Sunday our Prophet, Russell M. Nelson came to Amway Center in Orlando Florida to speak to Caroly and me and 15,500 of our closest friends. The Amway Center usually hosts the local basketball and ice hockey teams and various traveling music groups. This is the view 45 minutes before it started so there are still some empty seats. The devotional started at 5. The doors opened at 3, but they asked us to be there by 4, 4.30 at the latest. We were in our seats at 4.
Of course, our seats were in the nose-bleed section
But it still seemed fairly intimate since the Jumbotron was right in front of us. We probably had a better view than all the 12 to 18 year olds who had special seats filling the main floor. Here's the view from another section closer to the floor.
But wait a second. Click on the picture and take a look at three special celebrities--Do you recognize our grandchildren? Sage forwarded these pictures to us.
This is the view that we had in the nosebleed section a little bit more even to the screen.The special speakers were the apostle Elder Uchtdorf and his wife. Of course he had to mention his experiences as a pilot and his introduction to Florida during his pilot training when he was a young man from Germany before he became a pilot for Lufthansa. Afterwards we wondered if he piloted the prophet to Orlando.
The prophet's wife told about the courtship she had with the widowed Elder Nelson 15 years ago when he was an apostle. The devotional was only supposed to last one hour but President Nelson opted to address us for 45 minutes so we weren't out of the Amway Center until 7. One of the highlights was his singing "I am a Child of God" with all the children in the audience,
The only empty sections were a thin band of "club seats" on the fourth level that are probably private boxes closed off from the public. Most of us were in the fifth level. There were a few empty seats at the very top behind us that probably would have been filled but it was pouring rain outside for most of the two hours before the devotional started so some may have opted to stay dry and watch it at their chapel. Luckily it stopped the downpour for a minute or two when we had to walk in a slight sprinkle the three blocks from our parking garage and when we had to walk back afterwards.
