The Army of Helaman

Alma 56:47-48 " . . . yea, they had been taught by their ^cmothers, that if they did not doubt, God would deliver them.

 48 And they rehearsed unto me the words of their ^amothers, saying: We ^bdo not doubt our mothers knew it."

Two of my favorite things in the whole world converged this summer. 1) The Army of Helaman and 2) The 24th of July Parade.

I love the story of the Army of Helaman in the Book of Mormon. Growing up, I always envisioned myself raising strapping young men. Alas, I have been blessed with three wonderful daughters whom I love with all my heart. When the opportunity to see a reenactment of the Army of Helaman came, I knew I wanted my daughters to be there to see it. I planned some special family home evening centered on the story. 

A stake president in Bountiful wanted to gather 2,000 young men to march as the army. Mike Mercer's stake was invited so he was able to march as one of the warriors. We heard that young men from Idaho were also coming. Stephanie and I knew that the crowd would be HUGE and we wanted a good spot. The parade was Saturday at 6pm. On Friday around noon Stephanie noticed people sitting out waiting. You officially couldn't put chair out until 7am on Saturday. Ugh. If we wanted a good spot we would need to sit with our chairs for 19 hours!!!! Oh we were not deterred!!! We scouted out our spot and sat . . . and sat . . . and sat . . . and sat. For hours upon hours we sat. At one point, the man who has an office in the building by us came out. He offered us the key to the building to use the bathroom in the night if we would put out his chairs too. Deal! So we sat some more. We played games, talked and hung out. Around midnight Ben insisted I come home. I went home for a few hours to appease Ben then came back around 5am. Stephanie and her boys slept there all night. Finally 7am rolled around and we were able to put out the chairs. 

The girls waiting for the parade.

Finally the moment came at the end of the parade. It was so awesome to see them coming. I teared up. They had big sticks that they banged, it was really loud! At one point they all stopped and shouted "We did not doubt" it was awesome. You could see the boys as far as the eye could see. When about half of them passed ALL you could see in both directions were the boys. It was really a great experience and I'm glad my girls were there (on the front row) to see it!