The Hill Cumorah Pageant

Pageant season begins on a Monday when about 20 young men age 19 - 26 show up with several adult leaders to begin set up.

By Friday they have set up hundreds of square feet of a 10 level stage, professional lighting on 12 - 30 to 50 foot towers, a ton of professional sound system and Hollywood style special effects.

The Facilities Management people lend whatever support is needed to the setting up of the visitors sites to support Pageant visitors. Elder Parkerson helped with the tents

This is a before picture of Elders Huffacker and Parkerson before mowing about 20 acres of field/parking lots. Its a lot of fun for about an hour. After 7.5 hours we didn't dare show you the "after" pictures. The dirt and grass clipping made the people unrecognizable, not to mention the inability to stand up straight for awhile.....

On Friday, July 3, this year 730 strangers show up as Pageant performers, collect scripts, identification and instructions. On the following Saturday morning they all go to the "bowl" ( a large field below the pageant stage where the audience sits and get chosen for their parts. Seven professional "scene" directors choose the actors for their scene and then rehearsals begin. By Monday they are begin to rehearse on stage and by Wednesday they are prepared for a full run through. On Thursday night is a full dress rehearsal and Friday begin the annual pageant season.

It is referred to by many as 'God's" pageant. over 800 people coming together and putting this thing together in less than a week is truly a miracle!

If you would like to know a little more then visit

www.hillcumorah.org/pageant/

there you can see the opening scene and get a lot of information. We had over 51,000 visitors to the historic sites during pageant. I cleaned more toilets this week than I have in my entire life!

Its been a lot of hard work but a lot of fun too.

I had an interesting experience while heading towards one of our anti-Mormon visitors who was yelling insults to the pageant visitors. I was intercepted by an "usher" who "insisted" I not "visit" with the protester. In a conversation with him I discovered he was not really an usher but a security guard, retained by the Church to "protect" the protesters from the members who they were insulting! It is a move by the Church to prevent law suits as the protesters are on church property yelling insults at the members of the church and if they were to have an "accident" at the hands of some members the church could be sued in court. Oh well you got to love America for the freedom to stand on someone else's property, violate them and be protected by law. Also found out the "Mike" shows up every

year, they know him by name, and he is from Rochester. He is paid money by some anti organization to come down here every night and yell and protest. The others were mostly locals dressed in hobo attire.

The only justice is that once an opening prayer is given the pageant is then deemed a "religious" meeting and if the protesters make any sounds they will be arrested by the sheriffs that are standing by and hauled off to jail for disturbing a religious meeting. They did one last year and it didn't happen again this year.

Other than that it was a beautiful pageant season. It did get rained out the first Saturday night. Actually they will perform in the rain but the intense lightning and thunder with over 700 people on a steel stage was too much of a risk so they ended Saturday night at the death of Abinidi scene.

Our love to all of you who are following, praying and supporting us in our Mission Adventure.