Yes, I actually played my violin in church

I think I kept a pretty low profile in Denton, playing my violin in church only on rare occasions. I did play with the girls in a quartet for one Christmas program but that may have been it. There was so much talent in the Denton Stake that I was loath to advertise my extremely limited skills on that instrument. Suddenly I find myself one of only a few violinists in the Wilkes-Barre Stake (a stake is a regional organization of individual congregations which we call wards) and so I actually volunteered to play in an ensemble for the prelude to the Saturday night meetings for our regional twice-yearly conference. And, unbelievably, I enjoyed it. I really could use some practice and my bow needs new hair but it was still fun. Luckily, this is a once-a-year gig so I don't have to worry about it for another year. I also sang in the stake choir which was about half the size of the usual Denton Stake choir. This was a good group and a good turnout for this stake since it is less than half the size of the Denton Stake. We easily fit into one building for our meetings while Denton's conference was broadcast over the Internet to avoid two sessions.

The strangest thing about having the membership of the church be so small in the Wilkes-Barre area is the almost total lack of impact the members have on the community. Our ward here covers the whole county. In Denton, my ward covered less than a fourth of the city, and a much smaller percentage of the county. In Denton, you would be hard-pressed to find a school teacher who couldn't name several Latter-day Saint students they had taught. And we had many members who were prominent in their fields and in volunteer organizations. Here it's amazing to find a person who actually knows a member of my church. And when you talk about growth, here are the numbers according to the census bureau. Luzerne County, PA in 2000 had 319,000 residents. Their estimate for 2006 is 313,000. That's a two percent loss. Denton County had 432,000 residents in 2000 and the census bureau estimates that the 2006 population was 584,000. That's a 35 percent increase. Just a little hard for me to wrap my mind around some days.