Pioneer Day!

It was pioneer day this week here in Utah. It's a Utah holiday. I guess it could be considered a Mormon Holiday, but we don't really do anything to celebrate it outside Utah, except to give talks during Church about our ancestors and the pioneers. That's the exciting things we do outside the state of Utah. However, I am actually in Utah this year, and they do all kinds of stuff to celebrate Pioneer Day here. They have parades and fireworks and pioneer remembrance pageants. I had the opportunity to attend the Merrill Osmond Youth Pioneer Pageant. It was...... cheesy. Haha. I loved all the little children in the play; they were adorable. The acting was great, and the costumes and dancing and singing were awesome. It was just presented in a very cheesy manner. It reminded me of the Pioneer play my ward put on back in New Mexico one summer. I wondered if we were that cheesy, haha.

The pageant was supposed to start at 8pm, but apparently we were on Mormon standard time, because 8 rolled around, and we were still waiting. The main speaker got up and started thanking everyone for being there. We had the flag ceremony, and an opening prayer. We were then told that there were five sky divers who would be falling down on us soon, one carrying the US flag, and another carrying Merrill Osmond, who had never sky dived before, and was doing something on his bucket list..... so.... we sat.... and waited.... and waited..... we had to wait for the airplane to get to the right spot, and then we had to watch the sky divers come down and land.... wow. That actually takes a really long time. It was 8:30 before the first one even jumped. As Merrill Osmond comes down, he misses the stadium, and lands in some trees to the left of us. We of course had to wait for him to get there before we could really get started. He finally arrived in the back of an ambulance, and guess what? The pre-show started! Oh joy.... And guess what? That lasted for half an hour. And guess what? They had a lot of microphone issues. Yep. I know. Wow. How great. Anyways, the pre-show ended and we all waited for the real pageant to start, but guess what? Merrill Osmond, wanting to relive his glory days or something, decides he is going to sing for us.... so he sings... and sings... and sings.... and then he tells us we will be having a 15 minute intermission before we start the actual performance.

(Merrill Osmond singing to us...)

Oh, but right as he decides that, he changes his mind, and starts singing again. Then we have a 15 minute intermission... which, considering it was 9:30 by this point, we really could have used one... except we still had not seen any of the pageant we came to watch! 

The pageant finally started, and I got to witness a true Osmond performance. It was great. And cheesy. There were fireworks periodically throughout the performance, and of course there was a firework display at the end. 

Overall, Pioneer day was pretty great. It's nice remembering my ancestors, and where I came from. I've been flying under the radar lately, but I feel that I need to make sacrifices just like my ancestors. The pioneers were willing to give up everything for the freedom to practice their religious beliefs. They were run out of town, terrorized, faced trials on the plains such as death, hunger, cold, and Indian attacks, and yet they continued on. They are a great reminder to me to not give up when all hope seems to have failed. 

Again, sorry about the pictures... someday I'll get a real camera that takes really good pictures... but until then, this will have to do!