961.The Spirit of God Like a Fire Is Burning! Pres. Russell M. Nelson, and special family stories about that beloved hymn!
The visiting General Authority for our Stake Conference tonight and tomorrow is President Russell M. Nelson, the President of the Quorum ot Twelve Apostles. We all are so thrilled with that, and I will take good notes, and put them on this blog in a day or two. He follows President Thomas S. Monson in Priesthood seniority.
I just returned from sitting quietly in the back of our Stake Center building, and listening to the men's chorus practice "The Spirit Of God", which they will sing in the Priesthood Leadership Meeting going on there right now! My oldest son Wayne was playing the piano accompanying them. He had been asked, and as his specialty is the accordion, the right hand on the piano came easily. But the left had he had to practice a lot. I gave him a few ideas on how to turn pages (it was a long song) -- to keep one hand playing while the other hand turned the page, etc. plan which note is at the front of the next page, etc.
It is a thrill for him to be playing my very favorite hymn in this meeting. He has been the West Bountiful Stake Patriarch since June 4, 2017. I have a very special story about that hymn which I will now tell to you! (From my life story book ).
I loved Seminary and Institute (at Dixie College) which I had mostly from Brother Pearson Corbett and his wife Gladys Corbett. During the year we had Church History, about the 11th grade, we made the usual trip with the Seminary class to Salt Lake to see the Church Office Building and the Church History sites there. That would have been about 1951, before the current Church Office building was built, and also before the Conference Center was built.
One day on that trip I wanted to go to the Tabernacle and hear the noon Organ Recital, and no one wanted to go with me, so I went alone. While there, I began talking with some man who was a friend of the organist. At that time, it was the largest organ in the world, and after the recital, some great visiting organist was allowed to play on it. That gave me the idea that perhaps they would let me play just a chord on it, and the man I had talked to went up and asked the organist if I could. They had just let someone else, so they reluctantly agreed to let this young high school girl play it also.
I remember they set it at a very quiet stop, and I picked up a hymn book and asked if I could play my favorite hymn, “The Spirit Of God Like a Fire is Burning”. They said yes, and I played it, but as I played it and looked up at that great organ and realized the sound coming from it was what I was playing, I began to cry as I played.
I was so thrilled! I remember going to a rest room, which was located by the west gates after that experience, and a lady, who had been on a tour of the building while I was playing, commented on it to me, and how much a thrill it must have been to me.
Right after they were taking that visiting organist on a tour of the inside of the organ, back in rooms where thousands of pipes were, and that same man asked if I could go also. So I got to see the inner parts of that organ, and what a blessing and wonderful memory!
Since then I have either played or sung “The Spirit Of God” in Nauvoo, at the Kirtland Temple, in the Sacred Grove, in Sweden and Connecticut on missions, in Nauvoo, and all over Utah.
It truly is my favorite hymn. It was composed for the dedication of the Kirtland Temple, and has been sung, or performed in every Temple dedication since then.
I just returned from sitting quietly in the back of our Stake Center building, and listening to the men's chorus practice "The Spirit Of God", which they will sing in the Priesthood Leadership Meeting going on there right now! My oldest son Wayne was playing the piano accompanying them. He had been asked, and as his specialty is the accordion, the right hand on the piano came easily. But the left had he had to practice a lot. I gave him a few ideas on how to turn pages (it was a long song) -- to keep one hand playing while the other hand turned the page, etc. plan which note is at the front of the next page, etc.
Wayne and his accordion
Just this week we got this accordion and Wayne is going to teach me!
It is a thrill for him to be playing my very favorite hymn in this meeting. He has been the West Bountiful Stake Patriarch since June 4, 2017. I have a very special story about that hymn which I will now tell to you! (From my life story book ).
I loved Seminary and Institute (at Dixie College) which I had mostly from Brother Pearson Corbett and his wife Gladys Corbett. During the year we had Church History, about the 11th grade, we made the usual trip with the Seminary class to Salt Lake to see the Church Office Building and the Church History sites there. That would have been about 1951, before the current Church Office building was built, and also before the Conference Center was built.
One day on that trip I wanted to go to the Tabernacle and hear the noon Organ Recital, and no one wanted to go with me, so I went alone. While there, I began talking with some man who was a friend of the organist. At that time, it was the largest organ in the world, and after the recital, some great visiting organist was allowed to play on it. That gave me the idea that perhaps they would let me play just a chord on it, and the man I had talked to went up and asked the organist if I could. They had just let someone else, so they reluctantly agreed to let this young high school girl play it also.
I remember they set it at a very quiet stop, and I picked up a hymn book and asked if I could play my favorite hymn, “The Spirit Of God Like a Fire is Burning”. They said yes, and I played it, but as I played it and looked up at that great organ and realized the sound coming from it was what I was playing, I began to cry as I played.
Right after they were taking that visiting organist on a tour of the inside of the organ, back in rooms where thousands of pipes were, and that same man asked if I could go also. So I got to see the inner parts of that organ, and what a blessing and wonderful memory!
This is me playing an organ in a church in Sweden while we were on our mission there in 1994-1995.
Comments