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If you are a brown-skinned, dark-haired Mormon with a temple recommend and some acting experience, the LDS Church wants you for central roles in its forthcoming Book of Mormon videos.

You could play Lehi ("a powerful prophet and seer ... a courageous man and a stalwart patriarch"), Nephi (who "matures from a stripling young man (teens) into a husband and father — a leader in his extended family"), Laman ("As Lehi's oldest son, ... he is equally as educated, intelligent and resourceful as his brothers. But Laman is bitter over the family's unexpected trek into the desert ... Laman is not innately evil. He is a complex individual"), or Sariah ("Lehi's wife and matriarch of the family. She has raised an affluent household of four sons and an untold contingent of daughters. She's a spiritually aware woman with a special wisdom all her own").

The men should sport beards and have hair that at least covers most of the ear and collar, reads the casting description. "The longer, the better."

The characters and narratives are drawn from the faith's signature scripture, the Book of Mormon, which tells the principal story of a Hebrew clan that fled Jerusalem about 600 years before Christ and sailed to the Americas, where it broke into sometimes-warring tribes.

The videos will be filmed on a set in Goshen — about an hour south of Salt Lake City in southern Utah County — built to resemble ancient Israel for a series of New Testament videos recently completed by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Actors in the new videos will be paid "commensurate with corporate/educational union scale and position of the role (lead, day, featured, background)," according to the casting call. "If applicable, agency fees are 10 percent. In order to be paid, participants must be legally documented to work in the United States."

The videos, the first of which are scheduled to be released in 2018, "will have the same purpose as the Book of Mormon itself — to bring people closer to Jesus Christ," LDS general authority Larry R. Lawrence said in a news release. "We hope the video library will build bridges of understanding and increase interest in God's word, which in turn can change hearts and inspire people to live better lives."

Peggy Fletcher Stack