Moses 1:39

Driving home from church in January, chatting with my friend sitting next to me in the car, she shared a tidbit from Gospel Doctrine class. My head was spinning! All of a sudden, everything I thought I understood about Moses 1:39 completely changed. My jaw dropped, I immediately turned my head to make eye contact with my friend as if somehow this would stop the whirlwind and cement this new knowledge in my mind if only I could see it in her eyes. Quickly turning my attention back to the road (going 75 mph, one shouldn’t take ones eyes off the road), my heart sank and I shouted: “How do I interpret that!?”

Pondering this new information for three months, I approached the Gospel Doctrine teacher today to get more clarification. As interpreters, it is our responsibility to make sure the message is clearly communicated. So often we hear words and swiftly throw out a sign thinking that what we chose is accurate. It is vital that we monitor our internal process. Drop the form! (if you don’t know what that means, I promise you will as I add the interpreting curriculum on this site over time.)

So, let’s turn our attention to Moses 1:39. “For behold, this is my work and my glory– to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.” How often, when we hear the word “eternal” do we automatically use the sign FOREVER or CONTINUE, and sometimes EXALT? Are we being true to this scriptural message when we use these signs? I posit we are not.

Immortality and eternal life are not the same concept. Immortality is defined as: “the ability to live forever” which would accurately be interpreted as FOREVER LIFE, or something similar. So then what does eternal life mean? Eternal is one of the names of God; therefore, “eternal life” is God’s life. This is where my head started spinning. I can’t interpret that as EQUAL GOD or GOD HIS LIFE or EXALT LIFE for none of these are conceptually accurate.

I also don’t have the time to use the expansion feature of ASL on what God’s life means. If we read Moses 1: 33-35, we learn what God’s life is. There is not usually enough time to sign the totality of this concept when someone is talking in sacrament meeting at the speed of the Energizer Bunny and all you want to do is make sure you get that scripture out there for the Deaf members of the congregation. So how can you, as the interpreter, accurately sign this concept? After much pondering for personal growth and understanding on this concept (for our perspective is one of many filters which the message must go through), reaching out to the Gospel Doctrine teacher, and speaking with others in the Deaf program in my ward, this is what we came up with: EXALT BECOME SAME-AS GOD CONTINUE. One could argue that you could add the sign for “action” which would look like this: EXALT BECOME SAME-AS GOD ACTION CONTINUE