I had an amazing Easter week, travelling twice to Arizona and attended a Mormon Studies Conference in southern California. I had intended to post this 2 week ago, but i’ve been so busy travelling, I haven’t had time to write this up. So I apologize for this belated Easter post.
I also drove to St George to attend the Mormon Social Science Association meetings (my first ever!) I’ll try to talk about that in the future.
Centennial Park Easter Service
I was invited to Centennial Park again! (I guess I didn’t wear out my welcome last time.) Once again, there was a large crowd and a special service for the week before Easter (Palm Sunday.) The service was lead by the local choir, It was a beautiful performance. I was an hour early and couldn’t get a better seat than the overflow section. It was fun to see Tom Bennett again. Centennial Park is a Mormon fundamentalist group. They only observe the sacrament once per year. Since it was such a large congregation (about a thousand) about 2 dozen missionaries broke the bread and passed the sacrament.
Polygaist Line of Succession
It was interesting to learn the line of succession in Centennial Park, comparing it to the LDS church and other fundamentalist groups. There was a split between Centennial Park and the FLDS Church in 1984. Alma Timpson, & Marion Hammon were dropped from FLDS leadership and formed Centennial Park. After Hammon died, Frank Naylor was called to replace him on the Council of Friends. But Naylor & Timpson split in a dispute over leadership in 1989, forming what became the Nielsen Naylor group around 1989.
Mesa Easter Pageant
I attended the Mesa Easter Pageant on Good Friday. I was shocked to see that approximately 10,000 attend this annual pageant, one of just 2 left in the Church. (The other is in Nauvoo.) Locals told me about changes in the pageant’s music and production following COVID. They now have a permanent outdoor stage that replaced the temporary one there previously. The professional quality of the pageant was amazing, including the orchestra and the modern feel of the production. The Mesa Easter pageant to the Manti pageant seemed much more modern than the antiquated narration I remember at the Manti Pageant.
It does seem Pres Nelson is focusing much more on Easter than we have in the past, limiting Church to just 1 hour service on Sundays and emphasizing a more special service than in the past. Is that your experience too?
Wheat & Tares 
Yes, the COB seems to have put out word to the local units to make sure Easter Sunday and Christmas services have lots of Jesus talks. Up until maybe a dozen years ago, you could go to a Mormon church on one of those holidays and have a teenager talking about the Word of Wisdom and some high councilman talking about who knows what.
It’s worth noting that LDS culture has developed its own holidays. General Conference doesn’t just happen, it is celebrated. Pioneer Day often gets attention in church. The whole Trek thing (pioneers in wagons, not starships and Vulcans) likewise has become an essential Mormon pilgrimage of sorts. Strangely and I think to the credit of the Church, Joseph Smith’s birthday and death day are rarely noted in church. We may praise the man who communed with Jehovah, but we don’t celebrate his birthday.
I have noticed how we’re having high church envy now and there is so much gaslighting about how we have always appreciated or somehow celebrated Palm Sunday, or had some sort of liturgical-like study of Easter time.
I have been a member since childhood, now nearing 70 years, and let me tell you, We never had even a mention or celebration of Palm Sunday, we never talked of Good Friday, and people in Utah county and salt lake county don’t know what to make of Lent or Ash Wednesday.
And now, and it cracks me up, people are making up Palm Sunday traditions, but with no background or understanding of what that all was. Now it’s mostly just walk around with a palm frond.
So I don’t believe much about anything anymore, but I think that the Catholics , etc. have at least made it classic, and I feel a closeness with the divine at Madeline’s cathedral that I never get in GC or rarely at my ward.
I do think Christmas services have also improved under Pres Nelson.
When I joined, I noticed the current hymnbook had no songs referencing the last supper and/or gethsemane, 1 song about the crucifixion, and 2 songs about the resurrection. Our Ward Easter Service included 9 special musical selections; some classical, some contemporary, and some special arrangements of traditional hymns; all centered on the theme of Christ.
I don’t know why Paul-of-the-ladder-days is being down voted — I think he is telling the truth.
Ask me about an Easter Sunday sacrament meeting a few years back where the visiting high councilor spoke about church employment assistance services.
While our recent acknowledgements of Easter, Palm Sunday, and so forth are appreciated, they also feel contrived. I am glad of the direction we are heading, but it is dishonest to pretend like it has always been so — it hasn’t.
Yes, really, ask me about that Easter sacrament meeting talk. It’s true, and it’s embarrassing, and it’s our reality.
That said, a couple of years ago the Crystal City Ward in suburban D.C. had an absolutely wonderful Easter sacrament meeting! My fondest regards to the trumpet player — wow!