Sunday, September 30, 2007

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.


Hi kids! Shauna and I sang yesterday in Canyon View Ward choir Sunday. We practice every week after church. The arrangement was difficult, but we have several former members of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in our ward who can read easily. I sit next to Lin DePaula and Jim Nelson, who keep me on the straight and narrow tenor road. Half way through the song, I almost started to cry. It is a beautiful piece of music and the lyrics by St. Francis of Assisi are wonderful, aren't they? The speaker who followed the choir had to compose herself, too.

The sacrament meeting topic yesterday was "genealogy." The five speakers told wonderful stories about searching for their ancestors. As you know, Shauna is working on her great-grandmother Lulu's line.

In the Sunday school class, second hour, we discussed "Romans" and Paul again. Our Sunday School teacher, a brilliant Salt Lake City attorney, knows Hebrew. I wish I could share my notes with you. In the third hour meeting, we discussed "forgiveness," which made me wonder about a few people I need to forgive. (I wonder how many people need to forgive me for being a serial jerk.) Fortunately, Shauna inspires Robert to be nice, most of the time.