Uchtdorf

So as many of you already know. There's a certain man in the LDS Church who is kind of a celebrity amongst Saints, Airline Pilots, and German Speaking Missionaries, and if you've managed to come this far without reading the blog title I'll give you a hint. He's the only German Second Counselor in the First Presidency. That's right, it's President Dieter F.(Short for Friedrich I believe) Uchtdorf, and his birthday is on November 6th, (Guy Fawlkes fans may enter their own "Remember Remember Jokes here"), and in order to celebrate he decided to throw a fireside. Quite the partier wouldn't you say? Well I guess when you've got enough friends to fill two stake buildings, a fireside is the safer way to go, but anyway I digress. Back on topic, in celebration of his birthday, President Uchtdorf came back to his home stake and held a fireside for the members he's known almost all his life.

And luckily for this German bound guy, President Uchtdorf is the former stake president of the Darmstadt/Frankfurt/Heidelberg area, which just so happens to be my stake. :) hooray.

But wait, there's more!

In a special invitation to many of the YSA in the area who are active in institute, the choir seats were left open as a place for them to sit.

So... fast forward to last sunday, as the chapel, cultural hall, overflow room 1, overflow room 2, and overflow room 3 were filling themselves one mini van sized family at a time, this skinny college student managed to squeeze a spot roughly ten feet away from the podium. After assuring that both the podium, and estimated seating arrangement of Uchtdorf and Frau were as close as possible, and that a clear line of sight would be maintainable at all time I settled in for the next 90 minutes.

As he walked into the chapel there was the expected wave of silence, as the congregation stood, but what took me by surprise was how instead of taking the most direct route to the pulpit, he progressed around the chapel through a series of hugs, and handshakes from one old friend to the next, until he eventually made his way to the stand where he took his place.

I didn't have a camera handy, but my friend Sara was kind enough to provide this shot. Basically if you remove that clump of hair on the left side, and slide the camera a few inches over to the left you'll see me. :) I know this is about as much proof of my being present as there being life on other planets, but hey.. they're both plausible right?

Anyway, President Uchtdorf gave a wonderful talk, that as far as my notes say was about the using of small and simple things to build and bear testimony. He didn't have a specific topic as far as I could tell, and mostly his tone was that of speaking to friends and family rather than teaching a specific lesson.

He provided a few anecdotes, recalled a few memories, and gave his testimony of the authenticity of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

My favorite story, was probably the one he tells of when a newly baptized family first came into his ward. There was a young woman in this family that he described as "the one with large brown eyes", and he explained how as a teacher, he'd try and organize his route while organizing the sacrament so that he could be the one to hand her the bread/water. He always wore his best suit on those days, and made sure it didn't get wet or wrinkled or worn.

She knew him as: The boy who always wore the same suit.

He argued it was the only one he had.

Needless to say that brown-eyed girl eventually became Sister Uchtdorf, and it's funny to note the effect one pretty girl who knows her standards, can work on even the scrawniest of deacons.

All in all the fireside was a grand ol' time. And after the closing prayer Uchtdorf surprised us by running back up the microphone to tell everyone to not run away so fast, as he still needed to track down some friends and catch up. We surprised him in turn by sinking an off key, multilingual rendition of Happy Birthday.

I didn't get to shake his hand, but he did shake the hand of the guy next to me, and was probably about to shake mine, but the quickly growing mob (interesting that now our Prophets are mobbed with handshakes and hugs) swept him away before he could. It's all ok though. I got to stand a few feet from him, and got to look him in the eye. (He's shorter than I thought), and that really was more than I could've ever hoped form.