Sunday, December 17, 2017

Let me tell you there is nothing relaxing and easy about being a missionary.  It was an extraordinarily busy day, but I have prayed for opportunities to use what the Lord has given me to serve His children.  Prayers have been answered!

As per my new calling as Ward Organist in the Spanish Ward, I played for their Sacrament Meeting this morning.  Glade wanted to come with me, since he loves every opportunity to use Spanish, and we left our apartment about 10:00 a.m.  Afterward, Glade stayed at the church for his meetings and I drove to Kensington Park where members of our ward presented a Christmas caroling event for the residents.   It is a facility where seniors reside in one of three different buildings assigned by their needs.  It includes assisted living, rehab, and more severe cases of dementia.  The buildings are huge, beautiful, and quite “upper end.”  I was the accompanist and we presented many of the same songs we sang last week plus a few hymns.  The singers were gifted and the residents loved the festive nature of the event and joined in with the singing.  Many are lonely and the holidays a sad time being separated from home and family.  Their comments included “You have made my Christmas—Thank you so much,” “Now I can tell people that I sang with The Tabernacle Choir.”  Probably most of the residents are not members of the Church, but they know who the Mormons are and that some of them took time today to share a musical program with them and life their spirits. 

Then it was back to our building near the temple for our ward’s block of meetings where again, I was the organist.  During Relief Society, I played background for a part of the lesson presentation and then accompanied the final song rendered by a sister with a beautiful voice who sang “I Walked Today Where Jesus Walked.”  If any of you are familiar with that number, you know that half of it is written in SIX Flats with lots of accidentals and has two full pages of 16th  notes.  It is a fairly difficult number and it is a good thing I played it in my youth or it may have been impossible to prepare in such a short time—like one practice only.  😊  I loved having a day full of music, but there is no way to get around the fact that it is stressful! 

Our meetings ended at 5:30 p.m. and Glade was starving.  He didn’t even have a chance to eat the granola bar he took with him and carried around all day.  But dinner had to be put off since my visiting teachers came right after we arrived home—about 6:00 p.m.  It was a long, albeit productive day and hunger was finally satisfied, and satisfied again unfortunately.  It’s always hard to stop eating when you have been deprived for a long time.

The last two or three weeks have been exhausting and we have decided that a mission like ours is not for the faint-hearted or the feeble-kneed.   It is only going to get busier and they are already asking for additional hours on our shifts starting next week.  And there were over six thousand people who went through the Visitor Center yesterday.  That has happened several times since its opening.  They still need more help there, too; but we are going to have to pace ourselves so as not to invite illness.  We love it, but we are feeling our age I’m afraid.

We love you all and hope and pray that you love this last week before we celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and that you fill it with things that matter most.

“The Joy We Feel has Little to do with the Circumstances of our Lives and

Everything to do with the Focus of our Lives.”  Russell M. Nelson

May our focus be on “The Light of the World.”