Leaving for Nauvoo Performing Mission – Interview with Abe Smith – Episode 20

This video and audio is episode 20 of the Latter-day Saint Mission Prep podcast recorded on Apr 28, 2024. In this episode, I interview Abe Smith who will be leaving this week on his mission to be a Nauvoo Performing Missionary, particularly, he will be playing trumpet in the Nauvoo Brass Band. He will spend the summer in historic Nauvoo, Illinois where he will be a playing his trumpet in the Nauvoo Brass Band. He will be entertaining tourists and sharing his testimony of the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ through music, performances, and the spoken word.



In the interview, we cover topics such as:

• What is a Nauvoo Performing Missionary (NPM) and the types of performers they need (Brass Band, singers, dancers)

• The application process for a NPM (deadlines, auditions, etc.)

• Weekly Meetings for NPM (Jan-Apr)

• Schedules, Costs, and Program Fees

• Checklist of assignments, travel, housing arrangements, and much more



The transcript of the interview can be found below (it’s automated, so I apologize for any typos) and an audio version of the interview can be found at the bottom of this post (#bottom) . For other video/podcast episodes, check out the Latter-day Saint Mission Prep podcast page (https://latterdaysaintmissionprep.com...) .



**Begin Transcript**



OK, welcome everyone to another edition of the latter Day Saint Mission Prep podcast.

My name is Jimmy Smith.

I’m your host of the podcast with me.

Today is my son, Abraham Smith.

Today, we’re going to be talking about talking to Abe about his upcoming mission.

He leads this coming week and just a couple of days to be a novel performing missionary, so he’ll be spending the summer and navu entertaining the tourists and giving his testimony through music for sure.

Maybe through word as well his testimony of the restored gospel in that historic place of Nauvoo, Illinois.

So welcome to the podcast.

Welcome, Abe.

Uh, why don’t you introduce yourselves to the audience, and then we’ll get into the the points that we want to talk about with the, with the Nauvoo performing mission, I’m sure.

Hi, I’m Abe Smith,.

Uh, I’m 19 years old.

I’ll be turning 20 and I’m about a month or so and I’m going to Texas A&M Commerce to study music education and then as he said, I’m doing the naval mission this summer.

Excellent.

Thanks, Abe.

So yeah, so we’re really excited about this.

I think Avis, too.

It’s gonna be an interesting experience.

We we’re anxious to hear about it.

So at the conclusion of the summer in August, we might do another episode and they can tell us more details about what it was like to be a performing missionary.

Did you mention what instrument you play?

Ohh, I played trumpet.

OK, so Absa mastered trumpet player.

I’m not a musician.

They inherited all their music skill from their mother, he, he and the other kids.

But uh anyway.

Yeah, that’s we have the picture of the of the trumpet behind us.

And then and Nauvoo temple.

He’s older sister Hannah is an art major in and did this artwork for us, so props to her for that.

OK.

So let me refer quickly to the agenda on my screen.

Uh, we OK?

So Abe is gonna be in the Naboo brass band, and that’s one aspect of being a Naboo performing mission missionary.

So why don’t you briefly tell the audience what is it?

What is this Navy performing missionary program?

You know at high level and then what are the different parts of it?

And then you will be in the brass band.

So why don’t you walk the audience through all of that?

Can you do that?

Yeah, of course.

So there are a few different types of missionaries and navu.

There the there’s gonna be some senior missionaries that are just regular senior missionaries.

There are tour guides who give tour guides of all the different historic buildings, and then there’s the category that I’m in, which is the performing missionaries, and that’s and the performing missionaries are made up of two parts.

The stage actually is made up of three parts.

It’s the stage performers slash actors, the technique audio electronic technicians who do all the sound work and maybe light work and other technical stuff.

And then there’s the brass band, which is based off of this historical brass banned.

But it also has a couple woodwinds too, but that’s what I meant then.

Brass band.

OK, very good.

Cool.

So you’ll also notice Abe’s growing his hair.

He doesn’t have a typical, really Short, missionary cut.

That’s actually intentional, they told him.

What back in January or February when you started doing the meetings to, like, let your hair grow out cuz and let your sideburns grow in and stuff like that and that right.

Yep, yeah, they said they want it to be full and not modern, just to be more realistic to how it was back in the 1840s or whenever.

Well, and a lot of the stuff that will, you’ll see that we tell you about a lot of it is to give the feeling that you’re actually that the t...