Words are not enough

Jackie,
I've really been putting this off because how do you express thanks in words for a gift so great as the one you have shared with my family for so many years.  I know that the love of music that my children developed when they were young started with your love and enthusiasm for beautiful music.  That love has blessed our home for all these years and still does.  
The enthusiasm for singing in the Aiken Ward (both ward now) is only emphasized when we visit another ward.  
It was certainly a blessing in our lives when the McArthurs moved to Aiken.
Love you Jackie! Thanks for your loving service.

Carol

Raising the Bar

As I've lived in other wards, I've come to realize how much I took for granted the immense musical talent of the Aiken Ward and Augusta Stake, where music was such a big part of our meetings.  I absolutely loved participating in those choirs.  Some of my favorite memories are of the Easter Cantatas (specifically The Garden), the multi-stake choir at USC where the choir and congregation sang "How Firm A Foundation" but ironically the congregation was advised not to stand as a safety precaution with the steep terracing, and a Stake Conference in the late 90's when the visiting Authority asked us on the fly to sing his favorite hymn, "In Humility Our Savior."  Since that day, that has been my favorite hymn as well.

Thank you so much Sister McArthur (and Sister Hart!) for sharing your magnificent talents with us and helping us all to develop our own talents.

With Love,
Natalie (Taylor) Nash

Hello again, Jackie! We are so grateful that we were blessed to share in five of those memorable 19.3 years you served as Augusta Stake music chairman. 

Shorly after moving to Georgia in 2000, we heard about the choir from the Standages.  Karla said that Augusta Stake had wonderful stake choir and a fabulous choir director, Jackie McArthur. Soon you called inviting us to be part of the choir.  We had sung in stake choirs before and they were pretty much  of a short-term-prepare-for-stake-conference-please-beg-your-friends-to-come-join-in-also sort. 

This practice was different.  It was fun and easy to feel that this choir loved singing together, but especially loved singing under your direction. There was an amazing spirit and we came to love the variety of songs and sharing opportunities. Prior to moving to Georgia, joining the Mormon Tabernacle Choir had been a goal we were working toward. Soon we were saying, “We’ve found our hoped for choir experience here in the Augusta Stake and we are loving it.”  Thank you, Jackie, for giving us such an experience.  

In a CES Fireside, Feb. 1998, Elder Boyd K. Packer said:

Music is properly used to entertain, to cheer, to amuse, to challenge and develop the intellect, to comfort, but in its highest, purest reaches, it is an act of worship. It is a gift from God to draw us nearer to him. 

Under you direction, the choir enjoyed and shared all these gifts, but especially the the last and in abundance.

. . .sending our love from the Philippines Cebu Mission.

Mark and Merrillyn Dover