I got to go to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert yesterday. What an adventure! A few months ago, I had requested tickets, but didn't think I would be chosen...I'm usually not lucky like that. But I got a nice letter in the mail a few weeks later that said I had been picked! I had asked for any seats, any of the days...Thursday, Friday, Saturday, or Sunday and got the one's for Sunday morning. That put a little damper on things because I knew that would be a hard time for Kelley to go....and when it came down to it, he couldn't get out of the meetings he had that morning. I had asked Candice to go to. She wasn't quite as excited about it as I was but went with me because she loves her mom.

We thought we had plenty of time to get there, but when we got downtown, the traffic was packed all around the conference center and NOT MOVING! It was after nine already, and they said on the tickets that they would start letting the stand by people in at 9:00. They had given me a parking pass for the church office building parking lot, so we finally got in there...no parking spots! We went deeper and deeper under the building...(claustrophobia setting in) and ended up in the very last spot in the deepest darkest corner of the basement.

We looked at the clock..9:20! We thought ..."should we even try?" and I said "we've got this far, we might as well try to get in. So we hopped out and started running for it. We went through tunnels, stair cases and hallways and then came out this secret doors right in front of the Temple! So we grabbed hold of each other to keep from falling down and made a run for it.

Most of the crowd had gone in so we just sailed right in. They ushered us up to the balcony and said they would be starting in 3 minutes! We spotted some seats and flopped down in them, then looked at each other like " I can't believe we are sitting here!"

As soon as we sat down, the lights went down and the program started. First they did "Music and the spoken word" and that was really good. Natalie Cole was the special guest and she was really wonderful to listen to. Then David McCullough ( a famous story teller- Walter Cronkite type) tell some great Christmas stories. The Tabernacle Choir was just wonderful...the power of their music is so moving...I found myself in tears several times during the program.

Then after it was all over, President Monson went up there to thank them for the beautiful program.. Natalie and David couldn't say enough good about the Mormon church and the experience they had had being with "the mormons" for the past week.

Then the choir sang "God be with you till we meet again" There was a pretty amazing feeling in the room...the whole audience joined in singing too, and by the time it was over, pretty much everybody was feeling it. Even Natalie and David had tears in their eyes.

We came out to a real good snowstorm. We made a run for the car, but couldn't find the secret door that we had come through, so had to walk through the parking lot to get back to our parking spot. We were both soaked by the time we got inside the parking garage and had a good laugh when we looked in the mirror! I had planned to make it back for Relief Society, but by the time we found the car...(Candice I'm so glad you were with me...I would have freaked out when we couldn't find the car! You have a great calming effect on me!) and waited for about 45 minutes just to inch our way out of the parking lot, it was after 12:00.

What a neat thing to be able to see though... well worth all the hassle of getting there. I'm so glad Candice could share it with me. It really got me feeling the Christmas spirit...hope she felt it too!