Dedication

The Temple dedication itself turned out to be even a greater experience than I could have expected. All four of us (Mark, Camilla, and Katrina first, and then my turn a few minutes later) got to see Matt's mom, who was ushering. She took a picture of the other three outside the temple. She gave me a hug (we were inside at that point so a picture wouldn't have been good!). One of the other choir members pointed out that I was the only one of the choir who got a hug from the usher. Jealous. Then Mark, Cam, and Trini got to sit in probably one of the best seats in the house--an endowment room (happened to be the aspen-mural one) so they got padded seats and a big screen to watch the proceedings on. (I, on the other hand, had a hard folding chair and a small monitor where I was. I did, however, get that other benefit of getting to actually go into the Celestial room for parts of it.)

The dedication was great. The first speaker, particularly, kept making me think of Mark because he talked about being the first member in his family and doing a lot of temple work for his family and ancestors. I had lots of thoughts of family because another speaker talked about going through the open house with his 7-year-old grandson whose favorite part, he said afterwards, was "being in the Temple with you, Grandpa." We were sitting in kind of an open area right next to a main set of stairs and had to wait in our seats afterwards just a few minutes while other people exited before we could exit, and while I was waiting I got to see my family pass by. Because I was on the end of the row, I got to reach out and give them each a squeeze of the hand (although they were all expecting "bone" and I disappointed at least one of them in that respect). That was an unexpected pleasure--to see them right there by me.

We hadn't known ahead of time which General Authorities would be there, so when we saw President Monson, President Uchtdorf, and Elder Perry walk in and take their seats, those of us on that side realized we would be standing right behind them. (Fortunately I was kind of between President Uchtdorf and Elder Perry so it wasn't so quite so scary.) But in spite of all the numerous warnings (and there were many!) as we came in the second time, I accidentally bumped Elder Perry's chair. Well, more like brushed it. It was as I turned around to get into position. It rattled me so badly I really struggled through that next song. But after we got back to our seats, the lady next to me said she bumped a chair, too, so I felt better. Mark can't believe I let it bug me so much, but he doesn't realize how much they drilled it into us not to do that and how careful I had been up to that point. And I made sure I didn't do it again!

The most memorable thing for one of the members of the choir, unfortunately, was my all-time greatest fear: she passed out during the final song. She had started feeling sick maybe 15 minutes before that, went into the restroom to "toss her cookies," felt better and thought she'd be okay. But just a little ways into the song she started teetering so the people on either side of her grabbed her arms and let her down gently to the floor while we all kept singing and the poor director looked so confused and distressed. Apparently the camera had been on her just before the teetering moment (when her eyes started fluttering, unnoticed by my family, but some who knew her saw it) but the camera stayed off of the scene while the rest of this took place. Anyway, a couple men from the congregation came up, we made room for them (all the while singing away like nothing was happening at our feet), they got her up (she started to come to right away) and once she could figure out what was going on, they helped her out.

When the final song was done, we stood waiting during the closing prayer and then were supposed to wait a moment while the General authorities exited. President Uchtdorf and President Monson turned around and told us we did a beautiful job. In fact, President Uchtdorf first directed his comments to me! (He was speaking about the choir, not about me, but he looked right at me when he spoke--Mark could see it on the camera.) And President Monson expressed his concern for the lady who had passed out. Hey--that's something for her to feel good about! So that was one benefit of standing right behind them. We did get to be spoken to by them. (And I guess it's okay that we said thank you in response.) Elder Perry didn't yell at me about the chair-bumping incident.

But my best thing of all (well, non-spiritually speaking) was that our group got vindicated. They told us during our warm-up time that the other choirs had been taking longer than expected to get in place, so not to run but to move as quickly as we possibly could into position. The whole group practically erupted into cheers, saying they were going to get back to that 27 seconds, possibly shave it down to 25 seconds, etc. My friend even told me to go for it because she knows how fast I can walk. We weren't told how fast we did it this time, but I did my part to move us in quickly. We had been warned before the dress rehearsal that people tend to slow down when they hit the doorway of the Celestial room because they become overwhelmed. I can promise I didn't do that. I am one focused, obedient woman. You tell me to look straight ahead and get into position as quickly as possible, that's what I'm going to do. I also did not look around the room (as instructed). I looked only at the speaker or at our director (like we were told!). So I didn't even realize there were people in there that I knew until somebody told me afterwards.

(p.s. I know nobody reads this except my family and they've all heard these stories, but I'm putting them on here so I have a record. Thanks for your patience.)