27 March 2011 - A Funeral and a Hockey Game

On Monday afternoon I received a call that a baby girl had been born to a couple in our ward.  The mother had been in a womens' hospital in Pittsburgh for three weeks because there were multiple concerns regarding the pregnancy, and the doctors had detected some developmental issues with the baby.  She was born about five weeks premature, and the birth defects were more numerous and more severe than expected.  I drove to the hospital and arrived as the doctor was explaining the prognosis to the baby's father and the outlook was grim.  With the help of a ventilator, the baby lived until Wednesday afternoon, but unfortunately passed away.  We planned a brief funeral, which was held at the church on Friday afternoon.  Many people in the ward helped out to make it a nice service, including Joanne, who sang a duet of Teach Me to Walk in the Light with our Relief Society president.

On Friday evening, after the funeral was over, a benefactor in our ward had arranged for our youth group to use a corporate suite for a Pittsburgh Penguins game.  Here are two of our young women and one of the young men from the ward, checking out the food selection (all of which was included).

Though the suite was cool enough by itself, there was also a hockey game going on, so we watched some of it.  The Penguins played the New Jersey Devils.  After regulation and overtime, the score was still 0-0, and the Penguins ended up winning 1-0 in a shoot out.

The building where the Penguins play is called Consol Energy Center.  It is a brand new arena that just opened this year and was designed specifically for hockey.  It was awesome and the kids all had a blast.

Here are three of our young men, enjoying the leather box seats.

The two young women who came with us were busy taking pictures of Mario Lemieux, widely considered the best player to ever play for the Penguins, and now the team's owner.  You can't really tell which one he is due to the angle I took in this picture, but he is the black-haired guy in the suite next to ours, in front of the flat screen TV with his head turned.

Here are five of our young men who took a break from eating free pizza to watch a little of the game.