Are you a Young Adult interested in serving a summer performing mission in Nauvoo?

Instructions on receiving an application follow this article.

“A summer in Nauvoo, Illinois, doing what I like doing best and serving the Lord at the same time? What could be better?” said Elder Nathan Black, a 2009 Young Performing Missionary (YPM) from Ammon, Idaho.  This year 20 young performing stage missionaries and 17 Nauvoo Brass Band missionaries received a four-month Church Service Mission call to the Illinois Nauvoo Mission. Each year LDS young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 apply to serve as singing or instrumental music missionaries in Nauvoo. 

What attracted Rebecca Benitez to become a Young Performing Missionary?  A pianist, violinist, and singer, she studies music education at Arizona State University, and she loves being on stage.  When Rebecca learned that being a YPM was a summer mission call, she decided to apply. “Finding it difficult to serve a full-time mission in the midst of music school, I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to serve. And I would get to do it in a way I love!”

Mary-Martha Jackson is an accomplished violinist and dancer majoring in modern dance at the University of Utah.  When her family visited Nauvoo in 2005, Mary-Martha watched the YPMs perform.  Three years later, her family participated in the Nauvoo Pageant.  “As I understood more fully what was required for their mission, I realized how much I wanted to be a YPM.”

Nathan Black’s older brother served as a YPM while the family participated in the 2007 Nauvoo Pageant.  “I saw what my brother was doing, and I wanted to try it,” Nathan said.  But Nathan had to wait until he was old enough to apply. When he turned 18, he applied and became a 2009 YPM. 

Patrick Laing from Colorado visited Nauvoo in 2005 with a youth group. “The first thing that got my attention was the temple!  It is so beautiful and majestic.”  Then “I started to notice something that I could not see, but could feel.  The spirit of Nauvoo is very special and unique.  I fell in love almost instantly.”  When Patrick went into the Visitors Center, he learned that a play was being performed.  He entered the theater and “quickly noticed that all of the people on that stage were very close in age to me and I thought, ‘I want to do that!’”  Four years later, he found himself on that stage.

Getting to Nauvoo

Rebecca Benitez remembered that “getting to Nauvoo” was a long process.  She filled out an application and sent it in with an audition video before the November deadline.  Then she waited.  A week before Christmas, she was asked to go to Salt Lake City in January for a live audition.  She was excited.  January finally came, and she went to Utah. After nine hours of auditioning with other LDS young adults, “I walked out thinking that any of those people could go to Nauvoo.”  Three days later, Rebecca received a phone call inviting her to Nauvoo. 

Patrick Laing remembered, “As the auditions started, I became very worried, mainly because every single person there was very talented and probably a lot more qualified than I was.  But I waited for my turn and did my best.”  He, too, received a phone call asking him to report to Nauvoo.
“The biggest thing that got us to Nauvoo was our singing abilities,” said Rebecca Benitez. “But the next was our testimonies and the Spirit that each of us had. We could not have delivered our message of the gospel without knowing of its truth ourselves.”

“We all had different strengths,” said Mary-Martha Jackson.  “For example, I had never acted before I came out here, others hadn’t danced, and only a few were studying music in school.”  Mary-Martha started playing the violin at age five.  Being classically trained, she “only had a little bit of fiddling experience before coming to Nauvoo.”  Yet, she performed many fiddling solos on the outdoor stage during “Sunset by the Mississippi.”  

We’re in Nauvoo—Now What?

When the 20 YPMs arrived in Nauvoo, they “didn’t know exactly what to expect,” said Rebecca Benitez.  “We soon found out that our first three weeks would be spent learning four shows.”  For two weeks they rehearsed ten hours a day. “We thought we would never be able to learn and execute well all the material,” said Rebecca. “But after three short weeks, we were ready.  The Lord was helping us every step of the way.” 

These Young Performing Missionaries presented three to six shows a day, six days a week for twelve weeks. They participated in “High Hopes and River Boats, “Just Plain Anna Amanda,” “Sunset by the Mississippi,” and the Nauvoo Pageant. 

Performing in Nauvoo

Rebecca Benitez “loved playing Anna Amanda,” an imaginative twelve-year-old girl in 1840s Nauvoo who wants to be important.  At the end of this one-act children’s musical, Anna Amanda realizes that she just needs to be herself. Being 4’10” tall, Rebecca Benitez is the perfect height to portray a child who looks up to the “adults” on the Cultural Hall stage. “By the middle of the summer,” she said, “I felt like I had really become Anna Amanda and wasn’t just pretending to be her.” 

At the end of each performance of “Just Plain Anna Amanda,” Rebecca invited a child to come to the stage.  She told the child and other children in the audience that “they are important because there’s nobody else in the world like them.”  After one performance, “I spotted a girl about seven years old with Down syndrome,” and Rebecca felt impressed to call on her. The girl “came up on that stage and listened to every word I had to say. As we sang the rest of our final number with her in the middle of the cast, I spotted her mother out in the audience crying. That was the moment I realized what a great work I was doing in Nauvoo.”

Nathan Black recalled “the fun we had every single day.”  But he also remembered “times during the summer when it felt impossible to go on, when I had given everything for so many days and reached the end—the point where I had to make a choice between quitting or going to Him.  I am so thankful that I chose to ask for Heavenly Father's help.”
Through performing, Nathan gained understanding of what President Hinckley said about the early saints. “None of those who came were there by chance.  Their paths were led to Nauvoo by His will.”   Nathan felt this in “High Hopes and River Boats” when news of the martyrdom reached the people of Nauvoo.  “The beauty of participating in such a scene is that you become a Saint from the 1840s for a small moment.  To cry real tears for our beloved prophet Joseph Smith and then come together with trust in the Lord, feeling a new resolve, is powerful.”

Becoming United

What unified 20 young performing missionaries after they arrived in Nauvoo?  “I think the biggest thing that unified us on stage was to be unified off stage,” said Rebecca Benitez. “Nobody had a competitive nature. It seemed that we all were there to share the gospel through our talents, no matter what role we had.” YPMs shared devotionals and prayers together in the homes where they lived. They attended the Nauvoo Temple, and they remembered they were missionaries.

 “What brought the YPMs together more than anything was when one suffered an injury and we all felt their pain,” said Rebecca Benitez. During one performance, Patrick Laing injured his foot.  He finished the show and went to the hospital to be treated for a sprained ankle. Two hours later, another YPM was rushed to the hospital with a severe pain in his stomach and was diagnosed with pneumonia.  When a YPM sister injured her foot two days later, “the shows became a little more challenging to perform with so many substitutions.”  YPMs quickly learned new lines to fill in for those who switched from supporting roles to major roles. When they forgot their lines, they improvised to keep the scenes moving cohesively for the audience. 

“As we pulled together,” said Mary-Martha Jackson, “our faith in the healing power of Priesthood blessings increased. Our bond with each other grew stronger because we had to jump into different parts and switch things around in our shows. Our unity was strengthened because we had to rely on each other and push forward with faith. We also lifted and supported those who were sick, and they lifted and strengthened us with encouraging comments.”

Final Thoughts

“The most rewarding part of the Nauvoo YPM mission,” said Rebecca Benitez, “is that it is in fact a mission. We realized that by portraying the early Saints of Nauvoo, we were teaching the gospel. Anyone who comes to Nauvoo knows that a special spirit exists. We were able to create that spirit both on and off stage. We did not proselyte, but we shared the gospel through music, dance, and happiness.” In addition,  “I learned so much about myself and my Savior.”

Mary-Martha Jackson said, “We as YPMs were representing not only ourselves, but also the people who walked and talked with a prophet of the Lord. We as missionaries were testifying through song of the truthfulness of this gospel and that Joseph Smith was a prophet called to restore the fullness of the gospel to the earth today.”

 Patrick Laing was “grateful to serve the Lord in such a unique way and contribute to such a wonderful spirit.  Nauvoo has been a place of healing and strength.  I am so grateful for my Father in Heaven and for His gospel and the chance I had to share it with thousands of people this summer.”

Nathan Black said, “I may not know all those who visited that beautiful city or what effect I had on them, but I know He knows and loves them.” 

“A summer in Nauvoo doing what I like doing best and serving the Lord at the same time? What could be better?”

Young adults interested in serving as Young Performing Missionaries may go online to www.historicnauvoo.net, call 801-240-2340, or e-mail Nauvoo-Productions@ldschurch.org.  Instrumental musicians who want to serve as YPMs in the Nauvoo Brass Band, may e-mail Elder David Blackinton at davidblackinton6651@msn.com (include “Nauvoo Brass Band” in the subject line) or phone him at 801-225-6651.