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Every talk touched me this conference. There isn’t one I would have done away with. In the wake of many flurried conversations over there being only a single female speaker last weekend, I give the benefit of the doubt to those planning the conference sessions. There are many more male leaders than female leaders in the church, and some disproportion in General Conference is therefore to be expected (though speakers could also be drawn from the RS, YW, and Primary General Bo

Carly Sessions, an Arizona native, found herself unemployed and bored after college and a year-long teaching internship. On a whim she decided to apply for law school with her husband. It was there that her passion for immigration law was ignited. Carly discusses her journey to become a lawyer, and the heartbreaking and often frustrating challenges it brings at work, home, and even at church. She is grateful for the opportunities God has given her to help his children.

Élodie Picard met and married her husband Paul in France, but his career in the French military and with international peacekeeping organizations took them to the US, Tajikistan and now Austria. She and the children have often been separated from Paul as he has traveled to other countries, where he has sometimes spent months at a time in dangerous conflict areas. Raising three children in several countries and in unique circumstances, Élodie has learned to draw her family clo

Briana Cullimore’s desire to be healthy led to a continuing struggle with multiple eating disorders and depression. She discusses using restriction/food as a coping mechanism, fighting with her parents over a treatment plan, coming to terms with needing help, and using the Atonement to help repair her parental relationship. She has seen her attitude change from anger to gratitude for her trials and experiences and offers insights.

Thousands of stories in delicate pointillism convey the grand picture of the Restoration. Remove the women’s voices and experiences — remove half the dots — and the image loses half its color, half its clarity. Include them, and our vision of our history expands, our understanding of modern Mormon women sharpens, and we have new potential to understand the course of our people’s future.

Some traditions hold that Mary felt no pain in her labor, because she and her baby and this moment were too holy for pain. But if the scriptures and a history of devoted saints tell us the truth, holiness and pain are likely companions. I attend women in labor professionally, and will be the last to abuse the word “pain” in relation to childbirth.

A discussion about Heavenly Mother, families, writing, unexpected joy and more. Elizabeth Ostler interviews Bethany Brady Spalding and McArthur Krishna about their new book, Our Heavenly Family, Our Earthly Families.

Ostensibly a book for children, Our Heavenly Family, Our Earthly Families by virtue of its publisher becomes a groundbreaking theological text for LDS grown-ups — who may have been taught not to discuss Heavenly Mother beyond occasional frail references, or who may even doubt Her existence and active involvement in the universe. (Microsoft Word underlines a capitalized “Her” in green, but not a capitalized “Him,” as I write this.)

Leslie Huber’s passion for genealogy started with a simple story about roller skates, and after exploration of the career path, she decided to make family history her life mission. Leslie discusses how she got her professional start and how her faith in the eternal significance of family history work intersects with her professional industry.

At age 16, Rosie Card seemed to be living the dream: she was a runway model traveling the world. The experience has given her unique perspective into how women view their bodies and how Satan uses our bodies to distract us from our abilities to gain skills and be creators. Now, Rosie is focusing her efforts on a new line of temple dresses that she hopes will allow women to focus on what’s most important in the temple.

How well do the women of your Relief Society know the women of the scriptures? One ward in Sandy, Utah recently found out during a Women of the Scriptures Jeopardy! night. Apparently the evening’s game was pulled from a site I’ve admired for quite some time, Women in the Scriptures, run by the self-taught scriptural scholar Heather Farrell. In addition, Heather has been a contributor to our Sunday School Supplements and a participant in one of our fundraising Salons some year

Christie Frandsen feasts on the scriptures. And she has taught eleven children and the two hundred missionaries that have gone through her seminary and institute classes to do the same. In this interview, Christie talks about how she studied the scriptures formally and on her own, how she taught others to love them too, and why it is important to her that we not only see the scriptures as a “quote book” but rather understand their whole impact.

Since I have become a mother myself, and have worked in the field of childbirth, I still do enjoy Mother’s Day, even as I have become aware that not every woman revels in this meeting. I’ve read many a blogger, and talked to a couple of close friends, who for one reason or another find it too painful to attend at all. I have witnessed and understood that pain, and hope our congregations continue to approach Mother’s Day with increased sensitivity to women of all experiences.

This morning, the editorial board of the Mormon Women Project said goodbye to the trusty site that has gotten us through our organization’s first six and a half years. The first site was built with hundreds of volunteer hours; this new site is no different. There have been heroic efforts on the parts of several people to make this happen, in addition to the generous donors who contributed to our Kickstarter campaign, and we couldn’t be more thrilled with the result.

As the Global Acquisitions Curator for Art for the Church History Museum, Laura Allred Hurtado has a unique understanding of how art impacts our worship. She also understands how vital it is to increase the representation and breadth of women in our artwork, and she has made some revolutionary strides in rectifying this dearth that impact our most mainstream practices.