As part of the 24th of July Pioneer Day celebration, Washington City put on a big parade. The parade had all of the typical parade entries like princesses, dignitaries, and Primary kids but it was the end of the parade that brought most of the people out to see it. The parade was called The Warrior Parade because at the end, the 2,000 Stripling Warriors marched through. They were lead by Captain Moroni and his Title of Liberty:
Then Helaman lead his band of 2,000 sons:
It was really cool to watch these boys march through dressed as the Stripling Warriors would have been. When they were planning this event they invited all boys 12 - 18 years old to participate because that is the age we believe the stripling warriors would have been. As they marched, Helaman lead them in various war chants. With the drums and horns, the chants were quite powerful. Even though she is a girl, Jacee was able to march with the warriors and play one of the drums. She said it was awesome. You can see her in the picture with Helaman; she is the first drummer on the left. Jared, Jacob, and Braden were also in the parade as warriors.
Along with the 2,000 Stripling Warriors, were the modern day warriors. The Boy Scouts marched to commemorate 100 years of Scouting. All of the missionaries in the St. George, Utah mission also marched in the parade. They sang powerful hymns and they walked that expressed their mission theme and purpose. It was awesome to see.
And to top it off a modern day prophet was also in the parade:
Elder Jeffery R Holland and his wife were in the parade. This alone was way awesome to see and experience.
My mom and I ran to the end of the parade to get some more pictures of the Warriors and Helaman. Jacee, Jared, Jacob, and Braden all said marching in the parade and being a part of this experience was amazing. They also said they had a blast preparing for it.
At the end of the parade, we saw Elder Holland drive by in his carriage so we decided to follow him in hopes of getting a picture with him. We walked about three blocks to Staheli Cotton Town Village to get to him. When we got there, the body guards said we could shake his hand but we couldn't pose for pictures. So we asked if we could take some pictures while he shook our hands and they said yes. When Elder Holland arrived, he said, "Oh do you want some pictures? Of course you can get pictures." He is the one that posed us and let us take some pictures with him:
It was so cool to see an Apostle of the Lord that close and shake his hand. He was so nice and friendly. As Elder Holland was talking to my mom, we found out that his family and my mom's family used to be in the same ward and my grandpa Burgess taught Sister Holland in 5th grade! Small world huh! I was wishing I had brought Emily and Colby with me so that they could meet the Apostle too. At the time we ran to the end of the parade, I didn't know we were going to meet him so I left Emily and Colby with Russell and I walked down with my mom. I am also kicking myself for not getting Logan out of the stroller for a picture with Elder Holland but he was asleep and originally they told us we couldn't get pictures. So bummer I don't have any pictures with my kids but I did get some with these kids.
As we walked back to Lacie's house, we were all on cloud nine because we had just talked to an Apostle! This was a really fun parade and a good experience for us all.
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