A Strange and Sweet Experience

As a child, my mother tried very hard to see to it that each of her children had refining skills and virtues. Good manners, musical talent, (or at least ability) an appreciation for good and great literature, and a love of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

After my first few piano lessons, I slacked off practicing and frustrated my piano teacher for almost three years. When I finally quit, I had only the most basic understanding of how to read music, much like a child might understand that the letters have a connection to speech and to meaning, but it didn't translate into the ability to actually read music.

Now I'm teaching piano lessons on my mission. It's not quite the miracle it might seem.

In my young adulthood I tried to learn to play the piano on my own. Eventually we bought an old piano and I began to practice and to try to play the notes without looking at my hands.

In the last several years, I've practiced fairly faithfully, learning a few hymns decently well. As I've written before, knowing those few hymns didn't lessen my terror of trying to accompany the singing in Church.

My hands still tremble, but I CAN do it. . .in a pinch. And for Mom's sake, I'm practicing on a keyboard every day.

I do love music, especially the hymns and Primary songs. Some of my earliest childhood memories involve singing the simple songs about Jesus.

Today I took my adventures in music one step further. Jeff and I work with the Young Single Adults here in Rwanda. We're trying to transition that support to the couple that has been asked to mentor the group, but we're still in the beginning phase of that transition. So when the Mission President asked us to have a choir made up of the Young Single Adults, I agreed.

One of those early childhood songs came to mind.

I know Heavenly Father Loves Me.

Whenever I hear the song of a bird

Or look at the blue, blue sky

Whenever I feel the rain on my face

Or the wind as it rushes by,

Whenever I touch a velvet rose

Or walk by our lilac tree,

I'm glad that I live in this beautiful world,

Heav'nly Father created for me.

He gave me my eyes that I might see

The color of butterfly wings

He gave me my ears that I might hear

The magical sound of things,

He gave me my life, my mind, my heart

And I thank him rev'rently,

Of all His creations of which I'm a part,

Yes I know Heav'nly Father loves me.

It seemed perfect because Rwanda is a spectacularly beautiful country. There are flowers in the trees and the bushes and creeping along the ground. The soil is fertile and with the weather being mostly between 60 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit all year round, food plants produce abundantly. The birds are multicolored, and sport iridescent blues, pinks, brilliant greens, yellow, and reds.

Add to that, many of the people are movie-star level beautiful or handsome. Rich, strong singing voices are common. So what song could be more appropriate? Do the people of Rwanda fully understand that our loving Heavenly Father enjoys giving us these things to make us happy?

Nevertheless, there are universal musical problems here. Congregations have learned the tunes incorrectly because there's often no accompaniment. They also don't know the proper tempo. We sing all the hymns in English, and that is a completely unknown language to many of them. So just as any language spoken by an isolated group becomes corrupt, many of the hymns are not sung properly. Add to that, If they can read the words, they can't take their eyes off the lyrics to see what the conductor is indicating.

These young adults can all read English at some level, so it was somewhat easier to teach them a new song and make a plan.

With all that said, the simple song the YSA choir sang today sounded sweet and sincere. The experience filled my heart with love for them and gratitude for being here with them.