In Which Church Turns Into a Reunion for the Stars of Yesteryear

Sometimes I feel like I am the only citizen of NYC who never experiences celebrity sightings (except for Turkish pop stars, athletes, and some arm wrestling champion who had a face off with the principal). This could be because the only celebrities that I would recognize would probably be Latin American political figures or something dorky like that. I did see Glen Beck once at the temple, but I have been trying to delete it from my memory.

A few weeks ago, however, everything changed. My cousin was visiting from Provo, Utah, so I attended church in Manhattan instead of Brooklyn. Going into it, I had no idea that it was going to be a star studded event.

Celebrity One:


I would like to stress that I DID NOT take this sacrament meeting paparazzi photo of Donny Osmond. Someone wanted a pic for her mom and sent it to me. As soon as we realized who it was, we tried to think of every middle aged mom we knew to share the news with. Every time there was a song, my cousin leaned forward to listen, but Donny seemed prepared for that and did not sing.

Keep in mind that my cousin was visiting from Provo...



At work the next day, I wanted to talk about my celebrity sighting, but Americans (especially those who were alive in the 70s) are hard to come by there and hardly anyone knew who he was. I decided that my best bet was the sixty something part time English teacher. He was sufficiently impressed.

In another weird Osmond-inspired turn of events, I collected some work the other day and on the top, a Turkish girl had mysteriously written "Marie Osmond." When I asked for an explanation, she replied, "I saw her on TV and she was funny, so I wrote it down to look her up later."

Celebrity Two
The closing song, "Oh Holy Night," was performed by this illustrious opera singer, Michael Ballam (it was kind of unnerving-take a good look):