Nauvoo Pageant, the last night

I got up way too early this morning to see the "Trail of Hope" vignette, which is really a series of brief vignettes from the lives of people who left Nauvoo to go west. It was powerful and meaningful. Unfortunately, I had (a) only gotten a few hours of sleep and (b) not eaten breakfast yet, so I was pretty miserable when we got back. I was looking forward to taking a nap, but we had to go have a family picture taken. Then we had a testimony meeting to go to. By this point, I was hungry, tired, and grouchy, so I didn't get much out of it. And once that was over, it was nearly time to have our cast meeting, so I never got my nap. So I wasn't too happy until we actually got to the pageant grounds.

There my father and I met Adam, a religious studies student at Wabash College in Indiana. He was not a member, and indeed the only person I've met there who wasn't. He was thoughtful and had good questions, the answers to some of which also helped me. He wanted to know how one differentiates between emotion and spirit, which is indeed a difficult question. He also asked how one reconciles the "dark underbelly" with one's faith. He was somewhat cool to the actual doctrine of the church. But that's okay. Anyway, we talked to a few more people, did the pageant, and went back and talked to Adam. He might attend church tomorrow.

We held a cast prayer, said some (somewhat teary) goodbyes, and departed. We're leaving tomorrow after church.