Valentine's Day

For Valentine's I purchased tickets for a concert for Monty and I to go to one of my favorite pianists. His name is Marvin Goldstein. I first went to one of his classes years ago at BYU Education week and now I go to him every year at Ed Week. He is a Jewish convert to the church. When I saw that he was going to be here on Valentine's Day I just had to get tickets. We got seats on row 3. They were awesome. Of course in his concert he couldn't bear his testimony like at BYU, but he has a wonderful sense of humor and had us all laughing. He did tell jokes about Jews, Mormons, Catholics, etc.

He is such an amazing and talented man. He doesn't know what songs he is going to play when he does a concert. He just starts playing and plays whatever songs come in his mind without any music in front of him to read. He also takes requests out of the audience and then does a medley of those songs requested. Monty raised his hand and requested a song. He requested "Anything you can do, I can do better", a song from Annie Get Your Gun. I didn't think that was a very romantic song for Valentine's Day, but he said he couldn't think of another song to request. Monty was in that play when he was is high school and knew that song. Marvin just played it in a medley along with the other songs the other people requested.

I have about 12 of Marvin's Cd's that I have purchased over the years. He has truly magnified the talents that God has blessed him with. Before the show we saw him out in the Lobby walking with a cane. He has had a bad back for years and that night they told us that he was in a car accident a few weeks ago and that when he went home after the concert, he was going to have 2 back surgeries. He lives in Florida. You could see he was in pain, but he told us when he starts playing at concerts the pain seems to leave temporarily. He played for a little over 2 hours. If you think about it, keep him in your prayers that his surgeries will go well. I love to listen to good music. Monty gave me roses and balloons. It was a great Valentine's for me. I hope all of you had a great one too.