Reflections

Last month I was so blessed to have had the opportunity to participate in the Hill Cumorah Pageant and be a member in the cast! Not a day goes by when I don't think about the experiences I had, the miracles I witnessed, or the wonderful friends I made while there. Here are a few memories I have of Pageant.

HOBART COLLEGE: PLACE OF LODGING AND MUCH EATING

• Early morning treks from the Hobart dorms across the huge dewy lawns to the cafeteria to get breakfast/brunch, an abundance of grass clippings that got stuck all over your feet, feeling your legs burn from the brisk pace you're going at so you can get food and hike back up the steady slope of the lawn back to get to the bus on time.
  
• Soft serve ice cream for breakfast/brunch!
• Tripping over the lump in our dorm room floor every time I crossed the room (my two other roommates found this extremely amusing, as they never tripped over it).
• Playing volleyball, frisbee, human checkers, karaoke, and finger painting during Hobart Days!

• Bug-infested showers--you most certainly not be missed.
• Making my bed (which was about three feet off the ground) in my skirt, and in the process of finishing and leaping off my bed my skirt managed to catch hold of one of the posts and tear. Loudly. With much rippage. And much laughter ensued.
  
• LATE night (early morning, really) snacks and chats, journal writes, talks and laughing sessions with Kristen Erickson, group scripture study, plaiting Kristen's long golden locks.
• Ashlin's famous trip where she unknowingly lugged up a whole bag of clean sheets and towels up three flights, instead of just grabbing one set for herself from out of the bag.
  

• Getting locked out of our dorm room multiple times (there were only two keys for the three of us).
• Walking up and down three flights of stairs multiple times a day and night.
• Dancing to "Bye Bye Bye" with Primary actions at the Hobart talent show.

DEVOTIONALS: WHEN WE SANG, PRAYED, LAUGHED, AND LEARNED MUCH GOOD STUFF

• Singing with a choir made up of about 800+ people in the study shelter. (Whoa! What a sound!)
• Bearing my testimony through singing a solo in front of an audience made up of about 800+ people during a devotional.
• Bundling up in sweaters and blankets when starting devotionals in the crisp morning shade
  of the study shelter.
• Fighting hard to stay awake during some talks.
• Looking around and seeing everyone else fighting hard to stay awake--many lost in this battle.

• Feeling the Spirit.
• Looking at the little Nephite and Lamanite people the Primary kids made and deciding which ones represented us (I am the one with the brown shirt and green skirt, third one from the right of the picture).

THE 2009 HILL CUMORAH PAGEANT: WHAT WE CAME HERE FOR

• Our cast team, S7, made up of 20-year old ladies and recently returned 21-year old missionaries. We had many an adventure together including playing a variety of hilarious games, geocaching, hiking the Hill together multiple times, scrambling to figure out what to do, and stealing quick naps when we could.
  
• The Great Eight: My main group of friends from Pageant, all in S7. They're all so wonderful! I miss them all so much. (Back row L to R: Josh, Ashlin, Zach, Heather, Mike. Front Row: Heather, Alayna, Me.)

• Getting the amazing opportunity of doing missionary work and greeting and teaching the audience. Countless miracles occurred. The Lord's hand truly was everywhere in everything!
• Meeting these Ukrainian and German couples. One couple lives in Rochester, the other was visiting them from Ukraine. It was incredible how we were led to meet them, talk to them, have them open up to us after Mike started speaking Russian with them, really teach them, and get to know them. Great, great people! (L to R: Bohdan, Roma, Mirko, Irma.)
  

• Performing the show! This was my absolute favorite scene: the Descension Scene where Christ comes to visit the Americas. To play the role of someone from the Book of Mormon times that was there when Christ came, to kneel as if I were kneeling at His feet, to feel wonder and awe and complete joy as if He were there performing miracles and speaking to us, and to feel the longing for Him to stay as He ascended back to Heaven is . . . indescribable.

(This is the Destruction Scene where I died. I jumped off one stage and landed on a lower one right as this great blasting fireball and several water cannons went off. I came back alive for the Descension Scene right after though!)

• My parents coming to see me! It was so good having them there and knowing they could experience and feel some of the experiences and feelings that I had during Pageant.
  

• Going to downtown Palmyra, the Hill Cumorah Visitor's Center, the Grandin Building (printing shop where the Book of Mormon was first printed), the Smith Cabin and Frame House, walking in the Sacred Grove, and performing baptisms for the dead in the Palmyra Temple made for an abundance of reverence and spiritual uplifts.
  

RANDOM MEMORIES FROM THROUGHOUT PAGEANT

• Singing on the bus rides to and from the Hill and seeing the green green fields, trees, quaint houses, and farms with big red barns pass by.

• Standing in the huge dinner line and talking, listening to Brian Reagan impersonations, or playing games with friends.
• Hearing Josh speak in African Click, Mike speaking/barking Russian, and teaching Alayna how to say anyang haseo.
• Michelle's priceless facial expressions, Ashlin's Canadian words, and Heather introducing us to all the friends she had made.
  
• Chillaxin' at the cast team tent and doing projects, having devotionals, role-playing, playing games, having daddy long legs crawl all over you, reading scriptures, napping, and talking.

• Setting up, wiping down (with Bobby), and putting away about 9,000 chairs.
• Picking up garbage in the parking lot for a service project.
  

• French braiding Heather's, Ashlin's, and Michelle's, and sometimes my own hair for the shows so we could wear our wigs.
• The delightfully horrendous (and embarrasing) little "gems" they put on our Lamanite Dancer costumes...THANKFULLY they took them off and sewed them in different spots after a few nights of the show! (I'm so grateful I didn't have pink gems like some of the other dancers...)
  

• The Chill and Grill and their GIANT ice cream cones and yummy food!
• Alayna opening up her mission call on top of the Hill! South Korea West! Wooooo!

• Zach and Mike provoking me to laugh so hard I couldn't breathe with the sickness I had caught. (I seriously sounded like a raspy, old, one-lunged man who had asthma when I laughed.)
  
• Swapping sweaters with Zach and comparing shoe sizes.
  

• Bibbity Bop Bop Bop, the Tic-Tac-Toe Hand Game (Iwinyoulosenowyougetabigbruise!), Ninja, and Ooga Booga.
• The Skittle Game (a lovely game that involves stuffing your mouth with Skittles, drool, frantically trying to chew a mass of solid sugar as fast as you can, and having the sensation that your teeth are going to rot out).

• Playing "Shark" (where you sit in a circle holding a parachute over your straight legs, shaking it to make ripples with it so you can't see what's going on under the parachute, two "sharks" try to pull you under and turn you into a shark, and two "lifeguards" try to save you from being pulled under) in the rain. The rain made the grass slippery, making for easy shark attacks. There were many a sudden disappearance of people who didn't even get a chance to scream. SO FUN!
• A fortune from a fortune cookie: "As you slide down the banister of life, may the splinters never point your way."
  
• Redlight bathrooms, creepy yet cool. Now I know what I looked like in the Photo class blackroom.
  

• Seeing a million chamber pots everywhere we went. For part of a service project, we dusted artifacts in a museum. One room was filled with tools that doctors used, and there were probably 20 different chamber pots on some shelves. (We didn't touch those or dust them out.)
• The Washroom! (Michelle and Ashlin are fully clothed, never fear!)
  
• Walking out of the washroom one day and seeing the guys just staring and watching us come out...HA!
  

• Stormy days with great downpours, bright lightning, blasting and rolling thunder, and rehearsing in the mud; sunny days where the weather was perfect; and days where it was blistering hot and then freezing cold once a cloud covered the sun.
• When your scruff is long enough to style with bobby pins, it's time to shave!
  

• Sign in the Hill Cumorah Visitor's Center: Baby Changing Station or Cook Your Food in a Pot On the Campstove?
  

• Bowling in downtown Palmyra. We kept our score by hand--they didn't have computers that kept track. Mr. Sheide would be proud!
  

• We were so sad to part, so sad that Pageant had come to an end! But the memories we have will last a lifetime and beyond.
  

THE SONG OF CUMORAH
Music by Crawford Gates
If you have felt a change in your heart
And sung the song of redeeming love,
Then come unto Jesus, our Savior,
Sin and death are swallowed up in Christ.
Jesus light and life of the world.
Jesus light and life of the world.
If you have felt the change in your heart,
And sung the song of redeeming love,
Then come unto Jesus our Savior:
Come,
Come unto Him!

*Special thanks to Alayna, Ashlin, Heather, Mike, and Jenny for the pictures they unknowingly helped provide for this post. And they will never know, unless they read this.*