Wild and wacky stake conference!

Stake conference is held twice a year and all the members of our stake (like a diocese) are invited to come to the conference.  Typically there are hundreds of people in attendance and things run like clockwork.

Not so this time!

1.  Two people were asked to give a prayer but at least one of them was not told it was to be the closing prayer, not the opening, so two people walked up to offer an opening prayer.
2.  The business part of the meeting (5 minutes or less) was forgotten until midway through the meeting.  It's usually done at the beginning of the meeting.
3.  Our excellent choir director brought the choir in a measure early on a loud, exultant piece.  Oops!  I was paying attention to her and came in early, along with about half the choir.
4.  A girl was accompanying her singing sister on the piano and the air conditioner kept blowing the sheet music around.  The piano was right in front of the choir but the people closest to the piano didn't notice the problem until the pianist had to quickly push the music back with her hand while still playing.  Then someone sat with her to manage her music and it was fine.
5.  The meeting ran overtime by about 9 minutes.  It usually ends right on time.

Despite everything, it was a delightful meeting.  The speakers gave us practical advice for raising our children, nurturing our marriages, sharing the gospel, finding hope for blessings in the future, and news about the temple that will be built in our area (nothing firm yet, other than one *will* be built) and how the expansion of the missionary program is going (swimmingly).

Here is my favorite of the three choral numbers we performed today:
http://www.lds.org/music/library/hymns/let-zion-in-her-beauty-rise?lang=eng
We used this sheet music from Sonos.