Dreams DO come true! :)

Ok, so since I have graduated, well maybe even before then I have always had a dream to sing for the church. I love to sing, I especially love singing church music. I relate to more than any other type of music and always feel strongly about the words I am singing. And in my opinion it matters more when listening to someone sing how they are making you feel other than how they sound. Don't get me wrong...they have to at least hold a tune. haha Anyways, I am getting off on a tangent. SO, last semester I decided I am going to start doing something about this dream I have been having and to start small. I got together with one of my friends, Rachel Mitsvotai and we started arranging primary songs together. Then, I wrote out this whole entire fireside that involved a children's choir. The theme of the fireside is "Walk in the Light" inspired by a song that we are doing a rendition of in the fireside that is on the "Reflections of Christ: Another testament" CD by Clyde Bawden. It is an arrangement of Teach Me to Walk in the Light and Love One Another. It's beautiful, hopefully we do it justice at least a little bit.

The whole experience has been amazing. We had auditions and got sponsored by the Hurricane Stake and have about 30 kids. I wanted to make the choir not just a singing experience but a learning experience as well. We talk about ways we can and have "let our light shine" in practices and why the songs we sing make us happy. When last practice I asked, "Why does it make you happy to know you are children of God?" The answers were so sincere and priceless. One girl said, "because he loves me." another, "I know I can repent and be with him." They have ended up teaching me more than I could teach them. We also wrote the  missionaries in our stake! The kids loved it! Each was assigned a missionary and wrote their own little note then we included this picture with the letter.(above) You could tell they knew they were doing a good thing. There was one little boy who just talked about transformers his whole letter, but you know what? I am pretty sure that Elder Braden Barker will love it. :) I even felt good while doing it. Service is definitely something that can bring instant happiness. Last Saturday we also sang at the beehive home. Before we went in I huddled them all up and challenged them all to shake the resident's hands and tell them thank you for having us. They were really nervous to do it. But, they did it! After we were done singing a whole line formed to shake their hands. We gave them a card when we left and I am not sure whose smiles were bigger the residents, the kids or mine!

Now, Sunday is the day! I am so nervous. I feel like how I feel the week of an opening night of a show I am in. It doesn't seem like it's going to come together. But, I know it will, it always does. :) It may not seem like such a big deal to a lot of people, but this is something I have put a lot of hard work and effort into. This combines three things that I am very very passionate about; music, the spirit of little children and this gospel.And I know this is something that I was supposed to be doing this summer at this time. How do I know this? Because there has been trial after trial on trying to make this happen. Thankfully because of many amazing people to help overcome and make everything work. Laura LeBaron has been an amazing help in this whole entire thing. She is definitely one I know I can count on and is so willing to help me out and is so amazingly talented. I don't know what I would do without her by my side in this! Sharlee Jepson did so much for the service project and making that happen. She is just a gem in more ways than one. These two girls I owe a lot of credit to for this whole thing. I am so thankful for them!! Michael Morrise and Kyle Turman have also helped out with their great musical abilities. And last but not least the amazing Andrea Stackhouse. The girl that originally arranged all the music with me had a conflict with the fireside and had to quit. Andrea willingly and happily accepted to take on the huge project of learning all of the arrangements and writing out music to a song we only had on cd. They music sounds amazing because of her. She is a superstar that is for sure!! I know that all of us were given these talents for a reason. Every talent we have is a blessing that can help us help others learn more about this gospel. I am a strong believer in that! Hopefully, we can do that this Sunday and have done it just a little with the kids in the choir. I have learned so so much through the experience and I just hope to perfect and refine it even more and hopefully do more of this in the future. I am just so grateful right now for everyone in my life, most of all my parents, who have helped me out so much in all of my crazy dreams and plans for life. I would be nothing without them. :)  I am so happy an grateful that I had to blog about it ;) haha.  The church is true!!! And life is amazing because of it!

P.S if you are reading this and wanting to come to the fireside it is this Sunday ( August 14th) at 7pm at the Hurricane Stake Center!