The 109th good thing about Lagos: Beautiful flowers at Stake Conference

It was our church's semi-annual Lagos Stake Conference this weekend, so we made the trip to Ikeja both Saturday and Sunday. We were able to convince the company security to let us travel without the armed chase vehicle, so we just went in the bullet-proof SUV with a single armed policeman. It was great to not have the entourage. I'll have some more on the weekend later, but for now I wanted to post a couple of pictures of the lovely flowers around the pulpit. They really do that up big here. I think they look to General Conference as a model for their conferences, and in the Conference Center in Salt Lake City, THEY always have masses of flowers around the pulpit, so they think that's how it should be done. They ushered us up to the reserved seats on the front row. They like to honor the white folks that way, even if we don't wish to have that honor. But I got to sit right in front of these flowers and enjoy them through the meeting.

It was also Stake Conference at our home stake in Katy, Texas this weekend. I'm sure THEY didn't have masses of flowers around the pulpit. And I probably would have had to stake out a front row seat very, very early in the morning, or fight someone for it. No reserved seats for us there. In Katy this weekend our Stake President was being released from this service. He was a good friend even before he was our excellent Bishop, Counselor in the Stake Presidency and then Stake President. He and his family have given many years of service to the church in Katy, so, from far away, I'd like to thank President Pickerd.

So they don't have masses of beautiful flowers surrounding the church pulpit in Katy, but they do have air conditioning. Any guesses on which I would choose if given the option?