Today was our zone Recognition and Potluck Luncheon. This occurs the first week of each month, when those who have completed certain learning requirements, departing missionaries, and those who have birthdays in that month are recognized. I was asked to play the keyboard for the meeting. The Happy Birthday song went OK, the keyboard timed out before we were to sing the song for our departing missionaries, and I was clueless as to how to fix it quickly. I finally turned it off all the way, which erased the settings, so the song, set to the tune of a Primary song, left a lot to be desired. In the best of times I find the Primary songs to be much more difficult than hymns, and when I am stressed to boot--not a great combination. I ended up just playing the melody line.
I had prepared smoked sausage and baked beans as my contribution to the potluck luncheon. On my schedule I was supposed to stay at the German/Slavic desk, but one of the specialists insisted I go get food--so I did about 15 minutes into the luncheon. Almost all of my dish was gone, which I was very glad to see. Apparently other people like smoked sausage and baked beans, too.
I had been surprised to see that on my schedule I had lunch scheduled at 2 pm, I had thought about just working through that time, since I had already eaten, but I decided instead to walk back to the apartment, mostly to more fully wake up. When I got back at 3 I was asked to help with a couple from Germany who wanted to get started on their Family Tree. They did not spend much time on that, but did a bit of searching, I was sad they did not find anything in their searches, but I taught them to use the Wiki and the Catalog, and where the closest Family Search Center would be in Germany.
I was on the schedule to play the keyboard again for prayer meeting, and then I stayed for the In-service, which was about our Family Search desktop. I was just finishing up the assignment for that when I was brought a guest who needed a lot of German records translated. I still am not very skilled at anything but deciphering the names, dates and places, but I got a lot of practice! The guest has more to get done, and she will be back tomorrow.
I had been planning to walk home before going to the Temple, but I decided to just go directly there--after getting an ice cream fudge bar from the snack room! It was fun to remember doing that with my Sweetheart not too many days ago! Then in the temple it was good to remember being there together--and that we are still in the temple together on Tuesday evening--just 1300 miles apart!
I learned today that a new expectation has been set for our Study Group, which is to spend time improving our skills at translating German records. I found a couple of tutorials online, so we will work on that starting next week.
I have been practicing for singing The Lord is My Shepherd on August 14, and I decided it would be good to sing it in the key of A, since the theme is from Mozart's Clarinet Concerto in A. I have an app on my iPad on which I can play melodies, but I thought it would be good to make sure it was accurate, so I googled "Play middle C"/ I did get such a response, and yes, the app is in tune; but another result caught my eye: "How to Find the Key of a Song--By Ear". The video was under 15 minutes long--and from what I learned, the method seems to be pretty good. I think I will explore this more, especially on mornings when I go in later, and just want to do pretty low-key activities before going in to the Library. So maybe tomorrow I will test this out some more.
No comments:
Post a Comment