We “Fiddled” this week…

Another week has flown by and a busy week is ahead of us.  Last week was a wee bit discouraging as we did not have any visitors come into the Employment Centre.  We did work with a few people via email but having no one come in made the days long.  We did however get a lot of planning done for our upcoming trip to Ireland.

Yes, we are leaving Wednesday for another trip to Ireland.  In retrospect we have planned too much into a few short days…hopefully things will work out OK.  We have packed in so many meetings in a short period of time that we won’t have much time to visit very many places during our travels.  We have arranged to visit three branches in three days – Galway, Tralee, and Limerick.  In each branch we will hold a career workshop during the day and a youth activity in the evening.  One branch has indicated they hope to have eleven individuals attend the workshop and another branch has publicized our workshop in the community.  We will wait and see how many we actually have in attendance. 

The week was slow but on Saturday we did “fiddle”.  We went into Edinburgh for lunch with all the senior missionaries.  There were 16 of us.  After lunch we attended the Edinburgh Theatre matinee performance of Fiddler on the Roof.  It was a very good production.  I have always enjoyed that play and especially the music.  The production was very interesting as the cast was the orchestra.  It is hard to explain but the actors – most of them – all played instruments on stage as they acted.  It was quite amazing to think that they had memorized all the acting parts, the staging, and also the music.  There were violins, clarinets, guitars, trumpets, a bass, an oboe, flutes, a saxophone, piano, drums, and even a bassoon.  The young woman who was the “Fiddler on the Roof” was an amazing talent in playing the violin.  Paul Michael Glaser was Tevye.  Paul was Starsky in the TV series “Starsky and Hutch”.  He was very good.  I didn’t realize it but Paul was in the movie “Fiddler on the Roof”.  He was "Motel, the tailor".  It was a very enjoyable afternoon.  I have attached some pictures from the programme.  Can you recognize the scenes?

 

 

The "Fiddler" was a wonderful talent on the violin!

 

 

 

Here you can see the actors playing their parts and holding their instruments.  The top picture is a fellow asking the Rabbi (holding the bassoon), "Is there a blessing for the Czar"?

 

 

More scenes with the actors and their instruments.  The picture on the right is during the wedding celebration for Tzeitle & Motel, the tailor.

 

 

The rest of the weekend was spent enjoying General Conference.  For those not of our faith, every six months members of the LDS Church gather and listen to talks from the General Authorities and Officers of the Church for five – two hour sessions.  There are three sessions on Saturday and two on Sunday.   The Conference is held in Salt Lake City and is broadcast to a worldwide audience and is translated into about 65 languages.  The music for most sessions is provided by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. 

 

The Conference Center in Salt Lake City.  The Center holds a congregation of 21,000 people.

 

The Mormon Tabernacle Choir

 

 Because of the time difference between Salt Lake and Edinburgh, the Saturday morning session was seen live in Scotland at 5:00 p.m. in the evening.  The President of the Church, and the man we sustain as a Prophet, Thomas S. Monson, presided at each of the five sessions.  Each of the Apostles plus a number of other Church leaders spoke during the five sessions.  I would invite you to go to the Church website – www.lds.org – and find the link to October 2013 Conference and listen to some of the talks that were given.  The talks all centered around living gospel principles taught by Jesus Christ which will help us improve our lives and find true happiness.

 

 

President Thomas S. Monson, our Prophet