On Friday night, Kelly and I went to a last-minute piano performance by renowned pianist Marvin Goldstein, a Jewish Mormon convert, who shares his story of what led him to his conversion. He's very humorous and pleasant, not to mention highly skilled at the piano. He never knows what he'll play until he sits down at the piano, and without an ounce of music, each song flows into the next. He encourages the audience to listen to the Spirit as he plays the children's hymns, which was moving and comforting, and breaks away from the piano, back and forth to the microphone as he shares an uplifting message. He played excerpts of Fiddler on the Roof, and said you're not really Jewish if you don't know those songs. He kept the audience engaged, and I am so happy we were treated to an evening with this unique musician and Latter-day Saint.
The event was organized with very little notice, two or three days, as Marvin was in town working on putting together a foundation with my friend's husband, to support Marvin going to different places to share his music and message. My friend, Carol, called me on Friday afternoon to invite us that night to Marvin's performance which was at the LDS chapel on Bee Caves Road. Lucky for us, we had the evening open, and were able to attend. This is a picture of Carol, Marvin, and me. Carol was one of my mission companions, while we lived in Amsterdam, volunteering as full-time LDS missionaries for a year and a half, in 1984. Carol and her husband moved to Austin in 2000, the same time we did, and we've been able to keep our friendship going strong as a result.
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