In case you didn't know, learning another language is difficult. I've picked up a few key sentences, but not much more than that yet. I'll get there eventually.
Last night, we went to the LDS Outreach Center for free waffle night. (Even in Europe my decisions are still motivated by food ;) ) There I met a girl from Kazakhstan who was studying chemistry at the University of Vienna. A fellow chemist! Besides our group and the missionaries, there was only one other person there - a convert from Russia. He only spoke Russian and German. After dinner, I started playing the piano and this guy from Russia came over and asked me to play a few songs. He would find the song in the German hymnbook and give it to me to play. I would sight read the song while he sang and as soon as we figured out the name of the song in English, my roommates would look it up and join in the singing.
Soon, the rest of our group joined us as well as the missionaries.
Any bystanders looking in would have seen a small group of people singing while huddled around a piano. What they wouldn't have seen is how music was the only way we could all communicate with each other.
We didn't speak the same language, but we understood the same message when we sang the hymns.
We could speak through music.
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