Piano Adventures written April 29, 2013
More adventures out here in New York. Never a dull day. We didn't
have too much success this week with finding or teaching people, but I
did play the piano for some exciting events. I was asked to accompany a
missionary octet in singing at a Christian choir festival. Sounds pretty
sweet, right? I guess there is this organization called the Queens
Federation of Christians and they threw together this choir festival for
anyone who wanted to sign up and sing. Some missionary signed us up and
we headed out to go sing. There was one sister missionary who organized
us and she picked an arrangement of I Believe In Christ from the Mormon
Tabernacle Choir for us to sing. Unfortunately, it was an organ
accompaniment and I didn't have an organ to practice on, so I had
another missionary come and play the bass line on the piano for me. It
worked out pretty well.
So on Saturday afternoon, we headed out to Jamaica, Queens to sing
at this festival. It was in this big Catholic cathedral, which was
pretty cool. The other choirs were a lot of fun. They were all singing
songs you'd expect from heart of the city black Gospel choirs. It was
glorious. Then we got up there and changed the whole mood with our calm
hymn. I think people could feel a difference in the room after we sang.
The next group promptly got rid of that spirit with the clapping and
yelling, but hopefully we helped some people in the audience feel the
spirit.
We also sang on Sunday at a chapel dedication in Mineola out on
Long Island. That was a pretty sweet event. I had never been to a chapel
dedication before, but this one was way cool. One of the counselors in
the mission presidency was listening to me play the prelude music and he
told me a story about one time when he was at a funeral and he was
listening to the pianist play prelude. Then the guy got bored and
transitioned from hymns to playing a nice arrangement of Hey Jude. He
told me the story to try to explain how even though it was a nice
arrangement, it still took his thoughts away from the spirit and how
music is so powerful. All I took from it was that I need to start
incorporating arrangements of Beetle's songs in my prelude music. It's
my new challenge to work on. Can't be that hard. I feel like Dad would
support me in this endeavor.
In other news, we did some more community service last Wednesday
and we pretty much destroyed an entire house. It was awesome. One day
there was a house standing there. The next day it was gone. Through
sheer man power and good looks. 6 missionaries can get a lot of work
done in one day.
And to finish off the week, we had a sweet baptism yesterday. The
zone leaders had been working with this woman and her 8 year old son for
about a month and a half and they both got baptized yesterday. She was
so excited to put her past behind her and start dedicating her life to
the Lord. It was a really nice baptismal service. I just hope that I can
help more people feel the same joy and peace that this woman felt
yesterday after she was baptized. Hope you all have a great week!
Love,
Elder Erickson
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