Tuesday, May 12, 2015

My Solo Career!


So I sung a solo for a baptism this last week... but as fast as my solo career began it abruptly ended. I am not a singer. I sing for fun when I drive and I sing when I wash dishes but I am not meant to sing in front of people. I definitely learned that lesson this week. ;) A little girl in our ward was baptized this last Saturday, and the missionaries were in charge of the special musical number. The elders for whatever reason, thought that I could sing well. Ha ha. This is a lie. So Sister Jeong played the piano, and for one of the verses I had to sing a solo. We sung "I Feel My Savior's Love" in Korean. We practiced it quite a few times before, and while I am not the best singer ever, I felt like it would be okay. I might not have a beautiful voice, but I could hit the notes smoothly and reading Korean is pretty easy. So I agreed to do the solo. Right before we went up to sing, I could feel myself getting nervous. I just brushed off the nervousness and told myself that every time I did piano solos, I got nervous before too, but they turned out okay. Ha ha... singing doesn't quite work the same way. The thing is, when you are nervous to play the piano, as soon as you touch the keys, you focus on the music and tune everyone out. When you sing, it shows in your voice within the first note.  So, my first note was off and shaky, and as soon as I began I knew it would be rough. "Butchered it," I thought as I failed the first note. I could feel my face turn bright red, and my voice continued to shake as I sung. "Well, now they know I am nervous," I thought as my face became hot. As I sang my last note, I jumped for joy inside. I definitely sounded horrible. ...But I survived the solo and I can now look back and laugh at my failed solo. And I learned that I am not a singer, so that is a good thing to know. :)

Transfer calls were this week. I am staying in 안산 for 6 more weeks! I am pretty sure this will be my last transfer here though.

So we have seen so many miracles lately! Last Monday, we were at the church fixing our sticker board with the elders, when suddenly this man and lady just walked into the church. They had heard that we teach English one-on-one and were interested. So we sat them down and discussed the program with them (30 minutes English 30 minutes gospel) and they might become investigators here soon. Then a lady at English class expressed interest in why we don't have a cross on our church. The conversation turned into questions about the Plan of Salvation. We gave her a pamphlet about the Plan of Salvation and told her to call us if she wants to know more. She will continue to come to English class, so I think she has potential to turn into an investigator as well. :)
Also, we met with a 15 year old girl to talk about our English program too. Her English interest brought her to us, but when we told her we would be teaching her the gospel for 30 minutes too, she seemed interested in hearing more. English is truly blessing us!

I know that the Lord is preparing hearts all over the place. :)

My time is running out fast today, but I am so thankful for the opportunity I had to Skype home today! Seeing the family was so good! 40 minutes to Skype didn't seem long enough... but I know that the Lord gives us that time as a gift, and we must appreciate what we have. :)

I have been studying Christlike Attributes in Preach My Gospel this week. I was studying Charity and Love, when I had a thought that brought the spirit to testify in my heart. If we love Christ, we love God's children. If we love God's children, we want to serve them. If we love Christ, we want to obey Him. So basically, if we truly become followers and true lovers of Christ... how can we mess up? If we truly love Him, we will love God's children, and we will want to obey every commandment. What we do in our lives is an expression of our love (or lack of love) to Christ. We have agency, we can choose how much love we choose to show. But I know that when we choose to love others and show that love to others, we can also feel Christ's love for them, and Christ's love for us. Service and love brings a joy that can be felt in no other way. When we have genuine charity, our desire to do good grows. Also, "..charity suffereth long..." What does this mean? I learned that this means that no matter what others do to us, we must sacrifice and put any contention we may feel away. We must do as Christ would. We cannot retaliate or be angry back, we just have to move on and continue loving them. It is not always easy to love everyone. People are human, they make mistakes, they say things we don't want to hear... But we can suffer long, and we will be blessed when we show love and charity. When we try to follow Christ, we cannot fail.

I wish I could write more, as always. My thoughts are always kind of scattered when I write home every week. Filtering is hard ha-ha. ;)

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY MOM!!! I love you so much and miss you like crazy. I don't know what I would do without you, and it was so good to see your face today (and of course everyone else's too). :)

I love all of you and miss you as always! :)

Love, Sister Maughan


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