Friday, September 6, 2019

2019.09.06 - The whole world is invited to the GALA event tonight.

GALA

GA'LAnoun A lavish public entertainment or celebration. A gala day is a day of pomp, show or festivity, when persons appear in their best apparel.
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From the Church website:

A GALA celebrating the 95th birthday of President Russell M. Nelson will be held tonight Friday, September 6, 2019, at 8:00 p.m. mountain daylight time in the Conference Center in Salt Lake City and will be broadcast live in eight languages on various Church channels. 

Church members have looking forward to this for months when this worldwide Birthday Party was first announced. The day that complimentary tickets were available on the Church website, the tickets were sold out within minutes.  

On the front page header of the Church website, www.churchofjesuschrist.org,  there is even a countdown clock ticker to when the party begins tonight. 


So if you aren't one of the 21,000 people who were able to get tickets. Here are your options to watch it live. 

Watch Online

The performance will be broadcast live in English on the Church satellite system, ChurchofJesusChrist.org, and Facebook, as well as on thetabernaclechoir.orgyoutube.com/thetabernaclechoirattemplesquare, and facebook.com/thetabernaclechoir.
The program will be broadcast in French, German, Mandarin, Portuguese, Spanish, and ASL on the Church satellite system, ChurchofJesusChrist.org, and thetabernaclechoir.org.

Watch On-Demand

The broadcast will be available for on-demand viewing on ChurchofJesusChrist.org, tabchoir.org/95thcelebration, and youtube.com/thetabernaclechoirattemplesquare imediately following the live broadcast in English, French, German, Mandarin, Portuguese, Spanish, and ASL.


BYUtv will rebroadcast the event on byutv.org at Sunday, September 8, 2019, at 4:30 p.m. (2330 UTC).


Sidenote: 

I am anxious to see how the gala event tonight compares to the birthday celebration held a few months ago when thousands were gathered to celebrate the birthday of L. Ron Hubbard

Image result for ron hubbard birthday celebration



Addendum:
Holding this event on September 6th is somewhat symbolic. Russell M. Nelson's actual birthday is September 9th. When someone says "The September Sixth", a few members might remember not the actual date of September 6th, but instead what  happened to six members of the Church who were either excommunicated or disfellowshipped.  They were called The September Six.

An article was printed yesterday in the Tribune about one of the September Six. Her name is Lavina Fielding Anderson. For over 25 years she has consistently attended her ward and has sat quietly in the same pew. She has participated as much as she was able like playing the piano and sung in the choir.  She has been visited by all her ward and stake leaders since 1993, she said, but after the passing of her husband last year, her Bishop proposed that her membership be reinstated. Her Stake President 
reconvened a high council were the decision was reached to recommend that she be approved for rebaptism. The request was forwarded on to the First Presidency at Church Headquarters.

A few days ago, a response came back from the First Presidency. 

It was denied. 

Despite the rejection, Lavina said that she’ll be in her same pew again on Sunday.

3 comments:

Taylor said...

KSL (church owned) news had an article about the Birthday Gala today:

https://www.ksl.com/article/46633128/latter-day-saints-gather-to-celebrate-president-nelsons-95th-birthday

In relevant part it reads:

"President Nelson has been a transformative president since he took over in January 2018. Earlier this year, the church's First Presidency rescinded rules that banned baptisms for children of gay parents and branded same-sex couples apostates subject to excommunication."

That paragraph almost implies a bit of heroism for rescinding a policy that offended and caused no small amount of backlash. However that paragraph fails to mention is it was actually and interestingly none other than President Nelson who so strongly taught in a worldwide broadcast that the policy was actually from God, witnessed by all the other members of the 12. ("Becoming True Millennials" talk given in Hawaii)

I'm confused, President Nelson is a "transformative" prophet for rescinding what HE so very strongly said was from God? Raises a number of concerns about what kind of transformation is occurring.

Weird, to say the least.

Michael said...

Frankly, the idea of a "Gala" for a supposed "humble servant of God" is completely out of place, and wrong for someone holding the office.

I guess I'm not terribly surprised, however. It seems that Nelson really likes having attention heaped upon himself. He's done nothing to date that I can see as having been "inspired". Just things that bring attention to himself.

Anonymous said...

This kind of thing makes me ill. My wife (who is devout) even finds this sort of thing to be off-putting.

On the Church website today, there is a section on the front page asking "How Has The Savior Influence Your Life?" The image above the link, and featured VERY prominently in the article, is one of President Nelson and his wife.

Go figure.