One Fabulous Weekend

On Saturday, we had a Stake Day in the Temple commemorating the 50th anniversary of the L.A. Temple. We got to meet in the Assembly Room (most have never seen it before, nor knew of its existence). The room is massive and seats about 2,300. It's as big as a football field.











It was a wonderful, spiritual meeting with messages from the Stake President, and the Temple President, and a beautiful choir directed by our internationally reknown choir director, who also directs the So Cal Mormon Choir.

Just as the Temple President was closing the meeting, and turning the time over to the choir for the closing hymn, a man sitting in the congregation gets up and walks all the way up to the pulpit and puts his arm around the President. What a shock to everyone, including the President, to have Elder Uchtdorf show up!

Most people initially wondered who that extremely handsome, dapper man was walking up to the front before realizing who it was. Once he started to speak, all were well aware. His accent is undeniable.

We were blessed to hear directly from an Apostle of God and receive his apostolic blessings. He's pretty funny, too. He joked that he loves California, even with its Governor (they share a common accent) and said we are in such a beautiful area that we need to start paying 20% tithing.

The moral of the story is to always attend your meetings as you never know who will show up! :-) Reminds me of the time when my friend Kim was on vacation and wanted to attend church, but decided not to since it was Stake Conference, not really wanting to go to someone else's stake meeting. Instead, they went on a nice family picnic, keeping the Sabbath in mind, thinking that was OK in lieu of attending a meeting. It wasn't until after the fact that they heard President Hinckley showed up at that Stake Conference!