Manti Bound

We took the kids to the Manti pageant last weekend. My mom called me early in the week and asked if we would want to go, it was the last weekend. I am glad she called because I didn't even know it was going on and I hadn't been for 12 years. I went so many years in a row when I was little and I wanted the kids to have the same experience. I thought it was a great idea so we decided to take them. I think that seeing the Joseph Smith story played out visually like that really makes a difference in trying to visualize what happened. I hope it increased their testimony of the truthfulness of this gospel. The pageant has changed a little since I went last, but it was really good, and well-done. The weather turned out to be perfect!

Here are the kids with "Mormon"

Playing cards before the pageant started.There were some protesters on the corner - of course. How sad that some people would go to this much effort to just pick a fight with people walking by! It really annoyed me. This particular group was dressed up like all the wives of Joseph Smith. They had a script on the back of their paper telling the story of who they were. You can blow up the picture, but basically it said the # of wife they were, their name and age, and ask me about my story. Then they had a whole bunch of people standing in front of them asking people walking by - "do you think it was interesting that Joseph Smith had so many wives?" - trying to get people to talk to them to banter back and forth. They also cheered during the pageant during the part where Robert was going from church to church and the comment is made, "By faith alone ye are saved." There were many other people standing around the intersection yelling stuff at us and kneeling on the ground and praying for us because we were mormons who were going to hell for what we believe in. Many of the people there were clearly not familiar with the beliefs we do have - or an understanding of some of the events in our church history. I can't understand why some people think that it is okay to cruicify other people for their beliefs just because they might think differently. It doesn't seem very christian to me.
We were standing on a corner ready to cross the street to go get dinner when all these women marched right by us across the crosswalk to the other side of the intersection. Jantz saw this lady who had a black shawl on when she crossed the street and said, "I think I found the old maid!" (Old maid is one of his favorite games to play!) FUNNY!