“Our Primary children sing, “Love is spoken here.” I once gave Sister Gong a small locket. I had it inscribed dot-dot, dot-dot, dot-dot-dash. Those familiar with Morse code will recognize the letters I, I, U. But I included a second code. In Mandarin Chinese, “ai” means “love.” So, double-decoded, the message was “I love you.” Susan, sweetheart, “I, ai (爱), U.”
We speak love in many languages. I am told the human family speaks 7,168 living languages. In the Church we speak 575 documented primary languages, with many dialects. …Sometimes we need to know love spoken here is heard and appreciated here.
…Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has made great strides in language translation. Long gone are the days when a computer might translate the idiomatic phrase “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” as “The wine is good, but the meat is spoiled.” Interestingly, repeating extensive examples of a language teaches a computer a language more effectively than does teaching a computer the rules of grammar. Similarly, our own direct, repeated experiences may be our best spiritual way to learn the gospel languages of warmth and reverence, service and sacrifice, and covenant belonging.”