What's On My Happy List?

Friday December 17, 2010

courtesy of Deseret News
Oh my goodness! I'm one happy camper today. Last night was the first of four Mo Tab Christmas Concerts with special guest...David Archuleta. Yes, our very own David! squeal. Seriously, next to IL DIVO and Andrea Bocelli, a dream come true to hear David with the choir. The only problem was, I nor anyone in my whole entire extended family who registered for tickets got any. In all the previous years usually someone does. But this year, nada. I guess not totally surprising when tickets are given out by a random selection process and there were 1.5 million requests for tickets this year.
Yes, you read right.That's one m-i-l-l-i-o-n! Unbelievable.
Not to be deterred, Emma, my friend Heather and I went down to the Conference Center to wait in the stand-by line to see if by chance we could score some tickets. Upon arriving in the 6 o'clock hour and seeing the length of the stand-by line already, I'm not sure what we were thinking... People had been waiting since 2:30 in the afternoon for the 8:00 p.m. concert! The line was stretching half of the length of the Temple Square grounds.The guide came by a couple of times to our section of the line to tell us our chances were slim of getting in. We kept waiting anyway, all the while scheming our plan of action to get tix for the following nights and Sunday morning concerts. We were pretty determined not to have to watch the concert by satellite with the overflow crowd in the Tabernacle. Although nice, it just would not be the same for me.

Anyhow over the course of waiting we chit chatted a bit with the woman in front of us.
Unbeknownst to us, she had a daughter with a "need tickets" sign over on the Conference Center grounds. Surprisingly, this woman got a call from her daughter saying she had accumulated some tickets AND she was willing to hand over some to us. I DIED. Halle-freak'in-lujah, the church is true! So we followed this nice woman, my new best friend, to meet up with her daughter {by the life saving sign}where we were handed an additional two golden tickets from another complete stranger. {Jeesh. Forget the stand by line, I'm leaving my pride behind and bringing a sign next time.} Emma and I booked it back over to Temple Square with the three extra tickets, found the couple behind us who were here from Iowa and gave them two tickets. It was a delightful moment I tell ya. They were pleasantly surprised to say the least. I felt like Santa Claus bearing gifts.The lone ticket went to a gentleman, also behind us, who was here from India visiting Utah for the first time. Not even a member. I escorted him to his portal and wished him a Merry Christmas! I have a hunch he was supposed to be in that building last night. I hope the performance made an impression on him and it will change the course of his life.


Nothing brings me more pleasure than beautiful music. I was in heaven last night. After being seated and the music started playing, I couldn't help shed a few tears of gratitude for how things had played out. I was in awe that I was even sitting in the place for one, then topped by David's out of this world performance. Gah! It gave me the chills. Last night made my Christmas... no my year! Good stuff.


This picture does not do the line justice, but heres just a glimpse of our plight last night. crazy people! Did I mention it was bitter cold? We came prepared with toe and hand warmers which helped a little, but it was freezing! I even wore ear muffs LOL. I don't think I've ever worn ear muffs in my life. A night never to be forgotten on so many levels.