After working as the executive assistant for the editor-in-chief of Mademoiselle magazine, Marcia Nelson studied for her business school entrance exam while nursing a baby. Now, she’s enjoying a fulfilling career in finance while her husband is a freelance writer and stay-at-home dad to their two children, one of whom has had a recurring brain tumor. Would you describe the path that led you to a career in finance? I have an eclectic background and I’ve gotten to where I am through happenstance, hard work, lots of luck, and just being in the right place at the right time. I was an English major in college. I started my career as a high school English teacher in New York City. My boyfriend was coming to New York for graduate school and I was graduating from college and didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I’d never even been on an airplane before, but I was excited about the opportunity to move to New York. I got a job as a nanny, moved to New York to work for a family, and six months later, I was engaged to that very same boy. I taught high school for four years, and then realized that I didn’t love it enough to keep doing it. So I went to a job recruiter and said, “I’ve never worked in an office before, but I want to.” I grew up in an era where women were stay-at-home moms, elementary teachers, bank tellers or nurses. Those were the limited options. I didn’t know what a recruiter really was or what the business world was really like, but it seemed like a good place to start. Marcia Nelson and Her Family I ended up getting a job as the administrative and executive assistant to the editor-in-chief of a fashion magazine. I got the job primarily because of two reasons: first, I could type. And second, the human resources director who interviewed me said, “You know, this is a very demanding position, this woman can be very tough.” They liked the fact that I was an English teacher, so I could write concise and grammatically correct letters. But I was warned that this editor was difficult to work with. And I said, “I managed a classroom of 30 high school students, how much harder can it be?” I got the job. I had no office background and no finance background—none of that. But it turned out that I was very good at my job and I moved up in the company. I became the executive assistant to the president of the company. The company I worked for (Gruner & Jahr) owned Parents Magazine and YM. It was a family-friendly place. They supported women having children and my husband and I were talking about having kids. The woman I worked for (the president of the company) brought her kids into the office with her, had a crib in her office and juggled motherhood with work. She was a great example of an executive woman who worked full-time and managed her children. When she moved from Gruner & Jahr to Condé Nast to be the editor-in-chief of Mademoiselle magazine, I moved with her as her executive assistant. I was totally the girl from The Devil Wears Prada! My boss wasn’t like that but a lot of people I knew seemed straight out of the movie! I stayed with that job for about six years and I was able to have my daughter, Kate, at that time. It was great working with a supportive boss, and the all of the other people in the office loved having visits from my daughter. At the same time, my husband was working as an editor for the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), the tax organization. My husband is extremely creative. While he was working for the tax organization, he was working on librettos, working with some composers… When our daughter was born in 1996, we debated which of us would stay home with her, how much a nanny would cost, daycare, etc. We went through all of that. And my husband finally said, “You know, I really want to be home. I don’t want to spend my time working on this very technical kind of writing when I really prefer being more creative.” And so we made the decision that he would be the stay-at-home parent and do his writing and I would continue to work. Part of that decision was based on the fact that I worked for this great woman who was very supportive of my taking time off for maternity leave. Everyday at lunch, my husband brought my daughter over to my office so that I could see my daughter and he could walk around and have some free time. My daughter became the office mascot – we even dressed her in white t-shirts and black jumpers, so she could fit in with the Conde Nast look. Marcia Nelson with Her Son, Dash In the first three years of her life, she knew how to say, “Mademoiselle” and “Mangia” because that’s the name of the place we ordered lunch from everyday! Eventually, there were rumors of Mademoiselle’s closing. Through a series of contacts, I heard about a wealthy woman who was looking for an executive assistant in her family office. I went to work for her and it was so fascinating. I learned so much. But one of the main things I learned about was the role of family offices and melding investments with financial planning. In family offices, wealthy philanthropic people create businesses to manage their money. I said to my husband, “I really love this. I love the financial planning community.” My husband and I had always been very cognizant of planning. We had a 10-year plan we had mapped out when we first got married: when we were going to have children, how much money we were going to save, when we were going to buy an apartment, and how much money we needed to save for college and retirement. And we accomplished all of that on our own. Our friends started coming to us for advice on their own planning. And I said to my husband, “I think I need to go back to school and get my MBA and really learn more about this whole financial planning thing works.” That was a very tough decision. What did I know about finance? What did I know about math? I had a three-and-a-half-year old daughter and six-month-old son at home at this point, and I was working full time, and sleep-deprived all the time! I signed up for a Kaplan course to study for the Graduate Management Admissions Test (GMAT) and I called a recruiter and said, “Okay, I need to go work for a finance firm because I’m going back to school for my MBA and I need to learn something the financial sector.” Serendipitously, I ended up working for the largest private equity firm in the world (the Carlyle Group) for three years. My executive assistant background was very helpful, but also I was doing Excel spreadsheets and doing research on companies and learning about the S&P and Moody’s [financial intelligence indices]. All the stuff that comes into play with working for a firm like that. And it was fabulous. I learned about trading and all the compliance issues that come up in a big organization, and how to do financial research. So I was doing that while I took my Kaplan courses and studied for my GMAT. Part of studying is taking the three-hour practice tests. Well, I didn’t have three hours alone in my apartment with the computer so I took the practice tests in the middle of the night when I would get up to nurse the baby, who was about six months old at this time. I’d feed him, put him back down and I knew I had roughly three to four hours before he’d wake up to eat again, so I would take the practice tests on my computer between feedings in the middle of the night. I was sick the day I took the test, but I got a high score anyway. I called my husband and I said, “I’m smart enough to go to graduate school!” My husband’s response was, “We’re making the right decision. This is a good thing.” I went to Fordham University here in New York, which was about two blocks from my apartment. When I started school my daughter was four-and-a-half and my son was eighteen months old. It took me four years of night school to complete my MBA.. I took two courses every semester. I figured out that I could take two classes on the same night. So I took a class from 6 to 8 p.m. and then 8 to 10 p.m. It was a long day. Each day, during my lunch hour, I would go over the library and study. Then I’d carve out three hours every weekend where I could study when the kids went to bed. Trust me, it was hard. I would walk in the door from work and my husband would say, “Okay, the kids are yours” because he had work to do, too. It took me four years to get my degree. I didn’t see any non-Disney movies for about four years. One summer during that period, in 2000, your daughter was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Would you describe that time? Yes. The summer before I started graduate school my daughter started getting sick. It was on and off for several months, and we didn’t know what was going on and so we made multiple trips to the pediatrician. My husband had lots of food allergies as a kid so at first we thought that was the problem. We documented everything she ate, then we factored in the summer heat and thought maybe she was just getting dehydrated. I mean, as a parent, you just go to everything you can to figure out what’s going on. She would complain of headaches and then they would go away and then she would start throwing up… And then it got more and more frequent to the point where she would wake up throw up three or five mornings in a row, and then be fine for a few days. It was hard to know what was going on. Marcia Nelson Graduating From Business School I think it was on our third trip to the pediatrician that they referred us directly to a pediatric neurologist. She went in for an MRI in the morning and had emergency brain surgery that afternoon. That was the worst day of my life because we were completely unprepared. The doctors said, “She has 24 to 48 hours to live.” As a parent you go through all this guilt, like, “Oh, should I’ve done something sooner?” or, “Did I do enough?” We are incredibly lucky to live in a city with so many resources, though. There were two neurosurgeons who specialize in pediatric neurosurgery at New York University and they had just completed a study of 700 children who had her type of tumor, so we ended up getting great care and she came through the surgery with flying colors. We learned later that it was a prenatal, non-malignant tumor, and it wasn’t genetic, and there was nothing I did during pregnancy to cause it, it was just one of those things that happens. There were moments during that time that I thought we’d never get through this. About four or five days after her surgery, my daughter had been to the playroom and had found some dress up clothes and a princess crown. The crown barely fit over the padding and surgical skull cap on her head, but she insisted on wearing it, along with some dainty plastic princess shoes. She was all dressed up and wanted to see what she looked like in the mirror. I didn’t think I could bear it, but my husband and I finally wheeled her down the hall to a bathroom where she could see herself in the mirror. There she was, propped up in a wheelchair, with her puffy face and bruised eyes, the ill fitting crown, the plastic shoes, and the IV drip. She tilted her head back, shimmied her shoulders, and said, “I look fantastic.” My husband and I looked at each other and we just knew that whatever happened, we would all be fine. We might be different people when this was all over, but we’d not only survive, we’d thrive. That was a rough time in our lives. In addition to the stress of working full time and going to school at night, I had to take my daughter for an MRI every three months. Because she was under six years old and couldn’t sit still in the machine for an hour she had to have full anesthesia every time. It would take a full day – we’d go for the anesthesia and MRI, then we’d have to wait for the drugs to wear off and then we’d meet with the neurosurgeon and the oncologist to review the scans. We knew that the kind of tumor she had doesn’t normally grow back if they can get most of it the first time, but we also knew that there was still a spot that was showing up on the scan that was questionable. The doctors thought that it was scar tissue, but they wanted to be sure. Marcia Nelson and Her Family Sure enough, two-and-a-half years later, the tumor had grown again, so she went back for follow up surgery. It was much more intense the second time around. After her surgery, my daughter couldn’t sit up and she couldn’t walk, but she could move the left side of her body. She had months of complications: high fevers, urinary tract infections, kidney infections and swelling in the back of her head because her body rejected the bone graft. It was just one thing after another. That summer she was in and out of the hospital five different times and the emergency room multiple times too. We spent the entire summer in the hospital with her. I had to withdraw from the semester at school because I was in the midst of working full time, going to school and being with my daughter. I was living in the hospital. I’d sleep at the hospital, leave in the morning and go to work, and my husband would bring my son to the hospital during the day. We had a dear friend who would come to the hospital in the morning so I could take a shower. We had so many people who took care of us and took care of the kids, but it was really hard, especially on my son, who was four years old at the time. My sister took some vacation time and came to New York to help out for a couple of weeks, and many people came by the hospital with food and games. My daughter had a follow up surgery right before school started, and she insisted on wearing her hair in pigtails for the first day of third grade so everyone could see her stitches. We did not go anywhere that summer, and finally “celebrated” by going to Disney World over Thanksgiving, when things had settled down. What is your daughter Kate’s prognosis now? She has been having annual MRI’s for the last couple of years – we went from once a quarter, to once a year, which was great. She’s going to be 14 this year and it’s been 7 years since her last surgery, so we’re hoping that this is her last year. Marcia Nelson with Her Daughter, Kate She’s doing great. She has a slight tremor in her left hand but no other physical inabilities. We actually did a session with a family therapist at one point, as she made the transition from elementary school to middle school. I wanted to make sure she didn’t feel different or self-conscious because of her medical background. And it was fascinating. What came up in this conversation with the therapist was that we over compensate for her all the time and she doesn’t like it! In the middle of our therapy appointment, the therapist asked her question and my son answered for her. And I noticed it and said, “Oh, Kate, you must hate it when your brother does that.” And she said, “Well, actually mom, you and dad do it all the time, too!” Wow, that was a real eye opener. I mean, we had spent so many years watching and waiting… Is the tumor growing back? Is this the MRI scan that will show us she needs another surgery? How is she feeling today? Is anything going on? We saw what she went through and we just had it in our minds that we had to step in to protect her. But that appointment with the therapist gave her the confidence to say, “You know what, I can take care of myself.” It was a real lesson for all of us, and at that moment I knew that we’d all be fine. It was probably the best hour we’d spent as a family since her surgery. When did you finish your MBA program? I finished my MBA in 2005 and it was amazing to take my children to my graduation. They were so much a part of my journey. My daughter was 10 years old and my son was 7 years old when they watched me get my diploma. They really felt they were a part of it and they were. Did you stay at the Carlyle Group after you finished business school? No, before I was finished with school, I worked for a business management firm that specialized in financial planning, particularly for athletes and entertainers. I also worked as a financial adviser at UBS, a global financial services firm. I currently work at FMV, which is a valuations and financial advisory company. I’ve been here four years. I travel and I meet fabulous people and I even drag my kids along sometimes. It is still, however, a constant challenge being the working parent and having my husband work at home and take care of the kids. He’s a fabulous dad… incredibly creative… and my kids are much more well-rounded, I think, for having him at home than they would be if I were the one at home. But I still deal with the guilt. I’m on the road a lot. And I feel terribly guilty about that. I hate being on the road all the time. No, that’s not true…. I don’t hate being on the road. I hate that I feel guilty that I’m on the road. I sometimes think that a man wouldn’t feel guilty about working late and traveling, and a man would understand that my kids have a wonderful parent there with them all the time. I like what I do. And that adds to my guilt because I feel guilty that I like what I do! But I will admit that I love it when I’m on the road, and I get a hotel room all to myself. It’s dark, and I’m not sleeping with one eye open to see who’s getting up to go to the bathroom and who’s getting a drink of water. My husband asks, “Why do you feel guilty?” I answer, “Because I do.” Do you and your husband have any strategies for dividing up your work at home when you are home? He does most of the housework and I do the laundry. That’s my contribution. I also plan the birthday parties and the vacations, which is fun for me. On the weekends I really try to devote my time to my family – I don’t bring home my laptop, and I lock up my Blackberry so I won’t check it all weekend – but it’s hard to get through all the errands so we can get to the fun stuff. How do I do my visiting teaching when I’ve been gone all week at work? And who’s more important, my family or my church responsibilities? I have to ask myself those questions all the time. Right now I’m the Cub Scout Den Leader, so I get to meld my church responsibilities with time with my son, so I don’t feel like I have to be away from my family for another night. Do you know anybody else in your situation who acted as a mentor to you? In my early days I had a mentor, an LDS woman who went back to business school and works in the wealth management industry. When I started thinking about a career change, she told me this is a great industry for women who have families. She was the one who helped me decide I could go back to school with small children at home and she assured me that they would survive and they would be okay. Do you think that this is something that works for your family particularly because of Glen’s line of work and personality? Absolutely. In the early days, Glen (my husband) had a couple of very good friends who were also was stay-at-home dads. One was a freelance illustrator and the other one was finishing his PhD. They would get together and grab the babies on their backs and go to art galleries, museums, and support each other. So, having two other families who had a similar situation made it much easier for all of us. We were all living in small apartments, with the husbands in school or freelancing and the wives working full time outside of the home. We all had little children at home, so we were juggling work, little babies, and, quite frankly, doing it in a culture that says that this isn’t something you should do. Did you feel supported by your families and your ward in your lifestyle choices? Sometimes there’s a misunderstanding within our extended families of where the motivation comes from. I get comments like, “Don’t let Glen talk you into doing something you don’t want to do!” He doesn’t talk me into anything! We’re doing what we both want to do. I’ve also heard “You are the mother, you should be home with the children.” There was a lot of that pressure, especially early on. But we’re doing what’s right for us and what works for our family. I wouldn’t have been happy staying at home, and I don’t think Glen would have been happy if he’d stayed on the career path he was on. Now, I’m envious because the kids are in school and Glen’s starting to have more time for himself and his own work. Trust me, I know how hard he works, and he juggles his responsibilities and the constant interruptions all day long. He is also really amazing with the kids. He has a lot more patience than I do to play Monopoly or Uno for the umpteenth time. And yes, he sometimes lets the kids win! But we’re realizing that it was a short period of his life and that, as the children have gotten older, he’s had more time during the day to do what he wants to do. Next year my son will be in middle school and my daughter will be in high school, so it’s not that much longer before they’ll both be out of the house. That will be bitter sweet for us, and we’ll have to adjust to a new chapter in our lives. I’m looking forward to it! At A Glance Name: Marcia Nelson Location: New York, CY Age: 47 Marital status: Married Children: Two, ages 13 and 10 Occupation: Senior VP of Business Development Schools Attended: Fordham University (MBA), Southern Utah State College (BA) Languages Spoken at Home: English Favorite Hymn: “For All the Saints” Current Church Calling: Cub Scout Den Leader On the Web: www.fmv.com, www.mormonartistsgroup.com Interview by Neylan McBaine

Raised as a Catholic in Rhode Island, Stephanie Soper experienced a powerful communication with God that led her to join the Church twenty years ago. Since then, she has developed her gifts of communicating with God and has used these gifts to provide intuitive readings and emotional healing work for others in the Church. How did your relationship with God begin? I’m not really sure that I had a relationship with God growing up as a Catholic. I believed in Him, but he was this faraway, mysterious person who had no connection to me at all. In Catholicism, I was accustomed to the very rote prayers, and I didn’t realize we could actually talk to God until—in my late twenties—I overhead a boyfriend praying to God as if he were having a conversation. About a year later, I was having a crisis; all of the elements of my life seemed okay, but there was a profound emptiness in me and I had no idea how to fill it. One night, I was getting ready to go to a work party, and I began talking to God as I had seen my former boyfriend do. I poured out my feelings. I didn’t realize it then, but I went about it much the same way that Mormons are taught to do: I thanked Him for my blessings and asked Him for what I needed. As I drove to the party, I continued the prayer in my mind. When I was arriving at the location of the party, I knew I needed to wrap up the prayer, but I only had the habits of Catholic prayer, and didn’t know the appropriate words to end a non-standard prayer. I simply said, “Thy will be done.” When I said those words, I realized that I really meant them. It was so clear to me that my own decisions about my life weren’t making me happy, and I was really willing to do whatever God told me to do. In that moment of realization, I thought, “If I am going to do God’s will, I need to know what it is.” And so I asked, “What should I do?” I heard a very clear voice say in my mind, “Join the Mormon Church.” At this point, how much did you know about the Mormon Church? Well, there were several events that proceeded this moment. First of all, I was a nanny in Italy in my early twenties, and I lived near another American girl who had recently joined the Mormon Church. I learned a little bit about the Church through her example. She gave me a Book of Mormon that I never read, and I remember meeting Mormon missionaries for the first time on the rooftop of the Duomo in Milan. Then, about a year later, I lived in Vienna with a woman who had a Mormon boyfriend and eventually converted. She didn’t make an overt effort to teach me the gospel, but she was another person who familiarized me with the LDS Church. Also, in the month before this communication with God happened, I suddenly couldn’t tolerate coffee or alcohol. After living in Italy and Austria, both of those things were a part of my life. But, for some reason, I became uncomfortable with the jitters of coffee, and I loathed the lack of self-control that came with drinking alcohol. Therefore, a couple of the things that would have been big impediments to my converting to the Mormon Church were already taken care of. At the time, I didn’t know why this was happening, but afterwards, I realized that I was being prepared. Stephanie Soper So, what happened next after that moment of feeling like you needed to join the Mormon Church? It sounds silly, but in that moment, I was converted in my mind. I went into the party, and they were serving wine, beer, Diet Coke, and water. I knew that Mormons didn’t drink wine and beer, so I avoided those. I understood that I wasn’t technically a Mormon, because I needed to be baptized—I knew that much—but I also knew that if I drank, I would be cheating. I didn’t know the Mormon rules about Coke, so I just drank water. The next morning, a Monday, I called my friend who I had known in Austria. She told me the name of the Church so I could look it up in the phonebook; until then, I had no idea it was called “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” I called the bishop, who gave me directions to the church building, and I went to church the following Sunday. I can still remember what I wore that day and where I parked my car in the parking lot. I remember climbing out of my car and saying to myself “Now I’m starting a new life.” I knew that stepping out of the car and going into the chapel was really huge. I went in the front door of the church, and saw the missionaries. I said, “I’m Stephanie Soper and I’d like to take the discussions so I can get baptized, please.” I had lived through a pretty riotous decade in my twenties; I had rebelled against the good girl I was in my teens. I wasn’t very proud of myself for much of that, and so it was a relief to be joining the Church. In one of the early Sunday school classes for new converts, I was struck by the fact that I was with a bunch of normal adults who liked to talk about God. It was wonderful. The gospel addressed the questions I had been thinking about for a long time, like, “Why don’t we have prophets?” If there was ever a time that we needed them, it was now! I had also grappled with the question, “How can it be, if God loves us all, that baptism is necessary (which I did believe), and yet, by accident of where and when you were born, you might not get to be baptized?” It seemed so arbitrary; it just didn’t seem right that God could be that way. When I learned about baptisms for the dead, it made complete sense. How did your communication with God develop after that initial experience? It was my first experience talking to God and I received an answer. The right answer. This experience made me think for a while that I had it all figured out: you pray, and you immediately get an answer. That isn’t really how it always works out; sometimes, you need to figure out things for yourself. But that was the beginning of understanding that we really can receive answers to prayers. I hear so often from the pulpit messages like, “The Spirit rarely speaks to you in words; it’s a burning in the bosom.” I worry sometimes when I hear that, because we receive answers in different ways, and I think the fact that say this is heard so often makes some people distrust that they’ve heard what they’ve heard. Many of my clients have learned to doubt the answers they get in prayer, or even stop seeking them. And then, of course, they get mad at God for deserting them. Also, I sometimes hear people say, “You shouldn’t ask God about X, Y and Z.” But I don’t think that’s right either. I think we put so many limits on how we hear answers, which makes people distrust their own instincts. They’re told again and again that “it just doesn’t work that way” and that they “ought not to ask God about certain things.” But God is our Father, and over the years, a powerful sense has developed within me that this Fatherly relationship is profoundly literal: my Heavenly Father really wants to talk with me, and He wants to talk with me and not just have me talk to Him. You seem to have a gift for communicating with God. How do you recommend that others develop their own abilities to communicate with God? There are three things that come to mind. First, I think it helps to sit down to pray, instead of kneeling, because there is only so long you can kneel comfortably. When you have a conversation with your spouse or friend, you don’t kneel! I know that kneeling is partly a gesture of humility and reverence, but I’m more likely to have a productive conversation with Heavenly Father if I can sustain it for a while, and so I sit. Stephanie Soper Also, I have made an effort in recent years to call into my mind and heart a sense of being with God when I talk to Him. Although I can’t see Him, His presence is powerful. This makes me feel like it’s a conversation and not just me leaving a voicemail; it reminds me that I’m talking to someone real. It dramatically changes the emotional content of my prayers; it makes me much more humble and honest. Finally, I can’t think of any circumstance in my life where it wouldn’t be helpful to get Heavenly Father’s support and guidance. I just don’t set limits on what it’s okay to ask Him about. For example, I once prayed about making a cake. A friend really wanted me to bake a birthday cake for her fiftieth birthday. She asked me to do it three months in advance, and wanted me to make the kind of pound cake that her father had always made for her. This cake was laden with a lot of meaning for her. We arranged the day and time for her to pick up the cake in time for her party. On that day, I had a lot going on and only had a limited window of time in which to bake the cake. Before I began, I said a prayer that it would be baked with love and that my friend would feel that love. As I was combining the ingredients, I accidentally added fifty percent more evaporated milk than I was supposed to add. I knew that I had ruined the cake, and I didn’t have time to buy more ingredients and start over before my friend arrived. I prayed again, saying, “You know how much my friend wants this cake, and you know how much I love this friend. I don’t often ask for miracles, but I need a miracle. I need you to tell me how to bake this cake so that it turns out fine.” I was given very specific directions of how to bake that cake: how long and at what temperature in 20-minute increments of varying temperatures. And it was perfect; it was the best cake I ever made. At what point in your process of developing your own ability to communicate with God did you realize you could use your gift to help other people through intuitive readings and emotional healing work? For the first ten years of my Church membership, I had a really wonderful prayer life. I prayed often and there were many instances where I received really miraculous answers. Anything you do regularly and with good intent, you’ll get better at. I have always been pretty intuitive, and more so as I’ve gotten older. I have always believed that thoughts have tangible power—that there is a dimension that we don’t quite understand. I initially learned how to do intuitive work from a book. I was skeptical at first; I didn’t think I would be able to use my intuitive abilities at will. The book taught me how to “get centered”—to be still and listen—which is also what Mormons are taught to do with prayer. To get centered, I ask in prayer that I will receive the energy the way that God wants me to, that the person receiving the reading will be guided in their questions and answers by the Spirit, and that I won’t get any information that they should receive in some other way—through a blessing, their own prayers, or experience—or even not at all. By the time I am done praying, I am in that deeply quiet, centered space, and I don’t need to go through any other process to get centered. I realized that inviting the Spirit to be with you was a way of being centered and in tune. Stephanie Soper As I learned how to do the emotional healing work, which is very Atonement-centered, I was initially taught a process: the first step, second step, etc. It worked, but at some point, it occurred to me that I was making it needlessly laborious, and that Heavenly Father would guide me in the process as I needed to be guided. I started trying to ask for guidance at each step of the way, and it worked. That’s how I’ve done it since then. Can you explain the different types of work you do for the many people who will likely be unfamiliar with it? There are two services I provide: intuitive readings and emotional healing work. In both types of work, I am careful to help people in such a way that they can become independent of me—that I build capacity for them to do this on their own. An intuitive reading is when I read the energy about something or I receive information about questions a person has. These questions could be as broad as, “What should I pay attention to in my life?” or as specific as, “What dissertation topic should I choose?” An intuitive reading is essentially someone asking me questions and then I receive information through an intuitive pathway, which I can no longer distinguish from the Holy Spirit. I close my eyes and information just comes: sometimes in images, sometimes in words, sometimes in impressions. I have been doing this work for about ten years. I get the deepest questions from my LDS clients, because they tend to have a different perspective on life and they understand that God has a plan for them. They ask questions that would never occur to me, and so I get to learn also. Emotional healing work is the other service I provide. People come to me for emotional healing work when they see something going on in their life—maybe a pattern—that they can’t seem to fix, such as problems with money, anger that is out of proportion with the situation, or recurring relationship issues. The idea behind emotional healing work is that our beliefs and our thoughts are very powerful. To the extent that we are conscious of them and can harness them, they can really make a difference. For example, if you believe that things are always going to work out, then they often do. And vice versa. There are also beliefs within us of which we’re not aware, because they originated in our pre-verbal years or early childhood. We usually form beliefs about ourselves and the world when we are quite young, and we create adaptive strategies for dealing with these beliefs. Those beliefs become part of who we are, and we can’t simply get rid of them—and worse, they become, over time, maladaptive. Most of my clients are LDS women, and one particular belief that I frequently see is the belief that a person can be successful or have love, but not both. It often seems to originate from fathers who at some point started to belittle or disparage the academic achievements of their daughters. My job is to work with Heavenly Father and the Savior to help people uncover these false beliefs about themselves, and to let Heavenly Father heal them, so that they can move forward, healed of these false ideas about themselves and others. You initially wondered if it was okay for you to be doing this work. How did you resolve that question? When I first learned how to do intuitive readings, I prayed about it a lot, because I wanted to make sure it was acceptable to God. I didn’t want to be a “soothsayer” like is mentioned in 2 Nephi. I didn’t want to mess with things that I shouldn’t be messing with. I felt really prompted that I was doing what I should be doing and that I should do it as a gift for people. I went to my branch president before I started testing intuitive readings on my friends. He was a pretty conservative guy, and I didn’t really expect him to warm up to this idea, even though I felt good about it. But he said that his prayerful impression was that I had the gift of discernment and I ought to be using it as a gift to people. My emotional healing work involves working directly with Heavenly Father to heal others. The Atonement is at the center of it. This puts me in a state of compassion; I feel no judgment at all; I just feel love. I understand in those moments why people are doing what they’re doing and that everyone at their core wants to do what is right. I used to be nervous about standing before the Judgment Bar at the end of my life, but now I realize that God understands all of my circumstances, intentions and wounds, and that being before the Judgment Bar of God is the safest place I can be. When I do emotional healing work, I am certainly not in a position of having to judge someone, but I am trying to see how certain actions resulted from other beliefs and wounds. And Heavenly Father will be doing that on an infinite basis, compared to my very limited basis. The thing I’ve enjoyed the most is helping people heal their relationships with their families and with God. Because we equate Heavenly Father with our own fathers and with other men we have known, we often equate imperfect human characteristics with Heavenly Father; we may believe that He is capricious or arbitrary or vindictive. It means that, even if someone is a faithful Latter-day Saint, they might not want to give their all to God, because it doesn’t feel like a safe thing to do. Watching people change their relationship with God over time—because they have seen and felt that He loves them perfectly and only wants their joy and happiness—is wonderful. You recently started a full-time job. How does this impact your intuitive work? I continue to do intuitive readings after work, but I confine the emotional healing work to weekends, because it requires so much energy. I can’t imagine going without this work; it sustains me spiritually. I learn so much every time that I do a session with someone. This work has given me a much stronger sense of the Atonement, because I see it healing people. It has helped me understand that when the Savior suffered everything for us—every slight, insult, wound, illness, trauma—it gave Him perfect understanding of what we experience, which means that He passes no judgment. It has made me trust the Atonement a lot more; I am more willing to turn my struggles and trials over to the Savior, because I realize how much He understands. How do people in the church respond to this work? In my ward, I am not at all skittish about letting people know this is something I do. To me, the work that I do has profoundly enhanced my relationship with my Savior, and I have become a better Latter-day Saint as a result. However, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if some people were to look askance at what I do. In our faith, there is a huge emphasis on personal revelation, and yet we are sometimes wary about it; we really put boundaries around it. I don’t think this happened as much in the early days of the Church. I don’t think my work would be perceived as particularly strange back then, but now I think it is. Because I do this outside of a church format, I think that some people are really skittish about it. The response I most encounter is, “You don’t have the right to revelation for someone else.” But I only do intuitive readings and emotional healing work in response to particular requests; I don’t try to intuit information unless someone has asked me to. We have been blessed with the gift of the Holy Ghost, which is very powerful; we can constantly have access to Heavenly Father’s guidance. I think that members of the Church sometimes try to confine that gift and only use it in particular ways. Sometimes, the way that I use it makes others nervous. But we all have this gift to receive personal revelation. I really emphasize that in my work: I teach my clients that they can turn to Heavenly Father themselves. I try to help them transfer what they are learning in their sessions with me into their own lives. At A Glance Name: Stephanie Soper Location: Washington D.C. Age: 50 Marital status: Single Occupation: I work in Human Resources for a Federal agency and do intuitive readings and healing work. Convert?: December 2, 1989 Schools Attended: Brown University, 1981 Languages Spoken at Home: English and catFavorite Hymn: “How Firm A Foundation”Current Church Calling: Ward missionary Interview produced by Barbara Christiansen. Photos by Nancy Ricks Photography.

With three small children and a husband in his medical residency, Emily is a busy mother. But she has also committed herself to graduate studies in choral conducting, fulfilling a deep passion for praising God through sacred music. Emily explains why music and motherhood are so important to her, and why she’s chosen to pursue her studies at this point in her life. What were the influences that helped you decide to be a musician? My mother was my earliest music teacher. She taught me music theory and how to play the piano from an early age. My parents supported my participation in voice and piano competitions, recitals, choir through both school and church, and serving in various music capacities at church. These things all shaped my decision to become a music major when I went to college, but, as many college students do, I experienced a period of indecision about what I really wanted to commit my life to. There were many things I could pursue while still remaining musically active, after all. So, my decision to embrace music as my life calling, in addition to raising a family, was formulated in layers over time. There was, however, one distinct moment when I fully embraced it and determined to never look back: One evening when I was home from college for Christmas break, and in the midst of great turmoil over whether to stick with music as the focus of my education, I was singing for my father in the living room. The particular piece I was singing was Charles Gounod’s well-known “O Divine Redeemer.” About halfway through the song, I was overcome with feelings of the Spirit and became very emotional. I was struck with the feeling that of course I had to commit myself to music—that it was my obvious path. My purpose was to glorify my Savior through music, and facilitate others’ ability to do so also. You are currently a graduate student at the University of Iowa in choral conducting. Why have you pursued this course of study and what do you hope to accomplish with your degree? I received my bachelor’s degree in Vocal Performance and Pedagogy from Brigham Young University in 2000. After that I took some time off before pursuing graduate education, but remained professionally active as a concert soloist, teacher of a large voice studio, and church musician (both as an organist and soloist). These efforts saw us through five grueling years of my husband’s medical school and medical internship, as well as the birth of three children. I loved my work (and chose it in large part) because of its family friendliness: I set my own hours and taught from home, and my church and concert work primarily only involved me on weekends when my husband could usually be home. Emily Spencer Nearly ten years have gone by since receiving my bachelor’s degree, and I am now halfway through my graduate studies in choral conducting. I only take two classes at a time, since I still have such young children at home, but my classes are in the morning when two of the three are in school, and the youngest stays with another LDS mom for a couple hours. It is my firm rule that I study outside of class only during nap time and after they’ve gone to bed. It’s pretty intense, but it’s working out so far. It’s a miracle, really. When we first moved to Iowa City for my husband’s residency, I knew I was going to go back to school, but I didn’t have a clear idea of how this would be possible. Even a week before my first semester started, I still didn’t know who was going to watch my son while I was in class. As I remained faithful and prayerful, all these things worked out, though, even in the last hour. Another young mother who was actually looking to pick up a bit of babysitting approached me, and our schedules fit perfectly. Also, incredibly, her house just happened to be right on the corner bus stop of the exact route I needed to get to class. This proved to be a critical factor in my morning routine, as I had to get four people (myself and all three of my children) to four different places, all within thirty minutes. Also, unbeknownst to us at the time, the location of the house we bought worked perfectly for me to make all those connections. Lastly, I could not have done this without financial assistance, and an amazingly generous and angelic husband and wife—the husband I’ve never even met, and the wife only once face-to-face—became aware of my story and freely offered a substantial amount of financial help. These are the details that we do not see or have any control over, but the Lord does, and He works all things together for our good. It has always been my sincere desire to help people feel closer to their Maker, and I have always been drawn to sacred music. I never whole-heartedly embraced the vocal literature I was required to learn and study in my undergraduate training, actually, because it was much more focused on secular vocal genres (mainly opera and art song) than anything of a sacred nature. Though both the music and poetry were beautiful, the messages of these pieces often didn’t speak to me and were far removed from the innermost feelings of my heart. Still, I completed my vocal studies, and I’m glad that I did, because I did have some fun operatic experiences, and it allowed me to become a respected and sought-after voice teacher in my community, as well as gain work as a concert soloist, all of which supported my family when we had no other sources of income. For graduate studies, I turned my attention to conducting because there is a far greater emphasis on sacred music than there is in vocal performance programs, and, having directed many different choirs, I feel a tremendous sense of joy and satisfaction in helping others experience this music. It is very important to me that high-quality and spiritually potent music be experienced by all—not just those who can afford to attend concerts or are fortunate enough to gain training in elite music schools. There is something profoundly fulfilling to me about helping someone experience music that they might not ever experience otherwise, and then, most especially, for them to be transformed by it. You have three small children and a husband who is in his medical residency. Why do you feel it’s important to pursue your master’s degree now when your home life could be all consuming? What motivates you to pursue this degree in the face of such responsibilities? I knew that if I waited, it was only going to get harder, not easier. As my children grew up and became more involved in school and extra-curricular activities, and as more children came along, life would get more busy and more complicated—not less so. So I felt an urgency to get it done sooner rather than later, even if it would mean having to chip away at it slowly. Further, as I feel powerfully drawn to this work and feel a strong sense of mission, all of which is deeply rooted in my spirituality, I cannot imagine living with these feelings and not responding to them. Many times I calculated out the years it would be before our “projected youngest” was up and grown, and it was years. Decades, even. I knew it was not meant for me to hide my God-given interests under a bushel. Not with the Spirit working on me as hard as it was. And so it was my understanding with God that if I always put my family first, no matter what, He would make a way. And He has. As mother to three young children, are you in a different stage of life than most of your classmates? Yes, and there was a time I felt a bit removed from them, but our friendships have improved as I’ve gotten to know them better. Only three of the other students in my program have any children or are even married. And though I am married, in many ways I must operate as though I am not, due to the rigors of my husband’s medical residency (he frequently works 80-98-hour work weeks, at all hours of the day and night). All three of my children are very young and dependent, and one of them is autistic. None of my family or closest friends are nearby. Emily Spencer Managing a household of five people, three of them age six and under, one of them demanding great amounts of time and attention due to his special needs, a medical resident husband—yes, of course this is a very heavy load. Also, because of my children, I do not have much study time at my disposal during the day, which means many late nights. There are nights when I don’t go to bed at all. Finally, my husband and I both have demanding callings at church. So is this a heavier load than the average student? Yes, I suppose I would say so. But I don’t feel myself a martyr because of it, neither do I feel resentful or sorry. I chose my path. What keeps me going are the many affirmations that have come through prayer, priesthood blessings, and feelings of the Spirit, the obvious ways the Lord has magnified me and consecrated my efforts, the support and generosity of others stepping in when they had no idea how much I needed their help, keeping a clear vision of the end result, the ability to juggle these things and still unequivocally put my family first, and, of course, knowing that this phase is temporary! Do your colleagues at school know you’re Mormon? I am quite certain that my academic colleagues all know I am Mormon (this is not something I ever hide), and I am very grateful to be able to say they have never treated me with anything other than respect and graciousness. I’m sure the way I live my faith is something they observe, but I don’t believe it dictates their behavior towards me—at least not in a negative way. As far as how other Mormon women respond to my professional pursuits, that is a mixed bag. The overwhelming majority, especially those who know my heart, and my devotion to my family, are nothing but supportive. Of course, there are those who find it difficult to view anyone pursuing a course different than their own without some feeling of comparison, and thus judgment and criticism. Why do you think it is so easy to fall into judgment and comparison? Aiming to be an upstanding, righteous Mormon woman is a noble goal. What is problematic is when cultural extensions of the “definition” creep in and come to be regarded as “doctrine” (especially when the definition is cultural and didn’t come from Him in the first place). Then follows the presumption that our personal “doctrines” must be adhered to by all if they would also be considered upstanding, righteous Mormon women. And so we go, holding up our checklists, and comparing them to the checklists of others. Not all women will identify with my experience, but when I was younger and not as certain of my path, this ideology was very real, and so deeply ingrained that to become anything contrary to the prescription would have been (so it seemed to me) a devastating and profound failure—one with eternal consequences. Emily Spencer There is not one cookie-cutter mold we must all fit. The truth is that our Father in Heaven knows each of us intimately and individually. We have different needs. We have different challenges. We have different gifts. Each soul is precious, and each soul has its own course of development, perfectly designed and suited by Him who knows us best. The Lord wants our hearts—earnest, sincere, contrite—so that He may lead us back to His bosom. He is less interested in how well we satisfy man-made checklists and measure up to man-made titles. The idea that there was one set mold was deeply troubling to me. It is not in looking to our neighbors or marking checklists, but in entering into our closets, bowing on our knees before our Father, and in the boundless and unconditional love of our Savior, that we must seek and will find affirmation. When we lose ourselves and reach out to serve others, we discover that comparison between one’s life course versus another’s life course is completely irrelevant. And when comparison becomes irrelevant, feelings of judgment, competition, inadequacy, and fear fade. We need not take cues from friends, neighbors, or social customs in order to measure our (or anyone else’s) worthiness or righteousness. What sources do you turn to in figuring out the kind of woman you want to be? Historically, I have felt a real void in this regard. It was my tendency to view the vast and never-ending supply of writings by and about ecclesiastically prominent men, both ancient and modern, and come away focused on the comparatively profound deficit when it came to like representation of women. It seemed that what little I could find, I really had to dig for, and scrape together from here and there, and then I would still be left with more questions than answers. Who were all these prophetesses obscurely referenced in the scriptures, and where are their writings, or accounts of their noble deeds? Of course I realized that one must consider the gender customs of this (and all) ages, and the fact that most women and men were not even literate, and therefore could not have kept records, and so forth. Nevertheless, there was this void, and I found it deeply discouraging. Though this comparative void still exists, I have had several experiences through which the Lord has showed me Himself what kind of woman He wants me to be. One experience had to do with my perception of myself as a mother specifically. When we moved to Wisconsin for my husband’s medical schooling, we were hit with about every possible major life change imaginable: a move from where both our families lived to halfway across the country where we had no family or any friends at all, a brand new (and our first) baby, the simultaneous drop of two full-time incomes to zero income, my husband returning to full-time schooling, me going from full-time work to constantly being at home, and then feeling trapped there, because we had also dropped from two vehicles to one, which my husband then took to school, etc. Besides all these major life-changes hitting at once, my precious new baby also happened to be extremely colicky; thus it is sufficient to say my induction into the world of motherhood was not the rosy picture I’d always envisioned. Adding to this was the postponement of my educational goals and dreams, which I desired greatly, while I watched my husband go off to school each day to learn all kinds of fascinating things, throwing his heart and soul into a field he loved, and got to choose, whereas mothering seemed to be my predetermined and singular path, regardless of my talents or interests. This was a very hard time for me. I felt a great sense of pain and failure at not feeling the peace, joy, and contentment that I’d always been taught I would I feel in this new role—a role I’d always thought I would embrace. Finally it had arrived, and not only did I not enjoy being a mother—I hated it. Of course I loved my child, but the passing hours felt so menial and mundane. They inspired no sense of accomplishment, no intellectual stimulation, no intrigue. Where was all the profound joy I was supposed to be feeling that I’d heard about all my life? And what were my gifts and talents, my ambitions and goals—the righteous desires of my heart—given to me for, if I was now to shut them off (as the culture seemed to indicate was the “right” thing to do)? Lastly, if I was forsaking these things for a higher calling, why didn’t the intrinsic joys of the higher calling not only replace but transcend the joy I’d felt before? If I was faithfully and dutifully doing what I was supposed to be doing, why wasn’t I happy? Emily Spencer We happened to be visiting my parents right at the height of my bitterness. I remember pulling my dad aside and sobbing to him as I related my misery. His answer to me was that I must pray—pray for peace, pray for help, pray for understanding—that I would be able to discover the divinity of motherhood, and find peace and joy in this calling. Though I knew he was right, feelings of bitterness and cynicism persisted. That night, emotionally drained, I crawled into bed and mustered enough energy to mumble only half-heartedly into my pillow, “Please help me. I really, really need help.” Then, emotionally exhausted, I fell asleep. Two days later, we were back home in Wisconsin, and we were getting ready to turn in for the night. As my husband began to pray, I suddenly felt an impression begin to enter my mind, which then spread to my heart and subsequently consumed my whole being. It was clearly coming from a source outside of myself, a power greater and higher than I was. It was quiet and still, and yet it consumed my whole soul. It felt as though time had stopped and my consciousness hovered in a state of suspension between two different realms. I don’t remember hearing the rest of my husband’s prayer, though it was still going on. I could fill volumes detailing the piercing and powerful message that was conveyed, and yet it came to me fully in only a matter of seconds, and it came in perfect stillness and gentleness, and was imparted tenderly, lovingly, and totally void of any judgment. To describe all that I received and felt is beyond the scope of discussion here, but the crux of the message was this: You are the closest thing to the Savior your child will ever know in this life. After this moment passed, I sat on the edge of the bed for a long time. The anger and bitterness that had raged in my heart was quiet. I had heard all my life that “motherhood is next to godhood” and “motherhood is divine” and so forth, but I had never felt the depth or literal nature of this truth. It had always seemed to me just something nice to say—cliché expressions at best. Now, for the first time ever in my life, I sat and thought, motherhood is divine. Motherhood is the noblest thing a woman can consecrate her life to. A mother is Christ’s sacred stand-in. She is a type and shadow. As I cling to Jesus to save my soul, so does a child cling to its mother for all sense of salvation that it knows. Jesus, Mother—these are the names that are called out when we need protection, guidance, wisdom, love, comfort, sustenance, rescue. Whether we know God or not, whether we have loving relationships with our biological mothers or not, we all crave the nurture of some higher power, of some loving guardian. Since that life-changing experience, I have discovered this metaphor to have boundless applications. To me, the fact that women have generally been regarded as lowly and lesser throughout the ages is just another symbolism between women and Christ. People mock and spit in the face of motherhood—the most exquisite and godlike of all her capabilities, that of being able to beget, nurture, and guide life—the same way they mocked and spit in the face of Him who saved us. Just as there was “no form nor comeliness; ….no beauty that we should desire him” (Isaiah 53:2), there is nothing on the surface level that is overtly triumphant or exalting about motherhood; indeed, in the flow of day-to-day rhythms, it can seem rather common and mundane, like “a root out of a dry ground” (vs. 2). As “he is despised and rejected of men” (vs. 3), so is motherhood. As we “hid as it were our faces from him” and “esteemed him not” (vs. 3), so does society hide its face from mothers, so does it not esteem them. Just as “surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows” (vs. 4), so does a mother weep with her child that weeps. Just as “with his stripes we are healed” (vs. 5), so does any benefit to the child represent some sacrifice of the mother—time, money, education, employment, leisure, sleep, etc. Anything the child gains is something, in some form, that she cannot have for herself. One brief verse of Isaiah that is very poignant to me is where the Lord plainly and succinctly states how He succors His children: “As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you” (Isaiah 66:13). To me, this verse perfectly encapsulates the metaphor between the mission of mothers and the mission of the Savior. It embodies the very heart of both motherhood and womanhood, and why we do what we do: it is to emulate Him who is the greatest nurturer of us all. At A Glance Name: Emily Spencer Location: Iowa City, IA Age: 31 Marital status: Married 11 years Children: Three sons, ages 6, 4, and 2 Occupation: Full-time mom and part-time student Schools Attended: Brigham Young University, University of Iowa Languages Spoken at Home: English Favorite Hymn: “Jesus, Lover of My Soul,” “Dearest Children,” “A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief,” “How Great the Wisdom and the Love” Current Church Calling: Ward Choir Director On the Web: www.EmilySpencer.com Interview produced by Neylan McBaine. Photos by Michael Kreiser Photography

As a single 34-year-old, Tiffany followed her Patriarchal Blessing’s advice to seize the opportunities offered to her, resulting in a life full of career opportunities, travel adventures and spiritual highlights. But then, when her sister became overwhelmed with the responsibilities of single motherhood, Tiffany seized a different kind of opportunity: she assumed legal custody of her nine-year-old niece and became mother to an elementary school-aged child overnight. My patriarchal blessing talks about education and having knowledge of the things that are about me and around me. I feel like I have taken that counsel to heart. If life is all about experiences, then we just need to act. And if an opportunity is presented and feels like a good thing to do and we receive confirmation to move forward, then we should just go forward—even if it is scary or maybe not what we had in mind for ourselves or was not our plan. Things happen for a reason and we are definitely given opportunities that help us grow. What were some of your formative experiences that gave you a testimony of this principle? My parents were very encouraging and supportive in helping me gain an awareness of my environment. We took a lot of trips when I was young. That idea really stuck with me. When I was 19, I headed off to Russia for six months to teach English. I didn’t know a soul but I felt like I needed an experience away from my family and friends to see who I was and what I would do when no one else was around. I stayed with a family that didn’t speak any English and I attended a branch in Moscow with new members of the church. I read the Book of Mormon in its entirety for the first time and had a lot of experiences that opened my eyes to the world. I learned that people all over the world want the same thing. We all want to be happy, we all want our families close by; we all want our families to be happy. We are just in different situations and have different struggles. When I returned home from Russia, I left for Israel two months later with the Brigham Young University study abroad program. It was another fantastic experience. I studied the Old Testament and the New Testament and we went to the Sea of Galilee. It was there that I decided to serve a mission. After four months of being home, I decided that I would serve a mission but I wanted to pray about it because I had read my Patriarchal Blessing so many times and it did not say anything about serving a mission. So I prayed and immediately felt a confirmation that yes, in fact, I was supposed to go. I was called to serve in Paraguay, South America and I had a fabulous experience. I loved the language. I loved the country. I had wonderful companions and my mission president and his wife were like parents to me. When I decided to go on a mission, I started noticing a pattern of taking opportunities when they arose. If there was a chance for growth, I wanted to be a part of it and experience what could come from it. Tiffany Peterson Did you feel with all the consecutive learning opportunities in foreign countries that you were on a spiritual journey, even though perhaps you didn’t realize it? Yes…definitely! With each opportunity, and each experience, I learned a little something different about myself and who I wanted to be. And not just from a personality perspective but from a spiritual perspective as well. When I returned from my mission, I was approached to go to China for a semester to teach English. China was never on my radar! But I ended up going and I got to teach adorable little Chinese kids who were just so happy and full of life. I also got to spend 4 months with some amazing girls that were contemplating missions and they would eat up my mission stories. This was great for me to be able share my experiences with a willing audience after my friends and family had had enough back home! It was another great experience. Did your desire to constantly learn influence your career choices, and was it important to you to have a career? An interesting thing my Patriarchal Blessing said was to gain knowledge and be prepared to take care of myself. So because of that I didn’t want to do just anything—I wanted to feel like I was succeeding and a valued employee. I graduated with an economics degree and after working for a mortgage company immediately after college, I ended up working for Morgan Stanley, first in client customer services, and then in a new department offering a new service. Eventually, Goldman Sachs opened up an office in Salt Lake City so I sent my resume to them and started the interview process. Goldman Sachs was top-notch, with smart people and lots of opportunities. The interview process lasted five months long, with a hiring freeze and 15 interviews. I ended up taking a job with them that was not initially what I was interested in, but within three minutes of meeting my future manager, I knew I wanted to work for her. Our personalities just “clicked.” I went to New York City for a month and then the department was moved to Salt Lake City. I started out as the only one on the team and for the next four and a half years it was the most fascinating and challenging time. I put together a training program and traveled around the world to the different offices and trained salespeople. I basically got to construct my own job description. Tiffany Peterson There was so much work to be done and everyone jumped in, which was very different from previous jobs. I really thrived. I felt like I could make a difference and if things were not going as smoothly as they could, I could offer up suggestions and people would listen. It felt very creative and very satisfying. I thought that when I got married it would be easy to quit because I wanted to be married and have kids. But the longer I worked and the more I thought about it, the more I realized it would be hard to do. I was a vice president. I loved my job and I was good at it! People came to me and wanted my advice and wanted me in meetings to brainstorm. You became the legal guardian of your niece almost three years ago. What circumstances led you to make that choice? When Paige was born, there was an immediate connection between us. My sister and I have always been close and Paige first slept over at my house when she was six weeks old. Paige spent a lot of time with me. She was my outlet—I would be working hard, but on the weekends I could go pick her up and she would come over and we would just laugh. I had time with this little girl who was so full of life and people would comment, “She is your mini-me…you look and act alike!” I’m not sure if that was because Paige was acting older or because I was acting like I was five! There was definitely a connection and a bond between us. My sister’s situation was a little tumultuous—she was a single mom trying to pay rent and provide for her kids and she was getting overwhelmed. In 2007, I spoke with my sister about some changes that she could make in her living situation. Her 2 older children from a previous marriage had moved in with my parents to finish high school and I invited Paige to live with me for the school year. My sister lived in an area that had year-round school and it was tough keeping track of the schedule and arranging babysitting and other things. Where I lived, the school system was on a traditional schedule (September to June) with a great after-school program. I wanted to help keep things stable for my niece while my sister’s situation improved. In order to do that I needed power of attorney and I needed to be Paige’s legal guardian. The day before I went to pick her up, I felt very strongly that it was not going to be a short-term thing. I didn’t know why, because we had agreed it would only be for the school year, but I had the feeling that if I went to pick her up, it would be for good. How did you feel about that? And how did that affect your relationship with your sister? It was really overwhelming. I cried. I wondered what I was doing. I knew it would change everything. I was single, working in corporate America; I had friends—all of that. I was 34 years old. My sister and I talked at length and we have always been close and I said, “Look, I don’t know why or how we got into this situation but it just feels like the right thing to do. I love you. I support you and I love your kids. And I will do whatever I can to help them. And help you.” I give my sister a ton of credit for recognizing that at that time, I could give Paige, my niece, something that she was unable to give her, which was stability and the opportunity to go to church. My sister was inactive and wanting to go back to church but struggling. Paige would go to Primary off and on but there was nothing consistent about it. My sister was humble enough to realize that there was something more for Paige and that she was not in a position to give that to her. Paige moved in, we signed her up for school, she started fourth grade and she visited her mom. We discussed how everyone was in agreement that this was the best place for Paige to be and I was not taking her from her mom and her mom was not “giving” her to me; it was that we were thinking about Paige and this was the best scenario for her. And was she responsive to that? She was very responsive to that. We went to see a child psychologist a few times, just to talk through the emotions that Paige was feeling and to express what was going on inside. After about six months, my sister decided to file for divorce from her husband. I worried about Paige being caught up in their divorce case. So after talking with my sister and my brother-in-law, I hired a lawyer and helped my sister get the divorce papers ready. But I intervened in the divorce and requested full custody of Paige. There were a lot of prayers. I wanted to make it as least traumatic as possible, because the last thing I wanted was some kind of court battle. We all agreed that it was the best scenario for Paige. I wanted to help out of love for my sister and my niece. But stepping up and taking that action was based on a spiritual prompting. Taking full custody of Paige never really felt like a choice, it was the thing I needed to do. And since that day, since making that one decision, hundreds of things have fallen into place and have worked out. And we’re keeping Paige moving forward and picking up the least amount of baggage as possible along the way. Paige said, “I am so glad that I live with you—no offense against my mom or my dad, but I just feel like this is where I am supposed to be.“ So it has been an amazing experience. Tiffany Peterson and Paige What has been the response to your situation from church members and ecclesiastical leaders? They didn’t know Paige before so it is inspiration that they are so open and accepting. Not a lot of people ask about the situation and how it happened but when they do ask I am happy to tell them because I think there is no “normal situation.” Everyone has something going on that makes them feel like they are outside of the norm. Being open and talking about it has really been helpful. A few months before Paige moved in I had rented a house with some friends in a particular ward. Over the course of our one year rental contract I felt really strongly that I wanted to stay in that particular area. When the contract was up miracles happened and there was a house for sale a street away that I should not have been able to afford but the price dropped at the last minute. There are only four streets in my ward, so it is not a huge radius of houses to choose from. I know that was a prompting. This neighborhood and ward have been open and welcoming. They make Paige feel “normal” and the situation is great. Our home teacher is the most faithful person! He visits every month and brings a lesson from the Friend for Paige. She sees him at church and says, “There’s our home teacher!” She has felt so included and at home in the ward. What are some of the tools that you have drawn on from your faith to help you in a somewhat unconventional situation within our culture? It is all about having a gospel-centered life and doing the hard things…getting up every Sunday and going to church and reading the scriptures. It is a lot easier not to do those things, but it changes people for the better, whether you are nine or 10 or 30 or 80 years old. As much as I may have thought that I relied on prayer and the Lord to guide and direct the decision to have Paige move in with me, being responsible for her has amplified that to an extreme that I didn’t imagine possible. Sometimes my prayers are, “What do I need to do for her? What does she need?” Paige tells me a lot of things but she also doesn’t tell me a lot of things. I felt like I needed more help because I didn’t give birth to her and raise her from an infant, but when I need that inspiration, it always comes. It always comes. For me, it’s what life is really all about. You can go about life and do your job and do your calling and raise your kids and do your neighborhood stuff and not really grow from it—not really get the whole experience out of it. And I think the experience comes from asking, “What can I do? What should I do?” Because there is more we can be doing. Be open to the potential to grow and know that where much is given, much is required. How has your career been impacted as a result of taking in your niece? Before all this happened, I had been transferred and was working in New York City. My mom was sick so I moved home because I wanted to spend that time with her. Having been at Goldman Sachs for so long and knowing so many people, I had wonderful mentors and managers who bent over backwards to help me move to Utah and get another job. It paved the way for me to be in a position to take in my niece, as well as to spend time with my mother who passed away a few months later. This past May however, I decided to quit my job. I felt very strongly that I needed to be doing something different…I needed another focus and my time needed to be spent differently. Two and a half years ago, I made the decision to go pick up Paige and she had fit in around the edges of my life. But the more time I spent with her and the more inspiration I asked for, the more I felt that Paige needed me. However, my job was getting the best of me; I was giving the best of me at work and then coming home tired and in a hurry to get Paige to bed because I had more work to do. I had another prompting that I needed to quit my job and take more responsibility at home. I was prepared (I had some savings). And I felt confident that I was not making an irrational choice because I could still provide. I thought that in three or four months I would figure out what was going on and see if I needed to get a part-time job or something different. It has been nine months and I haven’t had to worry about finances once. I have just gone back to a semi-full time job for a few weeks and everything keeps falling into place. It is a good reminder that it is really important to be present and emotionally and physically available to mentor and guide and teach. Paige’s development and learning is important. This is her time and she won’t ever have this time again to soak up the feelings of the Spirit and recognize her blessings. I don’t know what is in store for her but she needs to be prepared for whatever it is. Do you look back now throughout your life and see the Lord preparing you for this very experience? Yes…in a hundred different ways! Even the smallest thing about which job I had and how long I had been at that job and who was my boss is reflective of this. I told my boss that my niece was going to move in with me and it would throw a wrench in the timing of my work for a while (I needed to take Paige to school so I couldn’t come in until after 8.00 a.m. and I had to pick her up at 6.00 p.m.). That is a very different mentality! My boss’ response put it into perspective. He said, “You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do, so do it.” I know not everyone would have had the same response and been so supportive. It is incredible to see how fortunate I was when this situation happened. What would you say to women who are faced with making choices outside of the norm? When you realize that the spiritual promptings you have followed are right, it makes you want to do it again, because you feel so good! I don’t want to miss any opportunities because they feel good and you grow so much. That’s the message I try to get across in my ward and with my friends. You can look at people’s situations and think, “Why in the world would they do that?” Or, “What’s going on there?” But there is always something deeper. We are all children of God. We all have roles and we all have assignments that we were given. We can’t really look at anyone and judge what are they doing or why they are doing things a certain way. We just need to accept that maybe there is a chance we can participate in their experience or they can participate in ours. There is not a box, there is no one way for everything to be done and there is no formula. If there is one thing I have learned, it is never to pass up an opportunity because it doesn’t seem like the “normal” thing to do. At A Glance Name: Tiffany Peterson Location: Salt Lake City, UT Age: 36Marital status: Never been married Children: Paige, age 11 Occupation: substitute teacher, real estate agent (almost) Schools Attended: University of Utah Languages Spoken at Home: English Favorite Hymn: “I Stand All Amazed” Current Church Calling: Primary teacher Interview produced by Louise Elder

Over a period of about ten years, Chrysula Winegar transitioned from being single and in a busy career in Sydney, London and New York, to being married with four children and consulting and blogging from home. Chrysula discusses why she made the choices she did, and how balancing her former self with who she is today is so important to her. Everything rides on my decision to have four children. I felt I needed to have four kids, and I didn’t feel complete until the fourth one came. I can’t really explain that decision in any kind of rational or logical way. I can only explain it in the traditional Mormon framework: I knew that there were four children who were entrusted to me and who needed to be part of this family. My decision to maintain my career was a very rational, economically-based choice at the time. I was married at the age of 30, and I always intended to stay home with my children. However, right as I had my first child, my husband was launching his own business, so it made sense for me to stay at my job as International Marketing Manager with Aveda Corporation, part of the Estee Lauder Companies. I really enjoyed it, although it wasn’t my passion. I stayed in that role, progressed in it, and was promoted, while my husband started his business and took on the majority of household administration and managed our baby’s day care schedule. Chrysula Winegar and Her Family I love being a mother and I love my children, but I don’t love mothering per se. I find that constantly meeting the needs of a child is extremely difficult. I’m not a naturally playful person. It’s not instinctive for me to get on the floor to play. I have to make very conscious decisions to do those traditional “mommy” activities. I don’t like to bake. Making cookies with my kids is a nightmare for me! That’s stuff that I have to schedule in my diary and make happen, because it’s not instinctive for me. As I more consciously mother, I am finding greater joy in those small activities along the way, but it’s a work in progress. So at what point did you decide to step out of full-time work? I had my second child—so I had two daughters by then—and the transition from one to two children was tough for me. After maternity leave, I went back to work. It was really hard. The conclusion that my husband and I came to was that it just wasn’t working; I felt like I was missing out on too many things. A few months after returning to work, I was offered two possible promotions, one of which was my dream job. That one would have required relocating to Minneapolis and the other would have required extensive international travel. Neither of those options would have worked for my family. My husband’s career is in the art world, and his whole network is in New York City, so moving to Minneapolis was out of the question. And I wasn’t willing to regularly travel internationally with two babies at home. The decision was a no-brainer at that point. I cried for two days and then I resigned. After grieving for those professional roles, I felt fine; I didn’t feel forced into a corner, and I was really happy to be at home with my girls. For the next couple of years, I didn’t really think about anything else other than being home full-time with them, running my household, and supporting my husband’s business, doing his administration and marketing communications. In the meantime he started a corporate role. After a couple of years, I started getting a little bit antsy. I was pregnant with my third—our first son—and had even started praying about it: “What is next, Lord?” During that time, my husband had a job that required him to travel more than half of the year, and he was also in the bishopric of a singles’ ward. I was essentially on my own most of the time, and that probably compounded some of this thinking for me. So I’m about to have my third child, and am having all of these “ifs, buts, and maybes” in my mind. Then the stake presidency called me in for an interview. They said to me, “We have been given this answer three times, and every time we’ve said, ‘We can’t do this to this poor woman,’” because my husband traveled and was in a bishopric, I was about to have my third child, and we were living in 750 square feet in Manhattan. But they said, “We feel very clearly that you’re the person for this calling,” and they called me to be the Director of Public Affairs for the New York New York Stake. After my initial shock, I thought, “Oh, thank you, Heavenly Father, you know me so well.” Because what I needed was a seat at the table, and this gave me that. I had been missing meetings. I had been missing dialogue. I had been missing brainstorming, and important conference calls that had to happen right at that moment. I had been missing writing. It was right in the middle of Mitt Romney’s campaign, so the church was receiving a lot of media attention and inquiry and it was a dynamic time to be involved in public affairs. The role put all of my corporate skills to use. It was absolutely the hand of the Lord. It was a great experience. Chrysula Winegar You have started doing more in relation to work/life balance issues. How did that start? Those issues have always been in the background. I was a recruiter in my early life, and I have always been interested in the questions of “Why do people do what they do?” and “How have they gotten to this point?” I was always fascinated by others’ career paths and the accidental jobs that people picked up that changed their lives and pushed them down a certain pathway. Because of this interest in human behavior in the workplace, I had done a master’s degree in Organizational Behavior in London in my late twenties, and within that degree I focused on work/life issues, along with training and development, which go hand in hand. But I couldn’t find a job in that area when I moved to New York City initially in 2000: companies weren’t really interested in it and didn’t have money for it. So I ended up back in marketing instead. I always knew that I wanted to do more around work/life issues, so I’ve kept up on the conversation and the policies. The public affairs calling is now gone, and so right now, I’m beginning a work/life consultancy practice and writing curriculum for some training programs that will be really powerful. If I’m going to invest time and effort away from my family, it has to be something I really care about. You also started to blog about work/life issues in Fall 2009. Why did you start to blog and how has it helped you maintain your sense of self? For a long time, I hadn’t really gotten into blogging at all, and I had resisted Facebook and Twitter. I think it was a spiritual prompting for me to get involved, and I felt like this was a way that I could progress my ideas and explore some of the concepts that were important to me. I’ve been thinking about some of these work/life ideas for 20 years, but I haven’t always spoken up about them. When I turned 30, I started to feel like I no longer needed to be frightened of my opinions or who I am. Then I got married and had children, and those years in my late thirties were a blur. But when I turned 40 and had my last child, I felt like I entered a new phase; it intensified those feelings of “I do not need to hide my opinions. I’m smart, my opinions are informed. It’s okay to share them, it’s okay to have a platform, and it’s okay to have an agenda.” I’m really honored when people read my blog. I have a small following by most comparisons, but I’ve also built connections through Twitter. I just had lunch with eight women in New York City who are all making huge contributions to the work/life debate in different ways. We’re trying to put together a conference, and I’ve been invited to write on a few other blogs. I’m building relationships that help this message get out there. I have a seat at the table, and if I hadn’t opened my mouth six or seven months ago, I wouldn’t be there. You write about balancing the different parts of your life. What are the challenges and victories in your own quest to balance home life and professional pursuits? Are there certain things you’ve had to sacrifice or certain keys to your being successful? Right now, I’m not as great of a homemaker as I’ve been in the past. This is hard for me—I can’t stand a dirty floor—but I’ve had to let things go, because I’m making different choices. It’s a clichéd piece of counsel, but you have to prioritize, and for me, the way my household looks has gone down the list in recent months as I’ve upped the ante on my writing and other professional pursuits. I also think you need to be realistic about what you can and cannot do. It’s important to abide by the Word of Wisdom, and also the verses in D&C 88 that talk about getting enough sleep. For a while, I was staying up late every night, because there is so much I am hungry to do, and I was trying to feed my brain in the hours that I could. But I kept getting sick, and it wasn’t fair to my kids, my marriage, or me. So I’ve had to learn to shut down and say “no” to certain things, even if that means saying “no” to myself. Lastly, we hear it all the time, but it’s true that there are different phases to life. Right now, my kids are little, ages 7, 5, 3, and 1. It’s crazy, but motherhood is not always going to be this intense. I don’t need to launch a full-scale business at this particular point; I just need a toe in the water right now, so that I’m ready when I want to grow it to something bigger. I had my first child at age thirty-four, and then another at thirty-six, thirty-eight, and forty. Having kids close together is a recipe for insanity, but then you’re on the next ticket. I couldn’t do the baby thing forever; I feel at peace about moving to the next phase. I grew up the same way; my mom had four kids in four years. It was phenomenal; we were very close. Chrysula Winegar Related to this idea of balance, you have also written about the various pieces of counsel that are given to Mormon women: to be prepared, to get as much education as we can, to work hard, to nurture our families. These messages can seem contradictory at times. How do you reconcile them? In our theology, we have clearly stated roles about who provides and who nurtures, and I value that. None of my input into this conversation is ever intended to devalue those stated goals. But women have always worked: the pioneer women did sewing, took in extra laundry, cared for animals, and so on. Yes, this work was often done from their homes, but they worked. Today, we’ve become quite linear about how we define work. We all work—whether for money or not; it’s part of our DNA as Mormons. I worry that we’ve become a bit hung up on this and are too quick to judge. I worry when I see Mormon women stepping away from the workforce early in their lives and not maintaining their skills. Our marriage percentages are not that much better than the world’s. Certainly they are for temple marriage, but not by as much statistically as you would hope. There are many women who are unprepared for sudden death or a revealed affair or simply unemployment…and suddenly a marriage is in tatters or under great pressure and there are children, and the woman isn’t equipped to take over. This whole idea of preparedness and education is strong in our church. All this might mean is subscribing to an industry publication or taking an occasional class or reading once or twice per week in an online forum about the latest developments in your area. Just don’t close that door. I get frightened when women do that to themselves. It’s not only fiscally and economically healthy to maintain your skills, but it’s also mentally healthy to have a connection with the world. We need to go back to our history and look at our female ancestors, and we’ll see that they always worked. There are alternative ways—besides working full-time—to stay in the game. What advice would you give to other women who are struggling to balance the many roles and expectations for Mormon women? It would be to never stop reserving a corner of what it is you might do on the side. Be creative. Don’t be frightened to be interested in something outside of your children. Mormon women are really good at frugality—at scrimping, saving, and cutting back. But we’re not so good at investing, growing, and managing our money. I certainly think that women should understand where their money is going and make some effort to be financially aware. Figure out what discretionary time you have and enhance your skill set, whether it’s through taking a class, reading a publication, or joining a forum for an area of interest that you could turn into economic advantage down the road. I’m not saying, “Go out and get a job tomorrow.” I’m saying, “Find a way to stay connected.”It’s also important to counsel with your husband. I have a very supportive man at my side, but we’ve had to have some painful conversations about prioritizing what’s most important to our family. We’ve been prayerful about it and tender with each other. He’s my biggest fan and cheerleader, but it’s a work in progress for us; we’re making it up as we go along. We are open with each other and involve the Lord in determining what is right for our family. Finally, it’s critical to counsel with the Lord and to be open to personal revelation about the best path for you. It’s important to me to remember that the Lord knows who I am in my absolute core much better than I know who I am in my absolute core. He is going to send me opportunities that are right for me and that will ultimately bless my family, as long as I work hand in hand with Him. At A Glance Name: Chrysula Winegar Location: Darien, CT Age: 41 Marital status: Married Children: Four children ages 7, 5, 3, and 1 Occupation: Mother and work-from-home consultant Schools Attended: University of Queensland, University of London Languages Spoken at Home: English Favorite Hymn: “Be Still My Soul” Current Church Calling: Relief Society Teacher, Activities Co-Chair On the Web: www.wlbconsultants.com Interview by Barbara Christiansen. Headshot photos by Michelle Catherine Photography.

As the mother of seven children, the last with Down syndrome, Kathy Soper is known for the emotional honesty of her writing (which includes personal essays and a book-length memoir) and her founding of Segullah, an LDS women’s literary journal. In this interview, Kathy talks candidly about her lifelong struggle with depression and the unique dynamic that exists in her family where mom and several children are working together to stay healthy. I was born in Washington D.C. in 1971 and lived in the suburbs throughout my childhood. My parents divorced when I was five years old. My mother remarried a year later to an inactive LDS man and she converted to the LDS church when I was seven. The bishop visited us to try to contact my stepfather because he’d been inactive for a long time and my mom started talking to him. She ended up getting baptized. Like my three siblings, I had the missionary discussions when we were eight years old and I chose to be baptized. I don’t remember really much about it but I knew that my mom was pleased and I felt good about it. But there was a lot of tension in the family. We would go to church maybe 30 percent of the time (my brother and I would go visit our dad’s house on weekends), so we would miss a lot of church meetings then, and also, we would do a lot of family activities on Sundays. It was hard for my mom because as a new member, she caught the vision of the “Mormon family” ideal but it’s tough when you can’t make that happen. I started to drop out of church activity in junior high. It was hard because the Young Women’s program in my ward was really small—there were only three other girls my age and I couldn’t relate to any of them. I felt like an outsider and would go to Girls’ Camp and couldn’t connect with anybody. I was completely inactive by the time I graduated from high school. So how did you end up attending Brigham Young University? My life fell apart on a number of fronts during my senior year of high school, due to destructive behaviors and relationships I’d developed. I wanted to get as far away from home as possible. I’d only applied to the University of Maryland and BYU because those were the only colleges I could afford. When the acceptance letters came, I was more depressed than I’d ever been, and the idea of getting away from home was more appealing than ever, so I lied my way through my BYU ecclesiastical endorsement interview and showed up as a very troubled freshman at Helaman Halls. This kind of story bothers a lot of people, and for good reason. But attending BYU was a key turning point in my life. At BYU, I started going to church because it was required. I started to feel the Spirit, which I hadn’t felt it in so long, and I felt safety and reassurance. I had a really good experience with my bishop that year when all of my troubled past came spilling out. I met my husband-to-be, Reed, at the beginning of my sophomore year. Having him in my life made a huge difference. We were married in the temple at the end of my junior year. Going to the temple was really meaningful to me, and there I felt peace in a way that I hadn’t felt since I was very small. I felt like I was at home and that was a really powerful experience. I got pregnant with Elizabeth, my first child, six months after Reed and I were married. I was 21 and I was not a “kid person” at all. When I babysat as a teenager, I hated the kids. I never thought I would like babies. But a few months after my wedding, our next-door neighbor in our BYU student apartment building had a baby, and it was the first time I had been around a newborn. The spirit was just starting to blossom in me, and something about being around that new baby was like a magnet. I had never seen anything so beautiful and I wanted a child of my own. I had never felt that kind of desire before. Kathryn Lynard Soper and Her Family Was depression a part of your life during those college and newlywed years? In my junior year of college I was a total wreck. During my engagement, I cried every single night, much to Reed’s bewilderment. That was the first time I was ever seriously depressed. I was in therapy and I started taking medication for the first time. I would cry for hours. I wasn’t thinking about anything in particular, it was just this disconnected sadness and sense of despair and darkness that would descend on me. I’d just weep and weep and I felt like I could cry forever and never be done. It was a terrible, hopeless, awful feeling. And my therapist recommended that I take antidepressants for a short period of time. I took them for a few months before I got married, and then when I got pregnant a few months afterward, I stopped taking them. After Elizabeth was born, the Spirit was really strong. I wanted to be an awesome mom for this little baby and I wanted things to be perfect for her, to do everything right. Seeing Elizabeth struggle with the normal things about being alive was psychically really painful for me. It hurt a lot. I felt sad and worried a lot about the normal things of life. I wasn’t having the bouts of weeping I did when I was engaged, but I was still depressed and I didn’t recognize it. At the same time, I was really into the gospel. I read the Book of Mormon on my own for the first time when Elizabeth was a baby. I stayed up late at night and worked through my college Book of Mormon manual on my own. I was hungry for it. I loved it. For about ten years, I was “turbo mom” and a zealous Mormon. My motivation kind of like wanting to be a straight-A student. It was very externally-oriented and although I felt the Spirit a lot, it was an immature way of approaching the gospel. And I was immature; I was in my 20s and it was just my stage of development. I thought I was being really righteous, but I didn’t realize how far off the mark I was because I focused on my outward behavior and not on my relationships with people and with God. Was there an event that triggered a change in the way you viewed spirituality? Things started to change when I got pregnant with my sixth baby. That was when my toddler Matt, our fifth child, broke his femur. It was the first crisis we had in our family, and it really shook me up to have Matt in a body cast, and to have social services interviewing me trying to figure out if my husband or I had hurt him. It was traumatic. I was extremely sick with the pregnancy and felt very vulnerable and worn out. Then Sam , our sixth child, was born three weeks early and had to be in the [neonatal intensive-care unit] NICU. Sam’s condition was very poor at first. One night, his condition was quickly deteriorating and I thought he was going to die. I had never before experienced such vulnerability. I felt like blinders were being ripped off—I was suddenly aware that people all around me were suffering, and that my family was not exempt. Kathryn Lynard Soper and Her Family Up until that point I knew that bad things happened, because some really hard things happened to me as a kid, but everything was different as a mom. I felt desperate, like I had to keep these bad things from happening to my kids, and I didn’t want them to feel the way I had felt as a child. I didn’t want them to get hurt and I would do anything to try to prevent that. But when there were health crises, I had zero control. I realized that as far as circumstances go, I was not “holding the reins” at all. So how did you cope with this new realization? I wrote my first personal essay, “Shaulee’s Door,” when Sam was about six months old. The first version was awful—very maudlin and emotionally manipulative—but I thought it was great. I made copies for all my friends and family, and was flying high until a trusted friend offered some gentle yet firm feedback. That was at the height of another depressive episode. Over time I revised the essay and submitted it to Exponent II’s writing contest, and was honored to be named a co-winner. Shortly after that Kylie Turley, a close friend from my married-at-BYU days, started talking about founding our own literary journal. The idea seemed crazy at first, but it wouldn’t let go of me. After Sam’s birth I’d hit this identity crisis when I realized I had no idea who I was, what I truly believed or what I knew about life. I was trying to orchestrate a family life instead of living from within myself and relating to people as an authentic person, allowing life to teach me and transform me. I realized I could not be a good parent or a good wife or a good sister in the gospel if I didn’t have that center within myself, that core identity and self-awareness. I was just discovering that writing was a key to that. Segullah was created as a forum where other LDS women could have the similar experiences. So writing brings self-awareness? It can. When we share writings with other people, we become more aware of each other and of ourselves. That realization was a huge turning point for me. Before that, my sense of self was all wrapped up in what kind of mother I was and how successful I was at making things happen for my children. It sounds noble, but if a mother is driven by insecurity she will foil her own best efforts. After Sam was born that focus shifted to developing a solid identity that I could reach out to others from, and creating a community of LDS women who sought similar self-discovery through writing. That shift in focus was really important. I had been trying for a decade to make myself fit the supposed ideal of an LDS mother, and I was very anxious and fearful most of the time. That fear spilled out into my parenting and my marriage and my relationships with other people. How did the arrival of Thomas, your youngest child, change things in your family? I’d been trying to get pregnant for about a year and a half. That was the first time it didn’t come easily, and it really shook me up. When I got pregnant with Thomas, it was a huge cause of celebration for Reed and me. Our marriage had been stable enough all along, but for many years there had been a lot of tension in our relationship. I was in this mode where I was trying very hard (very hard!) to get him to play his role as husband and father a certain way, and that caused a lot of resentment between the two of us. After my identity crisis and resulting shift in focus, I began to let go of my “control-freak” ways, and Reed and I had an amazing renaissance in our relationship. This growing baby became a symbol of our rediscovered love and commitment. I was just delighted. However, from the start it was a very hard pregnancy, much more so than my others. I sensed that my body was worn out from bearing and caring for so many children, and I knew that I was going to have a hard time carrying the pregnancy to term. Even so, I was shocked and frightened when I went into labor at 28 weeks, nearly three months early. Thankfully medication stopped the contractions, and I was on hospital bed rest for two weeks before my water broke and Thomas was born. Due to his prematurity there was a high possibility of severe respiratory distress, so we were very relieved when his Apgar scores were good. Then the doctor came in and told us he thought Thomas had Down syndrome. I felt completely terrified and worried that I wouldn’t be able to love him because of his disability. By the time Thomas was released from the hospital six weeks later, I was in the midst of a full-blown depressive episode, and everything spiraled downward from there. Kathryn Lynard Soper and Her Child Had you been treated for depression in the years in between Elizabeth’s birth and Thomas’s birth? No. Looking back now, I see clearly that I was depressed all those years, but I didn’t recognize it at the time. Mild-to-moderate depression felt normal to me; it wasn’t until I resumed medication that I saw my condition for what it was. For me, during a depressive episode, waking up is a burden. Breathing is painful. It’s a constant stress just to be alive. To have that burden removed, leaving behind only the normal emotional ups and downs…I can’t even describe the difference. I believe medication saved my life, literally. What have you found that helps you the most? I’ve been seeing an excellent therapist regularly for the first time since college and it’s making a huge difference. But I could not be doing the work I’m doing now with her, which requires a good deal of emotional clarity and calmness, if I wasn’t taking my medication. Before treatment I thought, “I want to solve my problems, not mask them with drugs.” Yet treatment is the very thing that’s enabling me to solve those problems. Different approaches to treatment work for different people—medication is not the only option. But a combination of medication and therapy has been shown to be most effective, and that’s what works for me, along with measures like light therapy, meditation, and regular, rigorous exercise. I imagine it was a difficult process for you to realize, “this is something that is going to be with me for the rest of my life.” For the rest of this life at least. I was so proud when I stopped taking that Prozac when I got pregnant with Elizabeth and felt like I could function normally. I didn’t want to be dependent on medication. It’s a terrible feeling to know that in order to be a functioning person you need to take medication—and in my case, it’s not a temporary measure. But I’ve resigned myself to this reality. I used to think fixing myself was the strong thing to do, and that taking medication was a cop-out. Now I understand that the way to be strong is to get treatment, and the way to be responsible is to get better. How has your experience with depression helped you recognize the same warning signs in your children? Once I was feeling more healthy and stable, and I’d gotten over my resistance to having depression, I was able to recognize troubling behavior in one of my sons, and then in one of my daughters, and recently in another son. The biggest symptom for them was deep and abiding sadness that wasn’t attached to anything, a burden of crippling melancholy and fear and anxiety that doesn’t compute. It’s normal to be sad when sad things happen. But it’s not normal for a six-year-old to cry because he’s worried about the fate of his soul, or for a nine-year-old to wish (aloud, and repeatedly) that she could stop living. She would verbalize how isolated she felt from people and how much she despised herself, and wanted to stop existing. Behavior-wise, one of the biggest cues (for my teenage sons, especially) is when they can’t sleep because they are so agitated by sadness and fear. Not being ashamed of depression and not transferring a sense of shame to my kids has been a big help. I’m glad I can say to them, “I know how that feels,” and I think they’re glad for that too. But there’s a flip side. Some people have said, “Oh, it’s so great that you’re depressed and your kids have depression so you can understand each other,” and in many ways that’s true. Yet at the same time it makes life much harder for everyone involved, because a depressed child’s needs increase dramatically but a depressed mother’s capacity to help decreases dramatically. That’s a very poor situational fit. If I’m struggling, I’m that much less able to help my children who are struggling and that is a terrible, terrible feeling. How have your experiences with depression changed your testimony and your relationship with the gospel? So much has changed. I’ve let go of many extraneous beliefs, ideas, and paradigms from LDS culture that no longer fit my experience. But at the same time, the central elements of my testimony have not changed—in fact, they’ve become more firmly rooted. Perhaps the most pronounced change I can identify is that I’m not afraid like I used to be. The most painful things in my life–my mistakes and sins, crises and breakdowns, and wounds received at the hands of others–have proved to be my greatest vehicles for freedom and growth and love, and therefore for happiness. So I don’t believe the idea that the most successful person, the most righteous person, is the one who remains the most unscarred in mortality. I believe that we become who we’re meant to be by allowing life to transform us. At A Glance Name: Kathryn Lynard Soper Location: West Jordan, UT Age: 38 Children: seven children ranging in age from 16 to 4 Occupation: writer, editor and founder of the Segullah Group Schools Attended: Brigham Young University, BA in English Current Church Calling: Gospel Doctrine teacher On the Web: www.KathrynLynardSoper.com Interview by Shelah Miner. Photos by Maralise Petersen and Brittney Oler.

In 2005, Shannon Cox founded Haitian Roots, an organization that sends 133 needy Haitian children to school each year. Shannon recounts the unexpected adoption of her Haitian son and the ways it opened her heart and mind to the plight of Haiti’s strong-willed people. This young mother of four affirms the unexpected course of her life is not the consequence of coincidence but divine intervention. Haitian Roots provides sponsorship for Haitian children who want to go to school. How did you first become involved with Haiti and find the motivation to start this program? The story of Haitian Roots began about seven years ago when I was first married, working from home for an international adoption agency. Because I speak fluent Spanish, I was running the agency’s Guatemala program, but the agency encouraged me to expand its efforts in other countries. Through my research, I started getting hung up on the beautiful children from Haiti. I didn’t know anything about Haiti, even where it was. Soon, everywhere I turned, I heard about Haiti. I started teasing my husband that we were going to adopt a little boy from Haiti. In the back of my mind, I thought that if I got the agency to start an adoption program in Haiti maybe I could find my son, if I really did have one. I was able to get the Haitian adoption program up and running, and I thought someday—years down the road, if I was supposed to—I would adopt a child. I then had some very spiritual experiences that let us know that my son was soon going to be born in Haiti, even though we had two very young daughters and didn’t even qualify for adoption by Haitian law, which requires adoptive parents to be at least 35 years old, married for a minimum of 10 years and have no biological children. Shannon Pearl Allred Cox with Her Son Our first trip to the country was to see our son, who was two months old at the time of our visit. We were very overwhelmed by the poverty. It was staggering, worse than anything I had seen. My husband and I felt hopeless and wondered how things could get any better for these people—until we attended church. We had been in Haiti a couple of days and were able to have our son with us. As we walked through the gates to get into the church, we heard forty or fifty Elders singing at the top of their lungs “We Thank Thee O God for a Prophet.” An overwhelming feeling of the Spirit suddenly filled us with hope. After that first trip, my husband and I thought it would be cool if someday we could do something to give back. We both have a strong passion for education and feel it’s really the key to eradicating poverty. We talked about the idea of sponsoring a child to go to school. Again, we thought maybe someday down the road when our kids were grown we would have the time to put together an organization. But little by little, prompting after prompting, Haitian Roots began. While we were in the process of adopting our son, we made close friends who are native Haitians, and we started talking to them about the idea. They had sponsored some children to go to school, and we felt strongly that we should get started. We had a goal to send 20 children to school the first year, the 2005-06 school year. We have 133 children in the program right now. Eventually we plan to build and run a primary school for children during the day and a technical school for youth at night. With this, we feel our organization will give children of Haiti an alternative to the path of poverty. In the years since Haitian Roots began, how have you seen the lives of these children change? Do you still feel like education is the key to hope? Every time I go to Haiti, I become more passionate about education. I’m afraid to take credit for anything that’s happened because I see the Lord’s hands in it so much. I know I need to remain humble so He will lead us and help us. Our co-founder’s mother said, “You have no idea what you are doing for these families. It’s literally like angels have come down and lifted them out of the mud and set them on solid ground.” I see that. A lot of the time families have to choose between eating and education. In Haiti they value education so much. They know and feel that if they can get to school maybe things will change. It’s really their key to hope. Shannon Pearl Allred Cox and Her Family Our organization is not affiliated with the Church directly, but we have seen miracles and some of our families and children have become interested in the Gospel and in reading the Book of Mormon. In our original group there were two boys, 12- and 13-year-old brothers, Max and Jackie. I felt really drawn to these brothers and have kept close tabs on them. I call them “my boys.” After a series of miracles, both boys were baptized. On a trip to Haiti in 2008, Max passed me the sacrament. I was just sobbing. Right then, I had the feeling that although we can’t accomplish a huge amount there might be certain people the Lord has in mind for us to touch. And so, if this whole organization—everything—is for these boys getting an education, learning about the Gospel, joining the Church, blessing generations to come, and forever changing Priesthood leadership in Haiti, it is worth all the effort. We’re hardly making a dent. When you look at all of Haiti it feels so hopeless, so I try to look at the kids we are helping. How has your focus changed since the earthquake? Right now, we’ve only been able to account for 40 of the 133 children we sponsor. We already know that two of our children are orphaned. A lot of our families have lost their homes. We do know that a couple of our children have lost their lives. Shannon Pearl Allred Cox The only thing that has saved me from being completely distraught about the earthquake is an understanding that I don’t have a right to be distraught. A lot of people have called asking how I am. It makes me feel really bad because this isn’t about me. I don’t have a right to be sad and depressed or to earn any attention. I tell people to please give all of their energy and attention to Haiti. Our focus as an organization is going to be on rebuilding. We’ve got a lot of people helping to get donations, tents, food and water filters to Haiti. A close friend of mine who is an emergency room doctor was one of the first physicians on the ground after the earthquake. After seeing all of the horror, he called and said, “We have to build a school!” It warmed me to know that with everything he saw, it was the need for education that struck him most. We have to get education to Haiti so the people can know how to do things for themselves. Some people have called the quake a rebuilding or renewal. A friend said it’s a rebirth of Haiti, and that’s the way I like to see it. I don’t, in any way, say that the earthquake was a blessing. It is a horrible catastrophe and tragedy. Every person that I know in Haiti has lost loved ones. No one has been unaffected. How would you suggest people help with earthquake relief? Fundraising. There are a lot of people who want to go to Haiti and volunteer. And there will be a time for that. But not right now. I haven’t even been able to go, yet, because of the burden, the stress I would put on my coordinators in Haiti. When I’m there, they are so worried about my safety and my comfort. Right now, I would be more of a burden than a help. They need medical and disaster personnel. I know it seems exciting to go and get your hands in, but that’s not the way to help right now. The help needed is in fundraising or in donating items. However, on a spiritual level, I would always tell people to pray. I feel like Haitian Roots is a mission the Lord has for me. My mission is also motherhood, and my children come first. But this is another mission the Lord has given me, and I love it. But Haitian Roots isn’t the only group doing good in Haiti. There are a lot of really wonderful organizations. This is what the Lord wants me doing, but it’s not the only good way to get involved. Shannon Pearl Allred Cox As you also focus on motherhood, where you do find your energy and time? I don’t sleep much. It’s constantly a struggle. I’m not perfect at keeping my priorities in line. A lot of times I find that I’m sitting at my computer or I’m on the phone with someone crying about the children in Haiti while my kids are tugging on my arms and running around me in circles. That’s when I stop and reevaluate. I try to focus my attention on my children during the day and cherish that time. My nights are spent on the computer and on the phone. I even schedule meetings after the kids are in bed. I’m not perfect at it. No one is. Some days I think, I did really well. I was a good mom today. Other days I go to bed thinking, I really lost my temper or I really neglected them. And then, I vow to be better the next day. I’m grateful for all of the things the Lord has given me, and I hope I’m prioritizing them correctly. Looking back on the direction of your life as a mother, why do you think you were guided towards adoption at a time when you were busy, successfully building a young family? I wasn’t having infertility problems. In fact, one of our daughters was two years old and the youngest was nine months old when we started the adoption process. One day I was out mowing the lawn with my daughter on my back in a backpack when I had a very spiritual experience. It was very simple. I was passing some roses and not an audible voice, but the clearest thought I’ve ever received said, “Your birth mother is pregnant right now, and you need to start praying for her.” That was amazing and also overwhelming. I had no idea we were going to be adopting so soon. It wasn’t anything rooted in wanting to do good or saving a child. It was nothing like that. I had a child in Haiti. I had been enlightened to know there was a woman in Haiti who would bare my child. I knew she needed help, so I began praying for her that she would find the peace she needed. The feelings I had were as if one of my children that I had snuggled in bed was in a foreign country living in an orphanage. I had to get that child home. It wasn’t that I felt bad and wanted to help this country. Those feelings came later. When we visited Haiti to see our son for the first time, our desire to help all the children we left behind grew. We felt they were part of our family as well. We had a natural desire to want to help. I believe that anytime God makes something happen, He doesn’t just do it. You have to do the work. He prompts you in the direction you need to go. Not long ago, you lost all of your hair to alopecia areata. How have you come to terms with that change and how have the lessons of acceptance learned through your work in Haiti helped you to love and accept yourself? When I lost my hair four years ago, it was really devastating. I couldn’t stand to look at myself in the mirror. I thought, I can still be a good person and accomplish the things the Lord wants me to do. But I feel ugly and will never find myself attractive. That’s a very sad attitude, and going to Haiti helped change that. Shannon Pearl Allred Cox The first time I went to Haiti after I lost my hair, I was wearing bandanas. It was so hot. Of course I stood out. I’m white and almost six feet tall. Interestingly, none of the Haitians thought twice about my not having hair. That was the least of their worries. In an orphanage I visited, I noticed a boy who was completely healthy but who had no hair and no eyebrows. I discovered he, too, had alopecia. I held him on my lap. (To this point I had been terrified to show my bare head to anyone. I felt like I was naked if I did.) I took off my scarf for the first time in front of a bunch of people. The boy stared at me and gave me the biggest smile. He touched my head and he touched his head. There was an immediate connection, and I thought, Maybe it’s not a horrible thing. Maybe it’s not ugly. Another turning point came one night when I walked into the living room and screamed because I saw a tall bald man in the window. I stopped and realized it was me. It hit me that if I couldn’t recognize my own reflection, something was wrong. I prayed to Heavenly Father saying, “I am no longer that person I recognize in the mirror, so who am I?” Little by little things came to me in my study, and I knew it was Heavenly Father teaching me. I now realize that if my soul or my spirit is at least 10,000 years old, probably much older, I cannot let myself be defined by this physical body that I’ve only had for 35 years. I’m grateful for my body. It is a gift. But it does not define who I am. As I’ve discovered these things, I’ve redefined beauty. My entire way of thinking about beauty has changed. Shannon Pearl Allred Cox with Her Father How would you encourage women to find their missions for doing good? Follow the promptings of the Spirit. Every soul has worth to our Heavenly Father. If you feel prompted in any way, you should follow those promptings. It might be one person that you help. Maybe you won’t know the effect you have on somebody, but if there’s one soul it‘s worth your energy. Nothing is too little. At A Glance Name: Shannon Pearl Allred Cox Location: Riverdale, UT Age: 35 Marital status: Married 9.5 years Children: 4 (ages 8, 6, 5, and 11 months) Occupation: Mom, founder of Haitian Roots, Spanish interpreter Schools Attended: Ogden High School, Weber State University Languages Spoken at Home: English Favorite Hymn: “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” (not in our current hymn book but wish it was) Current Church Calling: Gospel Doctrine teacher On the Web: www.haitianroots.com Interview by Melissa Hardy

The mother four teenage children, Sally Read currently serves on the board of Rising Star Outreach, an organization whose mission is to help leprosy colonies in India become self-sufficient communities. Sally discusses the affect of global and local service on her children and how families everywhere can contribute to changing another person’s life. I’ve always been drawn to causes, to service, to being involved in something. When I was younger I always thought you had to do the “big” things. The bigger the better. I wanted to go Africa. I wanted to go to India. I wanted to go to Cambodia and help the refugees. I’ve always had that in my framework. In high school, I played the piano at a rest home. At college, I did the same thing. After my husband and I got married we did help with the Cambodian refugees, helping them get set up in Utah. I was teaching school, working on my masters degree at the University of Utah, and I couldn’t have children. So I was drawn to being involved in different causes. We even talked to our stake president at one point and told him we’d like to go on a mission as a couple. He suggested we continue pursuing having children and we understood that, but we didn’t have our first child until I was 29 and we’d been married for eight years. Sally Gardner Read and Friends At this time you were both young and your husband wasn’t advanced in his career. Was it hard for you to find things to get involved in that didn’t require large sums of money? No, not at all. We moved to New York and I would work in the homeless shelters. Then I would hold babies who were addicted to crack at Saint Luke’s Hospital. And of course, I got involved at church. When I had children, I realized I didn’t have to do “the bigger the better” sorts of things. I didn’t have to serve in a foreign country. The best thing I could do was to serve in my communities, in my schools, in my church. Do you think members of the Church participate enough in local and global service outside of the Church? I think they do! I think that a lot of us are involved, and we’re more involved more than we think we are. Especially in schools. Don’t you think there are many of us who are involved in our children’s schools? I know we have this perception that we’re engrossed in our church work, but as I’ve lived different places I’ve always seen Mormon women involved in different causes. We take our youth to homeless shelters. Mothers serve as room mothers. That’s being involved. Or, we help with the Teacher Appreciation Day or in the neighborhood. My family helps the food bank in our town. We’ve gone down to serve meals at the Stamford, CT homeless shelter, the Norwalk, CT shelter… There are always little things that families can do. It doesn’t need to be this daunting, overwhelming thing to solve the world’s problems today. What advice would you give to a woman who wants to expand her reach from local community service to service at a global level? I would use your children as a springboard. Use them as a catalyst to get your family doing something. Here we have Haiti right in front of us: What can we do? How do we help someone in Haiti? Well, we can always give more tithing and Humanitarian Aid fund money, but how do you involve your children in that? This sounds so elementary but in our family we’ve set a jar on our counter, and whenever there’s a crisis — we started with the tsunami in December of 2003 — we put our loose change in that jar. I have teenagers so any friends that come by are welcome to put in their change as well. We give that money we collect in that jar to the Church’s Humanitarian Aid fund or to a special cause we’re interested in supporting. We’ve also used that change to help fund a family trip to India with Rising Star Outreach. Of course, we don’t raise a lot but it gets our children aware of what’s going on in the world and gives them a sense of participating. Sally Gardner Read with Children As the children have grown older, we’ve taken the service to a different level. As a family, we’ve always loved to travel. We have the means to travel, so the kind of family service we’ve done doesn’t work for everyone. We went to Tanzania with our children and worked in a school and took school supplies. We took school supplies with us to South Africa too. My daughter Abby and I have gone to Taiwan and worked in orphanages there. We’ve taken her friends with us to Taiwan on several occasions. Now my family is involved with Rising Star Outreach and the majority of our service is through that organization. How do you settle on Rising Star Outreach as the organization you most wanted to be involved with? My daughter was the catalyst for our looking into an organization in India. We had already gone to the orphanages in Taiwan, and when she was a junior in high school she said, “I really want to do something this summer in India with my friends.” So I started researching opportunities on the Web that would accommodate a large group of teenagers. I found a lot of good organizations, but Rising Star Outreach was able to accommodate twelve of us as a group. Rising Star Outreach has three main goals: to educate the children of leprosy-affected parents in one of our beautiful campuses, to provide leprosy patients with micro-finance loans, and to assist in basic medical duties in the leprosy colonies. That first trip to India was such a great experience for us that when we came back and talked about it, people said to me, “I’d like to do that with my children!” So last summer I organized a second group and this time we took 40 volunteers. How has this type of service affected you and your children? It’s always emotional watching your children serve. They rise to the occasion. Some parents have said to me, “Oh I don’t know if my daughter or son can do this.” But you know, kids get in these difficult situations in leprosy colonies where people don’t have hands or feet or their digits are missing or they might have a wound and it’s pretty deep and puss or maggots are coming out of it…. And you know, you watch your children take the bandages off and wash their hands and feet, and it gives you an appreciation for your children. They can’t communicate with the leprosy patients cause they can’t speak the same language but they do speak the language of love. I’ve seen it make them aware that they really have a lot of advantages in the world. They work a little harder in school. They are kinder. When a cause such as Haiti comes up, they’re the first to ask, “What can we do?” They’re aware of the world around them. All the parents I’ve taken with me, as they watch their children do these things, they appreciate their children on a different level. The day-to-day teenage years can be tough on kids! And yet when you get them in a different environment where children have nothing…. I mean, some of these colonies have deplorable conditions and they have nothing materially, but the children don’t need much. They’re happy. They’re happy to be in school. It makes your children appreciate those things too. Sally Gardner Read with Others Would you tell us more about leprosy and your work in the colonies in India? Isn’t leprosy highly contagious? It has the perception of being highly contagious, but actually only a very small percentage of people have a certain gene that makes them susceptible to leprosy. This genetic component means that the general population is naturally immune to leprosy. The great problem with leprosy is that when a person contracts the disease, they are ostracized and sent to live in a colony with other people who have leprosy. They’re shunned, outcast, they’re the untouchables. So then they go live in pretty horrible conditions. Then they’re even more susceptible to infection and disease. People who have leprosy can’t feel — they can’t feel their fingertips for instance and so when they get burned the burn goes untreated and gets infected. And then it exacerbates the problem. As volunteers, we’re always very careful — we wear rubber gloves, we only use soap on one patient and then discard it — but no, there’s little chance that a volunteer will catch the disease. Is there a vaccine for leprosy? There is an antibiotic for leprosy that costs about a dollar a day. It can’t be cured in its advanced stages, but the antibiotic can stop the progression of the leprosy if caught in time. But Indian culture is a huge part of the continued existence of leprosy: In their culture, if you have leprosy, the gods gave that to you. It is your karma, and you should live with that. If you live with it, then in the next life you may come back to a better situation. But if you try to cure it or get better, then that’s playing with your karma and it might affect the next life. You find people rejecting treatment because of that belief? Yes. The elderly have that idea. But the patients about 45 and younger are starting to say, “We don’t need to live with this. We can be cured.” Sally Gardner Read and Friend What Rising Star Outreach does is take the children out of the colonies and place them in a boarding school we’ve built. It’s away from their families in the colonies but it’s a beautiful campus. The one option that can help them get out of the colonies is education. Isn’t that something! Education. They’re no longer caught up in these cultural traditions that keep the older generations trapped. They can speak good English. They can get computer skills. They’re educated, so they don’t have to be beggars on the street. They can rise above that. If the colony is the only thing the children know, then they will grow up to be beggars. But if you educate them…. And these kids are so happy to be in school, you can’t believe it. They’re so grateful, even though it’s difficult for them to be away from their families. They’re not orphans. They have families who love them. But they are so grateful to be educated. So when you take youth over there to volunteer and they see how happy these kids are to learn English, they come home and think, “Wow, I’d better take advantage of what I get to learn at school!” Now of course that doesn’t always translate into our day-to-day lives, we all know that! Only in a perfect world, right? When encouraging your children to serve, either locally or globally, attitude is very important. You have to approach it with a real love and a genuine desire to be involved with someone else’s life. You never want your child to feel you’re comparing them to kids who are happy with nothing. You can’t force gratitude. You’ve given your child a different experience so you can’t expect them to appreciate things if they’ve never gone without. But you can teach all the lessons of service locally. As I tell every volunteer, you don’t have to go out of the country to do service. Be kind in the lunch room. Open the door for someone. There are little things everyday you can do. And kids do it. Sally Gardner Read Serving As parents, we can read the newspaper to young children. Point out children in the news. “Look at these children. They’re being adopted from Haiti. Isn’t this wonderful?” In the newspaper there is always something a child can understand, even if it’s just through a photo. There are books you can read to them. There’s now a picture book of Greg Mortensen’s Three Cups of Tea. Think of what he’s doing, Greg Mortensen. He’s empowering women and girls. A child can learn about that. Is Rising Star’s goal to abolish leprosy? No, there are certainly health organizations that work on that, but the main thing we do is educate the children, to provide a team of workers that can assist in medical duties like changing bandages and caring for the wounds. Our teams try to help the people in the colonies learn how to care for themselves. I don’t want to say they teach them to have cleaner living conditions, because sometimes that’s difficult, but we teach them how to care for themselves in the conditions that they have. Rising Star also manages micro-loans which are amazing things. Small loans empower female business owners and help the colonist have a way to be self sufficient. And if you can be self sufficient… The stories are astounding of what self-sufficiency does for self esteem. It emotionally heals those wounds in the heart of rejection, of displacement, of being an outcast for so many generations. Because if your grandmother has leprosy, your mother is in the colony, you’re in there… it’s families. The whole family is condemned to this life, considered outcast. Can people help here? Yes! You can sponsor a child and become their pen pal. Or you can loan $25 so someone in a colony can buy three chickens. You know that little jar sitting on your counter I talked about earlier? You can easily gather up your change over a year and say, “Ok, we’re going to help this family start a business raising chickens and selling the eggs.” Are the colonies like little towns? People have businesses? Yes, some colonies grow their own food and have businesses. But for many, that’s difficult to do since they’re so totally handicapped. The government helps but not enough of course. Church organizations help too. There are 700 colonies in India alone. About that many in Brazil. It’s more prevalent than we think. We think it’s a Biblical disease but it’s not. It’s still out there. Medical organizations are trying to eradicate it with simple drugs and we’re helping through education, but it’s a cultural thing too. Sally Gardner Read with Young Boy Involve your kids in a discussion of leprosy. Read the Bible and let them know it’s still out there. You don’t have to always give money to be involved. Educating your own child, getting information, is helping. You’re not teaching a child for a day, you’re teaching them for a lifetime and you want them to explore things that are interesting to them. Show them where to start. We have some volunteers that take their creative skills to our colonies. We have dance and music volunteers. You may think, “How does dance help?” It makes the people living there joyful! Volunteers don’t have to just teach reading and writing. All our volunteers bring their strengths. At the end of the day, the Savior wants us to love much and do what we can. When it comes to service, women especially have to brush the guilt off. We just love much and do what we can. Involve your kids in what you can do. It doesn’t have to be an overwhelming project. It can be singing songs at a rest home. Going to an elderly neighbor. I don’t ever want women to feel that it has to be overwhelming, because then it’s just another thing we don’t do. Starting is always the hard part. We also have to be aware that there are different seasons in our life and each season allows us to do different things. I have a nephew who is in Haiti right now. He works in Provo and he has a friend who has access to a helicopter. They just packed up the helicopter with rice, beans, blankets and they’re literally just distributing them. Now that is a big thing! But he’s able to do that: he doesn’t have children, he has a flexible job… He’s in a season of his life that allows him to do that. For the rest of us, maybe we just give a little more in our fast offering this month, or buy the blankets that some one else takes. I love the statement by Anne Morrow Lindbergh: “My life cannot implement in action the demands of all the people to whom my heart responds.” Your heart responds to all these things and you think, “We’ve got to help here and we’ve got to help there…” You don’t have to do it all. All we have to do is love much and do what we can. At A Glance Name: Sally Gardner Read Location: New Canaan, CT Age: 49 Marital status: Married 29 years Children: Four children (20, 18, 15, and 11) Occupation: Homemaker Schools Attended: BS from Brigham Young University, M.Ed. from University of Utah Languages Spoken at Home: English Favorite Hymn: “I Know That My Redeemer Lives” Current Church Calling: One of the only true and living callings in the church–Nursery! On the Web: www.risingstaroutreach.org Interview by Neylan McBaine

A gifted young pianist, Ruth was encouraged by musical professionals to consider a concert career. But a father’s blessing at age 16 told Ruth that the Lord had other plans in store for her. Instead, Ruth was the youngest person called to the Church’s general boards and served as the Young Women’s General President from 1972 to 1978. Piano was my whole life from a very young age. Music gave me identity. I was different, I was sought after, I was recognized, I was featured. I had all the blessings that are attached to that situation. I have never been able to stay away from the piano. I only have to sleep a few hours each night, so I often practiced in the early morning hours. My family and my three poor little brothers had to survive hearing music all the time. My father thought it was heavenly. When I was just four years old, we had a player piano. My father told me, “Ruth, when you are able to play Mendelssohn’s ‘Rondo Capriccioso’ (which he loved so much) I will get you a grand piano.” So I practiced hard. He purchased a Baldwin grand player piano and I was passionate about watching it and listening to it and trying to catch the keys as they played the Mendelssohn by themselves. I first performed the Rondo Capriccioso when I was fourteen, and after that, it became my signature piece. Ruth Hardy Funk I have many wonderful stories associated with that piece. My aunt, Alice Louise Reynolds, often entertained important guests, and she brought Helen Keller to our home one time. Of course Miss Keller was both deaf and blind, but she walked to the piano, put her hands on the wood and listened to my playing through her touch. During my teen age years I had a few lessons with Leopold Godowsky, a famous pianist, who had a friendship with my teacher and visited Salt Lake City on a few occasions. He encouraged me to pursue a concert career and to study at a conservatory in the east. We thought long and hard about this possibility. My father said he would give me a blessing so I would know what I should do. With my parents we fasted before the blessing. Mother came in the room, and my father blessed me: “Your Father in Heaven wants you to continue with your work on the piano, but as for a concert career, He has other things in mind for you.” The way my life has unfolded, everything was based on that blessing. Several other times I had the opportunity to follow great teachers and launch a career of my own, but I would always go back to that blessing. I performed and taught and kept the piano in my life. In fact, when we moved into our first home — which is the home I still live in 64 years later! — we got a piano before we even got a bed. I had worked and put my husband through dental school instead of pursuing the piano career, so his gift to me was to get me my own Steinway before we got anything else. It’s there still, in the same place it’s always been in. Today, I have no feeling in my fingertips. I’m blind now, have hearing aids… I can’t play anymore. The only time I cry about getting old is when I go in the living room and see that piano, so I seldom go in there. I had such a passion for my music. To this day, I have a passion for it, which is why my current state is so cruel. My passion for music when I was young was so great that it consumed every other thought. I realized more and more how I simply could never have handled a top concert career and a family. After I got married, I could not give that passion to music and give the passion I wanted to my husband. I wanted to be able to give my all to my husband. I was madly in love with my husband and I was madly in love with the piano. I had to choose. When I was Young Women’s President, Harold B. Lee, who was then in line to be the next prophet, was given the responsibility of reviewing all of the Church’s materials. This was called “Correlation”. I was called to President Lee’s committee. Our current prophet, President Thomas S. Monson, was called to be on that committee too, but he was just a little guy then and he reported to me! I served on Correlation for 10 years under Elder Lee, and then I was made the chairman of the committee to rewrite the Church’s lesson manuals. Then, when Elder Lee was made prophet, he called me to be the Young Women’s president. I was in that position seven years from 1972 to 1978. Ruth Hardy Funk What are you most proud of accomplishing in those seven years? Before me, the young men and young women of the Church were completed separated. That was the Mutual Improvement Association [MIA] program. I strongly felt like they should do much more together. We developed a whole new program, starting from scratch, which resulted in the Young Women program we have today. I had entirely different people on my board: they were thinkers and women of the scriptures rather than experts in music festivals and dance festivals… We still had those fun things, but we tried to focus the program more on doctrine and the scriptures and developing the young women’s testimonies. When President Lee called me to Young Women’s president, my husband Mark told President Lee, “When I married Ruth, I knew I was going to have to share her with the world.” And he did. I traveled all over the world in my work for the Church and it was marvelous. What would you suggest to young women now who are faced with marriages and family, but also with things they love to do? You have to go to the Lord. I pled with the Lord: “Guide me the way you want me to go.” You have to know yourself, and then go to the Lord to clarify your decisions. What I chose is not for everybody. I think most people are able to achieve a balance in their life and they can do a family and follow passions and careers. I did not have moderation in my passion. I know many wonderful women who do have moderation in their lives, and they do many interesting things. I became a fine conductor. I went to East High School and taught hundreds of students there. I could do that, and it didn’t interfere with my family in any way. I’ve lived my life trying constantly to consult the Lord and learn what He wants for me, balanced against my own natural inclinations. I could go on and on about the miracles in my life, but if it hadn’t been for my father’s blessing when I was 16 it wouldn’t have taken the amazing path that it did. I have been blessed — or cursed! — with only needing a few hours of sleep a night. I was able to practice the piano more because of it. Now that I can’t do any of the things I love, it is truly a terrible thing to deal with. Now, I can’t walk without a walker. I have to accept help. I have dozens of people come to me for help… with marriages, what to do with their professions… I tell them how valuable it is to keep up with their skills and stay strong in their profession. I can’t do much myself anymore, but I try to do all I can to encourage young people to go ahead with what they love. At A Glance Name: Ruth Hardy Funk Location: Salt Lake City, UT Age: 94 Marital status: Widowed Children: Four Occupation: Former pianist, choral director, high school music teacher. Young Women’s General President from 1972-1978. Interview by Neylan McBaine, with contributions from Nancy Funk Pulsipher. Photos by Neylan McBaine.

After two sets of twins and a divorce, Myrna sought solace with her family. But she found little comfort at home: she fell prey to the family’s drug dealing business and lost 27 years of her life to heroin addiction. Three years ago, at the age of 51, she fell to her knees and felt the Lord’s loving embrace. She discusses the effects of her baptism on her ravaged body, her repentance process and the effect her conversion has had on her children. You joined the Church three years ago. What prompted you to search for a church? I was in a desperate moment in my life. I felt a lot of pain about the life I had led: 27 years in addictions. Many drug addictions, mostly heroin. I came to a point in my life when I cried out to God very loudly. I had never prayed before. I never remember praying since the age of 11. And I was 51 years old and I just kneeled down and asked God to help me. That was the moment for me. What people say is like lightning, the moment when God started to help me. It was an amazing moment. I had been incarcerated and I was on probation. I had been in prison fourteen years before as well. But the life of drug addictions continued. The only thing that kept me sane was my six children and knowing they were mine. I decided I wanted to know: What is religion? What is God? What people talked about: Jesus, Jesus… It was something I didn’t understand. I started reading the Bible. It was an amazing, spiritual journey. Some of my children are members of the Church because my sister is a member and she took them to church when they were little and I was gone. But some have struggled with drugs and are not members. I never taught my children how to seek, how to reach out for God, or how to pray. It wasn’t on my agenda. It wasn’t the life that I knew. I did not know. How can you teach your children something you do not know? The children who are members of the Church, their lives totally changed for the good. They are righteous people, doing good in their communities, doing good things. Myrna Castellar They were all so happy when they found out I got baptized. I did not call them to tell them until after I was baptized. I didn’t tell them because I felt it was something between me and the Lord. The life that I lived… I lived a life of feeling so evil, so sinful, that I had no right to even look to the heavens. That’s the life I lived. So I never mentioned God or thought about our Father in Heaven. I felt so alone. And that’s all that that life offers. The negative side of everything: everyone has an agenda, religions have an agenda and are mostly political… These were my thoughts. This was what I believed. I was searching for two months. I was searching for something I knew was there but that I didn’t understand. I was getting promptings during those two months, but I didn’t know they were promptings. When you live a life in the world… you’re alive, but you feel like you’re dying, but not able to die… So these promptings and this searching was so different. It was like, I’m finally alive! The feelings I was having during that time were real, but if I told anybody I was feeling those things, they would say, This woman is crazy! There was a voice and I knew it was my Father in Heaven. And I just kneeled down and curled up and said, “You’re talking to me! Letting me know you love me!” This was amazing. During the two months I was searching I was going to different ministries and churches, which was totally new for me because before that I did not go in a church building for forty years. I stayed away from everything that had to do with religion. I did not immediately investigate the Mormon church right away when I started this searching process, even though that’s the church my children and my sisters belonged to. I just went to the churches and I felt. Everywhere I went as I was searching, a voice came to me and said, “No, you’re not joining this one.” I just went with it. I was being taught by the Spirit but I could not understand why. I could hear this voice inside of me saying those churches weren’t for me. It wasn’t because those churches didn’t have righteous people or a desire to worship, it was just that I could see so clearly what was truth. I was taking a martial arts class in one of the LDS buildings in the Bronx that my sister invited me to. My sister had become inactive but she still went to the martial arts classes in her ward building. For years she had invited me and I finally decided to do it. During this time I was observing and learning about religions, I used to see the missionaries at the classes and I saw them teaching people lessons. One day I was walking down the street and I saw the missionaries. I ran up to one and grabbed his shoulder and pointed to his name badge and I said, “I just want to know how I can get baptized in that church.” Of course they were so excited and the next day they were knocking on my door. What was the repentance process like for you? Did you feel like you were able to start over in your life after you were baptized? The repentance process started before my baptism. I took all of the missionary lessons, they invited me to church and I went. I was excited, and I was looking around and I thought, “They are so happy, these people.” I wanted to continue to feel the way I was feeling at the church, which was totally different from the way I lived. It was different from the way I had felt in the other churches. I was very honest with the missionaries. I told them I had drug addictions and I was on a methadone [drug recovery] program and before my baptism, the stake president came to my house and I told him the same thing: “I am on probation and I have one more year of probation. I’m on a methadone program.” I was as honest as I could be. I wanted a different life so I needed to be honest. My repentance process… I was like, What do I need to repent of? I did not understand that. In the life I lived, there were so many experiences I had that were so shocking that I always thought, All these horrible things have been done to me. What do I have to repent of? I couldn’t understand it. I was 29 when I started taking drugs. I felt like I was cheated. I was the victim. I had been cheated out of my life. No one wants to be a drug dealer or a prisoner. Everybody has hopes. I had hopes. After I had two sets of twins my husband left me and I was alone. I felt like everything I tried to do — education, work — something always knocked me down. I had no more strength. I fell into depression. I thought it would be the best thing to go where my family was, in New Jersey, but my brother was a drug dealer. So that’s how I became involved. I wasn’t always that way. Before that I was in the academy to train to become a police officer. So drugs were a big change for me. Changes happened in my life that turned everything around, and I just lost myself. All my thoughts, all my desires. I felt hopeless, and I reached out for family and they weren’t there for me. That’s why I didn’t think I needed to repent. Did your attitude about repentance change as you approached your baptism? During those weeks of searching and praying for a church, the Lord was teaching me. He was teaching me how to fast — I didn’t even know what that was! — and He was teaching me how to speak to Him, what to say and how to ask Him. It was spiritual journey because He put into my thoughts the life I had lived. It was like a movie of my life running through my head. To repent, I asked, “Please show me. I do not understand this.” And He did: All my kids came to my thoughts. And I thought, I have harmed them so much! I just cried and cried. I said, “God, please help me to change this part of my life so I can make amends.” He showed me so much love in those small moments. I felt like I was being embraced. He showed me His love! I couldn’t explain it to anybody, but I didn’t care. It was for me, it was mine. I started remembering so many things and I started calling my children and having conversations with them and telling them how much I loved them and that I was so sorry for the life that I had brought to them. We’ve always been very close, my children and I, but it was so hard for them to have so much of my life in drugs and not in them. Before my baptism, we talked about the love we have for each other. It was very intense. What did it feel like to be washed clean after spending so many years harming your body? At the time I was taking the missionary lessons, I was on a methadone program to help me stop the life I had been in, but I wanted to be done with it. The methadone was just another medication… more drugs inside me. I just wanted to walk away from that life and have everything off of me. I didn’t want any more drugs in my body, even from the methodone program. I just wanted to stop. Myrna Castellar My body felt so uncomfortable, while the drugs were leaving my body, cause I was going down really fast. I heard a voice inside me saying, “You have to finish this.” The Lord reminded me of all the times that I had thought I could do it alone and had gotten off the program before and then had just gone back to doing another drug… I thought, Wow, I’ve never finished anything I have started. Education… My children… So many things I have started… And this came so clearly to me. “You have to finish.” So I stayed in the program. It was hard. Before my baptism, there was one time when I was in the bath trying to get my body to feel better. I just said, “God, please take this away from me.” And He did. As soon as I said those words, something was lifted off my back. Someone pulled a string on my spine… I had no desire to do any drugs, no pains, no aches… And when I got baptized I was clean: I had no methadone in my system, no drugs, I had a clean body. It was such an amazing thing when I went into the waters, I thought my feet went straight up! The missionaries said, “No, you went all the way under.” But I said, “Well, someone pulled me up cause my feet went straight up!” It was an amazing moment for me. I felt so light. My conversion has helped my children. My son said, “Mom, you did it. You’re such an inspiration to me.” He’s been clean himself now for 10 months. And my daughter is doing so well too. I’m able to sit down and talk with her, not trying to convert her, just letting her know that I love her and that Heavenly Father loves her. He wants us all to be happy. I had my children in bondage, I had them tied up. But today is very different. My children who are members of the Church live good lives. They focus on their families. I think the cycle is broken. At A Glance Name: Myrna Castellar Location: New York, NY Age: 54 Marital status: Divorced Children: Six (Two sets of twins 34 and 36, 18 and 13 year old) Occupation: Disabled and work part time (cleaning, baby sitting and cutting hair), doing service at various community centers and a local hospital Convert to Church? November 19, 2006 (My oldest children turned 33 on the day of my baptism. This means so much to me yet I don’t understand why.) Schools Attended: Puerto Rico (elementary), NJ (elementary), NY (junior and high schools), NY (Hostos Community College-not finished) Languages Spoken at Home: English and Spanish Favorite Hymn: “Lord I Would Follow Thee” Current Church Calling: I teach the Nursery children which is a great honor for me. In reality they are the ones teaching me! I’m also a facilitator for the Church’s Addiction Recovery Program. There is great need for this program in the Church especially with drug and other addictions. It’s good to know we are not alone fighting these battles. I volunteer at the Distribution Center on Saturdays were I have made many friends. Interview by Neylan McBaine

A 1983 issue of Reader’s Digest introduced Dominique Lam-Yam to the Church while she was living with an abusive father on the French island of Reunion in the Indian Ocean. She spent the next three years searching for the Church organization, with no success. Finally, two missionaries knocked on her door, launching her on a path of hope and triumph over challenge. I was born in Hong Kong. When I was nine months old my mother decided to take me and my two older brothers to join my father on a French island called Reunion. It’s off Madagascar and Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. My father is a Chinese/French native from this island and his parents had sent him to study in China, in Hong Kong, which is where he met my mother. It was not your normal everyday love story: my father forced himself on my mother and because of that my father’s mother made him to marry my mother. From that, we were born. My older brothers, me and my two younger sisters. My mother decided to join him because she couldn’t stay on her own with three children in Hong Kong even though she didn’t want to be with him. But she was married to him, and she did the best she could. She at least gave us a father. So this is why I became French. It is a little bit of a sad story… Actually not sad because it is what makes me who I am right now. We had a very difficult life with my father on Reunion because he wasn’t gentle or kind. In our home, even if we didn’t have that much money, my father and my mother always wanted us to have some books, some magazines. I came to know the Church because of a magazine called Readers’ Digest. We had subscriptions to it in French and in English. My mother couldn’t really speak French, only Chinese and English, so she read it in English but my brothers and I read it in French. Dominique Lam-Yam I remember the date — the month and the year — of the Readers’ Digest in which I read about the Church. April 1983. I remember the date because the story was so amazing. It is printed in my brain. The story was about a Mormon family from Utah and their young son who had an accident and needed to have a blood transfusion. At that time we didn’t know about the AIDS illness. Now of course we know much better. The story in the magazine was about how the blood in the transfusion completely destroyed his immune system and because of a simple cold, he died. A little part of this story was straight out of the mission discussions. It was about where we came from — a bit about the preexistence — and then it talked about how, when we’re here on earth, our bodies are like a glove over our spirits, and then when we die the glove gets left behind and our spirits still live. Reading that story was the first time I ever heard about the Mormons. I was thirteen years old. I actually wrote to Readers’ Digest to ask for more information about the Mormons. I looked up Mormons in the encyclopedia, and unfortunately encyclopedias didn’t say very positive things at that time, talking mostly about polygamy or getting confused with the Amish. I was baptized Catholic as a child. My mother used to be Protestant and my father was kind of Buddhist and kind of Catholic, but he was really confused in his mind about his spirituality. I didn’t choose Catholic but it was what was available to me on Reunion when I was a child. I am so grateful that my mother always taught us that there is a God and that we can pray. I learned how to pray because of the Catholic form of prayer, repeating the same words every time. One day I decided — I was about six or seven, our family life was so bad and my father was really beating at my mother and I was really sad and I was trying to pray — I decided that I should talk to Him, and not just repeat the same Catholic prayers. I remember when I started talking I said, “Forgive me, God, for talking to you this way.” I started to really communicate with Heavenly Father that way, allowing myself to really talk to Him and not just repeat the same words every time. Readers Digest never replied to me. Maybe I didn’t put the right amount of stamps on the letter. I saw the address in the magazine but it was in France and I didn’t know how much it cost to send a letter to France from Reunion. I don’t know if my letter ever got to France. After that, I was always looking for the Church for a long time. I learned about other religions — I read the Koran which I find really interesting and beautiful. In the French islands, there are lots of unbelievably mixed religions: witchcraft and Catholic together, or some native religion with Buddhism. I don’t know how they do it and mix all those gods together! I was curious about all these religions, but I was always looking for the Mormon Church from the article. I almost gave up. I looked for three years, from 1986 when I was almost 13 to 1989 when I was almost 16. I waited quite a long time, and I almost joined the Jehovah’s Witnesses. They were very kind. I decided that if I couldn’t find the Mormon Church, I would stay a Catholic and become a nun, or I would not want to live anymore because life was so bad. Heavenly Father heard my prayers and the missionaries came. I remember it was a Wednesday and my older brother was shirtless because it was very hot. My parents were finally divorced by this time and things were getting better. The missionaries knocked on the door and my brother invited them in. I was curious, but I hid when they first came. Did you know when they came to the door that this was the church you had been looking for? No, not yet. They came a few times after to teach my older brother and they asked me to join the discussions. When we got to the second discussion, they told us about where we come from and they actually brought a glove and explained that our body is like a glove over our spirits. And I said, “I know this! I read it!” I told them, “I want to get baptized now. I accept with everything I am!” The missionaries teased me and told me I couldn’t eat pork anymore, lots of silly stuff… And I said, “Whatever I have to do… It’s okay. I’ll do it.” I wanted to have the all the lessons the same day and get baptized the next day. I read the Book of Mormon and I knew it was true. I had my first lesson on Monday and I was baptized the next Saturday. The missionaries were the ones who slowed me down because they wanted to make sure I had a testimony of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. But when I read the Book of Mormon, I knew it was the church I had been looking for for so many years. Heavenly Father saved my life by bringing the missionaries to my door on my island in the middle of the Indian Ocean. They came! They came, they were the ones who knocked on the door. I was so happy. I am still happy. Did the rest of your family join the Church as well? Yes, all of my brothers and sisters. My mother was the last to join. My mother took more time because she had an experience when she was young: after World War II, her family was so poor that she was put away to live with her grandparents and she was treated very badly. Several times, she was crying as a little girl and somebody in white came and put her in his arms. She thought that if she joined a church she would betray the God who had sent those people in white. She had so many missionaries teach her! Even the president of the mission and his wife came to teach her. It was really hard for her. But she knew there was a God and that Jesus was real, and she still knows it now. Unfortunately, she cannot go to the temple anymore because she is too ill. She is handicapped now, completely physically dependent. It’s very hard for her. My brothers served missions and are married. My younger sisters are not active in the Church anymore. I went to San Jose, California, on a mission in 1996. I was 23 years old because I had an accident with my motorbike and unfortunately couldn’t go on my mission till later. I wanted to go to Russia because I knew we had some ancestors from Russia so I wanted to learn the language and do my genealogy there. But San Jose is much warmer than Russia! Your whole family is now in France. When did your family move there? We moved to France in 1989, about twenty years ago. I live outside of Paris. I work part time, and I spend my other time with my mother. I am not sure how much longer she will live. I am also trying to get ready to leave for four years, to go to Brigham Young University – Hawaii to get my bachelor’s degree. I never knew that I was dyslexic. I was only tested last year. I had some head injuries as a child from my father, and reading and learning has always been really hard for me. Unfortunately, at school I didn’t do very well because of my poor reading and writing. So at BYU- Hawaii will study special education. Because I know that dyslexia… you cannot be healed from it, but you can find ways to work with it and not let it be such a problem. I know that in the United States there are many things that can help dyslexia, but unfortunately in France there are no treatments for adult dyslexia. When I have my diploma, I will be able to help children in France treat dyslexia early. Is it a challenge for you being a Mormon woman in France? I am really excited to be a representative of the Church in France. I know that the French people have a very different culture and, for some members, it is hard for them to talk about the Church and be proud of being a Mormon. I have a lot of good friends who are gay. They are close friends and we talk a lot. They know my standards. I believe they are still children of God. But I believe that a child needs a father and a mother, and I keep telling them that. I hope that I help them be more sensitive to the needs of children, if not now, then in the future. There are such good things about so many different people. Just because I keep my position as a member of the Church doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have friends who do things differently. I don’t sustain them in what they do or go to their parties. I’m not afraid of saying I’m a member of the Church. I’m really proud of it. I’m really proud of having a testimony of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, even though I’ve had some bad comments from people who don’t know me. In France, we have a law that we are not allowed to talk about religion at work at all. So with my friends from work, I invite them to go to Institute or a church party in the evenings and we can talk about it there. They can also see that we have fun in our church! There are members here in France who don’t speak up loud because they don’t have personalities that are comfortable with inviting friends to church. I understand that, it’s hard. But I’m not one of them. At a Glance Name: Dominique Lam-Yam Location: Hong Kong Age: 36 Schools Attended: Brigham Young University - Hawaii Interview by Neylan McBaine. Photos by Bonni Bohn.

Karen Bybee healed from the death of her first child by throwing herself into the planning of the 1994 Soccer World Cup event. Since then, Karen has developed a career in international sports management, and has been involved with eight Olympic Games, four Soccer World Cups, and numerous other international sports events. I graduated from Brigham Young University with clear expectations: I would have marketable skills; I would get a job; I would get married, and I would have children. I believed that I could “have it all,” but I also understood that I couldn’t have it all at the same time. After majoring in Public Relations, I got a job in Washington D.C. working on Capitol Hill. I married my husband Jeff when I was a few months short of my twenty-ninth birthday. As I later anticipated the birth of our first child, I resigned my job and pursued an opportunity to do some part time consulting. Then the unthinkable happened: our baby died. This was in 1989, and prenatal technology was not as widely used as it is today. We didn’t know there were complications until our baby was born. Our daughter, Kara, was a “Trisomy 18,” which meant she had an extra eighteenth chromosome, resulting in a congenital heart defect and severe neurological challenges. She was sustained on life support for five days until the tests came back and confirmed that she had no chance of sustainable life. We were also told by the doctors that this was a genetic problem and we would probably never have our own children. We were devastated. I spiraled into a dark depression that I felt I couldn’t escape. I felt so fragile and vulnerable–like a piece of glass that would shatter if someone touched it. It was at this low point in my life that I was offered the opportunity to join the 1994 World Cup Organizing Committee. The United States had recently been awarded the rights to host the 1994 World Cup [the most important world-wide soccer tournament] and a long-time friend had just been named as the head of the organizing committee. He asked me if I would come on board for the next five years to help organize and stage the 1994 tournament. I was the third person hired for the committee. Karen Bybee Did you have any experience in sports management at that time? My brothers and I were always involved with sports growing up, and I had some experience planning events with my job, but I had no direct sports management experience. I knew that soccer was the passion of the world, even though at the time it was not very popular in this country. I certainly didn’t know that the World Cup competition covered 30 days, 24 teams and 9 cities…but I knew it was a big deal. The World Cup is held every four years in non-Olympic years, and the 1990 World Cup was being held in Italy. Our committee recognized the need to learn everything possible from the upcoming 1990 World Cup before we had to host the event ourselves. The president of the organizing committee knew that I had been a missionary in Italy, and that I spoke Italian. Because of my Italian language skills learned in the mission, my initial primary responsibility was to act as a liaison with the Italian organizing committee. Actually, I had never planned to go on a mission. As I neared completion of my junior year in college, I was contemplating my options after graduation and praying for guidance on the direction I should take. I kept getting the impression that I should serve a mission, even though this wasn’t one of the options I was considering. My mission was an incredible experience and changed my life in many ways, but I could never have anticipated it would also change my career trajectory. My mission experience gave me my entry into the 1990 World Cup, where I made international contacts and received “on the job” training in international sports. Working for the World Cup organizing committee allowed me to heal from the death of our daughter. The job enabled me to build my confidence, to pour my energy into something productive, and to move forward. It gave me a purpose. In many ways I felt like I gave birth to that organizing committee. We started with nothing and had to build everything. It was a rare opportunity for me to start at the very beginning of a project and see it all the way through to fruition. It was immensely satisfying to see the 1994 World Cup become the huge international event that it was. You now have three children, three sons. Are they your natural born children? Yes. After our daughter Kara died, we went through a lot of testing and were ultimately told that our daughter’s genetic problems were just a fluke. We then knew that we had a good chance of having our own children. However, it was a long time before I felt I could take that step again. Our loss had been so devastating; I needed time to heal. Eventually, I gave birth to a healthy baby boy. The baby didn’t have a name for five days, nor did we set up the nursery. I couldn’t emotionally go there until I was sure he was going to stay with us. After we passed that five day mark when Kara had died, I figured he was going to be around, so Christopher got a name and we set up the nursery and moved forward. Two years later I had another son, Cameron. Later, our third son, Matthew, was born. How did you work child care when you were working? Everyone in the World Cup organization was very supportive. My colleagues knew my history and knew what this meant for me to have a family. They were thrilled when I had my children. My colleagues were always flexible in helping me figure out how to make job and family work. We had a wonderful nanny, a live-in Latter-day Saint girl from Idaho. She came when Christopher was nine months old, and except for a brief period, she stayed with us for seven years. She was part of our family. I took her with me when I travelled so that the kids could come along. Now she’s married in the temple and has six children of her own and I tell her, “I was raising you too, you know!” Karen Bybee and Her Family It’s not easy to be a nanny and have the mother working in the home, but we worked very hard at making that relationship work. I often worked from my home office which can sometimes be difficult with children. My boys understood that if my office door was open they could come in and color and sit on my lap or whatever, but if mom’s door was closed, then I shouldn’t be disturbed. I also have my mother who lives 20 minutes from me, who has always been very willing to be involved with my family and has been a huge support to me over the years. My husband, Jeff, is phenomenal. He understands that I have this need to have something that is my own, that I am actually really happy when I am engaged in a project. We work together as a team. We are different in terms of personality and style, but our strengths complement each other and we each contribute what we can. We don’t have a big social life; our down time is spent with our kids and doing church and family things. I “won the lottery” in terms of finding a husband who is supportive of me. Have you worked continuously since 1989 when you started planning the 1994 World Cup? No. Upon the conclusion of the 1994 World Cup I worked from home for almost two years with a sports marketing firm and for the last 15+ years have worked on my own as an independent contractor. I was not interested in starting my own business, instead, I was more comfortable working my business contacts and seeing what opportunities came my way. (In this business, once you have carved out your “specialty” many people go from Olympic Games to World Cup, to Goodwill Games, etc. The same people in similar roles keep showing up over and over again.) I worked on various projects, often with long breaks in between (sometimes anywhere from 6 months to a year) when I was a full time stay-at-home mother. How have you maintained your contacts over the years? Even though some of my contacts are dwindling I feel my acquired skills will always be valuable. Unlike many working women, I am fortunate in that I am not the sole source for my mortgage payment. This has given me the flexibility to pick and choose those projects that work for me and my family. Every time I am offered an opportunity to work, my husband and I ask each other, “Is this something that works for our family?” I have stepped anyway from many professional opportunities because it wasn’t the right situation for us. I’ve worried that with gaps in my resume I might not be able to stay relevant in the industry, but I’m okay with that. I have no regrets that I’ve stepped out to spend more time with my family. If I never work again, I am okay knowing I have had 25 years of “once in a lifetime” experiences! What do your sons think about your professional life? I think they are proud of what I do. It helps that I have boys who are really interested in sports. Unlike some professions, my kids can really get into what I’m doing. I have always tried to negotiate that my children would be involved in the events I’m planning so organizers know up front my family would be coming. When the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic opportunity came up, my son, who was a junior in high school at the time said, “Mom, we will kill you if you don’t take this job!” He wanted to come to Canada for the Olympics! My children have had some terrific opportunities to travel the world, to learn about other countries and cultures, to meet interesting people, and to participate in my events. Karen Bybee at the Turin, Italy Olympic Games in 2006 What have you done to help your boys be supportive of women the way your husband is supportive of you? My boys are very independent and don’t expect that mom does everything for them. We have tried to teach them to accept personal responsibility. They have been doing their own laundry from the time they were ten. They know how to fix meals and that allowance doesn’t get paid unless their rooms are clean. We’ve always done a job chart. They also see a wonderful example in their father who values my skills and aspirations as much as his own. My boys have been exposed to many strong, accomplished women and have seen them excel in many capacities. They have seen that women can fill many different roles. In a gospel context, we have tried to show them there are many ways you can be a righteous woman in the Church. Did you always know as a child that you would pursue a professional path? From my very earliest years, I never thought about my wedding or what my bridesmaids were going to wear; I wanted to see the world! I came from a very strong family, three brothers and parents who loved each other. My mother stayed home with us until my father lost his job and became ill, and then she went back to work. My mother became the financial provider for our family when I was about 15. It was a complete role reversal for my mother and father, but I always felt that my parents were equally yoked. My mother had always been involved in the church and serving others and volunteering in organizations. She took all of those skills and turned them into viable employment. I had a profound role model: I understood the need to prepare yourself to stand on your own because there are no guarantees in life. Another element of my youth that profoundly shaped me was my work with the ASBYU Women’s Office in college at BYU. At that time, in 1978, there was a furor across the country with the Equal Rights Amendment, the International Women’s Year (IWY) and IWY women’s conferences were being held in every state across the country. I was trying, in the context of this student government role, to mesh my personal feelings about being a modern woman with the demands of the gospel. I attended some of the national women’s conventions at that time and tried to be a voice representing BYU and the standards of the Church. But then I would come back to the campus and try to make some small progressive changes in our programs for women and education. So there I was, organizing “Bridal Fair” on campus, but also trying to help advocate classes for women on finance and communication in marriage. It was a frustrating time. I felt it was important for us as Mormon women to be voices for good in the world. I took to heart the statement of President Kimball that as women in the church, we needed to reflect righteousness and be articulate in our lives so that others would see us as “distinct and different–in happy ways–from the women of the world.” I always knew that regardless of whether I was working inside or outside the home, I wanted my life to reflect the light of the gospel. Looking back, I absolutely see the Lord’s hand in the unfolding of my life. My work in sports event management has allowed me to work in a field I am passionate about and to raise a family that I cherish. I certainly don’t have all the answers. I’ve just tried to do the best I could to make the opportunities in my life work together. At A Glance Name: Karen Bybee Location: Vienna, VA Age: 52 Marital status: Married 24 years Children: Four (18, 16, 13, and one deceased) Occupation: International Sports Consultant and mother Schools Attended: Brigham Young University, BA 1981 in Public Relations Languages Spoken at Home: English, occasional Italian Favorite Hymn: “How Great Thou Art” Current Church Calling: Recently released early morning Seminary teacher; now happily teaching 16-year-olds in Sunday School Interview by Neylan McBaine