A Burdenful Weekend Made Burdenless

 This was the weekend where the culmination of everything was taking place, and I had to be in multiple places on the same day. But Heavenly Father provided for me and I was able to bear this weekend without even getting too stressed or ready to pull my hair out because of how tired I was. In fact, besides when I needed to sleep at night, I was not tired throughout out the days, which is a miracle.

Let me explain:

Last Sunday was our first ASC event in the valley. We went to perform at a church. We performed roughly five songs, including Fear Not, Mary! and this Little Babe. We did it out in the open in the cold. Fortunately, Forrest had thought to mention to bring a stand, which when I heard, turned my car around and went to get one. If I hadn't, we wouldn't have had a stand for the performance, which would've been terrible. We did it. We don't know how the reception really was, but in the end, it was a good event, overall.

After that event, I drove home talking to Sarah on the phone. I told her that I wanted to discuss how I was going to get through this next week. So when I got home, we took a long walk around the St. George Catholic Church by our house and we talked at length about what we were going to do to make this Burdenful week, burden-less, with Heavenly Father's help of course.

This week I had all the days that I work, Monday, Tuesday, and Saturday, plus I had taken on a sub job for Friday several months ago, which was right before our first ASC concert. So that was the first big hurdle. Leading up to Thursday, after working two days, I was feeling pretty non-stressed. Which was interesting because I was getting texts about how stress Forrest was, among others. But Thursday rolled around and that was the beginning of our first ASC event that weekend. We were doing a Santa Claus coming event that Thursday where members of the choir were asked to bring cookies and we were going to sing some of our songs we had prepared, all while Santa Claus was greeting kis at the first methodist church on Center Street. According to Forrest, this event transpired as he had expected it would. I didn't really have anything to worry about that night, as none of my songs were in the set list to be performed. So, I was just there.

The next day, just like I had said, was the night of our first concert. I first had to get through four hours of Subbing at Gilbert School of Music. But that in and of itself wasn't too bad. Sarah and I had made food that we would eat at the end of the four hours and then we drove to the First Methodist Church, with time to spare for me to lead the choir, and then get changed into concert attire, which I was wearing my red button down shirt with my Peruvian Llama tie.

I was able to introduce myself to Mary Ellen Loose, our conductor, and everything with that went very smoothly. I was able to put some worries aside as far as This Little Babe was concerned by talking to her about it. This Little Babe opened up the concert and then we were just rolling. Halfway through, our camera that we had set up's memory card ran out of memory. So we couldn't record the whole thing. We had very similar issues the second night, as the memory card provided by Joseph was the wrong type of memory card, so instead on the second night, we recorded the second half of the concert with our phones. But concert night one was a smashing success. I had Ann and Peter arrive. As well as the Borman's. Brother Jones was there too, but he was invited by his daughter, Annalise, who is actually a member of the Mesa choir.

Saturday was a whole different story. As I had to work from 9am in the morning up until 4pm. Then right after that (after a pretty good day at work), I drove to our first day of recitals for GSM down in south Chandler. I had to be there for the group concert, as I had two of my group piano classes performing, as well as Jaina B and Emmy Z performing that night. Those performances went legendarily. And then we had to book it to the First Methodist Church right after it finished so that I could make it in time for ASC night 2.

We arrived at the church at 6:58pm, two minutes before the whole concert started. Fortunately for Sarah and me, Forrest likes to give others who are just arriving, time to sit down and enjoy the concert, so Sarah even had the opportunity to park and be there for the first song. Forrest had told me that his practices of This Little Babe (just in case I wouldn't be there) went not as well as he had hoped, so he was glad to see me there. I got up, and we performed This Little Babe. Mary Ellen and I got out sync during the third verse, but fortunately, Mary Ellen is such a good piano player, that she picked it up for the Grand finale of the song. I'm pretty sure nobody even noticed that we were out of sync, just because of all the things that are happening vocally.

On the first night, the front row was super crowded because we had all the children's choir sitting on the front row with us directors. Forrest mitigated that by putting them in the first two rows on the second night. They sang Silent Night even better the second night because Forrest had provided the three-ish soloist with a paper of the German words that they were about to sing. Fear Not, Mary!, both nights, was just amazing, and I had worked on how I was going to conduct that song at work. And I even got compliments about Candlelight Carol from some of the choir's parents. ASC Concert night 2 was a blooming success and I was glad to be a part of it. Night two I switched it up with my music notes tie that I had received while student teaching.

After the concert, we travelled to the IHOP in Chandler and we ate with the choir. It was really nice. Sarah and I sat next to Hope and Aaron, Bryce and his girlfriend, and Chad. We were the last to be served and the last to leave. Forrest and Zoey were also there, which was great!

Lastly, Sunday arrived and I wasn't done. But sacrament meeting gave me a sort of nice reprieve from the everyday hustle and bustle of work, plus it was a one hour meeting because in 2 days it is Christmas. We also went for a scenic drive around Apache Junction near the Superstition Mountains. Then we came home, played some newly found games of Scrabble. Slept for a little while, and then I had my last appointments with Gilbert School of Music recitals night two.

I was slated to work the last two recitals, plus take down the house afterwards. I was also able to watch like 6 or so students perform in both the recitals. And that's what I did.

Heavenly Father really helped me get through these last four days and this whole week. It was amazing that it went so well!