Gila Valley Cultural Celebration

We enjoyed the Satellite Video of the Gila Valley Cultural Celebration at our Stake Center.It was like a BYU Extravaganza. There were over a thousand youth providing a wonderful song and dance numbers. They told the history of Gila Valley with their songs and dance numbers. The area was settled by the pioneers in the 1800's.They cleared the land for crops of corn and alfalfa and cotton. Then they needed water to make them grow so they brought the water down by gravitity from the nearby mountains.
They dug irrigation channels. They mined for gold and copper and silver in those mountains. The youth portrayed the irrigation time, by using shovels and pretending to dig while singing the gals carried picnic baskets to feed the men. Then they did the cotton picking song ,all were dressed with white knit hats with black t-shirts which said 100% cotton on them, lined up in rows, portraying the cotton fields. Meanwhile several large cotton shaped balls, kids dressed like this bounced throughout the cotton field. Then they dressed in Mining Hats with lights on the hard hats.and sang and danced. They told us about the Honeymoon Trail, which was a dirt road which led from Gila Valley to St. George, Utah. If a young couple wanted to get married in the Temple, they would walk, ride in a wagon or horseback to get to the Temple, 650 miles away. It still is called the Honeymoon Trail. Now they will have an Temple close, to get married in. At the end of the program, they showed the Angel Moroni, lifted up into the night sky, with white streamers cascading down from him. That is why, they had a Cultural Celebration.It was a big deal. President Monson and Pres. Eyring were in attendance.President Spencer W. Kimball grew up in this Valley at Thatcher Arizona he owned a Bank and a lot of the town.Back in the 1800's a lady gave $5.00 to help build a Temple here.Pres. Monson said" A lady had given him $500,00 to put some ordinal masterpieces of art in this Temple. We were glad we went to this there were only 15 people to saw this in our Stake Center.They missed out.