Saturday Already?

It's really hard to believe that it's already Saturday and tonight is my last performance. I feel like I could do this for the rest of the pageant if they'd let me. Alas, others have come to enjoy this opportunity and I want them to have it. I love my fellow cast members and core-cast. They have been such a great help and support for me. I have really felt so loved and watched over by Heavenly Father because of their great examples and influence. This experience has been so different than I expected, that it is hard to describe how I feel about it all. At the beginning I was asked what I wanted to accomplish and I said what I said last year and that was to be a missionary. My mission was a little different this time and it's hard to explain how except to have you read all my prior posts. I feel that I've learned what I've come here to learn and have been the kind of missionary I needed to be. Before I came here I felt that I was coming here for another cast member not necessarily a pageant visitor. I feel I probably won't know exactly all who I've influenced in the cast, but I must know that I have and that is enough. Maybe someday I will know who I helped and how. I hope so.

Last night we had a large youth conference group of Liberty, Missouri. It just so happens that one of my best friend Savannah's little brother Cameron was in that group so I talked to him before and after the pageant. He really impressed me when he said that his favorite parts were the beginning and the end. The end I understand, but the beginning? When I asked him why he said because it was so overwhelming. He said he was overwhelmed by the welcome that we gave to the audience. It was full of love and the Spirit. THAT is exactly the purpose of the beginning of the pageant, so it was a compliment to know that we achieved that purpose that night. We want the audience to feel welcome and feel how much we love them and are glad that they have come to hear "our" story.

I felt like the performance last night went very well, but WAY TOO FAST. I mean, it went by too fast. I was totally losing myself in doing it that before I knew it, it was over. I'm afraid that it will happen again tonight, but I will be glad, because that is how it should be. I will REJOICE my way through tonight's performance because I know that is what the early saints would want me to do. I'll be back to do it again.

Before the pageant I talked to one nonmember very briefly. The cross on her neck was a dead giveaway. I mostly talked to the youth in the youth conference and some of their leaders. I got a total of four referrals last night. After the pageant I talked with Cameron and some of his friends and then I talked to a guy about my age with his friend who is a recent convert to the church. I really enjoyed my conversation with them because it felt like I was summarizing some of my own thoughts and feelings about being in Nauvoo and experiencing the pageant. I realized last night that there are six things I've tended to bear testimony of with almost everyone I talked to before and after the pageant:
1. Joseph Smith being a prophet and how much the early saints loved him and I love him
2. That we have prophets on the earth today and just like the early saints immediately after Joseph's death, we can take that step of faith to listen to and follow and trust the prophet of the Lord who we have been blessed to have on the earth today.
3. The temple and Priesthood- the blessings it gave the saints as they left Nauvoo and the blessings I've received in my own life as I keep my covenants and live worthily.
4. Importance of Women and the Relief Society- their involvement in building the temple and Nauvoo and the great sacrifices and challenges they made to support their husbands and families. They created and had the support of the Relief Society that today still supports and helps me and everyone who is in need.
5. Families and unity- The pageant is centered around families and our desire to love and care for each other. Through out the pageant, families go first and that is how it should be where ever we are.
6. To non-members: Jesus Christ- He is the center of our faith. Everything we do on stage and off is us trying our very best to be like Him. We desire to become like him in our service and love for others.

When we are on stage, we are not just performing. I've probably said that a lot in the blog already, but I don't think anyone can really understand it until they've seen the pageant or the other show called "Our Story Goes On." The second show is a performance done only by the core-cast once a week and sometimes also for the family casts. I saw it when it was performed in Nauvoo and Keokuk, but yesterday it was performed for the Blue and Yellow cast families. I am so grateful that I went because it was incredible. It's hard to describe what happened in that performance except to say that the cast and the audience connected in a very personal way that was so powerful. That room was so full of love and it seemed like every song the cast sang told a piece of every audience member's "story," including mine. There is one song that is called "Proud of Your Boy" that really hit me this time, more than it usually does. Earlier this week at the end of a phone call with my mom, she said she was proud of me. It really hit me as I listened to my friend perform it with such emotion I've never seen before that I really wanted my Mom to be proud of me and I was so grateful to have her as my mother. The rest of the show was so powerful that trying to describe it doesn't do it justice. You had to be there.

To me, this is exactly why what I've been doing here is not just performing. There is SO MUCH MORE to being in the pageant than performing for an audience. We give our hearts and ourselves. We also feel the influence of those who we are representing on stage, more than anyone can really know. It truly is a sacred experience.

Last night I represented my ancestor Martha Brown Sanders and tonight I will represent Pheobe Wooster Child Richardson.