SMT CAST – Update #1

CAST 2018- small but mighty!

We are a group composed of four creative artists. Sandy Cabrera; from the Kansas & Western Missouri Division, is our fearless leader, who keeps the team together, focused and ready for anything. Erin McDonald; from the Western Michigan & Northern Indiana Division, primarily focuses on drama and musical theater. Nikki Bowyer; from the Metropolitan Division, primarily focuses in vocals. Amanda Mercado; from USA South Florida Division, primarily works with dance and movement.

With combined talents we put together an original show that we will be using to spread the gospel, not only around the Central Territory but also in Argentina later in the summer. After ten days of hard work at THQ, we finally had our show road ready, everyone’s finger prints are seen in our original show named, “Just The Way You Are” from Sandy’s over all theme and leading, to Amanda’s choreography, Erin’s song choice, to Nikki’s original choreo-Drama “The Crossover”; we hope to tell the story of the gospel. We spent time in voice-over recording sessions and some members had a fun time re-learning how to use their timbrel. For our rehearsal camp, we stayed in a hotel where we spent most of our fellowship time together. One of the highlights would be that each night one team member made dinner for the whole team. Nikki made chicken stir-fry, Erin made naan, Amanda made pasta, and Sandy made rice, quesadillas, and enchiladas. Each night would be filled with joy and laughter as we helped each other cook dinner and clean.

 

As a team, CAST had decided that we wanted to spend more time working on our personal time with God. Each day after lunch we met and Sandy would read us a small piece of scripture and a devotional, just asking us some questions to reflect on. Afterwards each of us would find a quite space for thirty minutes to reflect and just spend time with God. Some of us read the Bible, listen to music to embrace His word, or wrote out our thoughts from that day’s scripture.

On Sunday, June 16th, the team attended the Rockford Temple Corps and Nikki’s parents, the Bowyers, hosted us. They took the team to lunch and allowed us to spend some time in their home before our drive back to THQ.

Finally after all our hard work to complete the show was over, it was time to make the drive to WMNI’s music camp at Little Pine Island to do our first performance of “Just The Way You Are”. Rain and traffic made this a little harder than it needed to be, but we made our way. We even managed to have lunch with a past CAST member; Jacob Wise. He seemed excited for us as we told him about our show and wished us the best of luck as we set off on our way.
Making it to WMNI’s camp, we quickly got to work; Sandy naturally took the lead setting up for sound check. We anxiously awaited the campers to arrive for the evening program. We stood smiling and waving as they came in. Then we had met for a team prayer and headed for the stage. The campers and staff were so excited to see us and clapped wildly at every scene. In our finally piece, we invited the campers to dance with us to the upbeat music that was played. Almost each of them rose from their seats to jump on stage, and in those last few moments we were just one big CAST team praising and worshipping together.

Please keep our team in your prayers as we continue to work on our show and head to EMI’s music camp, where we will be staying and leading for the whole week.

~Sandy, Amanda, Nikki, & Erin