Resort's mission
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KAYSVILLE, UTAH
As a zone leader in the Illinois Chicago Mission in 1978, Elder Keith Lloyd from Kaysville, Utah, was interviewing baptismal candidates. He asked the husband and wife how they first heard about the Church.
While traveling in Utah, they replied, they had stopped at a little campground near Salt Lake City where the owners, Grant and Mary Lou Lloyd, had talked to them about the Church. Elder Lloyd was amazed that they were talking about his parents and their Cherry Hill Campground in Kaysville.
That gospel contact in the campground was not happenstance. Grant Lloyd, a stake seventy when he opened the campground in 1967, and his wife were purposely missionary-minded in their business. They made it a point, with the help of stake seventies, to take advantage of the opportunity to expose campers to the gospel. It began in 1968 with the showing of Church movies such as "Man's Search for Happiness."
"The plan was simple," wrote former stake mission president Jerry L. King in memories of the campground missionary project. "The seventies would arrive at the campground before dusk and visit each campsite, answering basic tourist questions and extending a friendly invitation to the campers to join us that night to view a movie. A series of long electrical extension cords were strung several hundred feet from the registration office to a camp table to power the 16mm projector."
Crowds increased, leading to the establishment of a small outdoor movie theater just off Kaysville's Main Street. Church pamphlets were available to those who wanted them. Campers were told about nearby Temple Square and often formed a Sunday morning caravan from the camp to Salt Lake City for the weekly Mormon Tabernacle Choir broadcast of "Music and the Spoken Word."
The full impact of consecrating a part of their private business to missionary work was hard to measure, but the Lloyds knew of several people who joined the Church after their first exposure at the campground. Some returned to stay at the campground the following year when they went to the Salt Lake Temple to be endowed.
The campground has evolved, now dominated by a resort with water park, miniature golf course and batting cages. The theater is gone, but not the missionary spirit.
Keith Lloyd, one of the campground/resorts' co-owners, shared his feelings about his parent's inspired missionary work at the park during a Church News interview on a grassy area inside the Grant's Gulch water park where gospel-themed musical concerts are being staged throughout the summer. The Farmington Utah Oakridge Stake, which includes the park in its boundaries, supports the latest efforts to share the gospel.
The Church films, which were popular for many years among campers who were not members of the Church, weren't quite the attraction as a greater percentage of the campground started filling up with Church members from the Utah area.
"So last year we thought, let's try something totally different," Brother Lloyd said, sitting in a deck chair under large trees in front of a simple stage.
Each summer weekend, after the water park closed, the gates were thrown open for anyone to attend concerts by various LDS musical soloists or groups. Many people from the local area joined campers at the concerts. Brother Lloyd told of one single parent who was having trouble connecting with a teenage child until they found they enjoyed attending the concerts together each week.
Encouraged by the turnout during the first season, Brother Lloyd made some improvements to the venue and, with the help of the stake, lined up a second season of shows. Each Friday and Saturday night until the end of August, the gates will open at 8:30 p.m. for the 9 p.m. concerts. There are dozens of chairs and plenty of lawn to throw down blankets and sit and listen to the music.
"The Lloyds invited the stake to be involved in the missionary focus," said Farmington Utah Oakridge Stake President Mark D. Elggren. "This has the potential to be a wonderful missionary tool, a simple introduction to the gospel."
He said each weekend a different ward in the stake helps set up for the concerts. As part of the effort, members of the stake stroll through the campground each concert day and, without imposing on campers' privacy, chat with those who might be accessible and invite them to the concerts. The members then attend the concert and watch for those they invited so they can be welcomed, and afterward talk to them and answer their questions.
"There is no pressure about it," President Elggren said, noting that members can bring their less-active friends and neighbors or friends of other faiths. "There's a variety of music for different generations." He added that every group has been asked to provide a spiritual finale by performing "I Am a Child of God."
Brother Lloyd said there is a FamilySearch display set up at the venue where visitors can research their family trees, and Church pamphlets are available.
Grant and Mary Lou Lloyd passed away a few years ago, but an important part of their original business purpose — gentle exposure to the gospel — lives on under starry skies on warm summer weekend nights.
E-mail to: ghill@desnews.com
