the mormon miracle pageant.

Last night my family and I packed up the car and headed down south to good ol' Manti, Utah--probably one of the smallest towns that I know of. In Manti, there's an LDS temple, and on the temple grounds in the summer, the church puts on a play about the first LDS prophet, Joseph Smith, and about the book he translated with the help of God, called the Book of Mormon. This play is known as The Mormon Miracle Pageant.

Our friend, Kelsie, came along, too. It was Mom, Dad, Rachel, Kelsie, Sara, and me, stuffed into our car. Yes, stuffed. We got there about an hour before the play started. We had reservations at this local motel/campground (a little motel is on one side of the property, and a strip of grass for tents is on the other side, and there's a small street in the middle) and us girls planned on staying in a tent, even though my dad had reserved 2 motel rooms. We wanted to rough it out! So they all set up the tent as I took pictures, and soon enough, we had a place to come back to to sleep that night. We also played a little bit on the [old] swing set that was there when we were little. Very little.

Before the play started, a couple of missionaries passed us, and Sara yelled, "MISSIONARIES! My brother's in a mission!" One of the missionaries yelled back, "Hey! So am I!" Later, they came up to us and asked if we had any non-member friends. Sara said yes, and gave the missionaries his number.

When we got to our seats at the play, it started to rain. Kelsie mooched my blanket from me. Since the play is performed on the side of the hill, and the grass was slippery from the rain, there were a few cast members who slipped and fell. I counted five. The four of us girls giggled to ourselves when we saw someone fall.

When they play ended, the four of us ran back to our tent. Sara and I, however, also clicked our heels the whole way back, because we're classy. We got ready for bed in the extra motel room, and set off to our tent! Rachel thought it would be funny to eat Fiber One bars, and an extra long burrito before going to bed. We all paid for that. If you know my family, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

In the tent, we had some good laughs. Here are the funniest things we said that I wrote down during our stay in Manti:

"How come whenever someone dies, Rachel's hair goes horribly, horribly wrong?" -Sara

"Did you really just put a booger in my hair?" "It was a dry one!" -Rachel and Sara

"I'm a child at heart... just not at butt." -Rachel

"Look! I'm Queen Latreesa!" "Yeah, because Queen Latreesa balances flashlights on her head." -Rachel and Megan

"Do you guys have Chick-Beef Sandwiches in yet? They have them up in Salt Lake." "Oh, I think we get those in on Sunday." "...There is no Chick-Beef Sandwiches... I made that up!" -Dad and the lady at the McDonald's drive-thru

"I wish your farts smelt like hamburger, and your farts smelt like cheese, and mine smelt like buns, so we could make it smell like a McDonald's sandwich!" -Rachel

When we woke up from sleeping in the tent, we all felt a little damp. It had rained that night, and it soaked in through the bottom of the tent, and got our sleeping bags wet. When we were all awake, I said, "Dude! I'm wet!" Kelsie responded with, "I know! So am I!" Then Rachel sat up from her sleeping bag and showed us her literally drenched shirt, and said, "You guys think you're wet!" It was, quite possibly, the funniest thing I have ever seen. The whole back side of her shirt was soaked with water, and it carried on to most of her front side. When we asked, "Rach, why didn't you go into the motel room?" she responded, "I was thinking about it, but then I totally just fell asleep." When we checked to see if Sara was wet, she found out that she was 100% dry, from head to toe. "Heavenly Father must love me," she said.

Before we left, we stopped and got ice cream on the corner of the motel/campground we stayed at. It's a tradition, and a great one at that, because their ice cream is excellent.

And that concludes my adventures in Manti, Utah.