Thankful!

I wrote this just after THanksgiving, but I forgot to hit "publish" on it. Sorry about that!

-------------

A few weeks ago, I had this fabulous idea that my kids should all do a musical number in Sacrament meeting. I know, lots of you can't sing in church right now. But guess what - you can SIGN in church! Neener neener :) 

Actually, I forgot that you can't sing in church, and told my kids that some of them should sing the song and some of them should sign. Alas, the idea went over like a lead balloon. The big kids thought that was soooo little kid (ok, the song really is a little kid song, so they weren't TOTALLY wrong...) and the little kids didn't want to get up in public and sing. Sigh.

But the next day, I came downstairs and found Lillian fiddling with the song and starting to interpret it. So, I ventured to ask the Branch President if we could do it in church, if we actually got it together. 

This is not a trivial question. There's a basic rule in ASL that some things should be done by deaf people, and some things should definitely NOT be done by noobs (new signers). Interpreting songs is somewhere in that area. We've sung songs and had someone else interpret the song before. And we've signed in a group, like with the Primary. But we've never performed a song interpreted by ourselves with no deaf person involved before. So Marriner consulted his music experts, and Lillian was approved. Really, it's not that different from a traditional ward - unless the Bishop is very musical, he'll ask the ward music chairman to make sure the music is appropriate. But it caused much apprehension in this case, and great excitement to be approved!

Oh, except for Sam, who did NOT want to sing in church. But then we remembered that we actually can't sing in church...soo...we recorded the singing ahead of time. It was still a huge chore to get Sam to join in, but I'm glad he did. He has a lovely voice. And Lillian did such a great job of signing the song. I'm glad we got it to work out!

Several people commented on how Lillian's super-big smile made them so happy. It turns out, she was emulating our friend Jamila, our favorite interpreter for the church. She always makes you just so excited to be a part of the Church of Jesus Christ just by watching her smile and enthusiasm when she signs a song. Lillian wanted to do that for everyone who watched her. It's wonderful to have such amazing role models! I'm not sure if this link will work for you, but if it does, you can see what I'm talking about here: https://www.facebook.com/jamilahubb/videos/10157391380760069