Music

Looking back I can see that my church callings prepared me to literally save someone’s life, to save someone’s spiritual life, to develop talents that have been shared throughout the world, to enjoy and participate in competitive sports for the first half of my life, to write a musical stage play that toured the U.S., to perform for five years with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir at home and abroad, to live in a foreign country, learn a new language, and oh so much more.  The church has afforded me countless opportunities to grow and learn and find happiness in my life. Step by step, calling by calling, I have learned to overcome fears, stand up and teach and testify, direct music, preside in a women’s organization, speak and sing before large groups without fear and develop all the tools for finding true happiness and fulfillment in my life even through the very trying times that we all experience.

Saving a Life

One of my most challenging callings happened in the 70’s as I served as Blazer B Scout leader for 21 boys in our Logan, Utah Primary, one of whom is now Presiding Bishop of the Church, Gary Stevenson, who was outstanding even back then. Each year for five years I would check out the Resusa Annie doll from the County Health Department and teach Rescue Breathing to the boys in my troop. I had taken a course earlier myself and knew well the steps to follow in an emergency but always wondered how I would react in a real emergency.

A decade later my mother and I were playing piano and drums in a dance band at the Orem, Utah Senior Center and as one dance ended I saw an older gentleman whom we knew well, collapse to the floor. He wasn’t moving and no one seemed to be doing anything. I knew I needed to act and I dropped my drumsticks and ran down to the floor where he was. He was not breathing and was turning an ashen gray. As someone called for the paramedics I knelt down by him and all the steps of Rescue Breathing came back to me automatically.

I breathed oxygen into this man’s lungs for almost ten minutes until help arrived. He was taken to the hospital where it was determined his circulatory system had shut down. He did not regain consciousness for four days and the paramedics told his wife he would have died if he had not received oxygen during the first ten minutes. She showered me with gifts and thank you notes and in a year’s time they were back dancing with us again. My earlier church calling literally saved someone’s life.

Discovering a Talent

During the first two decades of our marriage I was busy raising our children and also playing on various sports teams both in the church and in city leagues. But when I was approaching forty, my sports injuries were getting a bit more serious and I knew I needed to slow down. When I broke my ankle playing basketball, Doug asked if there was anything a little safer that would give me fulfillment. Our bishop appeared on cue and asked me to write original music for our ward road show.

In those days they let us compete and I was competitive so, although I hadn’t written any music since my BYU days two decades earlier, I accepted the assignment and enjoyed writing the music so much that I knew I wanted to continue. I started writing music in earnest, which was the beginning of my writing, recording and publishing music for the next 3 decades.

A stake president in Orem then asked me and my cousin Joy Lundberg to write an hour-long musical for their stake promoting missionary work, and we wrote “Mission Miracles” which we later expanded to a full-length musical called “It’s a Miracle” which toured the U.S. for three years (239 performances) and involved all of our family members and many other very talented actors and musicians. It all started with a church calling that revived my earlier interest in composing and Joy’s interest in writing, and helped many audience members decide to serve missions.

Singing in a New Language

In 2002, Doug and I began serving an eighteen month mission in the Chile Santiago West Mission and were assigned to serve in Talagante, a city of 50,000. Only one ward member spoke English and I was struggling to learn Spanish so I basically became my companion’s silent partner. Doug spoke Spanish but I knew only what I learned in our eight weeks in the Missionary Training Center. I had learned to pronounce Spanish so when we visited in Chilean homes I was able to read a scripture, sing a hymn, bear my testimony and say a simple prayer in Spanish, but I was quite lost in general conversations.

When we had been in Chile just a month or so, the non-member father of our branch president passed away and his funeral was to be held in our chapel. We arrived on time but no one was in the chapel. We were told they would all arrive in a cortege that was walking together to the chapel, as was their custom. Suddenly about two hundred somber men and women wearing dark coats filled our little chapel and the casket was placed up in front. It was quite the interesting sight!

On his way up to the podium, our branch president stopped by our pew and asked me if I would please sing a solo during the service. I was dumbfounded and felt a moment of true panic! I knew we had no keyboard so there could be no accompaniment, and I had no idea what I would sing. Before I could protest, Doug whispered in my ear, You can do it.

The service began and I frantically searched the hymnbook for an appropriate funeral hymn, but all the titles were in Spanish and thus unrecognizable to me. I said a rather desperate prayer and started thumbing through the hymnbook looking for music notes I recognized and was relieved to see the Spanish version of “Each Life That Touches Ours for Good.” I asked Doug to read the Spanish words to be sure it was still a funeral hymn in Spanish and he assured me it was. That is all the time we had before they announced my solo.

I walked up to the pulpit microphone with a prayer in my heart that something good could come of this, set the hymnbook down and began singing a cappella in a low, comfortable key, the four verses to “Quienes nos brindan su amor.

After the funeral everyone left for the walk to the cemetery and I did not see the family again until the following Sunday at our Fast and Testimony meeting when they came up and formed a semi-circle around the pulpit and took turns coming to the microphone to express their thanks to the ward members. Each one said, with tears in their eyes, that the beautiful hymn had brought peace to their hearts and thanked me for singing it.

By accepting a church calling as missionaries in a foreign land, our hearts were being opened to a whole new world of experiences and ways of doing things. It was very humbling at times, but oh so rewarding. Our love for the Hispanic people and their beautiful language led us later to translate and record many of our albums in Spanish. Leaving Chile at the end of our mission was heartbreaking but we were soon called as Church Service Missionaries to a Spanish Ward in Provo where we served for three years. Our church callings prepare us for such wonderful and varied experiences.

Everyone’s Callings and Experiences are Different

I asked our adult children if they could recall having church callings that influenced them later in life. Steve said that his experiences on his mission that required him to revive his typing skills, and later as a ward clerk where he needed to learn computer skills, turned out to be very helpful in his future work programming two different radio shows which he hosts. Robert said, “During the four years I was an ordinance worker, I learned that my own burdens were lifted as I served in the temple. Part of the blessing was from the amount of extra time I sacrificed regularly to do the service, and the other part was from making ordinances possible for those on the other side of the veil who needed them. I had personal burdens as well as burdens regarding my children that were lifted during these years. Over time I simply became aware that my family was being blessed in real yet unseen ways because of this service.” 

Our daughter Lynne said that when she was called as Stake Music Chairman in her Lehi, Utah stake, she was asked to form a large choir for stake conference. When she realized how expensive it would be to buy choir music for so many, she decided to try writing an arrangement herself. In doing so she found that she loved arranging choral music, and has done beautiful work in that area for many years.  John said, “Well, I spent a year of my mission working in the office with all that entails, which is basically what I have ended up doing in life.” (Thankfully-he manages our music business.)

In my calling as Relief Society president I vicariously experienced many heartbreaking situations among the sisters in my stewardship and developed a deeper empathy for others’ suffering and trials which later prompted me to write an album of Songs of Comfort based on my experiences. I felt so unprepared for this calling but gained confidence as I came to realize that all I needed to do was “show up” in difficult situations and the Lord would give me the words to say. Those experiences have shaped and colored my life in ways nothing else could have.

As Steve mentioned in our interview, “Church callings give us an education in the things that matter most in life. Spiritual preparedness is the most important of all, for if we know the Lord is real we are prepared for any eventuality.”  I believe that spiritual preparedness comes in great measure through our accepting and faithfully fulfilling each calling that we receive in the church and that untold benefits accrue to us from this simple act of obedience.

Janice Kapp Perry:  Composer, author, lecturer