Here are some of the dessert options at the
church office employee's Christmas luncheon

The church cultural hall is turned into a beautiful dining room.
The food was not only beautiful, but delicious. Yummy appetizers, salad, salmon, beef, pork and chicken; veggies potatoes, and bread.

Every Monday morning at 8am there is a church offices employee devotional. I play the prelude and the opening hymn every 3rd Monday. This particular day was the Christmas devotional held just before the employee Christmas luncheon. I had been practicing with an office choir of about 12 voices, a quartet. They sang 3 lovely numbers, two of which I had never heard: Night of All Nights, and a Polish lullabye, Lulajze Jesuniu, in polish, for which I had to make a piano accompaniment.

Doing my job.

The chapel filled completely eventually.

Chatting with the choir director, KM

Setting up for the summer evening Christmas concert
in the parking lot of the stake center in JC

A great guitarist and vocalist

Treats for everyone - Tasty!

The choir member next to Elder D is also our plumber!

Here's a video clip for you.

Here are some photos of a concert we did at an apartment complex, and one for a stake in their parking lot. We also did a concert on Christmas Eve as part of a stake party - which we do not have photos of.

Our mission president speaks at stake conferences - there are 10 stakes in the mission. At one conference, he was approached by a stake member who asked if he knew of any accompanists who would be willing to accompany a choir made up of stake members. He said, "I just happen to know someone". The next day I received a call from her, we arranged a meeting, and she and a choir member who spoke a bit of english came to my office. "We went next door to the chapel and I played through some music for them. Much of it I recognized, but had not played, some music was completely new and several I knew well, including Handel's Messiah, and some traditional Christmas hymn arrangements. I was officially invited to play for them, as their usual accompanist was scheduled to be out of the country during the Christmas season.

We practice every Sunday afternoon at 5 o'clock for 3, yes 3 hours! Wow! I couldn't believe it! They do take breaks and also break into sectionals. They have a very beautiful sound, and sing with feeling from their heart. No one actually reads music - they learn by ear, and love to sing together. Elder D was invited to sing in the tenor section, he has a matching tie, so is a bonafide member and the tallest by quite a bit.

[An aside, we leave for church at 8:30 am, walk about 3 blocks, catch a bus, ride it about 5 miles to the metro, board the metro and ride it to the end of the line, then walk 3 block to the chapel. The trip takes about 1 hour. Then we go to 3 hours of meetings, head back on the metro, get off half way home, are picked up at a metro stop by the choir director's husband, who is also the bishop of their ward (he's young, an RM, a banker in his 30's, they have a 5 year old little girl M, and a 3 year old JT),. have lunch with them, head for the choir rehearsal, then they take us back to the metro station, and we arrive home about 9:30pm. Happy and Tired!]

The photos above are of a Christmas concert we were part of at a huge metro station. It is a beautiful public space and there were several groups who performed, including a wonderful military band - first on the program - and we were the last. Unfortunately, since we are both on stage, there were no photos of the choir performing. I'll arrange something in the future.