Young Performing Missionaries 2012

I need to tell you about our AMAZING young performing missionaries (YPM's) before I forget because we will have a whole new group next summer. 

This is a very unique mission for these young people.  They audition to be able to come here only for the summer months - middle of May to middle of August.  They are anywhere from just graduating from high school to 24 years old.  One of the girls this year was only 17, some are returned missionaries, some college students, and one received his full time mission call to Chile while he was here.  They are actually "called" to the mission, wear the name tags, obey mission rules, etc.

They are the most talented, cheerful, energetic, outgoing, hard working people I have ever met.  They go non-stop from 6:30 in the morning until 10:30 at night, 6 days a week.  They sing and dance and play instruments, and act, and just talk to people all day every day.  They joke about maybe getting an extra hour on Sunday to maybe take a nap.

The Nauvoo Brass Band performs all day long.  They ride around in a horse drawn wagon and play all through the streets.  Sometimes they stop and give longer concerts at the Cultural Hall, or the Women's Garden, or the Visitor's Center, or other places.  They perform before and during Sunset by the Mississippi and Pageant.  When they go by the sites, everyone stops what they're doing and waves and they smile and wave back (if they have a free hand). 

 

 

This day was too hot for the horses to be out so they crowded into the cultural hall for a performance.  It was really loud.

The stage performers do two shows per day of "Just Plain Anna Amanda", and two shows of  "High Hopes and River Boats", they perform in Sunset by the Mississippi every night (I already showed you pictures of that), and some of them are in Rendezvous in Old Nauvoo every night.  During the day (in between shows) they divide into groups and walk the streets with their instruments and little red wagon performing along the way and stopping to perform on street corners.

 What they can do to a primary song or a hymn is incredible - pure magic.

 



Some nights they perform on the Trail of Hope, singing and telling stories from the journals of some of the people who lived here.  I'll show you pictures of that on another post.

 
When you ask them how they can keep all their characters straight, they say they can't do it alone.  Then they look up - and smile.  We really miss them.