Hey! It's been a while since I posted anything, so I figured I'd post something today. Since my last post, I've moved from Alberta to Provo, because I'm going to BYU this year. Overall, the experience has been everything I'd hoped for. It's amazing! Anyway, for my main post today I decided I'd post one of the papers I wrote for my Mission Prep class, about an experience I had this past summer at the Hill Cumorah Pageant. Anyway, here we go:
This past summer I was privileged to be in the cast of the Hill Cumorah Pageant. During our seventeen days at Hill Cumorah, I had many life-changing experiences, both socially and spiritually.
After I found out I had been accepted to Brigham Young University, I was worried. In high school, I had bad experiences with making friends. I was the only priesthood holder in my graduating class and I hated being around many of my classmates because they were largely interested only in where the next party was. Also, at some points, during high school, I was the target of bullying. My unpleasant experiences from high school made me worry if I would be able to make friends here.
However, my worries about friends were put at ease at the Hill Cumorah. The cast of the pageant was divided into “cast teams”. When we were not in rehearsal, in devotionals, or eating meals, we were to spend time with our cast teams. Though I was worried at first, I was able to make friends with people in my group. What pleased me more was that I was also able to make friends with people who were not in my cast team. I have kept in contact with several of these friends ever since then, causing my worries about making friends at BYU to be lessened.
Prior to each performance of the pageant, the cast visited with the audience members. We were taught by the Pageant Presidency and trained by the full-time sister missionaries how to invite each audience member, to fill out a referral card for themselves or for a friend. The missionary experiences I had at the Pageant, both the good ones and the bad ones, helped prepare me to serve a mission.
Prior to each performance of the pageant, the cast visited with the audience members. We were taught by the Pageant Presidency and trained by the full-time sister missionaries how to invite each audience member, to fill out a referral card for themselves or for a friend. The missionary experiences I had at the Pageant, both the good ones and the bad ones, helped prepare me to serve a mission.
The following experience that I had at the Hill Cumorah Pageant strengthened my testimony of the power of prayer and that helped me learn how to follow the promptings of the Spirit. While proselyting among the audience with my companion, a man called us over, wanting to ask some questions. He asked us about archeological proof of the Book of Mormon, so I read him verses four and five from the tenth chapter of Moroni. I explained that Moroni was promising the readers of the Book of Mormon that if they would pray faithfully about the Book of Mormon, the Holy Ghost would testify of its truth. My answer did not satisfy the man and I soon realized that I could not handle him and his reproachful questions by myself. I felt frustrated for getting myself in this situation and helpless because I didn’t know how to get out of it. I didn’t know what else to do, so I decided to pray to my Heavenly Father for help, having faith that I would be strengthened in some way.
Silently, in my heart, I prayed to my Heavenly Father to send me some help, because I knew I could not teach this man when his heart was hard and unwilling to learn. I prayed because I needed a way out of the conversation without being rude to him. After talking to the man for a little longer, I prayed again. Finally, after praying for a third time, I saw my parents walking past me. In a crowd of seven thousand people it is not easy to find one person. A few days earlier my dad had looked for me for two hours and could not find me in the crowd. I knew my prayer had been answered, by my earthly father finding me in the crowd, because I knew that if anyone I knew could help me in that situation, he could. With him there with me, I was relieved, but not entirely at ease.
I asked my dad for some help answering the man’s questions, but this man was more interested in telling us what he believed than listening to our message. While Dad’s conversation was going in circles, I got the distinct impression to ask the man if he had taken Moroni’s challenge, which I had read to him. He stumbled for an answer and finally told me he had not and that he knew he could not pray about the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. It was at this point that my dad was able to finally end the conversation by saying we would have to agree to disagree. The fact that my dad could not answer the man’s questions any better than I could helped me understand that my success in talking to him had nothing to do with my skill as a missionary.
I am thankful to my Heavenly Father that I was able to be in the Hill Cumorah Pageant. I am thankful that I was able to have many learning experiences there, like the one I described. Most of all, I am thankful for the power of the Spirit I felt while talking to people at the Pageant, because it made me more excited to serve a mission.
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