Best Sunday Ever

At the risk of sounding a little cheesy, I just have to tell you all about the most wonderfully special Sunday ever. The day started out great. I got to my meetings early and had the chance to play Christmas songs on the piano for awhile before we got started. Then Fast and Testimony meeting was incredible. I felt like everyone focused on the Atonement and it just filled my heart with happiness! And then there was our amazing Relief Society Lesson about the miracles of Christ (favorite quote from the lesson: "In the absence of any other proof, the thumb alone would convince me of God's existence." - Isaac Newton).
After church Dennis told me that his friend from work had some extra tickets to the Christmas Devotional in Salt Lake. I'm not usually too keen on going to the conference center because you end up sitting so far away that you end up watching it on the big screens anyway, and you have to deal with all the traffic, parking, and freezing-ness of Salt Lake in December. But we decided to go anyways.
We agreed to meet Dennis' co-worker at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building at 5:30 for the Devotional that started at 6:00. We got there at about 5:25 and found that the JSMB was closed....and it was absolutely frigid outside! I mean bitter cold. So we walked over to the Conference Center to wait outside our assigned door. I was dying to go inside, but we had to wait for our friend because he had the tickets. So we waited... and waited... 5:40pm rolled around, then 5:50pm and Dennis' friend still hadn't showed up. By this point, I can't feel my toes or ears and a positive attitude was hard to maintain. Then it was 5:51, 2, 3, 4, 5, they announce that they will be closing the doors. 5:56, the doors start closing, 5:57, all doors are closed but one, and then....our friends come running around the corner with our tickets. We quickly ran into the one door that was still open and proceeded through the metal detectors, only to get beeped and have to go get scanned again in another scanner on the side.
Since these events are first come first serve as far as seating is concerned, we figure we'd be in the very back of the balcony, and that we probably wouldn't get to sit together. Then as I was being checked in the second metal detector, one of those cute little old-man ushers, came and asked if we wanted good seats....Umm.....YES PLEASE!! We're thinking, "Yes! We won't be in the balcony!" But to our surprise, he lead us all the way down to section B. That is SEVEN, yes SEVEN rows from the prophet!! The whole first presidency was right there in front of us, they could look into our faces we were that close! We felt like a million bucks walking down to those seats.
Needless to say we were ecstatic. We spent the next hour in utter awe as we listened to the messages given and were overwhelmed with the Spirit as the choir sang the most moving songs. I just couldn't get over how amazing it was to hear the Mormon Tabernacle Choir live, singing Handel's Messiah, For unto us a child is born. It literally took my breath away. I got chills every time they sang, "Wonderful, Counselor!"
When the meeting was over, we all stood up, ready to start our long journey back up the stairs to the main exits, as we began to realize that we were surrounded by general authorities! There was Sister Allred, Elder Cook, the Young Women's Presidency. Some of them were even sitting BEHIND us! Again, we were in awe! Dennis' shook some of their hands and I greeted them.
And THEN... because of where we were sitting, they began ushering us out the front of the conference center into the tunnels! We kept looking at each other like, Is this for real! So there were were, walking shoulder to shoulder with ALL of the Apostles and other general authorities! It was nuts! The apostles were picked up in little golf carts and slowly drove 2 feet away from us as they were escorted out, they waved at us and smiled and said hello, but several of the other general authorities walked with us through the long winding tunnel that lead us under the conference center, under the street, then under the temple, where we finally ended up coming out at the Church Office Building.
It was the most special night ever. Dennis and I couldn't stop smiling. It was the perfect finish to a perfect day.