Hieing to Kolob

This has been an interesting week. This week I took care of an older woman in our ward who had a stroke a year ago. She is paralized on the left side of her body. She can't move her left arm, leg and all the other muscles in between on the left side. She has to wear diapers, but she can tell when she needs to go #2, then needs help getting on and off the toilet. So many things I've taken for granted being able to do on my own. Rolling over in bed, sitting up, standing up, walking, running, jumping, bending over, reaching, lifting, getting dressed, going to the bathroom, showering, chores, thinking with a healthy brain. All these things my friend can no longer do on her own. She's also gained a lot of weight because she can't burn off the calories. She use to be my same size. Through it all I've not heard her complain once. I thought I would get grossed out changing her diapers and dealing with toilet issues, but I didn't. I felt only love for this woman and glad that I could help her. Her husband asked me if I could substitute for the main lady that takes care of her, when she needs a break. I said of course. Besides they pay very well. $10.00 an hour and it's usually and 11 hour day. It was very hard the first day, learning all the do's and dont's. I don't want to do that kind of work full time every day. I would come home exhausted.

I am the music leader in my wards' Relief Society, and as I was sitting with Ramona at the table while she ate her lunch I prepared for her, I was preparing my music appreciation time. I like to be guided by the spirit when I choose the hymns to sing. Right away a song popped into my head that I've been anxious to sing in Relief Society, because it's one of my very favorite hymns and I was waiting for just the right time to pick it. The hymn is If You Could Hie to Kolob. I love the harmonizing and the old English feel to this song and of course the message. In the book Our Latter Day Hymns, are interesting facts about this hymn. I first heard this hymn in my 20's and loved it right away and wondered why I didn't remember ever singing it in church before. Well I found out why. Because it was a different song in the old 1950 hymnbook. The words were the same but the tune was different. It was in the choir section of the book and it was extremely hard and awkward to sing, so it was never sung. The words were written a long time ago in 1856. I wish I could hear how the old tune went. In 1985 when the hymnbook was revised it was decided that the words were too important to be missed and a new tune was chosen. The tune is an old english folk melody called Kingsfold. Other religions have sung for many years the same tune with different words, I believe it's called I heard what Jesus said?

I had a very hard time though choosing the opening hymn and the closing hymn. I like the hymns to match with the lesson. The lesson was the church in former times and the Church today. I found a hymn that kinda matched for the opening song, but finally had to go with a generic hymn for the closing.

I gave my short talk about If You Could Hie to Kolob, then the lady giving todays lesson said jokingly if we could sing all the verses. I joked back that the hymn would end up going on and on forever like the meaning of the song. So we sang only the first two verses and was about to sit back down, when this same lady said no I really mean it, can we please sing all the verses. So we did and the spirit came flooding into the room. When we were done singing, she came up to the podium crying and said that hymn was perfect for the direction she had chosen for her lesson. The last time she had heard that hymn was at a funeral for one of her school students that died a couple of years ago and how she had felt the spirit witness to her during the hymn that there is truely no end to our existance in the universe. She merged the hymn into her lesson and the spirit was very strong and we were all in tears by the end.

I feel it's important to first invite the spirit into the meeting before the lesson. In the opening prayer of course we always ask for the spirit to be there. But I believe words only will not invite the spirit, they have to be felt. And we have to be united in the feeling of the spirit. What better way than with a prepared hymn. The RS presidency have been trying to get me to come up with a 6 month list of the hymns to be sung in RS, so they can be organized. They even gave me a list of all the lessons and when they would be taught. I sat down and tried really hard to do that, but the spirit couldn't help me feel the need for certain hymns that far in advance, because with each teacher, using the spirit to guide them with each lesson and they don't prepare all their lessons 6 months in advance. Situations change from day to day and we need to have the spirit guide the teachers on what to say to give comfort and courage to us women in our daily trials. How can I choose a hymn that will invite the spirit, until they've prepared their lesson?