George Q. Cannon's Rapid Acclimation to the Hawaiian Language

In December 1850, George Q. Cannon arrived in the Sandwich Islands as one of the original ten missionaries called by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. While many of his peers struggled with the daunting prospect of learning the Hawaiian language and considered returning home, Cannon committed himself to the task. Through intense study and frequent prayer, he was granted a remarkable gift of interpretation and tongues. In his 1882 memoir, 'My First Mission,' and his letters to the Millennial Star, Cannon documented that his progress in the language was so rapid that he was repeatedly told he had surpassed any previous missionary in the islands. He explicitly attributed this success not to his own intellectual efforts, but to a spiritual blessing from the Lord and the faith and prayers of the Saints back home. This fluency proved critical for his later work in translating the Book of Mormon into Hawaiian, a project he undertook with the collaboration of prominent local converts like Jonathan Nāpela, ensuring that the message reached the native population with cultural accuracy.

Fuller account of this event (in the witness’s own words):

I had been very diligent in my studies, and had prayed to the Lord to assist me in acquiring the language. I had felt that it was a gift from Him, and that He could bestow it upon me if He would. I had been very much favored in my efforts to learn it, and had made such progress that I was able to speak it with considerable fluency. I had been told by the natives, and by some of the missionaries who had been there longer than I, that I spoke it better than any of the white men who had been on the islands. I felt that this was a gift from the Lord, and I thanked Him for it. I knew that it was not by my own wisdom or power that I had acquired it, but by the blessing of the Lord upon my efforts.