How Spanish Changed My Life

My head hit the pillow. A moment later, the sound of my alarm clock was filling my ears, announcing another round of an ongoing nightmare. It was time to get up again to preach the gospel...in Spanish.

My bed was my favorite place to be in Peru. My time spent there felt agonizingly brief.

At one point, I actually wanted to come here. I told God I would love it if He sent me somewhere I could speak Spanish.

In 7th grade Spanish class, it felt like a fun game. I could speak what sounded like some made up gibberish and someone would understand. It was magic! Spanish was my subject in school. I took it every year for five years until I graduated from High school. But my fun Spanish game stayed in the classroom where I was safe. It was too scary to use it in the real world. After High school, I figured I would never do anything with Spanish again.

But here I was in Peru, and Spanish was no longer a game. English was the game here and no one would understand my gibberish if I chose to speak it.

For the first three months of my religious service (called a mission) I wanted to go home. I got brutal headaches from trying to understand and speak Spanish from sun up to sundown. An extremely hot sun in Piura, "City of eternal heat", I might add. I studied my grammar books, wrote down new words I heard, and worked on memorizing in desperation. But my progress felt so slow.

My first (of eight) mission companions was from Costa Rica. She was infinitely patient with my fear and frequent outbursts of tears.

Even if I did give myself credit for how well I was learning Spanish it wouldn't matter. The thing that made this so unbearably difficult to me was crippling social anxiety. Fear of anyone thinking I sounded stupid paralyzed me. I didn't want to speak at all but little Miss Costa Rica forced me to. "Mhmmm..." she would say, crossing her arms and waiting for me to speak. This was especially frustrating when I didn't know what was said in the first place.

All day every day, I faced public humiliation. The idea of doing this for 18 months was unbearable. But I was stuck.

The way I saw it, I had two options:

1. Go home. I could finish my mission early. But facing family and friends would be a different kind of public humiliation.

2. Stay. Keep living out this nightmare, hoping that the anxiety would let up.

If I could be smarter, better looking, good enough in general, no one would have grounds to dislike me or judge me. I finally wouldn't have to feel anxious anymore. Or so I thought.

Everything I thought I had going for me was gone. I couldn't be funny or insightful in my speech, the humidity was wrecking my skin, and I was gaining weight. I was a nobody.

One day I sat down to draw a self-portrait of future-me. The kind of Jamie I thought would be 100% likeable, admirable, judge proof, and enough. I wrote the attributes I thought she might have and thought about what I would have to do to become her.

Miss Costa Rica saw my artwork and began to draw as well. She drew a very different picture. It appeared to be a group of people being led from behind by a very small figure. The small figure was me, she said. I was leading people to Heaven.

She explained to me that I was thinking of it all wrong. I did not matter. My attributes did not matter. I was there to focus on others, not myself. As I did, the attributes I needed would take care of themselves.

I wasn't entirely convinced. But it couldn't hurt to try to shift my focus away from myself.

"Poco a poco" they kept telling me. "Little by little". Anxiety and patience don't mix well but it turned out to be true. Things did get better.

A few months went by and I was now paired with a mission companion from Ecuador. My Spanish had improved tremendously and I was actually enjoying myself. I had mastered Spanish to the point where people joked that I sounded Peruvian myself. The gibberish-speak was fun again and I felt likeable.

One day, a man named Walter sat me and my companion from Ecuador down to tell us exactly what was wrong with us. I'd learned by now that most Latin Americans are brutally honest. I very much appreciate this honest quality. I was curious about what Walter thought my greatest flaw was. It turned out to be the most life changing criticism I would ever receive.

"You are cold," he said to me. I could have dismissed this criticism as a cultural difference. People from the United States are seen as standoffish compared to other cultures. But I decided to take it to heart.

I more consciously took note of the contrasting warmth of the Peruvians. I observed expressions of love through kind words, generous gifts, "besos" and hugs. I observed people who were so free with their love even when it put them in a vulnerable position. And over time I began to try to be more like them.

Shifting my focus from myself to others made my time in Peru the happiest in my life. Spanish and the people who spoke it brought even more magic and meaning than I could have imagined.

I still have a hard time with social anxiety. I still worry about what people think. I have a hard time trying new things because I'm afraid of messing up and looking stupid. I'm conscious of my appearance and want to hide sometimes.

I've tried changing myself. It doesn't really work.

It is mentally rigorous to redirect your focus from yourself to others again and again. But it's a life changing practice that brings meaning and true joy.