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You Have to Learn This Language

To illustrate that some dreams do not necessarily foretell future events, but instead principles to live by, consider this story. 

In 1938, Robert was called as a missionary in New Zealand. About a month after he arrived, he experienced a dream. In the dream he saw himself at the end of his mission and getting off the ship in the port of Los Angeles.  Waiting for him on the dock was his bishop, stake president, his mother, father, and all of his friends. He records:

“As I came down the gangplank of the boat they all started talking to me in Maori, every one of them—my mother, my father, my bishop—all talking in Maori, and I could not understand a word they were saying. I was so embarrassed. I was humiliated.  I thought to myself, ‘This is terrible.’ How am I going to get out of it? And I started making excuses.”

At that moment, Robert woke up and sat straight up in his bed. The thought came forcefully to his mind: 

“You will have to do something about learning this language. The Lord has given you a blessing, but you are going to have to do something about it yourself. You are going to need this language when you get through with your mission. You are going to need it.”

He couldn’t forget the dream. It kept going through his mind. Finally, he did something about it. He arranged for lessons to learn Maori. He records: 

“The Lord blessed me and we were able to bear testimony in the language after a short time.”

Twenty years later—1958—Robert L. Simpson was called as a mission president and sent back to New Zealand, already fluent in the language. He would later serve as a general authority of the Church. 

Was his family waiting for him at the port of Los Angeles, all speaking Maori when he finished his first mission? No. The dream was not meant to be literal, but was a message from the Lord nonetheless. 

Source:

Dreams as Revelation, Woodger, Alford, and Manscill. Deseret Book. Salt Lake City, Utah. p. 101