Inauguration Weekend

This weekend has been very eventful with thousands of people already streaming into Washington D.C. for tomorrow's festivities. Both the Metro and all the museums were very crowded and they are estimating over a million people on the National Mall tomorrow for the inauguration. Yesterday I went to the National History Museum for some musical presentations. "President Lincoln's Own" is a reenactment group that dresses and plays music that the Marine Band would have played while President Lincoln was president. They played in the hall in front of the 'Star-Spangled Banner' and the music and costumes were fantastic. One of the best parts was when they played The Star-Spangled Banner within hearing distance of the flag that inspired the song.

Later that night a group of us went to the Kennedy Center to hear a quartet of a violinist, violist,cellist and a bassoonist. They play for the National Symphony and Orchestra and they were fantastic. 

   This morning a group of us decided to go to Arlington National Cemetery before church so we headed out and enjoyed a nice walk around the Lee House. We missed the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier because someone else decided to visit Arlington as well. President Obama was also in Arlington and we had to wait while the presidential motorcade passed by. 

When we got to church we were quite surprised to see Elder L. Tom Perry sitting on the stand. Apparently both he and President Uchtdorf are in town representing the Church at the inauguration. He gave a wonderful talk. He talked about the growth of the missionaries. He talked about the need of up to six of the Apostles to assign mission calls, rather than the usual two, on Fridays. He also talked about the large number of missionaries that will enter the mission field that may have to be trained by Elders and Sisters that have little time in their field themselves. To help them he counseled that all members study the first three lessons from Preach My Gospel to be able to help when the missionaries go out to teach.  

It was a great weekend. Tomorrow afternoon we are heading out to our Professor's house for a BBQ, so that will be a fun way to celebrate the inauguration.