Christmas Concert

Yesterday Mark and I got to go to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir concert. A friend had two extra tickets. Tickets are very hard to get and are given out in an online lottery system. I didn't think we would get to go this year. We drove downtown and got to the Conference Center about 45 minutes before the show started. The Conference Center is an amazing beautiful building that seats over 20,000 people. About 15 minutes before the performance started the crowd started to quiet down and then quickly became absolutely silent and stood up. We were on the balcony and looked down and saw President Monson, the prophet of God come in with his wife and sit down in the front row. I have witnessed this phenomenon many times and I still get excited and surprised each time.

Natalie Cole and David McCullough were the guest artists. Richard Elliot played an organ solo that was amazing, Good King Wenceslas meets The Nutcracker Suite. (Shelly you have got to hear this!) They were recording the whole concert, so like past years it will probably come out on DVD and CD next Christmas. I also loved hearing "For Unto Us a Child is Born" from Handel's Messiah. For some reason this year it took on more meaning for me as the words "And the government shall be upon his shoulders and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace." Do we have any one in our government today that we would call Wonderful? Maybe someday.

When we came outside after the concert, it was snowing hard and Temple Square was so beautiful. The clouds were down to the tops of the buildings everything was white.