To Know

I have hesitated in writing this post because my use of the Spanish language may not be completely accurate. I am not fluent in Spanish and do not possess the accurate linguistic/scholarly background to be anywhere close to an expert.

However, as I've thought on this idea for more than two years it has resonated so strongly with me that I hope to be able to, in some small way, convey its truth to you. 

As a missionary for our church, I was assigned to serve in Venezuela, a Spanish speaking country on the northern edge of South America. A country where today there is great suffering and hardship. I was very excited to begin my service at the Missionary Training Center, where I would be taught introductory Spanish for 8 weeks before being immersed into another country/culture/language for the following 16 months. 

I had taken some Spanish classes in high school and had some basic knowledge of verb construction and grammar usage, but it wasn't until I lived in Venezuela for close to a year that the underlying meanings of the language started to appear to me. 

I learned that there are some things that you can say using Spanish words- to convey feeling, thoughts, or emotion that are impossible to convey with the faculties of the English language. I wish there was a way to adequately describe in English this idea that can be so clearly conveyed in Spanish.

It is in this vein that I wanted to talk about the words "to know."  

In Spanish, there are two words you can use to describe the idea "to know."

One is Saber and the other is Conocer.

The verb you choose depends upon the context in which it is used. These verbs are not interchangeable. 

Saber is used to express knowledge or ignorance of a fact or information about something;  or to express knowledge of a certain skill. 

So saber is used to express that you know a fact, you know something thoroughly, or know how to do something. 

Conocer is used to say that one is or is not acquainted or familiar with a person, a place or an object.  

So conocer is used to say that you know, through acquaintance, a person, place or thing.

As missionaries we spent much of our time testifying of truths that we knew- "saber". We would use some conjugation of that verb many times a day to teach about the Savior, His plan and His commandments testifying of this knowledge using the verb "saber."

I was familiar with the verb "conocer," and used it frequently but in my limited sense of the meanings of the two words gave "conocer" less clout, less strength, less importance. 

Fast forward 11 years.  

Now I am 33 and without warning my dear husband is diagnosed with Gliablastoma multiforme, a terminal disease, just three months after we've welcomed our fourth child into the world.

I wrote at the time some of my feelings about that terrible experience. 

And from that day, unbeknownst to myself,  I started out on a path to "conocer." To know through my own experience and acquaintance some of the realities of life. 

I can see now that much of my knowledge was gained through a "saber" like experience. They were things I had been taught, believed and incorporated into my mental processes. They were things I knew through study and practice and effort spent learning to know about many of the workings of the world. They were things I had come to know through watching those around me, hearing about their experiences, asking questions. They were things I knew in a factual, concrete and impersonal sort of way. 

But now it was time to put that knowledge "saber"- to use in a much more intimate, personal, and meaningful way. It was time to know through experience- "conocer." It was time to become acquainted. 

It is one thing to know pain as an fact. It is another thing to become acquainted with pain. It is one thing to know fear as an fact. It is another thing to become acquainted with fear. It is one thing to know sorrow as an fact. It is another thing to become acquainted with sorrow. It is one thing to know grief as a fact. It is another thing to become acquainted with grief.  

I have had many experiences through the 27 months of Jacob's illness, and in the 16 months following his death that have helped me come to know "conocer" about life in ways that would have been nearly impossible to me before. 

I have come to know "conocer" some of the most important truths about our Father in Heaven, His plan for His children, and His Son Jesus Christ.  When my life was stripped down to bare bones and I had to decide what truly mattered, what I felt, and what I really wanted. Then I was ready and able to "conocer" the Savior, my Savior, in a way I could not have known Him before. 

I find it no coincidence that the scripture I chose from Isaiah 53 for my mission plaque- the verses that I felt represented my feelings for the Savior- use this wording:

 3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

 4 ¶Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

 5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

I think most of us have known individuals who have experienced great heartache, pain and sorrow in their lives and yet declare that they would not trade those experiences for anything because it is exactly through those refining trials that they came to know- to "conocer" God. 

In a beautiful talk called The Refiner's Fire, Elder James E. Faust shared the following experience and I quote:

"This message is to all, but especially to those who feel they have had more trials, sorrows, pricks, and thorns than they can bear and in their adversity are almost drowned in the waters of bitterness. It is intended as one of hope, strength, and deliverance.

Some years ago President David O. McKay (1873–1970) told of the experience of some of those in the Martin handcart company. Many of these early converts had emigrated from Europe and were too poor to buy oxen or horses and a wagon. They were forced by their poverty to pull handcarts containing all of their belongings across the plains by their own brute strength. President McKay related an occurrence which took place some years after the heroic exodus:

“A teacher, conducting a class, said it was unwise ever to attempt, even to permit them [the Martin handcart company] to come across the plains under such conditions.”

Then President McKay quoted an observer who was present in that class: “Some sharp criticism of the Church and its leaders was being indulged in for permitting any company of converts to venture across the plains with no more supplies or protection than a handcart caravan afforded.

“An old man in the corner … sat silent and listened as long as he could stand it, then he arose and said things that no person who heard him will ever forget. His face was white with emotion, yet he spoke calmly, deliberately, but with great earnestness and sincerity.

“In substance [he] said, ‘I ask you to stop this criticism. You are discussing a matter you know nothing about. Cold historic facts mean nothing here, for they give no proper interpretation of the questions involved. Mistake to send the Handcart Company out so late in the season? Yes. But I was in that company and my wife was in it and Sister Nellie Unthank whom you have cited was there, too. We suffered beyond anything you can imagine and many died of exposure and starvation, but did you ever hear a survivor of that company utter a word of criticism? …

“‘I have pulled my handcart when I was so weak and weary from illness and lack of food that I could hardly put one foot ahead of the other. I have looked ahead and seen a patch of sand or a hill slope and I have said, I can go only that far and there I must give up, for I cannot pull the load through it.’”

He continues: “‘I have gone on to that sand and when I reached it, the cart began pushing me. I have looked back many times to see who was pushing my cart, but my eyes saw no one. I knew then that the angels of God were there.

“‘Was I sorry that I chose to come by handcart? No. Neither then nor any minute of my life since. The price we paid to become acquainted with God was a privilege to pay, and I am thankful that I was privileged to come in the Martin Handcart Company.’” 

End quote.

I will never say that what happened to Jacob was a good thing.

It was not.

I will never say that I am glad about, or like or wanted this experience to happen to him, to me, or to our children.

I did not.

But I can say that Jacob's disease was a vehicle that helped us both come to know"conocer" our Savior and our Father in Heaven in a way that made our acquaintance with them real and tangible and binding like no other experience in our lives has had the capacity to do.

It was a make or break experience.

Maybe this kind of knowledge- "conocer" or knowing through acquaintance, through experience is what the Savior meant when He spoke about eternal life in John 17:3-

"And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent."

Maybe the only way to live with them eternally is to become acquainted with them in mortality. To know them through experience. To "conocer."