![]() ![]() “There’s added happiness in the home because of it.” ![]() “It has brought new meaning into our family,” he says. His dad also believes their pageant participation strengthened their family. “We were able to keep it up when we got home. “Our family was able to bond and become closer than we usually are,” says Christopher of his Nauvoo experience. Christopher Putnam, 17, played the snare drum in the Nauvoo bagpipe band alongside his father, Barry, a bagpiper. Several Nauvoo bagpipers have similar family ties. At Nauvoo, especially, we were constantly together, day after day. “We have so few opportunities nowadays to spend time together as a family. “The best part is spending time together with my sons before we play,” says Brother Hezseltine. Over the years the Hezseltines have marched in parades and performed at concerts and funerals. It might be hard to believe, but it is what I used to fall asleep to,” says Thomas, now a missionary in Paraguay. “I wanted to learn to play the bagpipes because as a kid I heard my dad play all the time. Remember those lullabies your parents would softly sing to you as a child? When Calum and Thomas think bedtime, they think bagpipes. “The bagpipes really set the tone and helped the visitors get ready to feel and understand the guidance of the Spirit.” Connecting Family “In Nauvoo there were a lot of awesome chances to share small messages about the gospel with people after we’d stop playing,” he says. He is currently in the Philippines and, like many bagpipe band alumni, is serving a full-time mission. “Playing in the Nauvoo Pageant really helped strengthen my testimony of Joseph Smith and appreciation of the pioneers,” says Austin McDonough, 19. It’s an opportunity for them to develop their talent, make friends, experience old Nauvoo, learn about early Church history, draw closer as a family, build testimony, and share the gospel. ![]() For example, he’s performed in New York, at the Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, and for the National Boy Scout Jamboree in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.īagpipers in the Nauvoo Pageant band volunteer for an average of two weeks, performing in the pre-show, daily vignettes (15-minute “mini-plays”), and the pageant itself. “Playing the bagpipes takes you to a lot of places,” says Calum. Calum and Thomas, 17 and 20, and their dad, Paul, chose to master this unique instrument because it’s part of their family heritage Brother Hezseltine was born in England and raised in Scotland. Each summer for the past three years, Hezseltines have played in the band. The bagpipe band involves youth from around the United States, but it has a special significance to members of the Hezseltine family of Murray, Utah. Soon a crowd gathers around red, purple, yellow, green, and orange banners as an impromptu parade follows the bagpipers, signaling that the Nauvoo Pageant is about to begin. The music of bagpipes pierces the humid summer air, keeping cadence with the rhythmic tap, tap, tap of a snare drum. As far as 10 miles down the Mississippi River you hear them. ![]()
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