Today’s guest is a friend I’ve played Chamber music with for almost seven years.  We are in a clarinet trio, which means that this ensemble includes Clarinet, cello and piano.  My guest Carrie Christensen is the pianist.  Carrie is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly referred to as the Mormons.  As the Latter-day Saints have a lay ministry, Carrie serves as the teacher of a youth scriptures class that the teens attend four days a week before school.  She also has a full  studio of piano students and does free-lance accompanying and solo work.  In this episode we talk among other things about growth through service and missionary work (Carrie served a mission in the Netherlands), what it may feel like when faith is challenged, being in a covenant relationship with God, and finding meaning in life through religious teachings and  beliefs.  

Song Credits: 
Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing 

Text: Robert Robinson

Arrangement: Craig Courtney

Cello adaptations: Angie Foster

Performed by April Larsen, soprano; Angie Foster, cello; Carrie Christensen, piano

1. Come, Thou Fount of ev’ry blessing;

Tune my heart to sing Thy grace.

Streams of mercy, never ceasing,

Call for songs of loudest praise.

Teach me some melodious sonnet,

Sung by flaming tongues above.

Praise the mount; I’m fixed upon it:

Mount of Thy redeeming love.

2. Here I raise my Ebenezer;

Hither by Thy help I’m come.

And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,

Safely to arrive at home.

Jesus sought me when a stranger,

Wand’ring from the fold of God;

He, to rescue me from danger,

Interposed His precious blood.

3. Oh, to grace how great a debtor

Daily I’m constrained to be!

Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,

Bind my wand’ring heart to Thee.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,

Prone to leave the God I love.

Here’s my heart, O take and seal it;

Seal it for Thy courts above.