A miracle

When we moved into our new ward, one of the first things that we noticed was that the ward choir was very small, so we started attending. I've never been much of a singer, but I do like to sing. I can carry a tune, but I've never thought that my voice had a good tone to it, I can't hold my breath for very long,  and have always seen myself as more of a "choir voice". But I think because I went to ward choir, the ward percieved that I was a singer, because suddenly I'm asked to sing at things!  It is the strangest thing.

It is also rather out of my comfort zone because while I used to sing soprano growing up, I can't anymore, so I have been learning alto. When I sing I feel like I have to studiously study the notes the whole time, and it takes a few more times to catch on to a piece than it does for everyone else.

 A couple of weeks ago, a woman from the stake called and asked Kami and I to sing in a stake Relief Society meeting with a choir of mothers and daughters.  I was O.K. with that.

Last week, a woman in the ward called and asked me to sing with her and one other woman at our adult meeting of stake conference.  Just the three of us.  I wasn't so comfortable with that, but agreed to do it.

We practiced on Tuesday and right after that I caught a cold and lost my voice.  Well, I could talk, but only quietly and my vocal cords felt so strained!  I wasn't too worried, because I figured that I had all week to get over it.  I haven't had a cold in the longest time, and what a time to catch one!  Instead of getting better I  seemed worse and more miserable every day.

I still felt pretty miserable Saturday, and could barely sing when we practiced in the morning.  I tried not to talk as much as possible for the rest of the day. I did send up a lot of prayers - Who could take my place when it was supposed to be a musical number from our ward?

It was the neatest thing, though, because I got up last night to sing and felt just fine the whole time and have been over my cold ever since!  Isn't that amazing?  I was so thrilled about not having my voice crack or something that I didn't even care about the numerous other woman in the stake that can sing 100% better than I can.  Too bad they didn't hear what  I was sounding like before so that they could truly appreciate the musical number!

l-r: Heather, our pianist, Tiffany, me and Shandell

These are the women that I sang with.  I absolutely love them. Heather is my neighbor just across the road, and also our R.S. president.  She and her family are wonderful and they are so good at putting together social get-togethers.  For instance, right after conference she had everyone over for chocolate chimichangas - delicious! (You deep- fry tortillas with hershey's chocolate inside them and then serve them with vanilla ice cream and whipped topping.)

Tiffany is my visiting teaching companion and has one of the best laughs around.

Shandell really took me under her wing when we moved in and caught me up on everyone and who was related to who, etc. She is one of the sweetest people!

All of these women have become very good friends. Boy do I LOVE our ward!!