I've already written in my autobiography about the time I prayed for an angel's voice for my solo, and after it was over, the bishop came to me in awe of my singing voice. "I knew you sang, but I didn't know you sang that well. It was the voice of an angel, " he said.
So, here I am at 70 years, and I play the organ in church, usually with slight mistakes (mostly pedals) and usually only I know, but it bothers me anyway. Because I am also the music chairman, I accompany many people on the piano, but the pieces are usually fairly easy. Occasionally it might sound perfect, but every once in awhile, I skip a note or two. One time I made it all the way through perfectly and on the last note, I played an obvious wrong chord. Well that broke the spirit real fast.
Three weeks before the temple-worker fireside, I received an unknown text telling me, she got my name as a pianist to accompany a soloist at the temple-worker fireside. She was the one who was supposed to be the accompanist, and now she couldn't. She had to leave the next day and asked if she could come and bring me the music. Well, I was going out of town for 2 weeks, so no time to rehearse...but she assured me that the soloist was a professional singer and the accompaniment was easy. Well, she didn't play the accompaniment, but the first page was simple, and what she played was simple, so I said, 'yes', and the soloist agreed we could get together when I came back from my vacation.
After coming back, I went to my temple shift on Wednesday and a worried temple matron came to me to ask how the piece was coming. I could see her anxious eyes when I told her we hadn't practiced, yet. (I had gotten back the Monday night before the Sunday fireside, and as the soloist and I went over my schedule and her schedule, there was no night we were both free before Sunday unless she drove an hour to the Fallbrook building during our English lessons on Thursday.) That didn't seem to calm the matron's troubled demeanor as she said they had asked this other lady and she now wasn't doing it, but I told her we were going to practice the next day.
So Thursday it was. The soloist drove all the way down to inner North Houston from New Caney. I did my best, which I must say was not perfect, but it was pretty OK. See, the first 2 pages were very easy, the next two were a little harder, then boom, the hard, speedy stuff hit. It was going from 16th notes to 8th notes, back and forth with a syncopated left hand as it rose in volume to her climax, and back down to soft again.
The piece was called, Ancestor's Plea. It was a very moving piece (in more ways than one) with a person pleading from the Spirit World for us to do the work for them. I practiced and practiced, but never could make it perfect. The 9-page piece also needed Mike to shift it and pull the top sheet off as I played.
We have over 1,300 temple workers. I knew they all wouldn't be there, but I knew about 700+ would be there. Enough to frighten an average accompanist, so that Sunday morning I prayed that I would play well at church, and specifically asked that angels would take my fingers to help them move so fast over the keys when I played for the fireside. Well, church came and went, and horror of horrors, I was playing the song all the way through because it was a new song, and the audience started singing 2 lines through, without the chorister. I kept playing and the chorister didn't know what to do, so halfway through, she just led and they found they were two stanzas behind, and quit singing until we started the 2nd verse. Couldn't have been worse. I kept thinking of how I had prayed for help on my temple piece and specifically asked for angels to play for me. Would it be a disaster, too?
We got there 45 min. early and the singer luckily did a mic check (I say luckily, because they had a separate mic for her and it had no batteries.) We decided that she would sing from the podium mic. and did a short few measures. (She didn't want to give the song away ahead, because at that time half the congregation was already in place.
Because I had NEVER played it perfectly, even though I had gone over the rough places, and because we hadn't gone over the entire song, I was kind of worried...until the opening prayer was said. The person who gave the prayer, asked that angels would accompany the music. When I heard that in the prayer, I felt the spirit warm my heart. I knew they would be with me as I played.
When it was time to play the piece, I started, and the soloist sang. I made it through 7 and a half pages pretty well, then when the speed picked up, I noticed she was way ahead on the phrase. Did she miss the rhythm? Did she skip 2 measures? I somehow played that chord she was on, then she went to the next line and I don't know what happened, but it was the same thing. How could she be a whole two measures ahead? I don't know what I did, but I skipped ahead to the chord she was on and we finished the last page together.
I was devastated. I felt I had let her down. It was the worst I had ever done. The notes didn't sound bad to me, but I had no idea what I played to catch up to where she was, because it for sure wasn't the notes written in the music; I was just hearing where she was in the music and making sure I made it there.
It was the perfect song to sing before the temple matron spoke. She told of her experience with an ancestor coming to her aunt to get his work done...and how they looked and looked and couldn't find the person, until a divine 'coincidence' (call) came from a living person who had never called them before, and knew that the person they were looking for was called by a nickname, and the person not only told them the man's real name, but gave permission to do the work. Then she told of doing the work a week before it was planned, and called the aunt to tell her, but she already knew (because the man had come to her prior to the call, thanking her for having him baptized.) Then the matron read a statement from President Nelson, who said we should not say people are dead when they die, because they are very much alive. The Spirit was strong...so strong, I hoped no one would remember the horrible mistakes I had made.
After the meeting was over, I was a bit embarrassed to be talked to, because of what happened, but Mike turned to me and said that was the best he had ever heard me play, that 'it was flawless'. Huh? Then, one after another came up to me and said similar things. One lady said, 'it was as if you and she were one.' 'Your playing was totally in sync.' 'Her music she sang came out of the piano the way you were playing, you were so together.' 'You played that perfectly.' 'You had such a delicate, light touch, it brought the Spirit out as she sang.'
Now I was totally embarrassed, because these were music people talking to me. How could they not know? They were not hearing how I lost track of 2 entire stanzas of music. Had they heard someone else playing in my place? It was in the back of my mind...that I had asked for angels to play, and the temple matron had asked for that, too. How could I take the credit for what angels had done? When I mentioned what had happened to Mike (without telling him what I was thinking) he said, maybe there were angels playing on those quick stanzas. And, my sneaky suspicion was confirmed. The congregation had not heard me or my blunders, but they had heard the angels playing. And I knew it.
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