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[While attending Church Light (& Casual) again at Snowbird, the group Gospel Doctrine teacher recounted a bit of the story of Alma the Younger that we've been reading in family scriptures.]
Caleb (4): Mom, that guy said Alma.
…
Like Alma & the Chipmunks.
Alison Moore Smith is a 61-year-old entrepreneur who graduated from BYU in 1987. She has been (very happily) married to Samuel M. Smith for 40 years. They are parents of six incredible children and grandparents to two astounding grandsons. She is the author of The 7 Success Habits of Homeschoolers.
too funny. I’ll never read the scriptures the same way again.
Oh my goodness! Something similar happened in choir practice yesterday, only it wasn’t a 4 year old misunderstanding, it was my 40 year old husband!
We were practicing a song for next Sunday– pg 14 in the hymnal, “Sweet Is the Peace the Gospel Brings”
We’re doing all 7 verses, and were already practicing when my husband came in late. He’s in the Bishopric and hasn’t been able to sing in the choir since his call. We meet right after church while the Bishopric is setting people apart, doing tithing, having interviews, etc.
The ward music chairman asked him to do a solo in one of the verses since he doesn’t get to sing with the choir anymore. Since the Bishopric was cutting their meetings short after church because of fathers day, my husband got to come in for the last little bit to practice.
Now– he’d NEVER heard this song before (I’d never heard it either until we started practicing it) and we were singing verse 5 when he came walking in.
He sat down next to me just as the verse was ending and whispered “WHAT did that verse say???” and he grabbed the book. Then he started cracking up.
I was like “What’s so funny?”
He goes “It sounded like you were saying “No wrangling sex disturb our peace”
It’s “No wrangling SECTS disturb our peace”
:rolling: :rolling: :rolling:
I guess we better make a point of REALLY emphasizing that “T” !!!
That is one of the funniest things I have ever read – anywhere.
What was really bad was that everytime we sang it afterwards I kept laughing!!
And now that I think about it…now that I’ve shared this little gem, if you guys ever sing page 14 in YOUR meetings, you’ll do the same thing!!:shocked:
Sorry…. :tooth:
Funny!
Tracy, you seriously had never heard that hymn? I’ve sung it enough that I can sing the first verse and fake the rest of the “standard” ones.
Then there’re:
Little purple panties
Of death, of hell, or of the gravy
Come, come ye saints. No toilet paper here.
Has given me an earthly home, with parents kind of queer.
We feel it a pleasure to serve Thee, and love to obey like a man. (That’s what I thought the hymn said when I was a little girl, and it made me mad even then. I wanted to obey LIKE A WOMAN, not a man.)
No! Never have!
I’ve often found it interesting myself, that there are so many hymns I don’t know.
It seems like each ward has their hymns that they use over and over again while ignoring the many others.
A couple weeks ago we sang “Before Thee Lord” pg 158, for the FIRST TIME since I’ve been here (13 years). But my ward back in South Carolina sang it frequently.
We sang “Nay, Speak no ill” for the first time several months ago, and I’d never heard that one before, either.
And during a choir practicea few months ago, we went over “The Wintry Day, Descending to Its Close” pg. 37 , I’d never heard that one before.
What’s REALLY wierd, is to sit down at the piano when I’ve been asked to sub for someone, and I know the song, but I’ve never PLAYED it before. You know how your fingers sort of “recognize” that they’ve played something before? It’s happened to me a few times. They ask me to sub, and pretty much, I don’t worry about what the songs are because I generally know the ones we sing all the time, and can sight read well and get it right the first time if I don’t know it… usually. But I’m always surprised when they say we’re singing _____, and I turn to the song, knowing it very well, and begin to play but realize, “Oh my gosh. I’ve sung this a million times but I don’t think I’ve ever played it!”
I’ve been playing for church since I was 12– so it always seems really strange that there are hymns I’ve sung many times, but have never played.
HAAAAA!!! :clap: :clap: :clap:
When I was the music chariman/ward chorister/Sunday School chorister (remember those?) in Boca, I had a list of all the hymns with a notation of how many times they’d been sung over about a six year period. When I choose hymns, I would try to pick all familiar ones except one. I would try to put in ONE hymn each week that was less familiar and then repeat it a few times over the course of a few months.
You cannot (or maybe you can) believe how much resistance I got for that. Complaint after complaint about–to me, to the bishopric. Whine, whine, whine. I would respond, “You want me to do familiar hymns? Well, how do you think those became familiar???”
How dumb to decide that your chosen 12 hymns were enough and all that are allowed. Don’t people have more significant things to worry about?
Oh, and in Boca some people objected to any hymns that talked about pioneers (because they had no pioneer ancestors) and even MOUNTAINS–because the only “mountain” in South Florida is the landfill.
FWIW, I never tried to add mens’ only or women’s only–and never threw in God Save the Queen. But I was tempted.
“The Wintry Day, Descending to Its Close” is gorgeous! I love to play that hymn.
It REALLY is– pretty pathetic that I’d never heard or played it before!! One of the most melodic tunes in the hymnal– it almost has a classic film kind of sound to it– like Rogers and Hammerstein wrote it and Bing Cosby should be singing it.
Oh, I don’t think it’s pathetic, I was just surprised.
I was in my 30’s before I realized that “Gently Raise the Sacred Strain” didn’t end with, ” ?that man may rest, that man may rest. Hmmmm. Once again, we welcome you within these walls ?” :bigsmile::shamed:
If you’re not a Music and the Spoken Word aficionado, forgive the obtuse reference.
It is very hard for me to sing Come Ye Children of the Lord. The music was the high school song of one of the High Schools I attended. All I can think of when I sing it is Friday night football games and Go Bears Go!!!
You’re kidding! That’s too funny, nana!
But you know, as I sit here humming the tune, (and speeding it up to about 150-160 :), imagining the trumpets playing the melody, piccolos playing trills at the ends of phrases, the bass drums, snares and timponi kicking in…. I can totally hear it as a school fight song!!
The melody really IS similar to the style that is used for a fight song! I never noticed it before!
hmmm.. I’ll bet “God Speed The Right” would work too….
After having lived in Germany for 3 years, I can’t sing “Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken” without having the words to the German National Anthem running through my mind.
I only heard it as a hymn AFTER we came back from Germany!
Singing “There is Sunshine in my Soul Today” at church seems so s-l-o-w and somber to me after hearing my high school show choir (in UT) sing a more upbeat, pop, swingin’ version of it! In my mind I can still hear my friends singing it with the “oh yeah-ah-ah” at the end!
Oh, I have that version of “sunshine”!! We did it at a Visiting Teaching conference in Utah.
LOVED IT!! Oooooh— I should get a group of sisters together to work it up for our next homemaking meeting or something. Are you game Jenn??
sounds fun to me!
Sounds fun. Can I come?
… oh wait. I live too far away.
No this one is my favorite. Nevermind.
This is totally me! My mom turned Music and the Spoken Word on the TV every week when I was growing up. I remember not too long ago, we sang the hymn in Sacrament Meeting, and I was belting it out for half of the first verse before I realized no one else in the congregation seemed to even know the tune, so everyone was struggling to follow along. I was practically singing a solo! :shamed:
There you are! How are you feeling and doing? And how’s the baby? Your post made me giggle. :bigsmile:
So true, Rachel! When we lived in Florida it was interesting to see which hymns were locally popular…and which weren’t.
Music director was one of my callings most of the time we lived there and it was pretty funny to see how finicky folks were about hymns. I had a list of all the hymns and how many times they had been sung in a five year stretch. In order to expand the tiny repertoire of the ward, I tried to do ONE less-familiar hymn each week and repeat that same unfamiliar hymn about every four weeks. (Sometimes I’d try first to have the choir sing it as a “rest hymn.”) It was as if I had tried to bring in a Baptist choir! Some people got SO mad!
I tried reasoning.
“Why do you do songs we don’t know?”
“Well, how do think you got to know the songs you know?”
The other things that got some people mad were: (1) singing songs about pioneers (offensive to those who didn’t have pioneer ancestors) and (2) songs with the word “mountain” in them (!).
Why were mountains offensive, Alison?
Maybe because it is evocative of Utah/Western Mormons – and not all Mormons are from the West. There are few mountains – REAL mountains – in the Eastern US!! (And sometimes they can get so offended that one doesn’t consider their mountains to be real mountains. However, the Appalachians just don’t compare to the Rockies, at least in height…)
I have a nasty cold, but luckily the baby hasn’t caught it. Other than being sick, I’m feeling much better than I did when I was pregnant–so I can’t complain 🙂
How are you?
Michelle got it, davidson. South Florida has no mountains. The highest point of reference is the landfill next to the Turnpike near Ft. Lauderdale. Like pioneer songs, mountain songs are for “Utah Mormons.’ Humph.
One of my two favorite hymns is Carry On, which begins “Firm as the mountains around us ?” I was told that hymn was offensive.
Oh, yes, I forgot. Unless you are currently being stepped on by an elephant, EVERYTHING feels better than being nine months pregnant! :bigsmile: Glad the baby didn’t get the cold; hope it stays that way, and I hope you’re feeling better soon.
That’s sweet of you to ask! I’m fine. Little trouble with a kidney stone that won’t budge, but hey, it’s not cancer.
I was born and raised in Florida (Orlando 2nd and 3rd wards,) though I’ve been in Utah for 30 years, came here after graduating high school in 1977. AND I have no pioneer blood, my mother converted when i was 4 years old. And I just have to say that I grew up LOVING the “mountian” songs and the utah pioneer songs. For some odd reason it never occured to me that the pioneer heritage was not my own. I just figured i was with them in spirit. i felt a testimony strong enough at an early age that i felt i WOULD have been one of the pioneers had i lived back then. just my two cents.
I especially loved and still sing to myself certain pioneer songs(i even still have the old 45 record) that were taught us one year in seminary. “at the head of great echo, there’s a railroad begun and the mormon’s are cutting and grading like fun….”
“Come girls come and listen to my noise, don’t you marry the mormon boys, if’n you do, your fortune it will be, Johnny cake and babies is all your gonna see..”
“we’re going to preach the gospel to all who want to hear, a message of salvation unto the meek we’ll bear, Jehovah has commanded us and therefore we must go, for none can preach the gospel like the mormon’s do, like the mormon’s do.” (my non-mormon step-father really got a “kick” out of that last one.)
Anyway, as for wards complaining about new songs. Possibly my memory isn’t quite right but it seems that a whole lot more people used to sing in church. I don’t remember having to do solos from the pews when i was young, but i’ve noticed over that past 10 years that fewer and fewer people sing in church. it’s quite disturbing. But here’s the thing. More and more, the songs that are chosen are not familiar tunes. And not even enjoyable tunes. I’m not a music major and I don’t sing in the choir, don’t think my voice is all that bad but i do have a somewhat limited range of notes that i can hit correctly. BUT i enjoy singing, it feels like an act of praise to me, especially when singing something like, “praise to the man who communed with Jehovah.” or “the spirit of God like a fire is burning” and trust me many many others, yet I can’t remember the last time one of these “feel good” songs has been chosen by our chorister. I still sing with my faulty interpretation of the unfamiliar notes of whatever song she chooses, but maybe the reason at least two /thirds of the audience is sitting there mute is because they aren’t “singers” and the chorister just made it harder on them by choosing unfamiliar more difficult music. in other words, they are “remedial singers” and the chorister is choosing “advanced singers” music.