12 June 2022
VOLUME 10 – NUMBER 456
Children dressed for Book of Mormon video
Gloria
This week some of us got to be background actors in the Book of Mormon video season. We played one of the families who lost their dad in a war.
We had to be at the place by 7:45am to get ready and eat breakfast. The first thing we did was get body makeup. Then we got in our outfits and they did our hair. Then we waited at the tables until they called for us. We got in line and waited a few minutes, and then they had to check us.
When we got to the set, we had to wait a little. Our mom for the shoot was called Laura. We spent more time with her. Most of the time we had to pretend to be sad, but in one part we had to be happy. The part we had to act is when the Lamanites came and attacked all the dads who wouldn’t fight them.
It was emotional seeing and acting what they went through. I got to understand a lot of people during the scene and how the mothers and wives felt when their husbands left.
Alex on Book of Mormon set
Alex
Me, Vanessa, Veidi, Gloria, Troy, Quinn, Joanna, and Mom went to the Book of Mormon filming. Even though we were just extras, we were in front of the camera a lot, so we were really nervous!
We had to go through a whole system before we were able to be on set. We had to get the clothes for the filming, so we could dress like they would at that time. Also, we had necklaces and shoes that we wore too.
We all had to get our hair done too. Me, Troy and Quinn got old-fashioned bowl cuts! Then we had to get dirt on our skin and clothes to make it look like we were playing and getting dirty.
London, Joanna on Book of Mormon set
London and Endia came with us on different days to help Mom with Joanna and Quinn. There were treats, and the meals were yummy. Sometimes they even gave us donuts! J Some of the girls there were really good at crying. Whenever the directors would tell them to get emotional, they wouldn't laugh or anything. They were really good!
We had to make sure to be hydrated the whole time because the sun was shining hard. It was always good when we were finished because sometimes it was hard, but it was worth it!!
Endia, Joanna on Book of Mormon set
Endia
On Monday, I got to help Mom take everyone to do the Book of Mormon filming. It was so cool to walk into the barn and just see a bunch of Lamanites and Ammonites walking around and eating pancakes!
Mom and I couldn’t go on set, but we could hear yelling from the set whenever they would start filming the scene. It was an awesome, unique experience that I was glad to be involved in.
On Tuesday, one of my coworkers was talking about a hike they did the night before so I decided to go and try it out that evening! Ashton ended up joining me and we went up to this beautiful waterfall in the Alpine Loop. It was fun to climb around on it and just be outside for a little while. I love summer, and all of the places I get to go, and things I get to do out in nature!
Endia and Ashton on hike
Vanessa
Some of us had the chance to be in the Book of Mormon videos. It has been really fun to see how everything works. We were the main family in it, and we had to be in front of the camera a lot. We had to do a lot of resetting and acting.
Everyone loved Joanna and took pictures with her because they don't usually see someone that little there. When we got dressed and all dirty, we had to go quick because we were the main family that had to be on the set first. We got to talk to different people and see the Lamanites in their costumes. They looked really awesome. This was a really fun experience!
Joanna with cast member
Veidi
Me, Gloria, Troy, Joanna, Vanessa, Quinn, and Alex went to go and do the Book of Mormon series. The first day was really scary. We got ready, got our hair done, and got in our costumes for our character. Then we went to the place where they filmed, and it was so cool! On the way up to the base area the ride up there was really bumpy on a dirt road in Hobble Creek Canyon.
The scene we did was when the Lamanites killed our father, who was an Ammonite who refused to fight. We had to act scared and confused. Me and Alex were front and center. Our pretend Mom was really funny. We had to act for a lot of the scenes, and it took a lot of waiting and patience. We had to keep redoing some of the scene's and we had lots of breaks.
Book of Mormon video set
It was so fun, especially with Quinn and Joanna. They were really famous, because a lot of people would ask to take pictures with them. One funny thing that Joanna did was when people would ask her name, she would say her full name—Joanna Faith Hill—so we had to keep saying that her name was Joanna.
The next day that we went, I got a little bit used to it and did the same thing, but this time one of the ladies we were acting with was really funny. She screamed, “No, no, noooo!” when we went to go to cry to a random guy because all of the men were dead, because the Lamanites killed them. One of the coolest scenes we did was when one of the Lamanites set a hand cart on fire. It was a really amazing experience.
Gloria at Book of Mormon video set
Caleb
Everything's pretty amazing down here! Still loving every moment of being a missionary—learning, and growing.
At the end of last P-Day, our afternoon was already pretty packed and literally since then it was nonstop until now. This week was pretty miraculous.
Last week I said that we had slowed with finding new people to teach, but this week we kind of just exploded with finding, and all of them seem like people that are really ready to progress. We found 10 people thus week and five of them were in the first afternoon after ending P-Day at 6:30pm on Monday.
Jenny, children on Book of Mormon set
I am super excited about four of those people. I hope they will get baptized soon, maybe a few weeks or so. We were literally so busy every second of every day. Every day was pretty much like, “Wow! It's already over?”
We also did an English class and that was a lot of fun! We found a person named Victor through that. Actually, we found him through a street contact, but then we invited to share with him again, and he said yes.
Then he also asked if we did English classes, and since we were already planning on doing that, we're like, “Yes!” We had a couple people there and a member friend named Ismael.
With ward mission leader, Felipe
The family we found last Monday afternoon is Venezuelan and they were a reference from the ward. There's a cool story to how they found them. We went with the first counselor Monday night to visit them, present ourselves, share a little, and give them blessings—two of them actually. One of them has cancer, and the original reference, named Eliannys, is pregnant.
That was super amazing to find them! And then later that week Eliannys and her husband Luis moved out from that house into a room in a member’s house. The member’s name is Elsa, and we helped them move in there. I think that was Friday.
Caleb, Elder Jones, bishop’s family
Then Saturday we had a lot of pass-off lessons with Hermanas Gerue and Samudio that we share the ward with, and that night we went to visit Erasmo, his wife, Odet, and one of their children. We did this as a pass-off lesson because we switched boundaries of our areas within our ward.
We had some good completos, and a pretty amazing lesson on temples, eternal families, authority of the priesthood, Joseph Smith, and to cap it off, the Book of Mormon. I've got lot of hopes for Erasmo and his family!
With Erasmo and Diego
But as a shock, on Sunday morning at 9:00am, we got a call from one of the assistants saying that we were both going to be transferred. Elder Jones and I are going together to the other end of the mission, to a small town named Cunco!
They basically said that by 6:00am the next morning we'd be picked up and driven to Cunco. It's about four hours or so south of where we were at in Coronel, and apparently it gets a lot more cold down there.
So, Sunday, we went to church, took pictures with a lot of member friends, made a lot of notes about the people we were teaching, sent messages and videos to other friends, briefly visited some other friends, had lunch with the bishop’s family, packed, and slept.
Caleb, Elder Jones with Lopez family
Monday morning, we woke up and got ready. Then a member that drives missionaries around all the time picked us up. We left at 6:00am, got to Cunco at 10:30am, unpacked, and here we are…more or less!
It was kind of hard to leave Lagunillas right as we felt like we were catching on fire, and especially hard to leave all the good members and friends, but that's the life of a missionary, and now here we are, excited to start here in Cunco!
Ashton on a hike in the Alpine Loop
Christian
While the others went to film the Book of Mormon videos on Monday and Tuesday, the rest of us stayed home and played on Monte's PS4. We also played Among Us with Braden and Brooke.
We also went to the Church to play basketball. I didn't really play basketball well, but in spikeball Kai and I were undefeated. It was really fun playing basketball with Braden because he is a really good player. He also taught me some things.
Quinn and Joanna
Joanna
A quote from Joanna as she talked with another extra on Book of Mormon video set after a battle scene (he was a teenage Laminate warrior). Here are the questions she asked him:
Joanna: What’s your dad’s name?
Joanna: What color is your bed?
Joanna: Did you kill anyone?
Joanna with cast member
Isaac
We played Spikeball and basketball at the church. Braden got some treats—Hot Cheetos, Little Debbies, and apple juice. We had meatball subs for dinner and did Gang Beasts and Mario Kart. Thanks, Mom and Dad, for the money to buy treats, and thanks, Braden and Brooke, for making it such a great time!
Kai
While the people were gone filming a Book of Mormon video, a few of us stayed home with Braden and Brooke. We played some video games like Battlefront, and we also played Gang Beasts on the Nintendo Switch with them.
Jenny, children on Book of Mormon set
Dad / Arkin
Last month the church sent out an email asking for more Latino extras for the next season of Book of Mormon videos. We submitted applications for seven of our children, and then on Sunday a woman from casting called, and said she thought our children would be perfect as the children of an unarmed Ammonite facing death at the hands of the invading enemy.
Our children were cast, not as background extras, but as featured extras with a more visible role in the filming.
What an amazing adventure for our children, and for Mom, Endia, and London as well, who were with them for the filming. Endia and I have long dreamt of writing a book or a screenplay about the Sons of Helaman, and the first scene in the book is this scene—where the fathers of the Sons of Helaman sacrifice their lives to keep a covenant. I think that is a neat coincidence!
Children at Book of Mormon set