Stake Conference!

There are five wards in Tallahassee (including one for just singles since this is such a huge college town) This appears to be the oldest and largest in town, has brick walls on the inside!

(this month's Ensign mentioned new, environmentally friendly buildings)

This will be a year of many *firsts*, beginning with the Stake Conference.

We went down Saturday afternoon, located the Church, found our Marriott, both happened to be in the middle of FSU. I suddenly felt very old.

Once at the Saturday afternoon session, I was amazed/shocked/in awe..... at the singing!! Not sure if it was the large number of people at one time or the fact that all of them are very familiar with the songs and know all of the harmony. Whatever the case, I completely quit trying to sing and just listened.... finally closed my eyes and listened (can hear better) .

Beautiful!!

Sunday morning session had a choir! Again, I was amazed at the number of people, first time I had seen the back portion of a chapel totally open, FULL of people and excellent music!

There were many great speakers.... took lots of notes!

Of supreme interest is Patriarchal Blessings!

We will be working on that soon!

Of course, I think about things like ~do all churches everywhere have the same topics?~

Is stake conference timing universal?

John excited about seeing all of the Thomasville folks in Tallahassee!

This is how his face looked when I met him, but he had long dark hair, so this is a new look to me too! The beard came off in increments over the summer. First was his mustache, then a little shorter beard, little shorter and finally GONE! He says he found a good deal on razors and shaving cream at Costco! I think he wanted to look like Elder Farr ;)