Gail Homer Berry has served in ward and stake music roles since the age of 12. She recently moved to Indiana along with her husband, five sons, and conclave of contumacious stuffed animals.

When I was 14, I was walking out of church to go home and break my fast – when the missionaries pounced and asked me to play piano for a baptism starting in fifteen minutes. My mom pushed back, but the missionaries guilted me into agreeing. Mom sighed and promised to come back for me, then wrangled my siblings home. Halfway through the baptism, I began to feel terrible. The room spun, my vision went pixelated with black spots, and I started shaking. A good accompanist blends into the background, and a “good” Molly Mormon is modest and selfless, so I pushed through –barely– without interrupting the service. (Fortunately this medical panic was just low blood sugar from the extended fast plus puberty.) After that, I told the missionaries they needed to ask me a week in advance. Instead, they tried the same stunt three weeks later. I refused and walked away as they panicked.

I have an unusual perspective on church music callings: I was first sustained as a ward organist at 13 even though I couldn’t play the organ. I learned a lot, and I was essential to the ward’s worship, but I was also minimized, dismissed, and even exploited.  I logged many Sundays in which I put in an aggregate of 7 hours: playing for choir practice, Sacrament Meeting, Primary, a baptism, and a youth fireside, plus all the prelude and postlude.