My mission's influence on my life

My work among the Cakchiquels
     In February 1975, four months in to my mission, I was assigned to work among the Cakchiquel Indians in central Guatemala. A linguist from BYU came down to Guatemala and taught a dozen missionaries a few weeks of Cakchiquel, then left us on our own to learn the language. A few of us really got into it, and by the end of my mission, the Church asked three of us to translate the official missionary discussions. 
     In his history of the Church in Guatemala, my mission president wrote the following: "Three exceptionally dedicated elders who had learned to speak Cakchiquel well, had been chosen to start simplifying and translating the discussions which were too lengthy and complicated for teaching the Indians. They were also asked to prepare guidebooks, and to initiate a language training course for missionaries learning to speak the Indian languages, beginning with Cakchiquel. These missionaries, Elder David Frischknecht, Elder [Julio Salazar] and Elder Larry Richman, were nearing the end of their mission, so I requested their term be extended." (Pioneer in Guatemala: The Personal History of John Forres O'Donnal, Shumway Family History Services, Yorba Linda, CA, p. 148.) I returned home at the completion of my two year mission, but Elder Frischknecht's mission was extended.
     I returned to BYU after my mission in the fall of 1976 and worked part-time for the Church translation division.

Scripture translations
     Upon the invitation of the Church, I returned to Guatemala during the summer of 1977 with David Frischknecht to help translate the Book of Mormon into Cakchiquel. David Frischknecht had been my companion twice during the mission. David did the initial translation with a native Cakchiquel speaker from Patzun and I typed the translations and reviewed them with a group of Church members from Patzicia. It was an intense project, working day and night. That summer, we translated the Book of Mormon Selections, a number of sections from the Doctrine and Covenants, and many hymns.

Dictionaries
     I returned to Guatemala during the summer of 1978 with two BYU professors, Dr. Robert Blair and Dr. John Robertson, and a group of linguistic students to compile several dictionaries of Guatemalan languages.

The linguistic group and the 1955 school bus we drove to Guatemala.

     My project was a Cakchiquel-Spanish-English dictionary, which was eventually published by Garland Publishing in New York City. I also did some in-depth grammar studies, which were later published in linguistic journals.

We stayed in Val Paraiso near Coban

Background on Guatemala
     From the Book of Mormon, we learn about Lehi's voyage with his family to the Americas. We read about his arrival in the New World, the division between the followers of Laman and the followers of Nephi. That exciting history ends with the destruction of the Nephites in the year 421 A.D. The Lamanites were the sole survivors of Lehi's race. Today, many of the inhabitants of Guatemala are descendants of those Lamanites. Guatemala is a land of five million people who speak 51 languages. Today, we the Church has translated a few items in eight of those 51 languages: Spanish (150,000 members), Kekchi (9,200 members), Quiche (9,200 members), Cakchiquel (4,000 members), Mam (1,500 members), Pocomchi (415 members), and Tzutujil (360 members).

Education in Guatemala
    Most Indian children learn to speak an Indian language in the home. If they later go to school, they learn Spanish, but continue to speak the native language in the home. Language issues affect much of the way of life of the Indians in Guatemala. In the rural areas of Guatemala where the Indians live, there are few schools. Although more and more Indians today receive a good education, it is progressing slowly. One reason for illiteracy is that the children who attend school find a very difficult language barrier. Most rural schools are taught in Spanish, and the young Indian who knows only an Indian language finds it very difficult to understand the teacher. He will usually spend the first few years adapting to the new language, and literacy is not attained until after the first several years. Since the majority of the Indian children who attend school do so for only a few years, true literacy is often never attained. Those children who do become literate generally do so in Spanish, so it is difficult for them to read even the few Church materials that are translated into their language. They are caught in an educational dilemma: (1) they learn to read in Spanish, but don't understand many of the Spanish words they read, or (2) they understand all the words in the native language, but struggle to read it because they are not trained how to read the native language.

Audio recordings
     I returned in Guatemala during the summer of 1978 to make audio recordings of the Book of Mormon Selections, the Joseph Smith tract, and the Gospel Principles manual for the Church. These audio recording were an attempt to address the educational dilemma described above. Because many of the people are illiterate, or if they read, are unable to read their native language fluently, the Church has made audio recordings of some of the native language translations so the people can listed to them. After much searching, I was finally able to find two native Cakchiquels who could read fairly fluently, and we rented a recording studio in Guatemala City and spent about a month recording. It then required lots of editing at BYU Sound Studios and was eventually duplicated and distributed in October 1979. The project was later revitalized, digitally remastered, and reissued with new packaging in December 2000.

My education
      When I returned to BYU after my mission, I changed my major from business to Spanish and linguistics. I wanted to improve my ability to communicate in Spanish and I was intrigued with linguistics. I was searching for ideas and projects I could be involved in to help the people of Guatemala. I believed the words of President Spencer W. Kimball when he spoke of the Lamanites in general conference: "[They] can rise to the loftiness of their fathers when opportunity has knocked at their door a few generations. If we fully help them, they can eventually soar to greatness. The ungerminated seeds are waiting for the rains of kindness and opportunity; the sunshine of gospel truth; the cultivation through the Church program of training and activity, and the seeds will come to life, and the harvest will be fabulous, for the Lord has promised it repeatedly..." (Conference Report, 1954, pp. 103-8.)

     After I got my B.A. in 1979 , I entered BYU's Ph.D. program in Instructional Science, expecting to get involved in the business world with language learning systems.  

My career
     In 1980, the Church offered me a full-time position in Salt Lake City and I have been involved with translation and non-English publications ever since. For a number of years, I supervised translators in Latin America (native Indian languages) and Africa. I am now the manager of the Scriptures and Production Coordination division of the Curriculum Department, which is the project office that coordinates Church materials. My job is to make sure that printed publications, Internet projects, interactive multimedia products, software translations, satellite broadcasts, videos, and general correspondence are properly approved, written, edited, designed, translated, printed and distributed worldwide. We currently manage 8,000 projects through these stages in 185 languages. I am currently the project manager for a multi-million-dollar, three-year project to create a master tracking and information system that will be used by about 500 employees in the various functions at Church headquarters and in the 27 language translation offices, 14 production centers, and 41 distribution centers.

     I have been back to Guatemala a number of times since spending the entire summer there in 1977 and 1978.