Monday, November 30, 2015

A surprisingly eventful week. The week was been pretty slow in terms of missionary work because not many people want to, or can, meet with missionaries on and around Thanksgiving. But, not to worry, we managed to stay pretty busy most of the time.

We helped Brother Shoemaker put all of his food storage and other things back into his storage room from his garage because his daughter was living with him and his wife for a couple of weeks and wanted to give their sons a room of their own. Ever since they moved in, we've spent probably close to 20 hours helping him out and we loved every minute of it. I knew Brother Shoemaker from before I came to this area because as he's one of the ASL temple workers and really popular in the valley amongst the Deaf.

We went by for his wife's birthday on Monday, had dinner at their house on Thanksgiving, and spent 6 hours at their house black Friday moving all of their things. Since day one I've been there to help him out when he's needed it so for my birthday, he gave me this really nice pen as thanks. (see pic)!

And yesterday the Stake had a musical Fireside (Evening of the Arts for those of you in the Spokane Stake) and they had me play in it! I played Snowfall for the stake and they loved it. It’s been a while since I’ve preformed like that! I also played prelude for our ward for the last couple of weeks and will be playing a special musical number for church on the 13th and for our ward Christmas party on the 11th. What an exciting surprise!

Music is such an amazing thing. Yesterday it was the bishop's daughter's farewell. She'll be serving in New Jersey and in honor of this, her family played a wonderful song titled "Redeemer" by Paul Cardall. They had a piano, a viola, 2 cellos, and 2 violins. It was so powerful and they played it so wonderfully. Everyone was saying, "Wow those people really know how to play!" and of course I’m thinking, "Those violins did a wonderful job accompanying the piano!" But seriously, music can express feelings and thoughts probably more effectively than any language can and hence comes the verse in D&C 25:12: "For my soul delighteth in the song of the heart, yea, the song of the righteous is a prayer unto me and it shall be answered with a blessing upon their heads."

Keep Singing/Playing everyone! You never know whose life you may effect for the better.

Elder Sands