I thought I'd post about another gift that I've been given this year.

It's the gift of willingness.

I'm in charge of music both in Relief Society (womens meeting) and for the ward choir. I actually play the piano in Relief Society, but I'm still in charge of picking the music. I had a really great chorister for a while, but she has stopped coming to any more than Sacrament meeting and asked to be released. So I'm without a chorister.

In choir, I had a couple of people come once and then never come again. I finally cornered one of them and asked if he would ever come again. He said that he probably wouldn't. I asked why. (I think I've blogged about this before.) The story came out that he doesn't read music and that I was moving too fast for him to be able to learn anything. I asked for a second chance and he said he would come back.

Enter. . .hmmm. . .what shall we call her?

Sue?

That's sounds like as good a name as any.

In Relief Society, I asked Sue to step in and help and she has very willingly been my chorister for months now. She doesn't have to do this. She just does because she is willing.

To solve my problem in choir I decided to have sectionals. I send the women in one room with, of course, Sue, and I stay with the men. The perks of having two pianists is that I can do this. I talked to Sue about this and again she was very willing to help. It helps me because I can rehearse the men until I'm blue in the face and the women don't have to sit around and get bored. In fact, the women are getting a ton better. The unexpected perk of dividing up is that our choir is suddenly about 100 times better. Yes, I still have the monotone bass whom I could never get rid of because his spirit makes up for every monotone note. But everyone else is improving exponentially.

But none of this would be possible without Sue.

She laughs every time I tell her how much I appreciate this, because she's like me. Nothing I've asked her to do is hard for her. She's a very helpful person in general. This isn't taking loads of her time. So she gives me a hug and kind-of brushes all of this off.

But I cannot even convey how much her willingness to help me has meant to me the last couple of months. I've had a few less that desirable responses from people and to have someone just be wholeheartedly okay with things and try to make my life easier has touched something deep down in my soul. I am so thankful for her and her attitude. Everyone loves her and the more I get to know her, the more I understand why.

I hope I can grow up and be like her in my life.