Faith, pageantry on display in N.Y.

What is important to Mormons, Hanson said, is serving the Lord, something that is sometimes best accomplished in a white shirt and sometimes in a long wig and a robe studded with fake jade.

As night fell, trumpets blared and the players mounted the stage, a sprawling approximation of a pre-Mayan temple. The next 75 minutes flew by in a blur of flame, spurting water, battle moves and white-robed saviors descending from the sky on piano wire.

A tribe of Israel, the Nephites, flees Jerusalem for the New World. The Nephites prosper, and fight, and fall. Jesus comes and delivers the Gospel to them shortly after his crucifixion and resurrection. In 400 A.D., the Nephites are destroyed in an epic battle. In their final days, their prophet Mormon passes the golden plates to his son Moroni (pronounced muh-ROE-nigh), who flees north to upstate New York and buries them in Cumorah for safekeeping. Moroni gives the plates to Joseph Smith, who translates them into the Book of Mormon. The church is on its way.