Premier Show

This family is was assigned the puppet show. They do the show while we hand out sock puppets to the kids, beads that they get at each activity, and talk to people who come. During the show, when the kids hear workers, the dogs, or Mom and Dad, they say certain things. It's really cute. They love the show and it is fun to see the kids get the puppets. The puppets my ward made were handed out last night and they loved them!

Mariane, Joclyn, Aubri, and I are the Family Support crew for the Blue Cast. Blue cast is in Nauvoo for two weeks. The first week they are rehearsing, the second week they perform in the show. The first week they also are doing the activities in the Frontier Country Fair, which is a bunch of preshow activities such as a puppet show, dance, cart racing, and other things.

I finally got to see the pageant. It was amazing!! Even better than I thought it would be. I get to see it every night this week because my cast is not performing. Next week I will be back stage. The thing that stood out to me last night was that families are eternal. It seems that most of the pageant, if not all, is centered around families. In the "welcome dance" families make up their own family dance. I have adopted a family that is in my district and I learned their dance with them yesterday when I rehearsed with them. It was really fun. I also helped the girls do their hair before the show. They went on stage for the finale.

After the show I went around and talked to audience members. It was amazing to look around and see so many cast members talking to people, even the kids. It was eaiser to talk to people and bear testimony after the show because they are all so impressed by it. I ended up only talking to members, but I gave them all referral cards and many said they could think of someone who might want a musical cd of the pageant. I am excited to talk to more people tonight.

The weather is okay right now. It started raining a bit during the show last night, but I think enough of us were praying for it to stop that it did. I met one woman yesterday who thought the pageant was last week and when it wasn't, she and her five kids camped out for a week to see the show. It was amazing! She was so excited to see the show. I don't think anyone comes here without paying the price of sacrifice, even those of us in the cast. Everyone here is here for a purpose. The cast is already feeling like family, like Zion. That feeling can't be descibed except to those who have experienced it before. In Nauvoo, I always feel the spirit of Zion with those who I am with. I love it!!

The Nauvoo Belle in Swampy Nauvoo

Day one consisted mostly of meetings and organizing things for the pageant. Families in my cast began learning their parts and we oriented the kids briefly. Today our goal was really only to get to know each other. The kids are really awesome and we can tell they are very excited to be a part of the pageant. We gave them a journal to record their experiences and helped them make pens and a tote bag to carry their things in. The kids' ages range between 4 and 11 years old. It is obvious that many of the parents have put a lot of hard work into preparing their kids for this experience and it is paying off. Tomorrow is the big day. We have lots of rehearsing to do and lots of things to learn so that next we our cast is ready to perform. I will learn my role in the puppet show, which is before the show and part of the Frontier County Fair. We give away sock puppets to the kids as part of the show. I am very excited to get started and learn more about what I am to do.

Right after our district meetings this evening, it started raining, actually, more like pouring. So, we all gathered in this tent and sang hymns and said a prayer to wait it out. It stopped just long enough for the casts to practice the finale, but right after that, it really started pouring. I mean, sheets of rain, thunder, lightening, swamplike grass, flooded streets... Yeah, remember how Nauvoo used to be a swamp? Now I see why. I have to admit, I was sad not to see the rehearsal since I've never seen the pageant, but it was fun running in the warm rain across the grass in Nauvoo. Now I understand why my midwestern roommates love the rain so much. Anyway, we all waited in our cars for about half an hour, but the storm didn't let up. I went out in the rain to confirm the cancellation of the show and then proceeded to walk through the swamp to each of the families cars to tell them. I can't believe they waited, it was pretty obvious it would be cancelled. I laughed at what I must have looked like. I was soaked and walking in ankle deep water in a thunderstorm. It was funny and fun at the same time.

The rehearsal for the finale. Missionaries were there talking to the few who came to watch the show tonight, although it doesn't officially start until tomorrow. That is why we need people to pray that the storm will let up so we can start performing. So many have sacrificed and prepare to come here for the pageant, to perform in it, volunteer like more, or even more important, to view it to have their testimonies increased or knowledge about the church increased. One thing we talked a few times today about was the fact that no one comes to Nauvoo on accident. You don't just happen to come by Nauvoo. Everyone comes here for a purpose. Some may not know what that purpose is, but they come. Something draws them there and they make the effort to come. That is why it is so important that we do this show. Not only to increase our testimonies and our understanding of the early saints, but to help those who come looking for something to improve their lives. We all have stories of what brought us here. I can't wait to hear the stories of those I meet who come to see the pageant.

Entry One of the Diary of the Pageant Princess

I arrived in the beautiful city of Nauvoo at 5 pm this evening. I still can't believe I am here, but I am loving it already. I am staying with a friend who I met when I did the Semester at Nauvoo program. She was actually my visiting teacher. :) Tonight we went to a show put on the core cast of the pageant called "Our Story Goes On." It was AWESOME! It was a story of the journal of life, from birth to old age. The lesson of the show was to enjoy every moment of life, don't be afraid of the future or ambitious about the past. Life continues on, we can learn from our parents because they have experienced the same things that we have or will. Families are forever and love is the greatest thing we can possess.

Before the show I was run down (almost literally) by two sister missionaries- namely Sister Westwood and Sister Miles. It was so fun to reunite with them. I am excited to see them and work with them for the next two weeks.

Tomorrow morning starts my orientation and training. I will be at the junior high school, which is just five miles down the road from where I am at. I'm not sure what my schedule is yet except that where ever the cast is, I will be there to do things with the kids.

Return to Nauvoo

Yep, that's right! Tomorrow I am leaving for Nauvoo!! I can hardly believe that I am going back! I am very excited to be a part of the pageant and work with the kids and their families that are in the show. I'm all packed except for the little things that have to wait until right before I leave. This last Tuesday I was set apart as a member of the Nauvoo Pageant and special representative of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints... that means I'm a missionary... finally!! Most of my missionary experiences will be as I do the puppet show before the pageant starts and talk with audience members after the show. I will try to take pictures on my phone and send them to people and put them on my blog. I am staying with a friend I met when I did the Semester at Nauvoo program, so I might be able to use her computer to send updates and pictures. Right now I know that I am in the Anna Fordham district. She is the wife of Elijah Fordham who was had his arm miraculously healed, if I remember right, which led to their family's conversion.
If you want to write to me while I am in Nauvoo, you could send it either of the following addresses:
Michelle Kelly
c/o Nauvoo Pageant
P.O Box 267
Nauvoo, IL 62354-0267

or

Michelle Kelly
1885 Young St.
Nauvoo, IL 62354

You could also do email, but I don't know how much access, or time for that matter, I will have to respond. With my new phone, I can read your messages, I just don't know yet if I can respond on it.

For the Fourth, I will be flying, so today feels more like the holiday than tomorrow will. I will be seeing a really special show that the core cast of the pageant puts on in the evening only once a summer in Nauvoo, so that will be awesome to be there in time to see that. It's called "Our Story Goes On." Today Stephanie Barron and I are going to a place called Cascade Springs. It is a boardwalk around lots of pretty waterfalls and streams. After that we will get pizza, play games with friends, then watch the Stadium of Fire show from up on the hill above my apartment complex. It is the best view of it, I think. I'm pretty excited!

Doughnut Falls and a Missing Tooth

Sad to say I wasn't greatly impressed by it which is kind of funny considering what happened... It is a very short, 1.4 mile hike to the falls. While I was hiking along the cliff on the right side of this falls, a climber up above started sending down about fist size rocks without knowing it. Joe Meservy, and Savannah Woods were just ahead of me, as you will see in one of the pictures here. They heard it first and yelled up at him to get his attention. I joined them, making a sign to tell him to cut it out. This all happened in a matter of 15 seconds from the time the rocks started falling. A couple seconds after I stared making the sign, I saw a rock fly toward me and it hit me in the mouth, but only there. I was very, very lucky to not have been hit in the head or any part of my face besides my teeth. The force of the rock, as it turned out, shattered one tooth to the bone, which caused me to have to have it removed, loosened one, and put slight hairline fractures in another. It didn't hurt that bad, actually. Right after it happened, I knew I just needed to get out of there. I could feel the shattered tooth in my mouth, but the tooth was still attached some how so it didn't look so bad. It just looked like it was chipped on top and cracked in the middle (see picture below). Luckily, two of my guy friends were there to give me a blessing once we got back to the parking lot. It was a short trail, so it didn't take long to get back to the car.

Once we got out of the canyon, Joe made some phone calls to get a hold of his brother-in-law's brother who is a dentist. He got a hold of him and the dentist was willing to leave a youth conference to come to look at my teeth and help anyway he could. I don't have insurance, so that was a great blessing to have him willing to do that for me. Savannah took some pictures so that I could see what it looked like before we went the dentist. She took some while we were there, too.

The dentist at first said that he would try to glue the cracked tooth together and put a covering on it until a later day when he could look at it more and see what to do. Once he took a better look at it, he realized that the crack went at a diagonal all the way down to the bone. The crack basically cracked the tooth in half down the middle so from the front you couldn't see the damage. When it pulled the top of the tooth off, you could see the part in the front that made it look like it was only a small crack and then the rest of it is the back of my tooth that went all the way down to the bone. You can see what it looked like in the picture below. Once he got that out, he said something that told  me that it was worse than he thought. It was shattered and it would have to be removed. So, he numbed me more and started removing it, but because it was fractured so much, whenever he pulled on part of it, it would just break off. One time it really broke loudly and that is what finally sent me into shock. I hadn't been in shock or anything until that point. It took a long time for him to get the root out, but that is what is pictured in the other picture of the tooth. I tried connecting them, but they don't connect. That just tells you how shattered it was.

The doctor said that the tooth that is loose should be fine and heal. The other tooth that has some small hairline fractures should be fine as well as long as I don't hit it so hard again. It would take another blow like the one I got this one to do anything to it. It is the strongest tooth in the mouth.

On Wednesday I have an appointment to get a flipper retainer that has a fake tooth on it. I can't really chew or suck on anything right now, so that limits what I can eat. But my friends and roommates are taking care of me, so I should be fine. I'm just glad I have a couple weeks to heal before going to Nauvoo. I am also really glad it was a bottom tooth and not a top tooth.

Picture taken exactly 19 seconds before it happened. The rocks came down from the right side about 100 feet above.

I have a bloody picture of this, but I'm sure you appreciate the cleaned up one.

 Big part at top of tooth is part of tooth that was above the crack you see in the picture above. The rest that goes down is the back of the tooth. Below is the root of the tooth.

On the bright side, I earlier that week I went to visit my friend Chandra Hoyt and her kids for a day and went to the Manti Pageant with friends in the ward.

Adams Canyon

On Memorial Day, eight friends and I hiked Adams Canyon. It is a beautiful hike with a beautiful waterfall at the end. Most of the hike was by the stream with beautiful small cascades every once in a while. There was one point where I thought we had reached the end because it was a good sized waterfall, but we still had quite a bit of a way to go. It was tiring, but worth it!

This is how we had to cross the river. I didn't bother with the rocks. I just walked right through it. :)

Here we climbed on the left side of the waterfall to get as high above the falls as we could. This was challenging, but really fun!

It's hard to tell, but I'm right on the edge of the cliff above the falls. Two of my friends went even higher up and around the falls, but that was incredibly scary and dangerous, so I didn't do it.

Get-A-Way to St. George

My brother Steven has an ingenious idea of meeting each other half way between CA and UT to have some fun together. Although Mesquite is actually the halfway point, we met in St. George and had a blast! I had no idea there was church history related things there! We toured Brigham Young's winter home, which I didn't even know he had. We also went to the tabernacle and around the temple. For fun, we went to a dinosaur tracks museum and to a day spa for pedicures. Of course, we also ate at In-N-Out together. Here are some pictures to prove it!