Brother Ostvig pulled me aside into an empty room before sacrament meeting on Sunday, and I had absolutely no idea what he could possibly want with me, but I soon found out. "Brother McKinley, we'd like to give you another calling." Okay, I thought, round 3, what'll it be? "We'd like to call you to be our priesthood pianist."
Go figure; I've had that calling, officially or not, for the last several years, so we might as well add it to the list. I played last week anyway, and if it's official I might get more blessings out of it for magnifying my calling. Or maybe I would have gotten more blessings for being anxiously engaged in a good cause and playing of my own free will. Who knows? So now I'm called to be a ward choir member (I played the piano for that yesterday too; maybe a fourth calling is in the works?), FHE dad, and priesthood pianist. I felt like I fit in a little better this week, and the rest of the summer should be good as far as church goes. In other news, I knew someone at church! I showed up the first week half expecting to see someone I knew, only because the church is so small and coincidences like that happen all the time, but I didn't know anyone. However, this week Sarah Metzger from my BYU ward showed up! It turns out she's from here, but I had no idea, and she didn't know I was going to be here over the summer. Funny how that happens wherever you go.
I finally got to ride my bike yesterday (we went mini golfing on Saturday evening right after I bought it, and then it was Sunday). My derrière is now rather spoiled, this bike having much nicer shocks than my previous one. It's still slightly sore, not being accustomed to the hard seat, but the bumps in the road were hardly noticeable! I'll have to go on a longer ride on Saturday. Minneapolis is, by some standards, the city with the most commuting bikers, and there are trails everywhere! I could bike practically downtown and back without leaving a bike trail, there are trails along the Mississippi, and there are hundreds of parks and lakes with trails. I'll definitely miss that part of being here when I leave.
I get to attend a meeting this afternoon with Ben Zander, conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra and member of the NEC faculty for 43 years! He gives guest speeches on occasion, and he's speaking to the senior leadership at Medtronic, but the guy who hired me for this internship invited me to come along, so it will be him, the company bigwigs, and me. Slightly intimidating. I'll probably post something later today on his presentation. He's one of the most acclaimed interpreters of Mahler, and some critics have even said his interpretations represent the pinnacle of late Romantic/early 20th century orchestral music (1).
English title: Third calling!
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