Ward Choir

I can't believe how fortunate I am to have my current calling.  I am the ward choir director.  Having no formal training in music, I often wonder how I can teach the choir anything.  But, for some reason my choir likes singing with me - and I LOVE leading them!

Our ward is so blessed to have Caryl Hepworth as our accompanist.  Caryl was the high school choir accompanist when I was in high school and I have always been in awe of her piano talent, and even more than that, her ability to hear what the choir is doing and make suggestions to help them sound better.  I consider it an absolute honor to be working with her and I have learned so much!

Since I love music so much, I spend a lot of time searching for song arrangements that are both interesting and challenging to sing, and I pray to find music that will be appropriate for the meetings in which they will be sung.  It has been so fun to have the choir complain about the difficulty of a song and then over the next several weeks grow to love it.

There have been two songs that were especially hard, both arrangements by Craig Petrie:  High On A Mountaintop and Praise to the Man.  We literally spent months and months on both of those songs, but when it came time to perform them, the choir sounded incredible!  We had an opportunity to sing High On A Mountaintop for a Stake Relief Society Meeting and I swear that there were angels joining with the choir.  They sounded absolutely AMAZING!  Every time the choir sings in Sacrament Meeting I get tons and tons of compliments.  Our ward choir is absolutely the most wonderful choir in the world, in my opinion.

Each week I look forward to choir practice.  Working with the choir has strengthened my testimony as we sing praises to Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.  The Holy Ghost bears witness of the truthfulness of the words in the songs each time they are sung.

What an honor to work with the great singers in our ward.