A Ray of Hope

Today was our second week of ward choir since our break for the summer. And for the second time, WE HAD A REALLY GOOD TURNOUT!!!!!!! We had over 20 people!!!! Not to sound excited or anything, but there may actually be hope for ward choir. One of the pieces we are working on we started before summer break, but we just limped along for weeks, trying to do the best we could with 5-7 people. Now we are cruising along, making great progress. The choir sounds good, it is fun, the music sounds great-- I even have an official accompanist now, after a year of directing the ward choir (and actually not just one, but TWO, one of whom is a fabulous organist). I am in heaven!

At the end of the summer I was dreading the start of choir and the endless pleas and petitions to get people to just TRY coming, even just ONCE. I was dreading getting my house ready and the music ready and spending half my Sunday morning only to have a handful of people show up and to never know if we would have enough people to sing when we were scheduled. I felt like I had tried everything I possibly could, but to no avail, so I decided to make one last-ditch effort. At the beginning of September I decided to try the Sunday-School answer to a problem: I fasted and prayed. I know that may seem like an odd thing to fast about, but I was pretty much emotionally at the end of my rope with choir. Not to say that I haven't done other things like emailing and calling too, but I've emailed and called before and not gotten 20 people. So, call it what you will-- an answer to prayer or a fortunate coincidence-- something is different. And as for me, I probably won't wait a whole year before I fast about a something that's bothering me next time. =]

In other news, after making it to church in the middle of the opening song last week (YES!!! A new early record for us!!! That shouldn't be so hard when our church is at 2:00 pm...), today we were back to arriving just in time to wait in the foyer until the end of the sacrament. It really bothers me to be late to church. It bothers me even more when we finally get inside the chapel and it is a missionary farewell and every single seat is taken so the deacons have to set up new seats for me and my kids while I stand there at the back of the cultural hall, squirming inside as I'm sure the bishop and high council speaker can see me and must be thinking, "Who is that family in the back that is coming in so late? Good grief, the meeting's at 2:00 pm, for crying out loud! Could you please be a little louder setting up those folding chairs?" It really does bother me to be late for church. I think being late shows a lack of reverence, a lack of planning and misplaced priorities. So you would think if it bothered me so much I could figure out how to not be late week after week. I don't have an excuse. I know that if you really try hard enough and plan ahead and if it's enough of a priority you can CHOOSE to be on time. At least in theory....

In our efforts to make it to Sacrament Meeting before the closing hymn, Jackson didn't get fed solid foods before we left. Even the cheese stick and cheerios I fed him during church wouldn't cut it- he was still hungry. Luckily, I had some baby food in the diaper bag, so during Sunday School I headed to the mother's lounge where I did my best to hold Jackson on my lap and feed him pureed peaches without adding lovely orange accents to my Sunday outfit.

I made it back for the end of Sunday School and Relief Society. I took my spot at the back with another fellow pre-nursery mom. Anytime I set him down to play Jackson crawled as fast as he could for the front of the room. After a couple of times of this I resigned myself to a squirming, flailing baby on my lap. During Relief Society, I leaned over to my friend and whispered, "If only we had a Relief Society play-yard back here at the back of the room to keep kids that crawl contained." She then had a brilliant idea: we used folding chairs to make a makeshift "play-yard," fencing Jackson in. This worked fabulously for a few minutes until Jackson pulled himself up on one of the chairs and discovered that they made a beautiful, resonant sound when you whack the seat (yes, he does have musical genes). I spent the rest of Relief Society trying to prevent an enthusiastic re-enactment of "The Little Drummer Boy."

We concluded our Sunday with a lovely formal dinner of Waffles, sausage and scrambled eggs. The kids couldn't have been more thrilled with filet mignon.