The Most Embarrasing Church Musical Number EVER

I have often wondered what my most embarrassing moment in life has been. I have never been able to think of anything, perhaps because I don’t get embarrassed very easily. Well, after today, I now have a most embarrassing moment in my life. So we show up to Church and have a nice time in sacrament meeting. The boys are doing great, no trouble there, and we are able to listen to a couple great talks on humility. All of a sudden the second talk was done, and it was time for me to play I Love to See the Temple on the piano. I take the long walk up to the piano and begin to get it ready. It’s a grand piano, so I decided I’d open up the top a bit. I lifted the top up and tried to get the little latch part to come out of the big piece so that I could set the top on the little piece. Well, I couldn’t get it out. I felt like I was tinkering there forever, so finally I decided to just put the top down.

Finally I was able to get the piano all set up. Once it was good to go I used my super-shaky hands to get the music ready. I had made a copy of one of the pages so that I would not need to mess with the one page turn in music. I double-checked the music again and again to make sure I was really on the right page and that the extra sheet of paper was situated in the right spot. I was now ready to play. I don’t know how I got my hands (that were still shaky) to the piano keys, but somehow they got there. Before playing I lengthened out my hand and fingers so that I could be sure I at least played the first chord correctly. “Breath in, breath out. OK, now I’m ready to play.” I started playing. The first measure sounded good, but it only took me to the second to make my first mistake. "Whoops!" I then became more nervous, but I kept playing.

I wasn’t sure if I should look at the music or if I should look at my hands. That just made me more nervous. As a result I lost my place in the music approximately 900 times. I kept hoping that the congregation just thought I was pausing for dramatic emphasis and not because I didn’t have a clue where I was in the music. Halfway through the music my arms were as tense as my shaky hands. That just made things more difficult. “Whoops, lost my place again! Where was I?” The piano tinkering kept going, and music was riddled with mistakes. At last I was on the last line. The end was in sight! If I could just get the last note right I would be OK. Again, I made some mistakes as I made my journey to the last chord. Then I played the last chord. “Hey, I actually got the end correct!” I held the last note for as long as I dared, then lifted my foot from the pedal, closed up the piano, and made the arduous journey back to our bench. I tried not to make eye contact with anybody so they wouldn’t see the shame in my face. Of all the times that I had played the song, this one was definitely the worst I had ever done. I had butchered the song, but at least I was done!

When I reached our bench and plopped myself down. I just looked straight forward, not daring to look at my wife Erin and see her reaction. Fortunately our two boys had been super good while I was up there, including 2-year old McKay. It was nice to have him start climbing over me so that I could get my mind off the musical number. Brother Foster in front of us turned around and said good job to me. I then had the courage to look at Erin. She congratulated me, but I think my face still stayed red. I leaned over and told her that I would never play the piano in church again. She assured me that I didn’t do as bad as I thought I had, and many other members congratulated me as well. I am grateful that Erin and the others were very kind, even though I felt like it was a disaster.

After the meeting Bishop Saffell came to us and told me that I had done a good job. I told him that I would rather give a talk or teach the Gospel Doctrine Sunday school class any day before I would do the musical number in Church. He then informed me that he sided with me. He told me he would rather give a talk in his bathing suit than do the musical number. I said I would gladly do the same!