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“More Precious
than Gold”
The Sacramento California Temple Youth Cultural Celebration, Part
3
(continued from Part
2)
We Accomplish Big Things in
the Church
For this production, Scott Eckern says
he wasn’t the producer — “the Lord was the producer
and I was his servant. The spirit of the Lord was absolutely present
and lifted us up through this production. We accomplish big things
in the Church. I tried not to get in the way of the Spirit.
“I’ve had many spiritual
experiences as a theater artist, but none of those experiences can
compare with the one I had on Saturday with the culmination of a
year of my life, working on this show.
“I saw this production in my
mind’s eye from the beginning. I saw it spiritually. It was
like no experience I had ever had in my life. I saw it with my heart
not just with my eyes. You felt this power, confidence, and strength
coming from the youth and you knew that they knew they weren’t
alone in what they were doing.
“I believe this whole experience
was a pattern for living the gospel. Spencer W. Kimball said we
practice our way to perfection. With their months of practice, these
youth had the chance to perform in a way that was excellent. As
you practice living the gospel, it gets easier and you get better
and then it becomes absolutely joyous.
“The youth could truly say that
not only did they have fun, but they experienced joy which was a
realization of the prophet,” Scott said.
“I told the youth, there’s
going to be 5,000 of you out there and I can guarantee that your
parents won’t be able to pick you out of the crowd, but I
can guarantee that the Lord will see you. Your performance is for
him, so do your best for the Lord.”
You could see that true spiritual joy
in the faces of youth as they did an Irish-style Riverdance, Russian
kicks, or frolicked on roller blades and skateboards to an upbeat
version of “Give Said the Little Stream.”
The Story
The musical and dance elements of “More
Precious than Gold” were woven around a story that pulled
on California’s remarkable history. It was here in Sacramento
where Latter-day Saints played such an historic role.
When the government came and asked
Brigham Young for men to form the Mormon Battalion, as the pioneers
were on their journey west, it was the last thing the Saints wanted
to do. They were fleeing the United States, where they had been
persecuted and unprotected.
However, Brigham saw what the impact
of the battalion’s salary could do for an impoverished and
hungry people, and the Mormon Battalion was born and began their
long march west and south to California, finally ending in the San
Bernardino area without having ever seen battle. They then made
their way to the Sacramento area.
What they were on hand for, however,
was the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill in January 1848
— and it was another Mormon, Samuel Brannan, who couldn’t
keep the discovery a secret and published it to the world.
This history is a background for the
fictional story of Sarah, a modern teenager, who wants to find her
great, great grandfather, Elijah Erastus Finnius Johnson. She takes
five other teens, who can’t quite understand her passion for
genealogy, on a journey of discovery.
But finding him isn’t all that
easy — and she lands against one obstacle after another in
her search.
A clever line from the show gives a
flavor for the script. As she searches through a cemetery looking
for her great great grandfather’s name, an old historian seems
to know that she is a Mormon. Sarah asks, “Wait? And how did
you know I was a Mormon?”
The historian answers, “You’re
17. It’s Friday night. You’re in a cemetery looking
for your ancestors.” This isn’t hard to figure out.
With the help of a mysterious historian
and her five friends, Sarah takes a trip through history looking
for her grandfather — and also gets the chance through vignettes
of Joseph Smith in the grove, missionaries preaching, and the journey
west, to tell her friends why giving them the gospel would mean
so much to her.
Click
here to go to Part 4 of “More Precious Than Gold”
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