A Little Catch Up

There are many things that have happened that I have not written about, but would like to remember.  For the sake of time, I'm going to lump all of them into one post.

If you have been following this blog, you know that I have been taking private violin lessons since January.  I couldn't be more pleased with my teacher, Maren.  She fun, she a great violinist, she has high standards and she has become a good friend too. She has convinced me to play in the West  Stake's annual presentation of Handel's Messiah.  (Other members outside the stake and nonmembers are invited too.)  I was unsure at first since it is a lot of music to learn and is difficult too, but as we have been working on it, I have learned a lot faster than I think I would have otherwise.   I have become a lot more familiar with 2nd position (a bit with 4th too) and have had to practice wisely to learn many of the fast passages.  We have another five weeks of practices and then we'll have two performances.

I had to skip a couple of weeks of rehearsals  in order to attend stake choir practices.  I thought it would be hypocritical of me to not participate in the stake choir since I'm the Music Chairman for our ward and I direct the ward choir.  I canceled our ward choir to encourage our ward members to go. I thought it would be too much to ask people to go to both.  Our ward ended up having about 14 of the 34 people who showed up.  We have such a supportive ward and great members!  The director was also from our ward.  She sings with the San Antonio Chamber Choir and is a choral director at Reagan High School.   I had the chance to go to their concert last week and it was impressive!  By the end, the music had really moved me.  The last piece featured a soloist.  Her voice was like silk.  It was so beautiful!

During Stake Conference, Elder Wright said that the church usually call about 800-900 missionaries, but after the announcement over 4,000 were called!  After the announcement was made to lower the age for males from 19 to 18 and females from 21 to 19, I figured there would be a huge increase--especially for the sisters.  Elder Wright said next week they anticipate 3,000 more sister missionaries than elders!  It's an exciting time!

Speaking of exciting times, the presidential election is just 16 days away.  I am so excited for this election.  I hope that when Romney/Ryan get elected (because they are going to win--probably by a large margin too) they can turn this disaster around, create more jobs, simplify the tax code, get us energy independent and have better foreign relations.  I also hope to high heaven that we don't have any wars for a very, very long time.  That may be a bit of wishful thinking since we are in the last days, but I am SO sick of our troops being everywhere for such a long time.  Let's bring them HOME. 

I also want to write about my birthday.  Landon made it so special.  He surprised my by taking the day off.  He brought me breakfast in bed and got Jonathan ready for school.  In the morning, my visiting teachee cut my hair and put in some highlights for free.  She was so sweet and I was so surprised.  Then, Landon he took Erik and Ella to a friend's house and while we went to Main Event.  It was so much fun!  We played laser tag, pool, ate lunch and went on a ropes course (scary!).  I'd never played laser tag before and didn't know it was so much fun.  One of the times we played we teamed up against a couple of guys and we won (mostly thanks to Landon)!  He bought me some items I need to start cycling more often.  I've only been on one long trip (25 miles), but I love to go on shorter trips with the kids.  We have a lot of fun going on the different trails here in San Antonio.

I'm blessed to have such a great husband!