By Ken Jarvis, Area Media Specialist
On a December weekend before Christmas, the youth of the Smithson Valley Ward, Hill Country Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, created a live, drive-thru nativity at the Stake Center. McKay Rush, Assistant to the Priest Quorum President, said, “We were supposed to do something for the Primary age children but with COVID we couldn’t do that.”
Sister Stephani Bailey, Young Women’s President said that the idea for a live nativity, “…started as a suggestion from one of the advisors. We all thought it was awesome and decided to involve the Young Men as well.”
It was originally just going to be for their ward. “We wanted to do it because the youth haven’t had anything to do lately,” said Sister Bailey.
Bishop Dan Worden agreed. “It was all youth. The idea started to be done in a member’s driveway. We were going to just do a couple of scenes. Then we thought, what if we get a lot of response, would it cause problems in the neighborhood? So, we asked if we could use the Stake Center.”
When they got permission to go ahead, they worked to make sure it would be COVID safe. Some of the scenes were done by youth from large families or several families who live close together and spend a lot of time together anyway. They were allowed to take their masks off.
“Then it just kept morphing,” Bishop Worden said. “Can we get animals?” Yes, they could. “We needed something to draw people in. So, we decided to use the scriptures and music to add audio to it.”
Bishop Worden noted that the adults were in the background. “We let the youth be the center. We felt that was a key, important thing.”
McKay said, “I had plans for that night but I also had an obligation to help with the Nativity so I went there half-heartedly because I wanted to be with my friends. My attitude at the beginning was not the best. But then when people started coming and I saw how this was important for other people it kind of changed the way I looked at it.”
Halle Wright, Young Women 14 and 15-year-old Class President, agreed. “I thought it was successful and really fun for everybody. Some of the people who came weren’t even members of the church, they just came to experience it even though they weren’t members.”
Bishop Worden agreed. “As people left some of them asked, ‘What’s the name of this church again?’, ‘Can we give you a donation?’ or ‘Do you accept donations?’”
It turned out to be far more successful than anyone imagined. “We had 158 cars go through in two hours,” said Bishop Worden. “With a conservative average of 4 people per car (and we know some had 8) we had well over 600 people.”
Halle said, “It was something that I’ll always remember because it really impacted a lot of people that came to it.”
McKay agreed, “That’s what life is all about, to lose myself in serving others.”