Carey Family

Mark

Further adventures in Southern Utah

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While we were in St. George for Tuacahn, we headed out to Santa Clara to see the Jacob Hamblin home.  We started on the Indian Mission Trail but it was just too dang hot, so we gave up.  Kudos to us for hiking…….100 yards.

We drove back into St. George and toured the Tabernacle and then over to the Brigham Young Winter home.  We had an interesting tour and Mark talked “Texas” to a sister missionary from Austin.  We learned lots about the home and the Cotton Mission.  It’s amazing to me that those early pioneers were able to make a living in such a hot, dry climate.  It’s beautiful, but it must have been a daunting experience.

 

 

We also did some thrift store shopping around town and scored some finds, did some swimming at the hotel pool, and had a great time!

Tuacahn 2012

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We traveled to St. George during a little heat wave that made it quite hot in Southern Utah, but had a great time anyway.  We took Mark and his girlfriend, Lauren, and saw both shows.  “Aladdin” was awesome and had lots of surprises with a revised script from the movie version and lots of bells and whistles.  They had lots of live animals, a flying carpet, great dancers and singers, flames and explosions, and 3D glasses for the audience.  We really enjoyed the show and the Genie was amazing.  The next night was “Hairspray” and it was also totally awesome.  The actors were great and there were some fun stagings.  The choreography for “I Can Hear the Bells” was simply hilarious and all the dancing was high-energy and fun.  I couldn’t sit still in my seat during some of the songs and just had to tap my feet and shake my shoulders.

Mark in South Africa

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Mark is touring with the BYU Young Ambassadors and they are faithfully posting on facebook.  We found a photo that shows Mark close-up.  Can you find him?  (Hint: He’s on the right)

(from the fb post accompanying this photo)

On Thursday, we started our day by going through the Apartheid Museum, that was a powerful display of South African history. We were then able to meet with the South African Broadcasting Company’s (SABC) choir, where we had a wonderful exchange … as seen in this photo.

They shared a few songs, we shared a few songs, then we were able to learn each other’s songs that we will be singing when they perform at our concerts in in Soweto and Pretoria. Public Affairs missionary, Elder Hatch, said “the two hours I spent with the Young Ambassadors and the SABC choir was a highlight of my mission.”

We then made our way to the Market Theatre, where we had a workshop with 40 students. These are underprivileged students who are chosen throughout South Africa who show promise in the Arts.
After our workshop we made our way to Moyo Restaurant, where we ate dinner with the Area presidency and many Church Public Affairs missionaries. The Moyo Restaurant is a traditional African Food Restaurant, where they also painted our faces in traditional African style and entertained us. It was the perfect ending to a brilliant day.

What’s up with the guys?

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I haven’t felt great lately and consequently, I’ve been delinquent with my blogging.  So here’s a little update on Mark and Brian.

In March, Brian appeared in the first Stephen Sondheim show done at BYU.  He allowed some editing for it to be performed there and it’s called “Merrily We Roll Along”.  There was a write-up in the Deseret News about the play.  We attended with Scott’s parents and Mark & Lauren and it was a fun show.  It was staged in the Margetts Theater which is their black-box theater and the cast stayed on stage the entire time, although when they were not in the scene, they were at the ends of the seats.  Brian was in the ensemble and even had a short solo.

It was fun to see him in his second full-length play on a BYU stage, the first occurring ten years ago when he was a street urchin in BYU’s production of Berlioz’s “Carmen”.   He’s changed a little, no?

Mark is preparing for his upcoming Young Ambassadors tour to South Africa, Botswana, and Swaziland.  The Young Ambassadors recently did a Sunday evening religious fireside in the deJong Concert Hall at BYU.  Mark’s normal job setting up and overseeing mics requires him to be backstage during the regular shows, but since they weren’t using hand-held or body mics for this performance, he got to do the audio mixing on the sound board.  We  sat in the back by him and watched him do his thing.  The sound was great and it was fun to see him at that massive sound board.