Sunday, May 24, 2009

Improving Talents

I never thought that I had much talent in anything but I have periodically taken (and slacked off on) piano lessons. Michael has always been very supportive in my desire to play the piano even if I feel like it's a hopeless cause, he has bought me pianos and keyboards through out the years and found people willing to give me lessons but although I enjoy playing little tunes I have never learned anything very useful, until recently. My sister-in-law Amy who lives a few minutes away from us is an excellent pianist and teaches all her kids how to play Michael asked if she would teach me too and I have been taking lessons from her once a week since last October or so, well she has taught me so much and helped me actually practice because I have to report to her every week, but I have been learning how to play some hymns and on Sunday May 17th I played the piano during our branch sacrament meeting, I played all of the prelude music, the three hymns for the meeting, and a rest hymn. I was scared to death and shaking hysterically, my stomach was in knots all morning before church and during the first half of sacrament! I did make mistakes but luckily I was able to keep going and they weren't disastrous. I am very grateful for Amy in helping me to learn a useful skill and encouraging me even when I don't believe I'm ready for such a task as to play for sacrament meeting. I'm very glad to say that I have done it and I'm also very glad to say that its over now! I am still working on learning how to play new hymns since I only know how to play 5 right now but it's fun to work on a challenge and witness the results.