It is a gift of God, a precious endowment which should be sought for by all the Saints, to teach the truth by the power of the Holy Ghost. It is one thing to gain the truth and to acquire wisdom for oneself (see D&C 46:17-18), and quite another to be able to teach the same things to others.
“All These Gifts Come by the Spirit of Christ”
Elder Bruce R. McConkie has written: “The light of Christ is neither the Holy Ghost nor the gift of the Holy Ghost; but that member of the Godhead, because he along with the Father and the Son is God, uses the light of Christ for his purposes. Thus spiritual gifts, the gifts of God—meaning faith, miracles, prophecy, and all the rest—come from God by the power of the Holy Ghost. Men prophesy, for instance, when moved upon by the Holy Ghost. And yet Moroni says: ’All these gifts come by the Spirit of Christ’ (Moroni 10:17), meaning that the Holy Ghost uses the light of Christ to transmit his gifts.” (New Witness, p. 258.)“These Gifts”
The gift of tongues is given to men on earth to enable them to preach the gospel in a more effective manner (see Teachings, pp. 148-49, 195, 247), as well as to offer and express praise and thanksgiving and feelings of rapture to the Lord of love in a way that brings peace to the soul. There seen to be at hat three manifestations of the gift of tongues:
(1) when individuals are enabled to speak with ease or with fluency a foreign but known language (see Acts 2);
(2) when persons are so endowed with the glory and power of God as to speak the pure or Adamic language (see Moses 6:5-6, 46; Joseph Fielding Smith, The Way to Perfection, pp. 67-69; Orson Pratt, JD 3:99-103); and
(3) when persons speak under the influence of the Holy Ghost, they speak with the tongue of angels; they speak what God or his ministering servants would speak if they were present (see 2 Nephi 31:13; 2 Nephi 32:1-3).
The Prophet Joseph Smith cautioned the Saints about the gift of tongues. He, like Paul, explained that it is one of the least of the gifts but generally the one most sought after (see Teachings, p. 246). He warned that Satan sought to offer his own counterfeits in order to deceive the people (see Teachings, pp. 25, 229).