I had the amazing opportunity to be in the choir that sang at this conference. It was a great experience I never want to forget. All my love to Sister Webb, our chorister and a great spiritual teacher, as well as everyone who was consistently there for us: the members of the YW General Board; various priesthood leaders, YW leaders, stake YW leaders, parents, friends, and others; our rehearsal accompanist, Sister Barney; and our performance accompanist.
Singing in the Choir
Me and Sister Webb
2010 Sacrament Meeting talk
I had a great experience singing in the young women choir. The many lessons I learned there, from Sister Webb, several of her “dear friends”, members of the young women general board and general presidency have all stuck with me and impressed upon me the need to redouble my defenses against a world that can be considered very scary. It also drove home the point that I need to continue progressing or I start to slide backward.
In the talk she gave at the young women general meeting, Sister Dibb shared four “guides” for living our lives so we move forward. Found in Joshua chapter one, these guides are: “…prayer, obedience to God’s commandments, daily scripture study, and a commitment to follow the living prophet.”
“In [Joshua 1:5], the Lord promises Joshua, ‘I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.’ We can find courage and strength in this promise that the Lord will always be there for us and will never leave us alone.” D&C 88:63 says, “Draw near unto me and I will draw near unto you; seek me diligently and ye shall find me; ask, and ye shall receive; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” One way we can “knock” is through prayer. Prayer can get you through a hard day.
The second “guide” Sister Dibb shared is in Joshua 1:7, “when the Lord tells Joshua, “Observe to do according to all the law…: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest.” This means we must follow the commandments “[without deviating] from the Lord’s path.”
I think the third “guide”, daily scripture study, is one of the hardest. My days seem to fill up so fast. I’ve had many late nights where I eye the clock and wonder if I can skip scripture study, just this once. Or, if not skip it, shorten it. Sister Dibb counters this worldly thinking by saying: “Daily scripture study—especially reading the Book of Mormon—establishes a firm foundation for your developing testimony of Jesus Christ and His gospel. It invites the Spirit into your life.”
The fourth “guide” shows how important following the prophet is. Our prophets, seers, and revelators are the “watchmen” who can keep us from harm if we only listen. D&C 101:54 says, “And behold, thewatchman upon the tower would have seen the enemy while he was yet afar off; and then ye could have made ready and kept the enemy from breaking down the hedge thereof, and saved my vineyard from the hands of the destroyer.”
On the first day of choir rehearsal, I thought I knew what to expect. I figured we’d have an opening prayer, maybe do some warm-ups, and then start right on the songs we were singing for the broadcast… I was pretty much dead wrong. The practices were about much more than just singing. Sister Webb and others taught us a lot, but before I could learn, my mindset had to change. Once I accepted that the choir was about testimonies first, and music second, and made changes in my personal life so the Spirit could be with me all the time, I learned a lot. They’re lessons that apply to everyone, not just to the people who got to be in the choir.
From the beginning, Sister Webb emphasized what a privilege it was to sing in the choir. She tried to open our minds and feed our ambitions by explaining we weren’t just singing for ourselves, we were singing for the Lord, and for every single young woman in the world who was watching. “Sing your testimony!” she often said. “The talks will all be translated. The songs won’t. So you have to show you believe in Christ. Show my young women in my old Hawaii Korea
We need to be good examples, not afraid to be a light on a hill, shining for the world to see, and we need to show people we care. The ladies in the young women general presidency told the choir something that has stuck in my mind. One of them said: “We love you. You might wonder how we can love you when we don’t really know you. You might wonder how we can love all the young women in the world when we haven’t even met most of them. I used to wonder that too, but let me tell you: when I was called to this position, I felt like something inside me opened up and let me feel the Savior’s love for each of you. The Savior knows you.”
Sister Webb admonished us when we looked bored or distracted during rehearsal. She challenged us to look interested all the time, not just during rehearsal and in the broadcast but in school, even in the boring classes. “Look at your teachers as if you’re interested in what they have to say,” she said. “First of all, they’ll freak out. But they’ll learn to appreciate it, and I think you’ll find you learn a lot more.”
She loved to take advantage of teaching moments in a rehearsal. She called those moments her gifts to us, and they were gifts. While we were practicing “How Firm a Foundation,” she called our attention to the last verse and narrated it to help us understand what it meant. “‘The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose’ is you. It’s anyone who has ever leaned on the Lord,” she said. “Then, Jesus speaks to you: ‘I will not, I cannot, desert to his foes. That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake, I will never, no never, I’ll never, no never, I’ll never, no never, no never forsake!’ He says he “will never” seven times. Seven is a complete number. The Lord really will never forsake us if we go to Him.”
Sister Webb challenged us to live what we sang in “O Thou Rock of Our Salvation.” “Are you ‘a war gainst sin are waging’? Are you ‘contending for the right’?”
She told us to sing to our future children in “Dearest Children, God is Near You.”
She told us to be joyful in “High on the Mountain Top” as we sang about the banner of truth being unfurled.
There were many others besides Sister Webb who taught us lessons. Our rehearsal accompanist, Sister Barney, gave us another perspective on “Dearest Children, God is Near You.” Her father got sick when she was really young, and she clearly remembers the night he died. She went to bed, happy that her grandparents were there, happy because her dad was planning to go back to work the next day and that must mean he was feeling better.
The next morning, Sister Barney’s grandparents came in and told her that her dad had passed away during the night. Sister Barney became frantic that her mother would die too. “Every night before I went to bed,” she told us, “I would call out to my mother, and she would patiently call back. It wasn’t so much I needed something as I just needed to know she was there. When you sing, think about you being God’s ‘dearest children,’ and remember that God is near you.”
The Spirit was especially strong during one particular rehearsal. Sister Webb brought some of her “dear friends”, one of whom composed (or helped compose) the “Be Strong” song for a video presentation they played at the broadcast. The choir was given the music and lyrics of the chorus so we could jump in and sing for about twenty seconds during the five-and-a-half-minute video. The words are almost a direct quote of Joshua 1:9, the theme for this year: “Be strong, and of good courage! Be not afraid/Stand firm in the faith. For the Lord will be with us wherever we go. Be His. Be one. Be strong!”
The composer asked if we wanted to hear the entire song, and we eagerly agreed. He got on the piano and played us the song, singing the words for us to hear. At that point, the choir was still seated in the pews. But when he got to the part where we were supposed to come in, one by one, each girl stood and sang. No one told us to do it. We’d hardly practiced it at all before that moment. But as we stood and sang “be strong,” there was not a dry eye in the entire room. The Spirit washed over us like a blanket. Sister Webb stood with us and, after a moment, so did all the parents and leaders who came to watch us. When we finished the song, there were smiles of pure joy radiating from each girl’s face. There were plenty of hugs to go around, and at the end of rehearsal, there were more girls than ever before who went up to hug and thank Sister Webb and the other women who were there for us. It was the best feeling.
In the fireside we had right before we went out to sing for the real broadcast, I think it was Sister Dalton who got up and said, “When you sing, you’re going to want to look around and wonder who’s singing so loud next to you. I testify that there will be angels singing with you.”
When the weight of the world seems too heavy to bear, remember the words of Elisha in 2 Kings chapter 6: “Fear not: for they that be with us aremore than they that be with them.”
I’d like to bear my testimony that I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this church is true and the Lord knows and loves each and every one of us. In a recent lesson I received in young women’s, the teacher talked about not settling for less when we can have so much more. I testify that the “small and simple” choices we make every day are preparing us to do that, and to follow the path the Lord has in mind for us. I say these things in the name of (the Lord) Jesus Christ, Amen.
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