Mrs. Genau

Two weeks ago I heard some of the most devastating news I have been told in a very long time. Mrs. Genau, who had been fighting cancer for several years now, went to join Jesus in Heaven. She was an amazing friend to everyone and her smile would light up a room in a second. I miss her greatly, but know that she is no longer in any pain and is happier than she ever could have imagined being on earth. 

The funeral was a week before yesterday. It was the most beautiful ceremony I have ever been to, not that I have been to many funerals, but this one really stood out to me. Everything was focused on God and his marvelous grace and salvation. I could not think of a better way to honor her memory! 

The morning before Mrs. Genau passed away, I was helping my mom in her preschool Sunday School class. One of the little girls was praying before snack and gave the most heart-wrenching prayer I have ever heard and I am not exaggerating. 

"Dear precious Jesus, I pray for Mrs. Genau. Even though she is going to die, may she live every last minute for you in your love and please give her grace and peace until she is with you in Heaven." 

Did I not tell you? The little girl is five years old and has a heart of gold, obviously. She was able to say this with such sincerity it just broke my heart. 

Thank you, God for Mrs. Genau and her example of following you even in the most difficult of times.

There is a Higher Throne

After practicing for about two months, we had the opportunity to perform a sign language song in church. Our pastor's wife had asked us if we would do that song in particular and we did not give her an answer. The group decided to sign the song as a birthday surprise for her. :D

That morning during one anothering time at church, we found out that Mrs. Genau did not have much longer to live, so we were all quite distraught as we got in line to go on stage. The music started as usual and we went to begin signing when the words did not start. None of us panicked too badly, we just signalled to the sound board at the back of the church what to do. Unfortunately, they did not understand and started the song over. The words once again did not work, so Josiah saved the day and started singing. All of us relaxed and sang with him while we signed the song as we had practiced. It worked out perfectly from then on.

The song had so much meaning and power to me personally, as I am sure it did for the rest of the group in the context we were signing the song.

Now that we have found out that it works well for us to sign and sing at the same time, we are trying it again (on purpose this time!) with our next song.

PTX Concert

Part of mine and Caleb's Christmas present was to get to go see one of our absolute favorite groups. They are an a capella group called Pentatonix (or PTX for short) that is known for doing modern pop songs and changing them up a bit. Everyone in the group is musically gifted. I highly enjoy their music, which they clean up and make more appropriate most of the time.

When we went to buy our tickets, our area had already sold out, so we ended up driving to Wisconsin and staying the night there.

Dad took the day off work and immediately after my piano lesson we drove up to our hotel. The concert was not until later that night, so once we got to our hotel, we had a lot of spare time. I started going stir crazy, so my parents decided we would walk across the street to the three story, indoor mall. It was really neat! The mall had a walkway across the street with a coffee shop inside and lots of quaint little stores, as well as larger, more well known stores. After walking around a while, we went to dinner near our hotel. Dinner was delicious! We went back to our hotel to get ready for the concert.

We had to stand inside the theater doors for quite a while before they let everyone in to be seated. As soon as we got in, Caleb and I each picked out a t-shirt from their merchandise table. We were really glad we did so before the concert, because afterwards the lines were incredibly long.

It felt like forever that we sat in our seats waiting for the show to start. Once it did, it was astonishing. After two and a half hours of amazing a capella, the show was over. Then we started the long, crowded journey down to the main floor so we could walk back to our hotel, which was only a few blocks away. Over two thousand people were at the show and this meant that we had to push our way through over two thousand people to make it to the doors.

It was only my second big concert, so I was really excited to get to go. PTX did an amazing job, even though they did mess up a few times, I still thought it was really cool!

Spotlight Showcase

In February, I had my showcase for Spotlight Youth Theater. I was in Voice 101: Singing in character. It was really enjoyable and my teacher was amazing!!!

We sang three songs for our section of the showcase. A medley of 'Eye of the Tiger' and 'Don't Stop Believing,' 'Seasons of Love' from RENT, and 'Defying Gravity' from WICKED. All of the songs were a lot of work to pull together, especially since the medley and 'Seasons of Love' were both a capella and 'Defying Gravity' had quite a difficult track to follow. Ms. Toni was extremely helpful and I miss being in her class dearly. It was a wonderful opportunity and I am very thankful I had the chance to participate!

College Visit

In January, I went to visit a college with one of my dear friends Winter. She begged me to come along so she did not have to go by herself and I thought it sounded like fun, especially going with Winter!

After church, I went to their house and we left to go to the school. It was about an hour and a half away, so we had quite an amusing time. Seriously though, do not leave me and Winter in the car, bored for that amount of time. We thought up quite a bit of mischief on the way. We stopped at Red Robin for lunch, and I found out Winter does not like the mascot. After inspecting it during our meal, I decided I do not like it very much either. It is the scary chicken! Once we arrived in the town the college is in, we realized we were a little too early, so we stopped at Goodwill and got David, Winter's brother, a multi-colored cow tie. :)

After all of these lovely adventures, we went to the school. While waiting at the table, since no one would come sit with us, Winter and I came up with sarcastic and snarky answers to all of their conversation starters, which amused us for quite some time. Then we played Jeopardy with the group of high school students there to see the college and ate pizza. The people we were staying with came and picked us up and took us to the dorms. Winter and I got to stay in the freshman girls dorms, which are a little bit bigger than I had actually imagined. We stayed up watching movies and talking for quite a while, then went to bed.

In the morning, we met back up with Winter's mom and went on a tour of the campus and chapel. Then Winter had a degree consultation type thing, which did not take very long because she was the only one there looking at the degree she wants to get. Then we were off to lunch where we had bacon macaroni and cheese and ice cream!!! Winter also had an audition for an orchestra scholarship, so I got to listen to her play her violin for a little bit. After that we headed home. Well, actually, we headed to my Spotlight class, where they dropped me off.

It was quite the adventure. Winter and I do not know how to have a dull moment together, no matter what we are doing!