Saturday, 28 November 2015

Name That Tune


Each Sunday we attend church at a different Ward, Branch, or Unit throughout Fiji. It's a wonderful opportunity to meet good people, hug beautiful children, and share wonderful experiences and thoughts with some of the most Christ-like people I've ever known. Then after the Sacrament Meeting, we work with the bishops and financial clerks to provide them with a few tools to help them in their important responsibilities.

Now, being old and fairly stupid, I've not been able to learn any language besides English. Yup, Beginning French in Junior High, Beginning French in High School, and Beginning French in College. And for all of that, I can count to 10, recognize a few colors, and recite the days of the week...  Oh well, back to today. We were in a Fijian speaking ward, but I was prepared.  Although I did not understand what was being said, and my name was not announced (whew), I had my Sere Ni Lotu (Hymn Book) with me.  In addition, someone provided me months ago with a little cheat sheet so that, for example, when Hymn #40 was posted as the Opening Hymn, I could quickly refer to the sheet and immediately recognize the song to be sung.  Yes, I know that if I just opened the Sere Ni Lotu to #40 and looked at the music, I should be able to identify the hymn, right?  Big emphasis on the "should". Needless to say, my musical education is fairly lacking - but that's another story.  So I confidently looked at my cheat sheet and this is what I saw.

Yes, Hymn #40 is that old, beloved, well known Welch Hymn "Arglwydd, arwain trwy'r anialwch". Ummmm, I'm guessing that at this point, rather than diving into the study of Welch (and any other language we've borrowed hymns from) I had better bite the bullet and learn to read music!


1 comment:

  1. I had to smile reading this, and guessed that you went to a Fijian speaking ward. We were in Nasinu English speaking ward. One Sunday a sister asked if I would stand up and teach us a hymn I wasn't familiar with and couldn't recognize by looking at the notes. She worked in the LDS distribution center during the week and found the hymn on a CD, but it was still difficult to use the machine and find the time to practice it. They just assumed I knew all the hymns in the hymn book.

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