Almost 30-Year Journey of New Hymn ‘Help Us Remember’ Surprises Author

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By Mary Richards, Church News

The latest batch of 12 hymns released in September for “Hymns — For Home and Church” included a new sacrament hymn titled, “Help Us Remember," which surprised and delighted its author because she wrote it almost 30 years ago.

Wendy Lynn Platt has always loved to sing and loves music. “There’s something powerful in singing,” she said.

In the 1990s, Platt wanted to write hymns but didn’t have a deep musical background. She took her first attempt to her ward choir director, John G. Riley, who was a composer and talented organist from England. He had recently moved to her area of San Diego, California, and joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

He looked at her first hymn and asked if she had ever had any instruction in music composition, theory and the like. As he went down the list, she got more discouraged as she said no.

“And he finally said, ‘Well, good, because if you had had instruction in any of those things, I would tell you to take up flower gardening,’” Platt said with a laugh in an interview with the Church News.

Platt said Riley didn’t fix her hymn but rather taught her how to fix it. He began to mentor her, and they started working together on writing and arranging music for their ward and stake choirs.

The chapter about this hymn in the About the Hymns resource in Gospel Library explains that Riley “was eager to use his musical background to contribute to the hymns of his new faith.”

In 1997, Riley told Platt they should write a sacrament hymn to enter into the Church Music Festival that year. But Platt told him there were plenty of sacrament hymns in the Church’s hymnbook, which had been released not that long before, in 1985.

Platt explained it this way: “I said, ‘You know you don’t just sit down and write a sacrament hymn.’ And he said, ‘No, the Church is going to need more sacrament hymns the next time they put out a book.’ If you knew John, you’d know, you don’t just say no. He said, ‘You write the words, and I’ll write music to it,’ And that’s what happened.”

Their hymn, “Help Us Remember,” asks for the Savior’s help to renew, remember and repent. It speaks of covenants, humility, charity and grace.

Listen to the hymn here.

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The hymn received an award of recognition in the 1997 festival.

And then life went on.

Riley died in 2014. Platt almost forgot about their hymn in some ways. She didn’t even find a copy of it with the music until she and her husband moved earlier this year from San Diego to Herriman, Utah, to be closer to their grown children.

When she heard from the Church about publishing the hymn, she realized Riley’s prediction had come true.

“I think John was inspired to know that at some point the Church would be looking for new sacrament hymns,” Platt said.

Her children were thrilled to hear that the song would be in the new hymnbook. And when her daughter found out that her ward would be singing the hymn in her ward’s sacrament meeting in West Jordan, Utah, Platt went to be there that Sunday.

“I can’t even describe it,” she said. “It was surreal. I had a friend in my ward come up to me afterwards and say, ‘If I were you, I would have been jumping up and down during the sacrament.’ I said, ‘Well, you know, not really the place at the time. But maybe spiritually I was jumping up and down.’”

Platt hopes the new hymn helps people look at the sacrament a little more closely and learn or feel new ideas and promptings that may help them and strengthen their testimony of Jesus Christ.

Besides reading the lyrics and listening to the music, she also encourages everyone to sing out loud.

“I don’t have a great singing voice, but I do love to sing in the choir and in the congregation … it just feels good,” she said. “And you get more voices together who only sing a little, and you’ve got a choir.”