A growing number of deceased spirits are reportedly voicing confusion, frustration, and mild annoyance upon discovering that their essential proxy ordinances were performed in what they describe as “an incomprehensible dialect of foreign spell-casting known as English.”
According to a leaked Spirit Ministry memo from the afterlife’s Records & Ordinances Department, an estimated 93% of baptized and endowed spirits since 1840 have had their work done in English—a language most of them neither spoke in life nor have had time to learn posthumously due to overwhelming ward callings in Spirit Prison.
“I died in the 1300s on the outskirts of present-day Mongolia,” said the spirit of Batu, a former herder and now-enthusiastic gospel investigator. “When I heard I’d been baptized by someone named Charles Jace from Orem, Utah, I was thrilled. But then I attended my own endowment and spent the entire time wondering why everyone was dressed like a chef crew and doing “The Robot” with their arms. No subtitles. No translation headset. Nothing.”
Church officials insist that English is “the language of the Restoration,” and as such, “has extra spiritual bandwidth.” When asked about accessibility concerns, Elder Milton B. Nibley of the Church’s Committee on Ordinance Efficiency Optimization responded, “God speaks all languages, but let’s be honest—He has a clear preference for Utah-accented English spoken at a measured 12 words per minute.”
Spirits from non-English-speaking backgrounds have reportedly been forming informal language study groups in the Spirit World, using old missionary pamphlets and Liahona articles to piece together what phrases like “consecrated for the building up of the kingdom” and “health in the navel” could possibly mean because medieval doctors from present-day Iran knew that’s not how health works.
As Baptisms For Living Dwindle, Church Doubles Capacity to Baptize Dead
One frustrated 18th-century Japanese woman, who asked to be identified only as Aiko, said through a celestial interpreter, “So let me get this straight: I live a noble life, pass through the veil, and now some white teenager in Arizona gets dunked for two seconds in a language I don’t understand—and that unlocks eternal salvation for me? Honestly, I should’ve held out for the Buddhists.”
Not all spirits are unhappy, however. A small percentage of those who died under the British Empire reportedly feel smug that they were already “halfway sanctified” due to colonial education.
As for efforts to expand language support, the Church has hinted at slow rollout plans. “Unfortunately, due to limited resources, the endowment in Old Norse, Classical Arabic, and Quechua are still at least a dispensation away, which could be, whenever.”
In the meantime, many spirits have decided to just “smile and nod” when celestial clerks read back their ordinances during judgment interviews, hoping the Lord grades on intent.
“I don’t know what a ‘covenant path’ is,” said Batu, “but I’m halfway down it with my name misspelled and my spiritual passport still in processing. Fingers crossed.”
