Called to Serve

Hello! This week, I created a piano arrangement of the upbeat hymn, Called to Serve, which is one of the suggested songs for this week’s Come Follow Me Book of Mormon lesson. I had a blast putting it together.

A few interesting facts about “Called to Serve”:

• Called to Serve was originally written for children and has been included in the Church of Jesus Christ’s Children’s songbooks since 1920.
• President Boyd K. Packer’s wife, Donna Packer, suggested the song be performed at a conference for mission presidents in 1985. Missionaries from the Missionary Training Center sang the song while marching into the conference held in the Assembly Hall on Temple Square in Salt Lake City. This inspirational performance prompted the hymn to be added to the 1985 LDS Hymnal!
• A few of the lyrics were changed to be more inclusive. Instead of “Sons of God…” to “Sons and Daughters” and one original verse was not included.
• As a last minute decision, it was the last song added to the 1985 LDS hymnbook list, which was not originally part of the plan!

This lesson studies Alma 17-22 and is called “I Will Make an Instrument of Thee”. It is an astounding and exciting section of scripture! It is “An account of the sons of Mosiah, who rejected their rights to the kingdom for the word of God, and went up to the land of Nephi to preach to the Lamanites; their sufferings and deliverance—according to the record of Alma.” These young men chose to go on a mission to a “wild and a hardened and a ferocious people; a people who delighted in murdering the Nephites, and robbing and plundering them” instead of staying and ruling their Kingdom…..all for the love of God and their precious fellow men.

Alma 17

• 8 And thus they departed into the wilderness with their numbers which they had selected, to go up to the land of Nephi, to preach the word of God unto the Lamanites.
• 9 And it came to pass that they journeyed many days in the wilderness, and they fasted much and prayed much that the Lord would grant unto them a portion of his Spirit to go with them, and abide with them, that they might be an instrument in the hands of God to bring, if it were possible, their brethren, the Lamanites, to the knowledge of the truth, to the knowledge of the baseness of the traditions of their fathers, which were not correct.
• 10 And it came to pass that the Lord did visit them with his Spirit, and said unto them: Be comforted. And they were comforted.
• 11 And the Lord said unto them also: Go forth among the Lamanites, thy brethren, and establish my word; yet ye shall be patient in long-suffering and afflictions, that ye may show forth good examples unto them in me, and I will make an instrument of thee in my hands unto the salvation of many souls.

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Media sources: ChurchofJesusChrist.org, Photo donation by Lindsay Nicholas and Nature footage/images donated by Steve Pierce.

*Reach out if you would like the sheet music for any of the arrangements I don’t have sheet music for yet and I will transcribe and post them. You can find the songs I already have sheet music for here: http://marileekaymusic.com/sheet-music/

Composers: Text: Grace Gordon, altered. Music: Adam Geibel, 1855–1933

This video is published on my Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/MarileeKayMusic/ and short reels of the video are posted throughout the week on Instagram @MarileeKayMusic