Can I move to Hawaii already?

I have always loved the ukelele. It makes me so happy to listen to music that has happy little ukelele chords in the background. When I was doing all of my online schooling this year, I would listen to ukelele music on Pandora and close my eyes. It was incredible how quickly I could feel stress drain from my body when I really listened.

And so I wrote a post about it.

That was pretty much the only thing that would ever signal to anyone how crazy obsessed I was.

But then Girls Camp happened. Our camp director this year was so stellar. Music is her passion in life and it is so lovely to hear her talk about how music has made a difference in her life. At a camp meeting for JC's (the Junior Camp leaders AKA me) she happened to mention that she would be bringing her ukeleles for us to play, just to see if we would catch on.

That's when I knew that the ukelele and I were meant to be.

I looked forward in anticipation to the day when we would be able to play. Luckily it was early in the week. I took two looks at the chord chart and then started randomly strumming. Looking back on it now (this was only three weeks ago) I probably was horrible, but I took the moment after I had played to write down my feelings. I knew that I wasn't good, but I felt like I could DO IT! And it was such a wonderful feeling! Elation, excitement! I really felt like I could buy and learn to play the ukelele.

And so the day after I got home from camp, I bought one. My sister, Savannah, also got one (PS. She's amazing), and when we got home, there was no turning back. We started playing the first five chords to Somewhere Over the Rainbow over and over and over again. And then we started to progress. I felt a little shakier then Savannah did, and it caused a mini-crisis, but as I was able to work through it, I found joy in the things that I learned to do.

The ukelele is not hard at all. I've only been playing for a few weeks, but I know a TON of songs, and I pretty much can play any simplified hymn (it makes the saddest songs sound happy! I love it!) or children's song. I brought my uke to EFY on a whim and it seemed like EVERYONE knew how to play by the end of the week. So many people had the same euphoric reaction to it! I even heard a kid from another camp say, "Mormons are allowed to play ukeleles?" in disbelief because there were so many ukes there.

Now I am one step closer to my dream of becoming a Tongan princess!

Here is a song that I learned to play yesterday! The strum pattern is soooo challenging, but it makes me so happy!