The Help Them See Foundation held a VIP fundraising concert on Friday at the Romance Theater in support of their upcoming documentary, "The Singing Mormons".

Actor Kirby Heyborne and "The Saratov Approach" director Garrett Batty hosted the event.

The concert featured The Young Singing Mormons, a quartet of young men modeled after the original Singing Mormons. BYU-Idaho students Jarom Huntsman, a junior studying business management, and Isaac Ford, a junior studying vocal performance, are members of the group.

According to The Singing Mormons' Facebook page, the original Singing Mormons were missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who served in Denmark during the early 1960s. They began performing across the country as a way to better connect with the people they were teaching. Their popularity led to a record deal with Domino Records, approved by President David O. McKay, according to the Help Them See Foundation.

Heyborne said the group, at one point, was Denmark's second-highest-grossing musical act next to The Beatles.

Members of the original and new groups will be traveling to Denmark later this year to recreate one of the group's original concerts for an upcoming documentary, according to a video published by the Help Them See Foundation.

Original member and Rexburg resident Roger Sorensen accompanied the new group on the piano. They sang songs arranged and written by Sorensen for the original Singing Mormons.

Not all of the group's songs are gospel focused, as one might expect from Latter-day Saint missionaries. In fact, many of the evening's songs focused on cowboys roaming the open plains, springtime lovers and the shape of women at the beach in August.

In addition to BYUI students Ford and Huntsman, members of the new group come from a wide variety of backgrounds. Will Schank is Sorensen's great-nephew and played piano for some songs. Cooper Merrill graduated high school just two days before the performance where he played guitar and sang.

When asked about his favorite experience with the group, Ford spoke highly of their camaraderie.

"We're able to have serious conversations with all of us at the same time, but when we're together, typically there's mostly joking," Ford said. "We're basically brothers at this point."

For Jarom Huntsman, the experience has been transformative.

"We were singing for part of Cory Sorensen's family and I just felt something different that I hadn't felt before," Huntsman said. "I realized that this was so much more than just a fun trip to Denmark. This was so much more than us. It was something that was gonna really change the world...I've just felt so inspired that this is what we're meant to do at this time in our lives. I don't know why, and I don't know exactly what will come out of it, but I know that God has a great plan for us."

Rexburg is the first stop of a larger tour that will take the group to different parts of Idaho, Wyoming, Oregon and Utah.

"It's the home base," Heyborne said when asked why Rexburg was chosen as the tour's first stop. "This is where a few of them reside now, and they're good Idaho boys. I don't think anything says good, faithful Idaho more than Rexburg."

You can learn more about the upcoming documentary on the Help Them See Foundation website or by visiting The Singing Mormons Project Facebook page.