What a Weekend

 

When I sat down to write and realized how much there was to say about just this weekend, I clicked out of the website and decided there was no way I was spending all evening working on a blog.  But then I told myself that if I just made this a quick update, I wouldn’t have it hanging over my head all week.  Besides the fact that Jim and I are flying out Wednesday morning for Chanda’s wedding in Mesa, and with every single one of my sisters and my parents there, this will be like a mini-family reunion.  I can hardly wait.  But I’m no dumb bunny.  I will come home with thousands of pictures, which in my pre-digital-dinosaur-camera life, would’ve been a complete exaggeration, but these days will be just the norm.

Besides the fact that this was stake conference weekend, Friday night, Marci and Jamie were performing with their flute choir as guest flutists at Seattle Pacific University.  They went up to Seattle earlier Friday afternoon with their flute teacher, and Jim, Nathan and I had some dinner after Jim got home from work and took off.  We thought we were OK timewise, but we didn’t take into account the fact that this was Friday evening  and that the exit for the University is the same one as the exit for the Space Needle and the Seattle Center.

We were one of a mile-long line of cars that wanted off at that same exit and traffic there was stopped.  Considering we had just 10 minutes till the concert started, and a fair distance to travel through messy traffic past the Seattle Center once we got off the exit, we found ourselves in somewhat of a pickle.  We didn’t bring the GPS with us, but Jim made a gutsy decision and decided to pass the line of cars and the exit, and try an exit further down the road, not knowing where in the heck we were. 

Long story short:  We traveled more the direction a very drunk crow would fly, we were a little late and missed the girls playing the prelude, but we arrived just in time for their one big number.  It was Welsh sounding, and we loved it -- it was so worth listening to.  The rest of the program had a lot that surprisingly was quite entertaining, and ended with the University’s orchestra playing Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture.  You can only get sleepy for so long during that number. 

 

(Attribute the big smile on Marci’s face to the cute college flute player (male) she had to sit by and talk to during the performance.)

 

Jim had two talks to prepare; one for the Saturday afternoon Priesthood Leadership session, and one for the Saturday evening adult session of conference.  He’s been on so many business trips lately, that he hasn’t been around home much.  He was also in charge of a slide show for the Saturday evening session that was to include pictures of many of the 110 baptisms that have happened in our stake in the past year.  Good thing he has two daughters who live and breathe this type of technology and they agreed to put the presentation together. 

Saturday morning was our second of two stake choir practices.  We were learning two hefty pieces:  “The Spirit of God Like A Fire Is Burning,” and “Did You Think To Pray,” both arranged by Mack Wilberg.  Doing this in only two practices can cause a director a bit of mental heartburn. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Right after the practice from 9 - 11, Jim and I were supposed to meet the stake presidency and their wives at noon in Des Moines at Anthony’s Home Port.  The first counselor, Brad Partridge, (the one next to Jim) who has been out of work for a long, long, time was just offered a great job with the church in Salt Lake.  He leaves tomorrow and starts work on Tuesday, so it was our last chance to spend some time together, even though it was right in the middle of a very packed day.

I did say we were supposed to meet them at 12, but the practice ran a little longer that it was supposed to.  I had to work with the organist on all the different organ stops I wanted her to use after that, and we didn’t get away from the stake center until 7 minutes to 12—about 15 minutes later than we should’ve been leaving.  I talked so much as we went zipping down the freeway toward Des Moines that I made Jim miss the exit.  This only added to the stress this man was dealing with, knowing that the others were there waiting, and that they had a very full schedule.  President Nicholls had an appointment to call the new counselor right after lunch, followed by their presidency meeting at 3 to make sure everything was in place for conference, Priesthood Leadership meeting from 4-6 which they all had to speak at, High Council from 6-6:30, and the Saturday night session at 7 which Jim and President Nicholls had to speak at.  Well, President Nicholls’ wife had just barely sat down, she was feeling just as rushed as we were, and so everything ended up just hunky dunky, even though I accidently ingested a cooked raisin in my fancy schmancy almond pilaf rice dish sitting right there next to my Idaho Rainbow Trout.

We hurried home after lunch to give time for Jim to finish up his talks and give back my laptop that we’d used to show the choir a 3-minute clip that the church did in 2007 on the growth of the stakes in the church.

**(If you haven’t seen it, it’s worth just googling the words, “Growth of LDS stakes,” and click on the one that is on lds.org.  The music is the same arrangement of “The Spirit of God” we sang today in conference, and a red dot and a light flash on the map as each stake is created from 1830 to 2007.  By the end of the show, as the years progress, lights are flashing all over the world and I can’t watch it without a bit of blubbering.) 

Anyway, me having the computer didn’t give the girls much time to finish the slideshow with the music, and of course, in situations like that, with Jim needing to take it back to the stake center an hour later, all kinds of technological difficulties are going to arise that probably never would when you have all the time in the world.  This added another level of stress to Jim that he didn’t need.  He finally had to leave without it and arrived 20 minutes late to his presidency meeting, and I agreed to come early to the 7 p.m. meeting and bring it to him.  There was a happy ending.  It turned out perfectly and touched a lot of hearts.  The Seattle mission president and his wife were there speaking and they loved it and talked about how they had been to most of the baptisms on there.

Jim’s talk was amazing as was President Nicholls’, who has had very strong impressions that it is time for our stake to really grow and split.  It was quite a prophetic talk as he shared with us the feelings that he has been having.  President Larkin, the Seattle Mission President, talked about how the Federal Way stake is considered “Paradise” by the missionaries, as we are the top baptizing stake in the mission, and if we continue on at the same level we are at now, we will be among the top stakes in the church.  He was so funny.  He told us he didn’t want to come speak to us and foul anything up as we were doing so well.  But it was right after that that President Nicholls told us it was time for us to move the work forward and grow the stake and gave us three specific goals he had for us. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stake conference was quite an event.  Jim and Brad were released as counselors.  Jim was put in as first counselor, and one of our current bishops, Ryan Mortensen, was put in as second counselor.  Nathan was sustained to receive the Melchezidek Priesthood and become an Elder, and the stake choir was just an incredible experience.  On that one, I just wish you could’ve been there.  President Partridge (Brad, the counselor who was just released) had to speak right after the choir sang, “The Spirit of God.”  He stood there for a minute then said, “I’ve only cried five times in my adult life . . . one of them was when my brother died,” then listed off the other few times and then said, “the last time was just now during that song.”  President Nicholls’ wife said she watched her husband and said, “his face was red as he tried to stop from sobbing on the stand.”  I had many comments from so many people.  The strange thing was that as I have prayed about this and worked on this for the last three or so months, I have felt like this would be a spiritual experience, and that we would be able to have help, but as I directed it, I didn’t feel anything.  When I  sat down, I almost felt deflated and depressed, but since then, I have had so many people come up and talk about what they felt.  I think my favorite comment was from Robert E. Lee, one of our tenors who interpreted for the deaf when he wasn’t singing with the choir:

This is copied from the e-mail he sent me:

“One deaf sister, who has been deaf since birth, said she physically felt the music (specifically the first song) and got Goosebumps, which has never happened to her before with a Choir. It was almost as if she could hear us.  The group asked me, when I came back down to interpret, if the first song was really powerful.  When I answered, yes, they replied: we thought so, because we could feel it and we can understand why you had a tear in your eye when you sat down.”

I’ve also been getting messages tonight on Facebook;  Here is the latest one from one of the choir members:

"You were right about us getting angelic help with the stake choir.  Goosebumps and tingles.  Tears of joy from the spirit.  Thank you for your passion, dedication, sense of humor and vision!!!"

You can’t take pictures in the chapel.  I would’ve loved a picture of the full choir. But I did run around wildly snapping shots in the primary room as the choir was arriving early this morning and warming up.  These are really, really good people that I love and appreciate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jamie was actually a very big help to me with this whole choir experience.  The first week, she played parts for me as the choir separated and she and I worked with just the men for an hour while the women stayed in the chapel and worked on their parts.   Jamie was also good enough to sit on the organ bench during conference by Janis Lewis, our incredible organist, and pull organ stops and turn pages during the parts of the songs when things got complicated – which happens when you have a director that is asking for close to the the improbable in organ sounds and volumes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After conference was over, we left Jim at the stake center for a meeting with the new presidency, and Nathan and I and the girls came home.  Nathan came in to talk about his ordination as an Elder after conference and we got talking and ended up having one of those talks that I wish I had a transcript of to go back and read as often as I wanted.  It was a highlight of my day that was full of incredible experiences.

 

Well, as Marci would say, “Yup, it was quite a weekend.”  And so much for my QUICK update. . .