By Valerie Chapman
Emily Brinton pulls on a pair of tights, frilly bloomers and a full petticoat underneath her long-sleeved gingham dress. It is 85 degrees with 85 percent humidity, and the ringlet curls she spent an hour curling are already starting to wilt. But such is the daily routine of a performing missionary.
Brinton, along with 34 other college age students, served as a Nauvoo Young Performing Missionary this summer.
After a rigorous application and audition process, each applicant was extended a formal call and set apart for a four-month mission in the Illinois Nauvoo Mission. The missionaries spent their entire summer serving and performing on stage or in the band.
Every day, except for Sundays, the missionaries put on five performances of three different musical reviews and musical theater shows about the lives of the early church members in Nauvoo.
?It was physically and emotionally exhausting,? Brinton said. ?Performing so much stretched me to my physical ?max? so that I had to truly rely on the Lord just to get through each day.?
Michelle Dodge, a senior at Utah State University, also said performing so many times each day was extremely demanding. But, she said performing was worth seeing the audiences? reactions.
?I talked to so many people after the shows who said they had been touched by our performance,? Dodge said. ?You just know that people felt the spirit.?
Along with performing six days a week, the missionaries spent two days a week giving tours of the Nauvoo historical sites such as the John Taylor home, the Nauvoo Post Office and the Blacksmith Shop.
?I loved the days we got to give tours,? Dodge said. ?We bore our testimony all day through music and dance, but this gave us the opportunity to testify to people face-to-face in our own words.?
Brinton said that the performing mission gave her a stronger desire to be active in missionary work and the church.
?Performing as a missionary made me realize that life?s the sweetest when it?s spent serving others and God,? Brinton said. ?That?s the beauty of it.?
In addition to their daily performances, the missionaries also had the opportunity to perform in the Nauvoo Pageant during its four-week run.
Clay Elder, a senior from Springville, served as a Young Performing Missionary two years ago, and this year worked as the assistant to the director of the Nauvoo Pageant. The pageant consisted of a cast of about 150 volunteers, all of whom loved the Young Performing Missionaries.
?The missionaries brought such a huge energy to the show,? Elder said. ?The whole cast would get excited and lifted up when the performing missionaries would come.?
Brinton and Dodge agree that the performing mission was a wonderful experience as a supplement to a full-time mission and would recommend it to anyone.
Applications for auditions to be a Nauvoo Young Performing Missionary can be obtained by emailing Nauvoo-Productions@LDSChurch.org.