"We who were many, were becoming one."

It is a wonderful Nauvoo phenomenon; a group of strangers just a few days ago, now we are fast friends. It will be hard to say goodbye.

Last night after the pageant was over (about 11:00 PM) we all went over to the High School for a dance. It is probably hard to imagine a group of people of all ages, from barely walking toddlers to their grandparents at a dance. And the most amazing thing was that everyone was actually on the floor dancing!! With music ranging from Michael Jackson to the High School Musical, the "Cha Cha Slide", to a conga line. That is what a dance should be like! We had to stop the dance at 12:30 this morning because many members of the cast had duties at 8:00 AM this morning, but nobody wanted to leave.

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"In Nauvoo, everyone had a role to play."

One key to the relationships that we have forged here, is that each of us has some small job, and each of us understands that we need everyone. "The head cannot say to the foot, 'I have no need of thee.'". I have a job, as we build the temple, to remove a couple safety plates, then replace them after the temple is raised. It is a simple job, actually rather beneath my education and experience, but when we are building the temple, or building a community of Saints, we can find great joy in the simplest tasks.

It is easy to see how our pride can lead us to be alienated. There are many different personalities in any group, and we usually don't pick the people with whom we work. It is easy to become annoyed by others, to "seek our own", to desire our role to be either more visible, or to be less taxing. But when we lose ourselves in the work, we become one and miracles happen.


Cast meeting before our dress rehearsal, in the West grove.

Getting into character

As we prepared to come to Nauvoo and I started growing out my hair, I decided that I wanted to have mutton chops for the pageant. But I don't quite have the self-confidence to wear mutton chops at work, etc. while they are growing. So I just grew the entire beard and mustache until I arrived in Nauvoo.

So one of the first things that I did when I got here (actually the first thing the Jill made me do when we got here) was to shave off everything but the chops.

So here are some pictures showing the progression.



There goes the mustache...I am committed now.









Starting to get the Wolverine look.








I think everyone will be wearing chops next spring!

"There is nothing I would like better."

That is what Joseph says during the pageant to a very large and loud group of children that ask him to play stickball. Jeff (Joseph) is always playing with the kids during rehearsals and between rehearsals.

This picture shows "Joseph" holding Joseph. This is just a candid shot of Jeff holding the baby of one of the directors during a rehearsal. The baby is only 2 months old and they named him Joseph.

Jeff becomes so familiar with the children during rehearsals that during performances they have no fear interacting with him on stage. He told us about one performance in which a young girl named Rachel came and gave him something while they were on stage. It was not scripted, but Jeff's mike was on and he simply said "Thanks Rachel". After the performance a woman came up to Joseph, full of emotion, and expressed her surprise and deep gratitude that her "ancestor was remembered in the pageant." It seems that her great-great-grand-mother was a child in Nauvoo and had recorded in her journal the following account regarding the day that Joseph and Hyrum left Nauvoo to go to Carthage and the martyrdom. Joseph and Hyrum were riding horses as they left Nauvoo and families came out and lined the streets to bid them farewell. Joseph saw her, got off his horse, and greeted her personally. Her name was, of course, Rachel.

That little moment in the pageant between "Joseph" and Rachel was not in the script, but it was small personal miracle to the descendants of another Rachel, who were visiting the pageant on just the right night. Every night in Nauvoo seems to be full of such stories.


"We learned that to build Zion required that we give all that we had. And when more was needed, we gave of ourselves." Parley P. Pratt from the pageant script.

Well, today the Blue Cast arrives and they will be with us tonight as we do our final dress rehearsal. Tomorrow is opening night. We are all very excited.

"I think the Lord is in this."

The title of this post comes from a quote by Joseph Smith when Emma informed him that the women of Nauvoo wanted to officially organize. I have more that I want to say about that, but I will share that in a future post.

We have posted about many incidentals of our trip here, but we have written little about what is really happening. This is a profoundly spiritual experience. If you are working in the pageant and do not feel overwhelmed by the Spirit at least a few times each day, you probably are not paying attention.

As we immerse ourselves in this work, we have grown closer as a family and have come to understand better what it means to follow the Savior and to love those around us. And as we have done that, the normal pursuits of life suddenly seem so hollow and artificial. Things that normally consume our thoughts from day to day (recreation, entertainment, pleasures, occupations, and satisfying other desires) just seem so unimportant. The only things that are of real importance are strengthening family, following the Lord, building His kingdom, and inviting all of God's children to feast on the delicious truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Of course those other things are often good, even important, but when we are immersed in service it seems to give us a clearer perspective on our priorities.

(Joseph, Emma, and Jane Manning)

Every day, in addition to experiencing small miracles of our own, we have opportunities to hear stories of miracles that have touched lives through this pageant. Jeff Dickamore, who plays Joseph Smith, was visiting with us this week and I asked him the craziest thing that had happened to him during a performance. He told the story of a young boy who decided that the martyrdom march would be the ideal time to run up to "Joseph" and ask to be picked up. Jeff picked him up and carried him through the rest of the the march. The boy's mother was mortified, and after the performance was over came to Jeff and informed him that she just could not do this any more and planned to leave Nauvoo the next morning. However, before she had finished her conversation, a woman who had witnessed the performance also approached Jeff to declare that the most powerful part of the pageant was the part where the young boy had run to Joseph during the martyrdom and portrayed the children's love for Joseph and Joseph's love for children. To her the incident was filled with testimony. (Of course the boy's mother was reassured and remained to perform in the pageant.)

There are several other stories that I have made note of to myself and that I will try very hard to share on the blog. I don't know why it is so much easier to talk about the weather and costumes than it is to talk about the things that really matter. We will try to share a balance of both.

The 4th in Nauvoo

Today is the 4th of July and Erin's 16th birthday. She heard many choruses of happy birthday and received lots of hugs!

It was a downpour this morning which turned into a drizzle/mist this evening. I think it is the first day here that we have not seen at least a little bit of sunshine.

After another rehearsal tonight, some families broke out the sparklers and we had an impromptu celebration. After that we drove down Parley's street to the Mississippi and watched 180 degrees of fireworks across the river.

Erin says: - We came back and did some fireworks with some awesome friends @ our condos and core cast members it was so much fun. We did a human firework and tossed people :-D It was spiffy!!!!!

Dress Rehearsal

Here are a couple pictures from our dress rehearsal last night. It was a great night. The weather turned a bit, and we saw some rain. It progressed from a light drizzle at the beginning to a steady rain by the end, but everything went well and we hardly noticed the weather.

Jill and I are nicely framed right in the middle of this image of the "Evening Dance".

Here we are further downstage.

Even though it was just the first costume rehearsal, and performed in the rain, we had an audience that stuck with us to the end. That made it even more fun.

Did you get the memo?

(Posted by Jill)

We had twin day today at rehearsal when Paul (who plays Parley Pratt) and I showed up wearing almost the exact thing. We took a photo to commemorate, but perhaps we should start coordinating our wardrobes.

A rare sight

We saw something yesterday that is extremely rare in Nauvoo in July...people wearing jackets! The week before we arrived the heat index was daily above 110 degrees, but this week has been beautiful and cool, almost chilly in the evenings.

We completed a full run through of the pageant this morning. It is hard to believe that a bunch of strangers that just met on Monday have been able to learn the entire pageant enough for a complete run through in such a short period of time. It is truly amazing what a group of people with a common purpose and full of determination can do in a short period of time. Perhaps a little like what the pioneers were able to accomplish when they gathered here in the 1840's. Most settlers on the frontier at the time were independent and roughed out a meager living. But the saints, following the prophet Joseph Smith, built a beautiful city, rivaling Chicago in size, from a swamp. And they did it in just a few short years.

We are exhausted and loving every minute (well maybe not every minute, but smiling every minute). The spirit is strong in this work; it is felt even on a hot stage, or learning how to portray a simple scene, or even just reflecting on the days work. We are so excited for people to start arriving so that we can share with them what we have been feeling all week.

Last week before we arrived so much rain fell that the pre-show site was flooded, creating a swamp just like what the saints found when they arrived in Nauvoo in 1939. Just like the pioneers, a drainage system was dug to drain off the water, this time using heavy machines instead of by hand as the pioneers did. This morning the young men were recruited to lay sod covering the trenches and pipes so the pre-show activities can begin next week without mud issues.

(Posted by Jill in the middle of the night)

We have completed our first 2 days of rehearsal, and it feels like we have been here for at least a week. The days are long and packed, but so fun. We had ice cream tonight after the rehersal ended at 9:00 (an early night!) with many of the women in the core cast. Maybe we were all just really tired, but we laughed and laughed.

Here's a couple of pictures from yesterday's costume fitting:
The laundry baskets hold slips and bloomers. It took trying on 3 slips to find one that wasn't too long. I got 3 tops and 2 skirts, and both Erin and I got 2 hats and 2 shawls. It's a lot to keep track of and very heavy to carry around. Colors are assigned by district, and even though we are in a different district this year we got the same color costumes as last year. Erin's 2 dresses are the exact fabric she had last year! She and I decided we have to keep coming back to the pageant until we get rose or blue dresses. Just about any color would be better than brown and gold. Craig got 2 shirts and suspenders which means he came up in the world - from poor immigrant to tradesman. Weston looks amazing in his vest and "newsie" hat.

Mayflies

After dinner tonight we took a walk around the pageant site and down to the Mississippi River. It was great to see everything taking shape. The stage, light towers and chairs are set up, but the stage needs some work. We saw all the damage caused by draining the field - huge areas had been dug up then smoothed over by tractors. They will need to bring in sod before the pre-show activities start in a week. Down on the river bank we saw hordes of Mayflies. This picture was taken with a cell phone at sun down, so it is not great, but you get the idea. Those fuzzy branches are fuzzy and drooping because they are covered with Mayflies. The trees had a halo of insects, but (thankfully) the bugs weren't interested in us. The fireflies were also out in abundance, but they don't freak us out like the Mayflies do.

We're back!!!

We made it back to Nauvoo without incident. Weston and I left Scout Camp Friday night at 10:00 PM after the closing ceremony. We got home at about midnight and started packing. We were at the train station at 5:30 AM on Saturday. The trip was beautiful and uneventful, and we are now in Nauvoo.

It is a "cool" 86 degrees today; Nauvoo has been in the upper 90's for a couple weeks, with very high humidity. The pageant area was a swamp, so some of the crew dug a special drainage system to "drain the swamp".

Let us know if there is anything you would like to read about or anything pictures you would like to see. We will start uploading soon...