I served my mission in the Dominican
Republic, and while I can honestly say I love it there and I love the people,
it did not start out that way. There were a lot of things that I found unusual
and weird. Of course, later I realized that my culture has just as many
oddities as Dominican culture does. So ultimately I decided it's just
different. But one of the things that is different is the way that Dominicans
sing some hymns. In my experience at least, Dominican members aren’t
particularly musically knowledgeable. They don't necessarily read music, they
just sing the hymns. But I think that's what most people do in the United
States also. The difference is that they don't sing all of the hymns correctly.
Some notes are too long; some notes are too short. I think it has to do with
the way some early missionaries or members must have taught the songs to
others, and now it's sort of just habit.
The point is, I knew a Dominican
missionary who bought the hymns on CD (the official Church version) and was
listening to them. He began to comment how he thought it was so unusual that
the Church would put out an official CD that had the music wrong. Because from
his perspective, it was wrong. My companion at the time explained to him that
the church would not put out a CD that was wrong. It was the Dominican
missionary who had sung it wrong all these years. At first, he went into
denial. He said of course he hadn’t been singing it wrong all these years. But
he soon realized that it was true -- and good for him.
But my point is: How many of us have
preconceived notions of how a certain doctrine is or how the Church works that
simply is not right. How many of us think in our own little way? How many of us
think we know the way things are or should be because that's the way we always
thought it was. Sometimes we find out we're wrong. And we need to be humble
enough to accept that.
