Manti Pageant - checkmark for the bucket list

Last month our family was invited to go up to Manti, Utah with my sister's family. Our families had a nice day together (mostly together) with the younger kids going to the pool with me and my sister's family, and Darren taking Jeremy, Cami, and Joey to the Manti temple for sessions and baptisms, respectively. Later that night we had a great meal together at Aunt Pearl Owen's home, and then all of us, and my parents as well, went together to the Manti Pageant.

The pageant is performed on the side of the big hill the beautiful Manti temple sits upon and the lawn below is filled to capacity with chairs for the crowds who flock to the pageant each year. I've wanted to attend this pageant since I was a little girl reading about it in The Friend.

I saw photos of Lamanite battles being portrayed on the hill and Moroni hiding the gold plates, and I wanted so badly to see it in person. I remember how older teens would often talk about going on their "super-activities" to Manti for the Pageant and all the fun they had. Even my own husband tells our kids of going to Manti with the youth from his ward back then. I looked forward anxiously for my turn to go.

Unfortunately, I never did get to go as a kid with my family, or with the youth in our ward. Around the same time I turned old enough to join Mutual, the bishop of our ward started enforcing a policy of "no super-activities," insisting we do only simple activities close to home, and inexpensive. Other wards continued to send their youth away on big fun trips (as evidenced by the big pictorals of white water rafting, etc. in the NEW ERA), but not our ward. Even other wards in our own stake didn't always strictly uphold the policy. (Example Numero Uno is my husband's home ward!) But in my ward our bishop was quite valient and firm in his decision about that policy, "regardless of what others wards do." No amount of pleading did any good to change his mind. I was pretty disappointed. It didn't help any that the bishop was my DAD!

So my turn to see the Manti Pageant finally came Friday, June 25th, 2010. My initial reaction upon arriving was simply, "wow." That was just in reference to the enormous crowd! I've been so fortunate in the past couple of years to get to see other pageants put on by the Church in various parts of the country, (Mesa, AZ, Nauvoo, IL, & Palmyra, NY) but this by far was the largest we

had been to. There were so many like-minded people gathered in that one place, it was really amazing. We did go on a busy Friday night - but even then, it was huge! We later heard 18,000 people were there on that particular night. Even more amazing you might think, we managed to get great seats - right in the center, and quite close to the front.

Afterwards I reflected on that pageant and the others we've seen. I recalled sitting in the audience at the Hill Comorah Pageant waiting until it was dark enough for the show to

start and thinking how it was a very long time

dream-come-true of mine to be at the Hill

Comorah. That was another place I'd wanted to go to since the time I was very young and I marveled at the time that my husband had brought me there finally and helped that dream come true. Ironically I hadn't even thought about it for years until I was actually sitting there. Seeing the Manti pageant was another childhood wish come true.

Could there be other childhood wishes in the back of my mind, still waiting to be realized? Surely if I had current goals I'd be working on a ways to make them happen. But even though the Manti temple and pageant have been there all these many years, it was my brother-in-law's invitation that was the catalyst that got us to go, and not some long-time burning desire on my part.

And there are the dreams you believe impossible, so you set them aside and don't even try to see them come true. As a young girl I always wished to be married in the Manti temple. When the time came and I didn't even bring it up, thinking, "None of his family or mine would want to travel so far..." I didn't ask. A month earlier I had walked through the newly renovated temple, and even knowing how beautiful it was, I didn't bother to say anything to the one person who mattered most - my future husband. Unbeknownst to me at that time, he would have agreed and helped make it happen! A dream unexpressed became a lost opportunity.

So I can't help but wonder what else there is to do in my life that subconsciously I've always had a wish to do. What are the other wishes made a long time ago, and over time and life somewhat set aside and not dwelled upon, which perhaps don't come to mind easily when making that list of "Things I want to do..."? Because I do believe that those dreams and goals that are expressed verbally or written down, have a far greater chance of coming to fruition. I do have to say, however, that although some dreams lie forgotten and don't occupy the forefront of our minds and to-do lists, the accomplishment of them is still very sweet.