Saints and Soldiers

So I am home for the summer now.

Tonight I went to a fireside by a man in my stake who was the Fire Chief for the Air Force in Kuwait. It was so good for me since one of my most favorite people in the world is serving in Iraq as a medic in the Army right now. Anyway, what he said provoked some thought in me.

There have been wars so long as humans have existed. There was a war before humans existed. In heaven. There was a war in heaven. War can be from God or Satan. It depends on who's side you are fighting on. But war itself, I don't believe, is completely evil.

Who abridged and took care of the Book of Mormon? A general. Who stands on top of our temples? A soldier.

People are coming to the LDS soldiers in the Middle East, both other soldiers and civilians, wanting to know of the truth and light they can feel those soldiers possess. There is a reason they are there.

On Friday I had the rare privilege of listening to the Kammerchor Vocalis out of Frankfurt, Germany, sing in the Assembly Hall on Temple Square. It is a choir made up of young adults from Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, and Norway, and I have a few friends in it (it was soo good to see them! :) ). They sang music from the Classical era, mostly Mozart and Mendelssohn, and a few arrangements from Mack Wilberg, all in German. And the singing was exquisite.

President Uchtdorf was there, with his wife (wearing an excellent Zebra striped blouse) and a few members of his family. He is much bigger in real life. His presence was almost solid in the way it filled the room. He couldn't get enough. The smile on his face reached every corner of the building. He gave the choir three well deserved standing ovations (I did, too).

The choir sang "I Believe in Christ," the Mack Wilberg arrangement, which in German is "Christus ist mein Herr." This is not my favorite hymn.

But in the third verse, the original English words say "Ye shall obtain." Christ is telling us we shall obtain his kingdom if we follow him.

The German translation for this line is "Du bist mein."

I don't know why they translated it this way, because "du bist mein" actually means "you are mine."

I think Mack Wilberg arranged it so this chord, on "mein," is engineered to give you chills.
But this time, the chills were much greater than I ever remember experiencing.

DU bist mein.

Du bist MEIN.

Du BIST mein.

How glad I am that I know this.
How great will it be when I actually hear these words.




(because German will be the language spoken in heaven. :) )