The Manti Pageant

We had the opportunity to go see the Manti Pageant with Tad and Kim this year... so we took it!
It had been at least 13 years since any of us had been.  (It's a given that the kids had never seen it!)
As the show went on, it was the same great production that we had remembered; with my favorite part, the wonderful angel Moroni perched gloriously atop the temple!

At the climax, though, they had a man play Jesus Christ as he visited the Nephites in America.  What I               remember from the past was a beam of light representing Christ's descention as they retold the story.

It was a very beautiful scene, as you can imagine.  "Jesus" called His disciples and blessed the children one by one.  The spirit was definitely overwhelming and, though there were picketers in the back and all around the grounds, they could not drown out that confirming feeling of fire that this is the true church!

Though some will argue, debate, scorn or scoff at us...  I know
that what I feel was not conjured up by a mass "brain-washing" or even by any chemical induced emotion that was conjured up on my own!  What I feel is not of this world.  It is the Holy Spirit, my brother and a member of the godhead, confirming to my soul that it is true.  No amount of rioting will change that.  How grateful I am that I have lived worthy of this witness!

I am so grateful to Joseph Smith; for the man that he was to stand up against great opposition and then to never deny that same witness.  I'm grateful for the Book of Mormon and for the knowledge that I have of it's truth.  How blessed I am for what the Holy Spirit has given me!

I know that, in the course of time, this witness will come to every man, woman and child.  I look forward to that day and pray that I will have stood, like Joseph Smith, firmly proclaiming the witness that I have received as truth!   "Till I die I will not remove mine integrity from me!" Job 27:5 

                                                                                                                      Melonie Packer