For our 1st rollout, where we have fully established the technology groups, we measure success by the amount of communication going on between group members. Here is an example of different groups texting each other for answers to questions or just to discuss technology. Some of the texts are not English. These groups are not one of the five major languages, so we communicate with them in English and then encourage them to communicate with each other in their native language.
Now we want to share a special experience we just had. Mind you, the purpose of our blog has been to share our missionary experiences and present them in an uplifting way. What we want to share may seem to be gloating over something we did, but, really, we recognize that the Lord's hand was involved in making it happen.Today was Ward Conference. For over a month now we had been practicing to play a special musical number for that conference -- "If You Could Hie To Kolob" -- with Diane on the piano and me on the tenor recorder. Just this past week, we made a couple of extra changes to the number. They just felt right. One of the changes was to play the recorder solo at the beginning before the piano comes in.
Last night the bishop called to ask if we would do the musical number on another Sunday. He was concerned that the Stake President would not have enough time to present his talk. We agreed.
This morning as we were preparing to go to church, I asked Diane if she felt we should take the recorder and music with us anyway. She said that she, too, had been thinking about doing just that. So we did.
We were standing out in the foyer, greeting people as they came in, when a councilor to the stake presidency walked up to us and said, "I've heard you are going to do a special musical number for us." I told him that the bishop asked us not to do it because he was concerned that that stake president wouldn't have enough time to talk.
Moments later, the bishop walked up to us and asked if we could still do our special musical number and asked how many verses we were going to sing. I told hem we would be using instruments and it would only be the equivalent of 2 verses.
Knowing that we were now expected to play, I began to get nervous. During sacrament, I prayed that we could do a good job so that we would not be embarrassed. Then it occurred to me that this was a poor reason to ask for help. I then prayed that it would be a delight for Him. And Sister van Hoff prayed that the Spirit would be felt.
It went amazingly well. Before I started, I could hear babies crying and children talking. At about the 3rd note, the entire building was quiet. I was told later by Elder Skoubye, who was sitting way in the back, about a child just in front of him. She was wiggling around standing in the aisle. As soon as she heard the recorder, she turned to look toward the podium at me playing and began to sway back and forth to the music.
We were told by numerous people that the music brought the Spirit into the sacrament service.
The Lord really did make it possible. Had He not inspired us to make some of the changes to the music, and prompted us to bring the instrument and music to church, and helped my thoughts to recognize the real reason for playing the music, then we wouldn't have had as spiritual an experience.
This was a small incident, yet the feelings we experience from being blessed like this, outweigh the sacrifice of being obedient and efforts we make to stay close to the Lord. If given a choice to have more freedom and not experience tender mercies like this or forgo some of the pleasures of life and exert our strength and energy in behalf of the Lord, we'd take the latter, hands down.
Just an extra note. We just got a call from the Stake President. He wanted to tell us how much he enjoyed the musical number. It meant a lot to him and we certainly appreciated his phone call!
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