From Silence to Song

By Ned Armstrong

A Nudge from Heaven

The city of Manti, Utah has changed significantly since the Mormon Miracle Pageant ended in 2019. Summers that for 52 years echoed with auditions, lively rehearsals, and robust performances—welcoming over 100,000 visitors annually—have grown silent. Where youth once unified in service activities and faith-building missionary work, most now spend their summers in idle isolation. Like everyone around me, I held on to faith and fully supported the Church’s decision to no longer sponsor a pageant on the Manti Temple grounds. For the next few years, I was able to suppress my heartache and watch Manti become a different kind of town. But as I watched the light of pride in our community diminish, local businesses struggle, and a shift toward laziness among our youth, I felt drawn to seek out a non-secular solution.

At the dinner table on Thanksgiving weekend in 2022, I was discussing potential plans to revive Manti’s spiritual strength and our longstanding tradition of welcoming and showing hospitality to others when a family member suggested creating a new pageant—one rooted not in Latter-day Saint history but in the unifying, non-denominational theme of freedom. That idea lit a fire in my soul. I immediately got to work. Soon after, in a locally organized meeting, our new pageant found its name: The Spirit of Freedom.

Like a Voice From the Dust

Our group of volunteers was soon approached by a professional in the Christian film industry who volunteered to write the script. A spark of enthusiasm spread quickly through parts of the community. But in December 2023, that writer had to back out due to career advancements. We were left with nothing but his concept—an outdoor musical about the founding of America. As a songwriter, I decided to try moving the project forward myself. With George Washington and Benjamin Franklin in mind, I sat at the piano and began to play. But the song that flowed from my fingers told the story of an English minister and his family who were seeking religious liberty. The story seemed to tell itself.

I asked our social media group if anyone knew who the historical pastor that had entered my thoughts might be. An amazing response came. I was sent a short history of Reverend John Lothropp with the comment, “This may be your man.” 

Quick research taught me that John Lothropp (also spelled Lothrop or Lathrop) was a champion of religious freedom in 1600s England. At that time, English law required all to worship according to the official doctrines of the Church of England. Lothropp felt obligated to instead teach and live the gospel as taught in the scriptures and objected to being forced to do otherwise. For this, he was imprisoned and suffered under brutal conditions. His wife died while he was in prison, and his children were left to fend for themselves. He was offered freedom—if only he would renounce his beliefs and rejoin the king’s church—but like his direct descendant, Joseph Smith Jr, he could not deny his personal testimony of Christ. Eventually, Lothropp was exiled to America, where he helped shape the religious liberty Americans now cherish.

After learning this history, it felt like a faucet from heaven had opened directly into my mind, and musical inspiration flooded in. Original songs about faith and freedom flowed from my fingertips at a pace I had never experienced. I then began reading Exiled: The Story of John Lathrop by Helene Holt. With each chapter I completed, I created and arranged yet another song. Within two months, I had been blessed with 17 original songs, all written at a skill level far beyond my own.

God Has Not Ceased to Be a God of Miracles

Realizing I would need permission to adapt Exiled into pageant form, I reached out to the author, Helene Holt—only to discover she lives just 30 minutes away from my home. When I called her to explain the project, she enthusiastically gave her full permission to adapt her creative work. Then, to my surprise, she mentioned she’d also written a screenplay based on the book and offered it to me as well. I was floored. Her husband, Tom, then joined the telephone call, sharing he had written and arranged eight additional songs for a musical adaptation of the book. He gladly offered those, too. After the phone call, I found myself feeling overwhelmed by what had transpired and remained in awe for several days. This was an undeniable manifestation of the hand of God at work.

As I began perfecting the song arrangements, local playwright Kory Howard generously agreed to prepare a pageant script, drawing from Helene’s book and screenplay. Months later, just after he had completed his initial draft, I received a surprise email from Ora Smith, author of The Pulse of His Soul: The Story of John Lothropp, a Forgotten Forefather. Ora had heard about our pageant and felt inspired to offer a full content edit of Kory’s incredible script. Pulling from her extensive research of John Lothropp’s family and 1600s England, Ora spent the following six months meticulously improving historical accuracy, refining dialogue to be more period-appropriate, tightening the runtime, and formatting the script to professional standard. She even added a few scenes from her own novel. The end result is nothing short of a masterpiece.

The only remaining need for the pageant was background music for each scene. In October 2024, I attended a conference called LDSPMA (Latter-day Saints in Publishing, Media, and the Arts). In the very first lecture of the day, I sat down by a man I had never met named Hamish Reeves. On a whim, I asked if he composed musical scores. He responded that he did. After hearing just a few details, he volunteered to score the entire production. Since then, Hamish has composed 23 breathtaking scene scores, each interweaving delicately with the melodies of the existing songs. Just one year after my discovery of John Lothropp, I had in hand a professionally written and edited final draft, fully arranged songs, and a masterful score—entirely contributed by volunteers.

His masterpiece

All of us who are involved are convinced that our Savior, Jesus Christ, is personally involved in His orchestrations on the earth. There is no song He cannot write, no history He cannot bring to light, and no supporting score He cannot compose. From the void of silence left by any loss, Christ can create a new masterpiece.

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