went to church, came home, and went to bed. Then we got up, made dinner, watched a movie, wrote in blogs, wrote letters, and fiddled with our computers' "blueteeth."
Tomorrow all the fun starts. First, I go off to court again. After some easy, relaxing bail hearings, I'm going to watch the beginning of a four-day jury trial, because I'll be interpreting throughout the other three days of it. My hospital shift, which I moved to Monday to make it more convenient, gets in the way of my interpreting in court the first day. Brilliant. I'm lucky they asked me to work on the rest of it.
(Of course, "lucky" is always a strange word to use when it comes to court services. The fact that someone has gotten into a situation that calls for a four-day jury trial is not supposed to be good news for anyone. The day people stop getting in trouble in this world, I'll have to start looking for a new outlet for my language skills. For now, the courts keep me busy enough.)
I also have to turn in the first "installment," as they're apparently called, of my translation of "Multiculturalism: A Challenge to Modern Criminal Law" (section 1) from Spanish to English. If I do it very well, I'll get an A on my "senior" translation project and probably go on to complete the translation and get it published. But it's a little challenging, the first 500 words are due by 5pm, and punctuality is a huge deal in this class. I hope I hope I hope...
Speaking of things I really should work faster on, I'm still slogging through my law school essay. As soon as I have a draft that I like at all, I'll send it to some people for feedback. I would so love to go to law school... I think. It just sounds really fascinating. Kristine and I have been thinking about it as we read the scriptures, and there's a lot in there to recommend the legal profession. Moses was considered great by the Israelites partially because he was the lawgiver. To Israel, whose law came from God, there was little difference between a lawyer and a priest. Even Jesus' constant criticism of the lawyers of the New Testament hints at the greatness of the profession they should have been living up to. Far more obvious, of course, are his titles of Advocate and Judge (in some languages whose vocabulary hasn't changed much over the centuries, Jesus is literally referred to as "our lawyer before the Father"). A public defender couldn't ask for a better example.
Of course, none of this is a neon sign flashing "go to law school!" in my face. Jesus was also a teacher, a carpenter, a full-time minister, occasionally a fisherman, and possibly a shepherd (speaking literally, of course). But these are the kinds of ideas that come to me when I read scriptures with a topic in mind.
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saltamonte's journal
