The Hill Cumorah Pageant began in 1937 as an LDS missionary tool and, for most of its 80 years, young Mormon proselytizers acted in the spectacle, passed out pamphlets and copies of the Book of Mormon to thousands of audience members, or brought potential converts to see it.
Last week, full-time LDS missionaries in the New York Rochester Mission were forbidden to attend the annual showing — even with investigators in tow — during its run, which ends Saturday.
“This is primarily due to an effort to strengthen relationships between local members and those learning about the church," LDS Church spokesman Daniel Woodruff writes in an email.