Sunday(s) Snippets

Last weekend I went to Cardiff, Wales, to visit a friend and hang out for Bonfire Night (that whole 'Guy Fawkes' thing). I have video clips of the fireworks, which were amazing, and we toured around and checked out castles, which I loved.

Church on Sunday, though, was a trip - I didn't know exactly which building the meeting was in, and there wasn't a sign... but just as I got out of the car I spotted the missionaries walking down the street. All I had to do was follow them to get to the right place! (Yes. It's also a metaphor. Good job.) The ward met in a trade school that was a lovely old converted Georgian building - Sacrament Meeting was in a beautiful hall with massive lead-paned windows and blue-and-white paneling. (It was freezing.) It's true what they say - the Welsh really do have marvelous singing voices! Even when they don't have a pianist, which they didn't when the meeting started... there was a general call for volunteers to play, and I gave in and went up to play for the Sacrament hymn. I was terrible, but the volume was down so low on the electric keyboard I don't think anyone could really hear me anyway.

It was a very nice and a very interesting testimony meeting; one of the windows was cracked open (probably at least part of the reason it was cold) and it evidently couldn't be shut because it was too high up and a tree branch had started growing through the opening. A few minutes after the testimonies started a hummingbird climbed in through the open window and then spent the rest of the meeting trying to find it's way back out - we were trying to listen, but in reality the entire congregation was fascinated watching this bird fly from window to window to try to get through the clear glass. A ward member finally walked around the room and opened all the windows he could reach, and the bird crept out - you could practically feel the collective sigh of relief!

I do like a good portcullis.

That afternoon my friend and I visited Cardiff Castle (which is beautifully overdecorated) and then went to the Millenium Centre for a singalong of 'The Messiah'. I was pretty excited about it, actually - how often can you say you sang the Messiah with a Welsh choir? Not often, that's for sure. (Unless you live in Wales and do this kind of thing a lot.) Anyway, the orchestra was on the stage, the choir (who had all paid 15 or so pounds - for charity - to sing) filled up the entire stalls section, and the audience (including me) were in the first balcony. I could just see the bass section and a few of the tenors. The soloists actually stood in the boxes to either side of the stage, which was a pretty nice staging idea. The whole thing was lovely, and at the end the conductor invited the audience to stand again and sing along as they reprised the Hallelujah Chorus. Guess I wasn't the only audience member that wanted to say they'd sung with a Welsh choir!

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I'm starting to be afraid that I really have 'graduated' from playing the piano badly for the Primary to playing badly for the entire ward - I've been stumbling along in Relief Society, and then today the Sacrament pianist didn't show up so I was drafted. The Sacrament hymn started off so, so awfully... and the chorister still had the congregation sing through the extra two verses anyway! On the plus side, by the time we got through that last verse my playing actually sounded OK; and, at least it wasn't 'A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief.' (Listen to your mother. PRACTICE THE PIANO.)

I had actually prepared to teach the 12-16-yr-olds in Sunday School for the first time - the Sunday School President hadn't known what lesson they were on, so I counted back from the end of the year and guessed. I found out upon arrival that they'd had that lesson the week before. Oy. I thought I'd be reprieved when I heard I only had one student, a teenage boy - I figured it'd be less awkward for everyone if we just went in with the adults instead, only to find that the adult Gospel Doctrine teacher hadn't shown up and the bishopbric wondered if I would mind teaching the lesson. I stood up and 'facilitated' the lesson I hadn't prepared (gotta stick to that schedule!) and it was terrific - it's amazing how fun that kind of thing can be when the whole group is pulling together! (Seriously, teachers should remember to put a little more responsibility on the class members, instead of trying to feed them information. They've got some really great stuff.)

In fact, my favorite thing of the day came when we were discussing 1 Peter 2:8 and talking about how we can be 'living stones' (it's such a great picture - are stones tempted by the vices of the world? I think not) and yet not be a stumbling stone for someone else... and a class member raised the idea that perhaps we SHOULD be 'stumbling stones of offence' for other people - that we could be so determined to be righteous and to build the kingdom that we help to create a 'stumbling stone' that the world cannot help but to stop and look at, that interrupts them in their daily pursuits and makes them acknowledge that there is something greater. The same class member later reminded us about D&C 122:9, part of the section on extreme affliction, and how the Lord is always with us. SUCH a great time in Sunday School today.

And I'm more determined than ever to practice the piano regularly.

Sunrise over Cardiff Lake and Cardiff Bay. Yes, it really was sunrise. Yes, I really was there and awake. Shut up.