John's Gift of the Tongan Language

The following paragraph about Grandpa John Nelson is an excerpt from an article by Dallin H. Oaks which was printed in the June 2001 Ensign.

"We do not usually speak of spiritual gifts as a miracle, but sometimes the effect of a spiritual gift is miraculous. For example, many missionaries who must learn a new language are blessed with the gift of tongues. Most often this gift merely accelerates the normal process of learning, but sometimes its effect is so immediate that it can only be called a miracle. A young mission president experienced this in the South Pacific in 1913. John Alexander Nelson Jr. spoke Samoan but not Tongan. When he arrived for an assignment in Tonga, he found that he had been scheduled to speak to a congregation of 300 Wesleyan Methodists. He began in faith by speaking a few sentences of greeting he knew in the Tongan language, and then suddenly found himself continuing to speak in Tongan. He spoke without hesitation for nearly an hour “as fluently as any native.”