Nauvoo Pageant, night 2

I slept in this morning, and was awakened by my siblings turning on the television and watching SpongeBob SquarePants. In a general malaise, I wasted most of the morning. My parents had previously gone to the temple, and when they returned, my father decided to take a nap. We finally actually did something around 2 PM. At least, some of us did. Others stayed at the condo and played computer games. (Cough...Jarom and Jarett) The rest of us observed a blacksmith's shop, got "prairie diamond" rings, and then went to a kitschy gift shop. And then we had to run back to get ready for the pageant.

We had another cast meeting. This one wasn't nearly as inspiring to me as last night's. They decided to emphasize referrals. And counting the number we got. And the percent of the people who attended who gave one. And how one family went and texted all their nonmember friends asking if they could refer them. They got forty referrals just from that! Shouldn't you all be more like them?

So when we got to the pageant grounds there was a considerable expectation for referral-getting. I failed miserably. I'd like to blame the climate of intense missionary pressure, but that had little to do with my failure. I simply declined nearly every opportunity I had to talk with anyone. When I did talk with someone, the conversation petered out into nothingness and I had to flee in a moment of distraction. Worse, I had Jarett with me, constantly trying to kiss me or proclaiming that he was bored. He didn't want to start conversations either. For that matter, neither did Jorgen. So my pre-pageant missionary experience count is still at exactly naught.

Oh, outside the pageant parking lot were some nice anti-mormons handing out literature clearly intended to look like it came from the Church. They didn't do too well; their graphic design was nothing like that used in our church materials. I don't think the LDS Church has ever used that font. Nor do we print things in the Watchtower magazine style. Within was some information that was briefly disturbing, but that on reflection was nothing to be concerned about. The authors hew to a literalist reading of the Bible, using out-of-context prooftexts to "disprove" LDS doctrine. They seem to expect every word a prophet utters to be scripture. And in general, they present a rather uncharitable reading of Joseph Smith and LDS beliefs.

The pageant went normally. I mentioned to Geoff (who is our district leader and plays Heber C. Kimball) that I had performed rather miserably before the show, and he offered to go with me to talk to people afterward. So we did. He is a referral machine. That's not necessarily a good thing. His basic plan seemed to be: Greet someone ("Hi! How did you enjoy the pageant?"), briefly discuss their reaction to the pageant ("Oh, it was great." "Good, I'm glad you liked it."), ask them whence they came ("Where are you from?" "We're from Utah."), and pump for referral ("So, do you have any nonmember friends you think would enjoy a copy of the music from this pageant?" "Um, sure. But we've already filled out five of these tonight. I'm starting to run out."). (Really, I'm giving it a bit of an uncharitable reading. He was more considerate than that, and the people we talked to were more enthusiastic.) I soon went to help take down the temple, escaping that world of induced missionary contact. On the way home, I learned that referrals are only supposed to be given for people who are over 18. That pretty much nullified every referral we got, since they all came from youth. Oops.

Oh, and it didn't rain.