Our Own Preconceived Notions

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.