Christmastime Pageant Becomes a Tradition of Mormon Outreach

Upstairs, Elder Mac Christensen is deploying his well-dressed troops: Elder Kelly by Theater 2. Elder Wingert by the back door. Two more elders by the front door, all armed with stubby pencils and referral cards for any likely converts.

Downstairs, Elder Rich is using a wall map to assign locations for the 17-man traffic crew. A few doors away, Sister Naylor is gluing the beard to Elder Schultz’s smooth face, while he and Sister Craet don biblical garb to portray Joseph and Mary on a parking lot stage.

It is dusk at the visitors center of the Mormons’ soaring Washington Temple in Kensington, Md. The 300,000 Christmas lights have been turned on. And with the gold-spired, pure white temple and its landscaped hilltop transformed into a wintry apparition, it is prime time.

For the next five hours, thousands of people--Baptists, Catholics, Methodists and many others--will walk or drive through the temple grounds to view a spectacle that has become a holiday tradition.

Some will stand rapt before Mary and Joseph as the Nativity story is narrated majestically over loudspeakers. Others will wander through the wonderland of lights and gaze at the eerie, floodlit temple, whose 294-room interior has been closed to all but devout adult Mormons since its dedication 23 years ago.

Still others will enter the visitors center, across the parking lot from the temple, and take cards proffered by ardent young Mormon missionaries.

All, whether they know it or not, will be exposed to the Mormons’ special brand of folksy outreach, where amiable retirees from Utah and college-age evangelists run a sophisticated open house that last Christmas drew a quarter of a million people and this year runs through Jan. 4.

This year, the 150th anniversary of the Utah settlement of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as the Mormons are officially known, the Christmas Festival of Lights here has become one of the best-known calling cards for a denomination that says it numbers 10 million worldwide.

Their dedication is evident in Christensen, 63, of Bountiful, Utah, who, when called by his church last year, left his successful men’s clothing business in the hands of his five sons and moved east to head the visitors center for a two-year tour of duty. And it is evident in the eyes of Boyd C. Rich, 69, a retired public school speech pathologist from Ogden, Utah, who said as he left for the chilly parking lots the other night:

“We feel we have an important message here: that Jesus Christ lives, that his church has been restored to the Earth. And we want people to feel the joy that we find in serving Jesus Christ. Sounds kind of square in the world today.”

On the busiest nights, the center has about 10,000 visitors, not counting those driving through without stopping, Christensen said. Many will be on tour buses from several states.

The Nativity scene reminded Alicia Servellon, 51, a Catholic, of the rich Christmas traditions of her native El Salvador. The visitors center gave James Chu, 36, of Laurel, Md., also a Catholic, the chance to pose his family for a picture in front of one of the decorated Christmas trees.

Wayne Blagmon, 48, a Baptist from Waldorf, Md., who comes every year, brought Lealia Story, 47, a Methodist from Havre de Grace, Md., for her first visit. It was a relief, she said, to get away from the commercialism of the malls and feel the real spirit of the season.

Later, the visitors center would be standing room only, and Christensen was stationing young men to keep people moving among the Christmas exhibits, and to urge those interested to fill out referral cards.