Kari's Jibber Jabbers....: 20 Day Journal Challenge ... Day 10... Hill Cumorah Pageant

It has been a breath taking few weeks for our family, full of spiritual things, family time, and self reflection. It just so happens that Day 10 of the 20 day challenge corresponds with our experiences at the Hill Cumorah Pageant. What a great experience we had.

Another one of my costume Headpieces!! We were Alma Greeters!!
Greeting people when they first walked in!! A pageant guest Julie from !

Day 10:

Tell about your last trully spiritual experience and how it affected you.

To begin with, our trip out to New York was very exhausting. I made the error of booking airline tickets out the the east from Los Angeles instead of San Francisco (see my last post on why), The 17 hour trip down to Los Angeles was very long and tiring. We left at 4 am in the morning on July 4th and got into Los Angeles around 1 A.M. the next day. The whole family was so exhausted that we all just laid down on the airport floor with our bags and fell asleep. James, EJ and TJ's flight took off at noon while Rae, CJ, AJ and I took off at 5:40 am. James flew right into Rochester and I flew into Cleveland, rented a car (a white VW passat, see picture), and droves 5 hours to Rochester. Can I just say, I felt like I was in a sauna coming off the plane in Cleveland. 98 degree weather with 100% humidity is no fun!!!

Side note, Can I just mentions out of the blue that my costume was HOT!! Wearing 2 layers of carpet in 100 degree 100% humidity weather was not FUN!! James was also wearing a carpet on him while our kids got to sport out in a much cooler costume.

Ok so fast forward... we are now in Rochester. The next day we have a great family reunion and my niece B.M. graduation party at Seneca Lake Park. We had tons of fun playing in the water, fishing and just hanging out with all of the Vastbinder family.

On Friday, July 6th, all my kids went with Grandpa and Grandma V, and all the aunts/uncles and cousins to Seabreeze amusement park in Rochester for the day. James and I had meetings for the Hill Cumorah Pageant because we were asked to be Assistant Cast Team Leaders for the "Y0" group (incoming seniors). We spent the day at the Hill preparing for the cast team to arrive.

On Saturday, we had a morning devotional, and then proceeded to be casted for our roles in the Pageant. James, EJ and TJ were casted as Alma converts (scene 6), Rae and CJ were casted as the Destruction Victims (scene 7), AJ was casted as a New world Multitude little child in the Jesus scene (scene 8), I was casted as a Lehi mob (scene 1), Samuel the Lamanite Rabble (scene 7). We all were casted as a New World Multitude crowd for scene 8 when Jesus comes down. I personally played all the wicked mobs lol. WOOT.

We then went into a daily schedule of rehearsals, devotionals, practice run throughs, dress rehearsals, and Cast Team time. I was asked to speak in front of the whole 750 person cast on Monday July 9th on the topic of being a good missionary and having the spirit with you always. I realized while I was preparing to give this talk, that keeping the spirit with you at all times, knowing what you believe and were you stand and having a firm testimony is an important part of sharing the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Without a person really knowing it is true how can a person really teach others with a full heart. I am glad I was able to learn from this experience.

My stud sons!! :)

TJ doing service!

As a young teenager growing up in the Rochester area, we use to go to the pageant each year. I would walk by the anti-Mormons as they would hand out pampthlets to everyone. 20 years later they are relentless, using bull horns to spout hatred and venom, infiltrating the audience, going against all the older youth and young adults as they hand out scriptures, and even now have a big yellow truck that say "whatmormonsdon'ttell.com" on it. It was trully amazing how they are working overkill to stop this. If you go to the site its all about why they don't believe in us and how they follow Mormons all over the country trying to "bring them back to Christ". It made me sad to be honest because what they were doing was so unchristlike. They were yelling and screaming, "You are all going to hell" and other such things. It was pretty sad!!

yep this truck was going up and down the streets of palymra while our kids and our own cast team
was taking church history tours and before and after the pageant itself.

Overall the Hill Cumorah Pageant was the most spiritual experience my family. The whole message of the Hill Cumorah Pageant was to come unto Christ. In the process of showing people the gospel my family learned there own lesson of coming unto Christ and living a christlike way.

BTW Because it was the 75th anniversary of the Hill Cumorah Pageant, there was media EVERYWHERE!! New York Times, PBS, Discovery Channel (there is a documentary coming out on this channel about us), All the major local news channels, AFP, International News media, and many others where there just to see what is up. We even had a surprise mystery cast member! Not going to get into that one! :) I was interviewed in the dressing room the second week by a German Newspaper. Guess what the first thing they asked me? What I thought about Mitt Romney!! lol I pleasantly declined to answer of course. :) A few of us are also in a AFP clip about the Hill Cumorah Pageant. Check it out and see if you can recognize some of us:

http://youtu.be/9kjFbErDpgQ

We will be applying for next year! The application opens on September 1st 2012. Last year alone they had 2000+ family applications and only accepted 750 total people, so if you are interested apply early!!

Here are some pictures from pageant.

My handsome boys!!

Here is my 2nd headpiece for the same costume!! lol. The costume designers kept having me switch!! :) Can I tell you this costume was extremely HOT!! I'm not talking my looks ;) I am talking full on sweating hot!! It was 100 degrees most the days and I was wearing 2 layers of carpet!!