Primary Music Sharing Time

On Sunday May 1, I realized that now that the primary is split into Jr, Sr & nursery, and they are getting the lessons from the primary manuals and sharing time book for 2011, it is time to move to the next level. The primary children’s music simply isn’t happening. At first I was a little critical that no one was really teaching the music that the kids were supposed to be learning for the primary presentation in the fall. Then I humbled myself and realized that no one in the branches had any idea how to teach the children these special songs. Then I felt a strong impression “Kriss, quit hiding your talent under a bushel. You need to teach them how to teach the children to sing.” I was dismayed. I didn’t know how I could do it without speaking the language. On the way home from church I told Ed that I felt like I was supposed to teach the primary leaders how to teach songs to children, and help them to understand the words and love the meaning of the messages taught by this music. Again, I didn’t know how to do it. When I got home I asked our son, Chuck, who is the primary chorister in his ward in Virginia. I asked him to send me anything he could to help. He emailed me some word charts, but they were in English. In searching on the computer and Googling "Primary song word charts" I found a site that had the 6 main primary songs for the year laminated for a mere $200. I also had no idea how I would get them here. To complicate things, I wanted to figure out a way to strart training these people how they can do the wordcharts by themselves. I realized I needed to figure out a system, on regular size cardstock (8.5X11) I also needed the words in French and the pictures to match the French words. That week I spent quite awhile on the computer looking for pictures to use to teach the words. I couldn’t find just what I wanted. I decided I needed help. I got down on my knees and prayed that I would have the spirit with me that I needed to have, to figure out how to solve my problem. I went to my computer and entered “Primary Song Word Charts” in Google, again. Of course hundreds, even thousands of web sites came up. I bowed my head and offered another prayer. I returned to my computer and flipped past the first couple of pages, which I had already searched, and I saw a site called “CTR Crafts”. I thought, oh great… another expensive web-store… but something prompted me to click into it. www.ctrcraftsblog.com. BINGO! It was exactly what I wanted! I discovered Tara. Tara is a cute mom of 3 that has made a collection of great clipart to help with teaching primary songs. Her wordsheets are all English, but she just happens to be married to a returned missionary who spoke fluent French on his mission. He has helped her start translating the songs that I have asked for into French, and instructed her on how which phrases have different meanings than the English phrases. (Words sometimes have to be changed to make the song rhyme and fit the music, when translated to French.) That Sunday I was able to teach 2 songs… “I Can Follow Gods Plan” and “Mother, I love you” (to be sung in sacrament meeting next Sunday for the Congolese Mother’s Day). And this is one of Ed teaching the kids how to do "Funny Faces". What a blessing Tara has been to me. When I discovered she lives in Australia… and she and I are doing this from 2 remote places…. far, far from Salt Lake… I wondered what our pioneer ancestors would have thought of these modern day inventions. This isn’t just a coincidence!