Many Voices, One Choir

Aloha family a me friends,

About a year ago in my human anatomy class, I learned that scent is one of the strongest senses to trigger memories. But lately I think for myself, songs are what trigger my memories the best. For instance. Every time I hear "Be Still My Soul" I will always think of my first devotional in the MTC when I checked in. And every time I hear "Savior, Redeemer of My Soul" I will always think of my last devotional in the MTC. Weird. But also really cool.

Since being out, my love for gospel music, especially instrumental music, has increased. There is some kind of power that comes from listening to music that invites the spirit into my life.

Out of the many forces in the world, I believe music has a huge power to influence. Thus we "must watch and pray always, lest ye be tempted by the devil, and ye be led away captive by him" (3 Nephi 18:15). Sorry to be so blunt and escalte to temptation real quick. But. I like being bold and real. And the devil is real and he has power. Thus we truly do have to be mindful of our surroundings and what we allow in and never underestimate the power it can have.

And there is nothing like spreading some gospel choir music on the streets of Harlem. That's exactly what Sister Lowe and I did on Friday night as we held our doors open for people coming to our ward's choir concert. Having the gospel music overflow onto the streets was a nice change from all the rap and hip hop that usually is being blasted by the cars and people walking on the streets.

Sister Lowe, I, and my BFF at the choir concert!

The name of the concert was: "Many Voices". There was no prayer said, no scripture read, no nothing. Just pure music. All who were in attendance, member or not, could feel the spirit and the music of the gospel and its purity. It was beautiful to the ears and to the eyes. Just as Elder Jeffrey R. Holland has said: "It takes variety- sopranos and altos, baritones and basses- to make rich music" and thus we must "remember it is by divine design that not all the voices in God's choir are the same". We are all different but we all have a place in God's choir. He invites all and rejects none. This is a kakou (all inclusive) thing, as we help strength and lift each other. When we work together (under the direction of Father) we are able to create something greater than we could on our own. It is through and by our differences that we are able to create beautiful music. And if there's a place for me, as imperfect as I am, in God's choir, I know there is most definitely a place for you as well.

Meet Flor! She's a cute girl we've been teaching and we took her to dinner with us with the Englands :)

(Sorry if none of this email even made sense or flowed. I can't quite gather my thoughts nicely haha but if you go anything from this...go listen to some good wholesome music (aka MoTab or David Archuleta or Vocal Point lol). You won't regret the peace that you can feel from it.)

Randoms:

1) Sitting on a bench at a park in Washington Heights. I wave to this Indian lady and she comes over and is like "Do you remember me? We talked a few weeks ago". I, have a pretty good memory, but have not met her before but still proceeded to hug her as if I did. She sat down next to us and started telling us about the struggles she is having right now with her special needs daughter. We testified to her the Plan of Salvation and how aware God is of her and the spirit was so strong and we could see the tears forming in her eyes. God is so aware of each of us!

2) Walking in a subway station. I wave at this Chinese Grandma. She looks at me and goes "You Chinese?" and I'm like yep! I ask her if she works and she said "Part time!". But I swore she said "Pad thai!". I start going off about how much I love pad thai. Lol. Later on the train through our broken English conversation, I get her number and tell her about the church. Being Chinese is great.

3) Met this girl from Japan on the train. She was so stoked when I told her I could find her the churches in Tokyo. We are now chatting on Messenger. The goal is to keep the convo up and then get her in contact with the missioanries in Japan (and then get her baptized haha)

4) This weather is nuts. Went from 90 degrees in the beginning of the week to 50s right now. Not a big fan tbh.

5) While holding doors for the choir concert on Friday, saw my favorite Haitian lady and one of my favorite people in all of Harlem that I taught last transfer. Literally screamed hahaha. See pics below :)

6) One of the girls we are teaching asked us: "How did you know to talk to me on the bus? I didn't have a sign over my head that said NEEDS JESUS". This is truly the Lords work and the spirit truly directs us to those who are prepared in these latter days.

7) Went out finding for 30 minutes before we went home. We talked to three people. One person had missionaries over back in Colorado before he moved here two weeks ago. Another was looking for a church with good youth programs for her kids. Another just came from a gospel play and had a Book of Mormon at home. That doesn't just happen in New York City. This is the Lord's work. Pretty cool I must say.