I first discovered Sally from my sister who is a master accompanist and competent arranger herself. (Looking back, I took way too long to heed her suggestion!)

I have been the Ward Choir Director for 10 of the last 12 years. I admit that I’m a snob about the music and tended to only like music from Beckenhorst Press and eventually Mack Willberg. Once I started playing pieces of Sally’s music, I was singing her praises myself. We’ve used several of her pieces in both our Ward and Stake Choirs and they have always been a conduit for the Spirit!

Last Christmas season (2008), however, gave me new insight and apprecaition for Sally. I had not visited her site for some time and when I discovered the MP3 recordings, multiple arrangements, and lyrics for so many songs, I was awe struck.

I started digging deeper into her site and was struck by her humor in the Q&A section. Not only is she a gifted composer and arranger with permiating testimony, but she’s a REAL person who I can totally relate to!

My most moving experience with Sally’s music was also last Christmas. I had been carrying “Born is the Light of the World” in my folder for two years. I had planned to finally use it with a quartet of teenagers, but schedules got in the way and I decided two days before our Christmas Sacrament Meeting it would take less practice time to do it as a solo than pull together another group. I was absolutely shocked at the power of this magnetic music. It was one of the most moving musical experiences of my life — and touched the congregation in the same way!

Thank you sooo much for sharing your incredible inspiration! Yours is truly a gift and keeps on giving! Your phenomenal “traffic” on your site proves that my experience was not uncommon! You are touching thousands of lives every week and building testimonies in ways you will never know.

Those sound like pretty decent numbers to me.

Th… in answer to your questions: some of the non-US musicians I’ve “met” (via e-mail) have been LDS, some not. None have websites that I know of, except James Loynes (www.jamesloynes.com, or to hear his material, http://www.defordmusic.com/james.htm) who is a superb young vocalist from England.

Traffic… hmmm. I’ll just give you this month’s traffic–it’s fairly representative:

For November (so far), around 62K unique visitors to my website, 101K PDF downloads, and around 36K audio plays/downloads.

I’m not sure what to make of all that, but there it is. :)

Sally, I have to say thank you. Our stake and ward choirs have sung “To Those Who Came Before Me;” what a powerful spirit. Our ward choir has sung “Jesus, Lord at thy Birth” two years in a row. You have provided a great service to the choir directors and members of the Church! Thank you.

I’m curious about these international musicians — they are LDS? did I read that right? Do we have links to share as regards them as well?

And what kind of traffic does her website have? (Her SiteMeter link is for her only, so I’m afraid I can’t answer my own question.)

“If the Savior Stood Beside Me” is one of my favorite newer primary songs.