Random Explanation

Practical help and ideas are so important to new Primary choristers. The whole reason I decided to blog, in the first place, was to make my primary chorister "file" available to my daughters-in-law and my daughter who might someday receive this assignment. It occurs to me that I should try to explain what's going on in my head with this blog. It might then make a whole lot more sense to those of you who are currently trying to use it. So here is my attempt to explain what I'm doing here.

Blogging technology makes it so easy for me take something out of my primary music box, show it and explain how to use it. I can easily take the notes in my "file" and make them digital. In my posts, I try hard to show how to find an idea or how to take an idea and adapt it to be what it could be in another circumstance. In my own, humble way I am trying to give my sweet daughters the benefit of my primary chorister experience, sometime in the future when they might need it and I might be unavailable. My children tell me that this blog will be available forever. Hmm. That is kind of a scary thought.

Because I'm currently in the calling I try to use the current outline and themes as the vehicle for my explanations. And I enjoy showing what I'm currently using and doing. But, in actuality, my investment in this blog is really more in trying to show how the material can be adapted and used in different circumstances and with different content. I'm trying to show how to look beyond the current content for the "skeleton" of an idea or activity. If one can develop eyes to do this, almost any idea can be made to work for you.

I may have mentioned that I keep a master list of these idea skeletons, basic activities that can be adapted to almost any subject. I review and usually choose from this list as I prepare my singing times each week. Years ago, the church published a Sharing Time Manual and in the front was a grid with a list of basic sharing time activities on the left and where those activities were illustrated in the manual. This is how I learned how to keep and use such a list.

My posts are largely based on my master list and the post titles will often reflect this. I tend to think in terms of three main categories: methods for how to present and teach songs, ideas for song review, and ideas for teaching the gospel through "choose and review" singing times. You'll find these categories reflected in the labels. I am also trying to methodically show the musical aids I have found or made and how I use them. And then there are random thoughts and the encouragement thoughts because I so want to encourage. People who have never filled this assignment cannot imagine what it takes - it's not for sissies!

So this is where I'm coming from with this blog. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that so many people, other than my family, would be interested in this information. I realize that there are many of you who are new and inexperienced right now and need help and encouragement. I am deeply grateful that this blog might be of use to you as well.

An unexpected benefit to me, in this blogging effort, is that your comments help me know what my daughters really might want and need in the future. Your questions and comments help me refine and clarify my thoughts and so this blog might actually become what I want it to be. It might really end up filling the measure of it's creation. In your comments you are always thanking me, but in reality, these feelings are prompted by the Spirit that is in the common work we do, so I thank you back. I especially thank you for leaving comments. I can feel your faithfulness in your words and this encourages me also.

I hope you will continue to help me by asking questions and giving suggestions and ideas. If something I write about doesn't make sense, I hope someone will point it out. My daughters (and I and everyone else) will benefit greatly from you as well.

Monday Mornings

Monday mornings feel like a gift to me. On this day I truly feel the scripture in Lamentations “This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope. It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.” (3:21-23) I am always grateful on Monday mornings for another chance to do better, to be better. I look at the week ahead and try to judge the hot spots and convince myself that I am up to the task of dealing with them. I look even closer at the monotony of everyday tasks and resolve again to face them with a better attitude, to consecrate my everyday work. I want to remember not to be consumed in the everyday stuff, but to rely on the compassion the Lord offers me. On Monday morning I feel energized.

By about Friday I just feel consumed. I feel wilted. I sometimes feel like I have sunk into a mire of mediocrity and I am just slogging through life. But then along comes the Sabbath and the Sacrament and the Savior and by Monday morning I feel renewed again. This is my life cycle. I know that I should probably feel this energy on Sunday. I have studied and pondered and understand the concept of Sabbath. But, I am often exhausted on Sunday, especially by the time Primary is over. I can usually feel a kind of warm comfort that comes from having tried--from having made an acceptable offering. But, sometimes, I have to admit, I feel only a kind of cold comfort that the past week is finally over and I survived.

But, at some point through the night, the blessing of Sabbath finally seeps into me and there is Monday morning - a new week with a new chance and new mercies. I experience what David wrote in Psalm 40. “He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. And he hath put a new song in my mouth.”

A new song in my mouth. Every week he does this for me -- over and over again. My life cycle. Thank you Jesus.

Steady, Sacred Music

One of the things I appreciate about this calling is the way the music just flows around in my brain all week as I prepare for Sunday. From my earliest years there has been Primary music in my life. This music and the feelings it stirs never change. It is a constant and steady influence that I treasure. I clearly remember the room where I attended Primary many years ago. Every week I walked down a long hall to an open door with familiar, reverent, sacred music drawing me in and a smiling woman standing at the door. There was a beautiful painting of Jesus hanging at the front of the room, friends sitting on heavy carved benches and that music playing in the background.

This has never really changed, though the benches have changed again and again. Over many years now, I have been the smiling woman at the door, or the smiling woman playing or leading the music, or singing this music in a classroom, family night or as a lullaby. Always, these special songs have filled my heart with the knowledge that I am a child of a loving Heavenly Father, that Jesus is my loving friend, and that all is right with the world. These songs allow me to express my testimony in a way that I cannot speak. And, even at my age, when I sing about my two little hands, I pause to think about whether they have learned to obey. With all of the turmoil in the world around me I am glad for the influence of steady, sacred music. The music that I have been singing for many years. I love those things that never, never change!

The Best Calling

Early this morning I lay awake thinking about why I love being the Primary chorister. It is complicated and I think maybe my feelings recollect memories and affinities that were formed very early in my life. I have always loved music. My mother eternally had music playing in our home --beautiful, rapturous music, like Rachmaninoff, that just made your soul soar. She is highly creative and I could grasp, even at an early age, that the pretty things around me were the result of her hands. The dresses I wore, the painted kitchen cupboards, the drapes in the living room, the little ornaments arranged on the lamp table, all these came from a very deep artistic spring, that just always bubbled and overflowed into the next project. I think some of this has rubbed off onto me. If you could spend time with her, it would rub off onto you too! She's still at it, even in her 80's. This last week she told me about painting a treasure box for one of her grandchildren. Because she is a faithful member of our church, this creativity was concentrated in her church callings. She spent much of my impressionable years serving in the young women organization and I watched (and helped) her put on roadshows, organize crafts for girls camp, decorate and undecorate for dances or a fashion show. What has this to do with why I love Primary music?

I was thinking this morning that one of the best things about this calling is that it allows me to be creative! Sometime today, after I get my kitchen cleaned, I'm planning to make two new puppets for my box. These need to look like Book of Mormon children because I want the kids to use them as we review "I Know That My Savior Loves Me." I'm planning to have an "ancient" child lead the first verse and a modern child lead the second verse as we review the song. I also want to update my costumes with some easy Book of Mormon things. I need something that will go on and off easily since I don't want to take time with dressing! I'll use these props in the same way to review the song.

There is something inside of me that just HAS to be creative. My last calling was filled with organizational issues, solving problems and working with people -- adult people. I actually like to cut things out of construction paper! Making puppets is one of my favorite things to do. I think its fun to look through back issues of The Friend and dream up ideas for singing time. Thinking up games is way more fun than attending ward council. And best of all, I get to spend time with these little people who approve of all my creative efforts. The nicest things just come together in this calling. "Thank you, thank you, my heart sings."