Sing in Ward Council!

In 1998, while serving as a missionary in Simferopol, Crimea, I was assigned to a district of four missionaries: two elders and two sisters. Each week we held a district meeting during which we discussed the progress of investigators and any matters related to the branch there. We typically shared lunch after the meeting before setting off to teach any lessons or find new investigators.

The sister missionaries--who kept a much healthier diet than my companion and I--obsessively served soup of one sort of another. And their ladles of soup usually came with a helping of encouragement to make soup ourselves.

Fed up with their constant chiding about soup, we decided to prank the sisters with our own special recipe featuring the most unusual item we could find at the outdoor market where we shopped. Needless to say, one glance at a boiled pig's head was enough to put an end to their asking us to make soup!

Soup was not our only special tradition in that district. Something much more meaningful to me was that we sang a hymn to begin every district meeting (sometimes even in parts). At times it seemed a bit awkward because there were only four of us, but singing a hymn set a spiritual tone for those meetings and was a blessing to our little missionary district.

The same can be true for your ward council, bishopric or other leadership meetings. Much like those sister missionaries encouraged me to be more healthy by eating soup, I encourage you to be more spiritual by making the time to sing hymns in your leadership meetings. Even if there are only a few of you, your council discussions will be blessed with a greater sense of inspiration.

Reference: Mark 14:26