Lindsay Hart is a woman of many talents, and she’s put them all to good use. As a Spanish speaker, she has helped build up Spanish-speaking branches in her area. As a photographer, she photographs children with terminal diseases for a non-profit she founded. She’s also acted as foster mother to her cousin. She’s working towards her own version of her personal best. I was born in Provo while my parents were students at BYU. A few years later our family moved to San Diego, which is where I grew up. I went to BYU Idaho (then Ricks College) for two years, then served my mission, then finished up at BYU and graduated in public relations with a minor in dance. During my college years I got to travel a lot with the contemporary dance company: I went to Ukraine, Fiji, and New Zealand and I loved my experiences. Lindsay Hart You served a mission in Bolivia. Tell us about that. Yes! All the traveling I did at BYU made me very interested in a mission. I wanted that crazy, middle of nowhere jungle experience, and that is exactly what I got. Bolivia is a third world country, so it was very humbling. There was a lot of walking, and the heat was intense. There was amazing reception and incredible people. Toward the end of my service as a missionary, I was up in the Amazon on the border of Brazil. Women would go to the river to wash their clothes and the missionaries would sometimes go there to help and also give discussions on the side. I didn’t realize that that is where all the mosquitos are. I ended up contracting malaria! I spent a month in the hospital, and I almost got sent home, but I promised the Lord if I could just stay and get better I would do anything. I finished my mission, and when my parents came and picked me up we were able to take the first family I’d baptized to go through the temple in Cochabamba. That made all the hardships I had experienced with malaria worth my staying. When I got home I reconnected with Blake, a really good friend from before my mission. He had served his mission in Spain, and I’d always thought it would be neat to marry someone who spoke Spanish as well. We got married a year to the date of my return. My husband and I moved to North Carolina so he could go to graduate school. Once we located to Charlotte, our stake president found out that we both spoke Spanish, and asked if we would be willing to serve in the Spanish branch. Blake served for 3 years as a counselor and 3 years as the branch president. Our first two children were born there, so it was great to be able to raise them in that environment; everything was in Spanish: primary, Sacrament meeting, etc. Lindsay Hart And around this time you also started your photography business? Yes! It was a crazy time for us. And to add to that was the start up of my business. I’ve always loved photography. I wrote for the school newspaper in college and got to cover the Winter Olympics and take pictures. I’d also taken some photography classes. I love being creative and I wanted to do something to help contribute to my family, but I also wanted to be able to do it on the side so I could keep my family my top priority. I opened my photography business: Hart to Hart Digital Photography & Design. I also love to teach photography and over the past year I’ve had the opportunity to be featured monthly on a local television program called “Charlotte Today,” where I get to teach segments, such as “taking better photos” or “decorating with pictures” etc… I also love that my job allows me to teach my own children by example. Sometimes when I’m photo editing I’ll have my 7 year old come and sit on my lap and I can let him see how I do things. My business continues to grow, and for that I am so thankful. I’ve begun to go international and even shot a wedding in Italy last year. Next stop Dubai! Will you explain the non-profit work that you do as well? I have a non-profit part of my business called “Photography with Hart” where people can nominate terminally ill children to have their photographs taken. It has been a touching experience to help these families capture that time. I remember receiving thank you letters from the family of a child I photographed. He had recently passed away and they were so grateful to be able to have something beautiful to remember him by. Through this part of my business I became involved with a group called the American Mothers Association; an inter-faith, non-political, non-profit organization that strives to recognize the invaluable contribution mothers make to the future success and happiness of children and society. I entered some of my work in their National Graphic Arts Competition and won first place. I was able to go to New York to accept the award, which was a great experience. Lindsay Hart and Her Children I understand you took in your cousin as a foster-child. In the summer of 2011 I flew back to California to attend a funeral. My 13-year-old cousin, who I didn’t know very well, was there too. He came from a very challenging home life with a number of problems. I felt very strongly that we needed to take him home with us! It was another crazy time in my life. I was pregnant with my third child and my business was really taking me off and keeping me very busy, but still I felt like we needed to do this. So we had my cousin come live with us. He had never been to church before. After living with us for just a few days he said, “Man, you guys pray a lot!” It was such a wonderful experience for our family to be able to share the gospel with him. We didn’t want to push him but he did go to church with us. It was hard for him to learn and understand as we still attended the Spanish Branch, and so we were released from the branch and began attending an English ward. He was eventually baptized and has since returned to live with his mother. Lindsay Hart You have so much going on. How do you keep it all together? I just do the best I can. I’m lucky to have a husband who is so very supportive. As women, we might read another woman’s blog or see something on the internet and feel a little overwhelmed or insecure… like we don’t measure up to others. It’s difficult but we need to try our very best to not compare ourselves. We’ve all been blessed with different abilities and talents. I am grateful for mine and my goal is to be my own version of my personal best, and to work the hardest I can to make my dreams and my family’s dreams come true. I also know that, no matter what happens, I’m the only one who can choose my own happiness and attitude. I love the thought from Eleanor Roosevelt that happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product of a life well lived. At A Glance Name: Lindsay Hart Location: Charlotte, NC Marital status: Married Children: Three Occupation: Business owner, photographer Schools Attended: Brigham Young University, Ricks College On The Web: www.harttohartdigital.com/ Interview by Katherine Wilkinson.

While growing up in Alberta, Canada, Elizabeth Bectell swore she would never live on a farm. But after graduating from college and serving a full-time mission, Liz found herself back in familiar territory. Now she’s a cattle rancher’s wife near Cardston, finding happiness in her choices, her family, her community, and her trust in a loving Heavenly Father. I grew up in different towns in Alberta, Canada. Now I live with my husband and children on a cattle ranch twelve miles out of Cardston. We have 200 head of cattle. We’re three miles from the Montana border, right by the mountains. Cardston was settled by LDS pioneers in the 1800s, and they built a temple here. It’s not a very big town, about 3,500 people. There’s a high population of LDS people. I have pioneer heritage and was raised in the Church. Did you expect to end up so close to where you’d started? No! I swore that I would never marry a rancher or a farmer. I swore that I would not end up here. I never wanted to be stuck on a farm. When we were engaged, Jeff said, “Well, this is what our life is going to be if you want to marry me. So you have to decide if this is what you want to do.” It was a struggle for me to get to the point that I was okay with it. It wasn’t an easy decision. My dad was a farmer for a while when I was growing up and I have family members who are farmers. It looked like a lot of hard work and not always a lot of pay. You get paid once a year and that’s it. I knew we would probably never move, that we would stay right here. I wanted to travel and see the world. In fact, even though I’d grown up in Alberta, I’d never stayed in the same place more than six years while I was growing up. But I decided I just had to choose to be happy. Wherever you are, you just have to choose to be happy. An Aerial View of the Ranch It was a challenge at first. But it’s a beautiful place that we live in. We have a beautiful view of the mountains. I told him I’d marry him for his view! It’s a beautiful place to raise your children. We have wonderful, wide-open spaces. We have a hill that we go hiking on. It’s a beautiful place to be. And your children learn how to work in this kind of life. Our kids are getting old enough now that they can work on the ranch and help with cows. We work together as a family, which is a great thing. Tell me about your family. I’ve got five children. Damon is thirteen. Lindy is eleven. Rachel is ten. Coulson is seven; he’s excited because he’s getting baptized in June. Tyler is four; he stays with me at home. A lot of our time is spent with family. Our kids are close in age, so they have basically always played with each other. We enjoy having game nights together. They just discovered Risk. Friends are starting to be a little more important to them as they’re starting to be in middle school. What is your everyday work like on the farm? When we were dating, I knew it was true love because I used to come out to the ranch and ride the tractor so I could be with Jeff. I haven’t ridden it much since. When you have five little kids it’s a full-time job for sure! Now that the kids are getting older, they’re getting busy. I have to run them to all their activities in town, which is important. The last few years my kids have been big enough to babysit, so I’ve helped on the tractor once in a while. I thought I’d never do that. But sometimes being out on the tractor is easier than being back at home! Right now we’re heading into calving season. That’s the really busy season for my husband especially. He has to check the cows every couple of hours to see if any of the cows need help having their babies. Lots of ranches have hired hands, but we don’t, so he does the checks all night long. It’s fun to see all the new baby calves, but it’s a challenging time because he’s sleep-deprived. I haven’t been much help because I’ve been busy having babies all these years. During calving season? Actually, yes. I have a whole bunch of spring babies. I only had one in December and that was heavenly because my husband could actually help me a little bit more than with the others. Do you have extended family nearby? My parents and grandparents live in Glenwood, about 35 minutes away from us. It is nice to have them close. When my husband was graduating college—he has a degree in zoology—his grandfather died so his family asked him if he would like to run the ranch here. So he came to run the ranch and lived with his grandmother. When we got married, she gave us her home and moved to town, to Cardston. She’s been a big part of our lives for a long time. When I was a young mom she babysat my kids for me while I did errands. Her home is like our home away from home in town. She was a librarian for a lot of years, and she read books to kids, so everywhere you go in Cardston, when you say Mrs. Bectell, everyone says, “Oh! I remember when she read to us at school! She was wonderful!” Elizabeth Bectell and Her Children My husband’s family has deep roots here. His great-grandparents ran this ranch, but they died in the flu epidemic of 1919. Their son, my husband’s grandfather, was three years old when he was orphaned. He was taken in by relatives, but he later came back and took over the ranch. So the ranch was always very dear to Jeff’s grandfather because it was his tie with his parents he barely knew. My husband spent summers here as a child, so he learned to love the ranch. It was his home base and he loved it. Wow! Your husband’s connections to the place are very deep. How have you made yourself a part of that community? We have a Parent Link Center in our community with free programs to help with parenting. For example, they have a program called “Stay and Play,” where you can bring your child and meet other parents and play with your children and get parenting tips. I have a degree in Speech Language Pathology from BYU, and I’ve done some speech and language activities for the Parent Link Center. Right now I’m doing story time at the library. I do the “Tales for Tots” program twice a year for six weeks. It’s really fun to get to read stories and do crafts and snacks with the kids. It’s not exactly in my field but it gives me an opportunity to be involved in the community. Helping out at the school has helped me be involved. And of course our ward family has been important. A friend and I decided that we wanted to use our minds more and discuss literature, so we started a Relief Society book club almost six years ago. It’s now opened up to not just our ward. That’s been a great thing. We have women in their eighties and women in their twenties and everything between. That’s been a great way to connect as well. Our “Run Like a Mother” group is another way I’ve connected with the community. A bunch of women meet at the swimming pool parking lot Saturday mornings and go for a run. We just did a moonlight 10K race together. Can you run on the ranch during the week? We have gravel roads, but lately we’ve had grizzlies on our land, so it’s a little more nerve-racking. Grizzly bears?! Yes. I used to take the kids for walks all the time, but now it’s a little bit more worrisome. We actually were out playing and walking around in the willow trees in our field one day in spring, and the kids were going to run up the hill when we saw a bear under a tree looking at us. We called, “Come back to the truck!” but the bear just kind of ambled off. It was scary, but it helped me see the bear wasn’t going to attack me right off. I still get a little bit worried about running on the ranch, but I do it anyway. My husband actually has a second job with the Carnivore Working Group to deal with the bear issues. So the bears have given us more income, but you can’t be as carefree sending the kids out to play. Besides our community in Cardston, we have the community here where we live. It’s called Carway, after the Carway border crossing. The people on the ranches in Carway get together every year and brand cattle. That has been a great thing for our rural community. Every spring we take turns going to each other’s ranches and working the cows together. First they have a roundup. They go out on horses or quads and round all the cows up into a corral. Then they get on horses and rope the calves and brand them and give them their vaccination shots, and then they let them go. Different people do different jobs. We have ropers. My husband wrestles the calves and holds them down. They work the cattle in the morning and then we all gather in the farmhouse and have a big branding dinner together before they go out and finish with the cattle. Some women help with the cattle and other ranch wives will come in and help put on the big meal for everyone. We all help each other. That has been a great way for our community to be together. Their Beautiful View Where do the kids go? They help out! My older son is starting to learn to wrestle the calves, so that’s pretty cool. When they’re younger they’ll watch the gate to make sure the cows don’t get out when they’re not supposed to. And the kids like to sit in the back of the truck and drink pop all afternoon. That’s a fun time of year because all the neighboring ranches just work together. Sometimes you’re so busy that you don’t get together much until branding time but then you can renew your friendships. It’s great. Tell me about the family you grew up with. I grew up in what you might call a blended family. When I was five and my older brother was nine, my parents adopted two children, a sister two months younger than me and a brother one year younger than me. When I was seven they adopted another little sister. There were challenges to it. For example, I had been the baby of the family and got kicked out of that role. And trying to make a new family was challenging, just like it is for any blended family. It was challenging to blend our backgrounds to my siblings’ backgrounds. They’d had a difficult time in their previous childhood, so some of the issues and challenges that they had faced affected our whole family. And of course they had to fit in with strangers, which had to have been hard for them. But it was fun, too. My new sister, who was just two months younger than me, gave me a built-in playmate. I came to realize the importance of social work because of our adoptions, so when I first went down to [Ricks] college, I was planning to become a social worker. But slowly I realized that, much as I admired what social workers do, I didn’t have to shape my entire life around what had been important to my family as I grew up. I could find peace for myself in my own thing. I could make choices. I still wanted to help people even though I didn’t want to be a social worker, so I studied communication disorders at Ricks and got a degree from BYU in speech language pathology. You served a mission after college. How did you decide to do that? I was going to graduate and I was trying to decide whether to get a master’s degree or what to do. It was a real confusing time for me. Back then I was always worried about what was coming next. I was all stressed. I remember thinking about going on a mission and feeling really peaceful about it, so I decided that’s what I was going to do. You served in the Salt Lake City Temple Square Mission. What were some of the important experiences you had on your mission? The Missionary Training Center was wonderful. I thought every member of the Church should go to the MTC just to immerse themselves in the scriptures and learn about the gospel. I loved that. After the MTC, though, I had to face my fears and weaknesses and just keep going forward. What were your fears? I had to be out in front of a group, speaking and putting myself out there. That was scary. Sometimes people just wanted to be tourists and didn’t want to hear about the gospel, and I didn’t want to offend those people. I had to get over that fear of offending them to share the gospel. I got better at it as I went along. When I was a missionary, the sisters assigned to Temple Square would be assigned to a different mission in the United States for four months near the end of their mission. That gave us more opportunity to teach people and to maybe see people join the Church. I was assigned to California. Seeing people baptized was amazing, seeing the joy on their faces, and feeling their joy in coming into the gospel. Elizabeth Bectell and Her Family On Temple Square, I was amazed at the stories of the sisters from all over the world and how they had sacrificed to join the Church. Lots of them were converts. That was a great experience, to meet sisters from all over the world and to work with them and to learn to accept and appreciate other cultures. You mentioned that when you were younger you always worried about what was coming next but that now you don’t. How did you change that about yourself? I think it’s a matter of being grateful and trusting that Heavenly Father knows who I am and what I need. His ways are always perfect. He’s sent people to my life or given me opportunities to grow or learn when I’ve needed them. For example, when I’ve felt I need to do something with my mind, He’s sent me job opportunities, like the Parent Link Center and the library story time. Trusting Him means being willing to be in the moment. When I was a kid I thought, “I’ll be happy when I’m sixteen and can date.” When I was a young mom I thought, “It’s so difficult!” But as my kids get older, I’m learning to just love the stage that I’m in. I hope I can teach my kids that you don’t always need to be looking forward. It’s good to have a vision of what you want, but there’s value in just being happy with where you are. It’s a much happier place to be than always worrying and stressing. I’m almost forty, so maybe that’s part of it: I don’t care as much what other people think of me. I’m more grounded with being who I am and being okay with who I am. Are there gospel practices that particularly nourish you? I’ve kept a journal for a long time, but a few years ago I started using a scripture journal. In the past, my journals had always been, “Oh, sorry I didn’t write,” or “Oh, I forgot to write.” But I decided I’m just going to be okay with whatever I choose to write at whatever time. My scripture journal is in a coil notebook because it’s easy to write in and nothing fancy. The summer I started, I would get up before everyone else, and it was so beautiful and so quiet. I would study my scriptures and write my thoughts in my journal. It helped clear my thoughts and helped me to see what answers to prayer I got. What joys have come to you from having the gospel in your life? I always wanted a family where we got along, where we were loyal to each other, where we had a good marriage. The gospel, I think, has helped me do that as my husband and I try our best to have a good marriage. I think that children can feel that peace that comes from making family a priority, and from feeling connected to Heavenly Father. Living gospel principles makes me happy. I know that Heavenly Father knows me and knows what I need at the time that I need it. I’m discovering more and more that the Savior’s Atonement was not just for the redemption of our sins but is to heal us of our sadness and our sickness. I’m learning to lay my burdens at his feet. If I’m feeling jealous, I can say, “I’m going to lay this at your feet because I don’t want to do this anymore,” and that brings peace into my life. That’s a new understanding of the power of the Atonement for me. It makes a huge difference that I don’t have to hang on to things, that I can give them to Him and He will take them from me. At A Glance Name: Elizabeth Bectell Location: Location: Cardston, Alberta, Canada Age: 39 Marital status: Married Children: Children (number and ages): Five (ages 13,12, 10, 8, 4) Occupation: Occupation: Homemaker, Children’s Library Program Storyteller Schools Attended: Schools Attended: Ricks College, Brigham Young University Languages Spoken at Home: English Favorite Hymn: “I Need Thee Every Hour” Interview by Annette Pimentel. Photos by Stephanie Smith Photography.

Marie-Laure Oscarson suggests that “having it all” means something different for everyone. For her—a mother, a university professor, and a convert to the LDS Church—it comes down personal revelation about specific life choices regarding her family, her profession, and her religion. Marie-Laure’s path has included the Catholic faith, French existentialist philosophy, a curiosity about the Amish lifestyle, and the Mormon missionaries who helped rekindle her faith in God’s love. You were raised in France in the Catholic faith and are now an LDS woman living in Utah. How did that transition come about? During my last year of high school in France I had a philosophy teacher who was an atheist. God did not exist for her. She really challenged my beliefs. Although I was raised Catholic, I started reading existentialist authors and found a lot of meaning in their words. It made sense to me. I thought, “Okay, there is no God. I need to fight for my own happiness. I cannot count on some supernatural power to make me happy; I need to do it on my own.” I was reading all of these books and was not hanging out with my friends anymore. It got so bad that my dad called my friends on the phone and ask, “Can you get Marie-Laure out of her room? She’s with her books again.” So my friends would come over and ask, “What’s going on?” And I would say, “We are all dying! Do you realize that we’re dying?!” I had this really clear sense that life was coming to an end, and that I had to figure it all out. It was an intense and very lonely time in my life. My questions burned inside of me, and I had to find answers. I felt really sad as I would think, “Wow, I’m by myself. I am on my own.” I really missed communion with God and the Spirit, although I couldn’t quite articulate it at the time. Marie-Laure Oscarson After I finished my high school degree, I went to a college in France for one year and then decided I wanted to improve my English, so I chose to go abroad to America to live as a nanny. I ended up in Philadelphia, and nannied for a family with two little kids. While living in Philadelphia, I started attending the Catholic Church again to see if I could find what I was searching for. This congregation spoke in tongues and was very different from my low-key experience with the Catholic Church in France. One day, while I was at home, the missionaries knocked on the door. They scared me a little bit because I thought they were going to push their religion on me and behave as intensely as the Catholics down the street. I thought, “Oh no, I don’t need more of this.” I told the missionaries that I was not interested and sent them away. During this time, I became interested in the Amish who lived in the area, and I thought their lifestyle and devotion were fascinating. The other nannies and I attended a Fourth of July celebration, and as we were watching the fireworks, I noticed a large group of young people wearing suits and dresses. These were the Mormon missionaries, but I thought they were a group of Amish youth. I really wanted to know about the glue that bound them together. I didn’t spend any time with the members of my Catholic congregation outside of church so this group of religious young people was interesting to me. I went over and started talking to them. One of the burning questions I asked was, “What, for you, is the purpose of life?” After talking for a bit, I realized that these were not the Amish people but the Mormon missionaries! The other nannies discouraged me, saying, “Don’t talk to the missionaries. All they talk about is the Bible.” I said, “I have questions. These are people who know about their faith.” So, the elders started teaching me in the library, and I felt the Spirit very strongly when I was with them. They would teach me the gospel, and I would feel so good. After I would return home, that feeling was gone. I shared my concerns with the missionaries. They gave me the Book of Mormon and said, “You’ve got to read.” My doubts lessened when I read the Book of Mormon. As I read, the book became my best companion. I read, and I cried. For the first time in my life I felt the deeper connection that I had been searching for. It got to the point where I could not depart from the Book of Mormon, and I would sleep with it right next to my pillow. It was a safety blanket for me–it was the law, the safety, the peace, the truth, and the light that I had been looking for. I could feel power in its pages. It was wonderful. My doubts also lessened when the missionaries taught me how to offer personal prayers. My Catholic prayers were very meaningful and sincere but they were all recitation. When I prayed personal prayers, the Spirit felt obvious. Right before I decided to get baptized, I knelt down, and I prayed. I was able to recognize the Spirit. It started in my head and moved down into my toes. It felt like a sweet, kind presence that I was missing before. From that point on I thought, “Of course I’m getting baptized. I know these things are true.” I was baptized shortly thereafter. Were there particular doctrines of Mormonism that really resonated with you? One of the things that resonated the most for me was the doctrine of eternal marriage. Up to that point, I had lost faith in marriage. My parents’ marriage went through many ups and downs. They stayed together, but I really questioned their decision to stay together after a point. Growing up, I idealized the relationship between Jean-Paul Sartre–the big existentialist philosopher–and Simone de Beauvoir, who was a great feminist in France. Sartre had his apartment in Paris. De Beauvoir had her apartment in Paris. They never got married. They never wanted children. They were a couple but they had their separate lives, too. That was my ideal: I would have my career. I would have my life. My significant other would have his own apartment and his own life, and we would meet up to eat together. When the missionaries taught me about celestial, eternal marriage, it was like a dream come true. All of the sudden, I realized that this type of marriage was right and true. I developed faith in a kind of marriage that can be wholesome and healthy and beautiful. Marie-Laure Oscarson and Her Husband How did your family respond to your conversion? My conversion to Mormonism was very difficult for my family as they were devout Catholics. I was baptized in Philadelphia, and they had a hard time with the fact that I had made this decision while I was so far away. I wrote to them, and we talked on the phone. My mom said, “You know you are an adult. It’s your choice. But watch out.” She was a little bit concerned as she had heard about polygamy. I tried to reassure her. Shortly after I was baptized, I returned to France. While I was home, my mom tried really hard to get me back into the Catholic Church. My grandmother was devastated because I was not participating in our cultural traditions like drinking a glass of good wine at dinner. My dad had these old bottles of wine that he had inherited from his father. They were still covered in dust when he placed them on the dinner table to show their age. I would not drink this wine, and my grandma said, “What is going on with you?” It was a little shocking to them. I knew so deeply that I was doing the right thing that I was fine with their reactions. I prayed often that they would accept my choices, and eventually they did. Their feelings have really evolved. What brought you back to America to stay? I lived in France for a year after my baptism, and then felt this burning desire to go on a mission. I felt godly, divine intervention encouraging me to serve. I was called to England, and the first question my mission president asked me was, “What are your plans after the mission? Have you ever thought about Brigham Young University?” Although I planned on living in London after my mission, he planted the idea of BYU into my mind. I ended up changing my plans and moving to Provo to attend BYU after my mission. Marie-Laure Oscarson and Her Family While I was a graduate student at BYU, I taught French at the MTC and then got a job in BYU’s French department teaching beginning French language classes. One day during class, this tall, blue-eyed, blond student showed up, and my goodness, I could not help but notice him. Because I was teaching this class and he was a student, I couldn’t go out with him! The following semester when he was no longer in my class, we happened to find ourselves in the same seminar, this time both as students. He asked me out and we started dating. We didn’t date long before we got married, but we’ve been together for 14 years and have four children. Do you have any plans to move back to France with your family? Not in the near future. My husband currently works at BYU as a Humanities professor, and I am a part-time adjunct professor in the university’s French department. We try to take the family back to France every two years. Although some part of me hopes there will be another adventure in the future, raising children here in Utah has been perfect. I like that it feels safe. I love that we’re such a strong-knit community. I love that my children have many friends. I love that we are so close to nature and that we can experience it with the children. I love that we can easily go hiking or snowshoeing with them. You live in a community that advocates traditional roles for women. Have you felt support from your peers as a woman and mother who works outside of the home? In the culture I’m from, most women and mothers work outside of the home. Everything in French society is structured to support women’s professional lives. For example, day care is readily available for working mothers. My mom worked, and I was brought up with the expectation that all women work. People in my immediate community here are great about this. There are several moms like me who have one foot in the working world. My colleagues have been great. They know my family situation, and some of them have been so helpful. I’ve never felt criticized or been accused of being a bad mother. My husband and I have had to learn to juggle our schedules. Overall, though, I think my job has helped me become a better mother. Marie-Laure Oscarson The home can be a very difficult environment–it’s a lot of menial tasks mixed with wonderful connections and relationships. I did not know what motherhood would be like when I got married. When I had my first child, we were living in Berkeley. I was not working the semester my first child was born and my husband was really busy completing his PhD. I remember the first month of motherhood really well. As much as I loved this little baby and did not want anyone else to take care of him, I cried a lot. I wondered, “Who am I? Where am I? What am I doing? Who have I become?” All of the daily tasks were very menial and repetitive. The sleep deprivation was difficult. I’m glad I had that space to really crash with my baby and then survive together and grow to enjoy those moments with him. Now that my babies have grown and become a bit more independent from me, I like to be in the workplace engaging in other ways with people. It has also been good for me to step out of the house and get my mind in a book once in awhile. As a mother I feel like so many people need my attention at once, and it’s so busy. It’s been really healthy for me to ground myself in thought and study instead of doing, doing, doing all of the time. Do you have any advice that you could give to young women who want to balance work and motherhood? I could not do it without my husband. Having a husband who is wonderfully involved with the children is important. My husband knows how to take care of the kids and how to deal with the house. When he comes home from work he steps into this family universe, and he does wonders. Having his support is of primary importance. The second important factor for me is having a job that brings a lot of joy. My job has fed my mind and helped me build relationships with my students. I can’t say that I’m juggling it all perfectly, though. Sometimes it’s not very graceful. Sometimes my kids see that I have too much work and that I’m stressed out. I try to apologize to my kids when that happens. Do you think women living in America can have it all–career, family, social life, etcetera? I asked my friend this week, “Can I have it all?” and she said, “You can have it all, but not the way the world sees ‘having it all’.” I think it is a very personal path. My version of “have it all” is very specific to my family and to my profession. I know that spiritual revelation will guide me through difficult decisions. I have felt God talking to me, leading me, and guiding me. This gives me a lot of courage and determination. The peace and love that I feel testify that God lives; even when doubt creeps in, I can turn to prayer and feel that knowledge of His love again. Faith in God’s love is what anchors me in this life as I continue to make family and career decisions. Marie-Laure Oscarson I went to my mission president’s funeral a few years ago, and Elder Jeffrey R. Holland was there. During his address, he said that when we leave this life, we take three things with us: Our covenants with God, our relationships, and our character. As I go through life and repent of my attitudes or mistakes, I remember what Elder Holland said. I remember that I’m taking with me my covenants and the goodness that God has given me. When my kids are hugging me and pouring their love upon me, or when I feel so much love for my children and for my husband, I remember that this is eternal. No one can take this from me. This knowledge really gives me a foundation; it gives me roots even though I am thousands of miles from where I was born and raised. I am very grateful for this. I know that with God, all good things take place. At A Glance Name: Marie-Laure Oscarson Location: Provo, UT Age: 44 Marital status: Married Children: Four (ages 13, 10, 8, 4) Occupation: Adjunct faculty at Brigham Young University Baptism: September 1988 Schools Attended: BYU Languages Spoken at Home: French and English Favorite Hymn: ““Souviens-toi” (in French hymn book) Interview by Krisanne Hastings.

As the co-author with her husband of the highly popular book, “The God Who Weeps,” Fiona Givens has thought deeply about the character of God and her responsibility to search out that true character in the scriptures. In this interview, she shares her personal reflections on how she searches for God’s true character, how her Catholic background has aided in her understanding of Christ’s importance, and how she passes that sacred knowledge to her children. How do you define theology? When we say the word to members of the Church, it can mean either one of two things: either something that has come down from Joseph Smith or other prophets completely codified; or, there’s the other strain in Mormon thought which is that we have an open canon and we should think broadly about what our theology is. So what is it to you? I define it as a sustained reflection on the divine. In Mormon terms, that would be having your heart constantly drawn out to the Lord, looking for the divine everywhere, finding footprints, imprints… Believing that everything truly testifies of Christ. I think it’s our responsibility as individual members of the Church, particularly women, to reflect upon the divine. I think my background is important here. I was raised Catholic and I love that faith tradition. But the reason I became Mormon is that I felt that my faith tradition completely obscured Christ. He was concealed by a myriad of saints and particularly by His mother who had replaced Him as the mediator with God. He had essentially lost His position as our Intercessor with the Father and I felt that Mormonism put Christ front and center. Keeping Christ in this position, however, is always a battle; I’ve been a member of this Church long enough to know that keeping Christ central in any faith tradition is going to be difficult. I think the tendency towards idolatry is universal and it is tempting to displace God with other figures we find more accessible, easier to relate to, or heroes of our own fashioning. But it behooves us to keep Him central to our worship because He is the way back to our Father in Heaven. I really love the admonition that we have to search the scriptures because I do agree with Joseph that many of the plain and precious things have been taken out, but I also agree with Edward Beecher [brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe] that many things have been put in there that are actually malevolent. Searching the scriptures is where I focus my energies; I am trying to do what Joseph asked us to do which is to find God’s correct character and attributes, because, as he said, it is only in knowing the character and attributes of God that we can exercise faith unto salvation. That’s huge for me. The canon is where we go to learn of God. Joseph is implying, that because incorrect characteristics and attributes have been placed there, we need to “search” through the scriptures to find those attributes that are actually God’s. Theology, in this sense, is, therefore, rigorous, requiring great personal investment but the rewards are marvelous, paradigm shifting moments of clarity and splendor. I particularly love Revelation 12. You have this beautiful image of a woman with the stars and the moon… a gorgeous vision of this woman. She’s pregnant, she delivers her child… the child is caught up into heaven and then she is left to confront the dragon. We know the dragon is Lucifer because the scripture informs us that he took a third of the host of heaven with him. So you have this woman, who has just been delivered of her child, and she’s confronting Satan on her own. There is no way that she can withstand the assault. Verse 6 is the pivotal scripture and on that particular day when I read it, my whole universe was illuminated by joy and my Weltanschauung was forever altered. It was pretty much like James 1:5 was for Joseph; it took my breath away: “And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.” We read that she flees into the wilderness – what we call the apostasy – where she is fed of God. The church is not destroyed, it does not utterly disappear. It retreats underground, where the Spirit nourishes it. That was so overwhelming to me: how does God nourish a church in the apostasy? How does He nourish a church that no longer has priesthood keys and ordinances? Well, He sends her the greatest philosophers, poets, writers, composers and thinkers of all time. God doesn’t create ex nihilo; one can’t restore something that isn’t already there; the building blocks for the Restoration were always there. I mean, that’s just awesome. For me, that was the beginning of a serious theological study of Joseph’s magnanimous mind. Joseph once said: “If the Presbyterians have truth, embrace that. If the Methodists, have truth embrace that too. Get all the good in the world if you want to come out a pure Mormon”. Truth and beauty were never taken from the world and Joseph saw the Restoration as exactly this: “the beginning of the rising up and the coming forth of my church out of the wilderness—clear as the moon, and fair as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners” (D&C 5:14). Isn’t that revolutionary? It completely changes our view of what the apostasy was. It was a garden in which goodness, beauty and truth were nourished until they were ready to come forth to be reunited with Priesthood keys and ordinances now restored. That’s part of my understanding of theology: to go truth-hunting. We can find truth everywhere. We will also find it mixed in with a lot of untruth. I think it’s important for us to realize that the fruit of knowledge of good and evil was on the same tree and not in different orchards. We will find truth oftentimes in very dark places. I think it was Brigham Young who said we should be prepared to go to hell to find truth if necessary. It is a wonderful, expansive injunction given us by Joseph and Brigham–go out and bring truth home—to our church—to our lives. Fiona Givens When you say you studied Revelation and searched for things both left out and malevolently put in, what sort of tools did you use? There is a beautiful scripture in the Doctrine and Covenants which encourages us to seek wisdom out of “the best books.” My education has not only brought into my life a number of best books but it has also taught me to apply the tool of close, textual reading with which to examine them. This is the same tool I use when searching the scriptures. I have found, through years of intense study, truths in these great books that have resonated with me as has truth in the scriptures. In fact, I find the same truths articulated in the best books but often more eloquently and profoundly. My scripture study on its own would be a barren enterprise were it not for the spiritually insightful and gifted writers who have come into my life and whose thoughts, ideas and expressions I treasure. For example, had it not been for Victor Hugo’s “Les Misérables,” and his emphasis on a kind, merciful, benevolent and tender God, I may not have found the vulnerable God depicted in Moses 7. I believe that this God has suffered great injustice at the hands of the writers of the Old Testament, who have successfully portrayed Him as angry—genocidal even. But I believe with all my heart and mind that Julian of Norwich speaks truth when she says that she saw God and: “I saw verily that oure Lorde was nevyr wroth [angry] nor nevyr shall. For he is God, he is good, he is truth, he is love, he is pees [peace], and hys might, hys wisdom, hys charyte [charity]…sufferythg hym nott to be wroth [does not allow him to be angry]” (The Showings of Julian of Norwich, edited by Denise N. Baker, 64, parentheticals mine). If one looks hard enough, one can find Hugo’s and Julian’s God in the Old Testament. Beneath the blood and smoke of Canaan runs the leitmotif that God’s hand is stretched out still. He set His heart upon us and He stays true to the covenant He made to love us always and to guide our stumbling steps, by His love that passeth all understanding, back to Him. When you were discovering these truths through your close reading and the help of the spirit, how did you distinguish between something that is not necessarily available to be elaborated on, and those things that you can be free to expostulate upon? For instance, there are discussions today about identifying core doctrine and distinguishing it from things that we’ve just built cultural barriers around. How do you in your own life negotiate those points between core doctrine and identifying the fences that have been built up around that core doctrine? As Mormons, we sometimes consider ourselves to be part of a tribe. I don’t consider myself to be part of a tribe, perhaps because I didn’t grow up Mormon in the Western United States. And I value that. To me the label “tribe” is so confining and restricting—a small group of people to whom everyone else is “the other”–separate. The Gospel message, as I understand it, is universal in its application and appeal alike. While I have lived in the US for over 30 years, it is my early years growing up in East Africa, growing up Catholic and being educated in England that have informed the way I interact with Mormonism and the world in general. And my love of my heritage and my membership in the Gospel of Jesus Christ have given me an interesting perspective—you could call it a wall on which to sit–from which I can look into American Mormonism and its culture on one side and into the rest of the world on the other. Unfortunately, in my opinion,–perhaps as a result of this “tribal” perspective, Mormons have meshed things cultural with things doctrinal. So much so, that it is now difficult to extricate the doctrine, which is valuable from the cultural, which is not, at least not to anyone outside the culture (the tribe). However, I think it is essential that we separate the two because the core doctrine is universal but the culture is not. Culture, to my mind, makes the core doctrine difficult to access. Joseph gave us enough core doctrine to empower us to explore it. Each person, as he said, should be at liberty to access core doctrine and apply it to her life in whatever culture she lives and loves. But we need to recognize that the one is life-giving, the other is not. I had some wonderful female mentors in the Church when I first joined, incredibly strong women, and I remember hearing them expound doctrine in stake and ward levels. I was impressed by that. There was one woman in particular at a conference I went to who spoke exclusively of Christ. And, perhaps it was the exception to the rule which is why it stood out to me so much, but I decided that I wanted to be that sort of a woman. I wanted to engage in scripture as she had, since it was obvious she had some real scriptural gravitas when it came to an understanding of Christ. The content was something she had gleaned herself; she had pursued this course on her own. I was impressed by that. I remember thinking: This woman has engaged with the scriptures with rigor. I want to do that. I’ve also experienced women who have attempted to love me but found it very difficult because there were cultural things about the Church about which I balked. For instance, I’m not a huge Scouting fan. If my boys wanted to do Scouts, good for them. I supported them and provided them with the materials. But when I passed a sister in the grocery store and she informed me that she was on her last merit badge – meaning that she was self-identifying with her last son’s own Scouting efforts — I was stunned. No, I was not going to do the merit badge thing myself! I remember specifically there was a time when my boys were very little and there was a Cub Scout meeting or something, but they were out in the garden playing ball with their father. And I had a decision to make: Do I break them up, put them in the car and take them to their Cub Scout meeting, or do I leave them in the garden playing ball with their father? Which is most important for my boys? I decided that playing ball with their father was more important. I think that determined my position from there on out. Scouting is not a doctrinal issue but I have been reprimanded by fellow sisters (not priesthood holders, interestingly enough) because I didn’t require my sons to attend. The root of many of my decisions regarding our involvement with Church programs has been this: if anything interfered with family time, it was assessed and if not considered beneficial, it was dropped. I’ve heard sisters stand up in church and say that they promote a church-service orientation in their homes. But then I’ve also heard Brethren counsel the reverse–that the programs are here to support us. In my experience, the two opposing views have been confused—at least at the ward level. I know that I felt vilified, perhaps that’s too strong a word… but I was set apart as someone whose activity and level of righteousness was judged because of my emphasis on the importance of family time. Fiona Givens and Her Husband I think quite honestly that is a decision every parent—indeed, all of us—need to make: what is doctrinal? What is essentially salvific? And there are many activities in which we are engaged as church members that are not. We need to be allowed to choose for ourselves. These sisters who felt it incumbent upon them to lead me back to their particular path would probably be surprised by how intrusive and painful I found their shepherding. What can women do today to take a greater lead in our theological explorations? How have you consumed and digested so much literature while raising six children? Presumably you were reading while you had children at home. What can we as women do today to do a better job of that ourselves? One of the most important things we did as a family and one of the reasons I dropped so many church activities was reading together. For me, that familial dinner followed by reading to my children every night was crucial. It was sacrosanct. I allowed nothing to get in the way of it—well, until they were older and the necessary ferrying began. I introduced my children to phenomenal literature. We read all of C. S. Lewis’ books, we read Beatrix Potter, Tolkien, the Lloyd Alexander books… all out loud. Starting when they were very, very little. We finished the last of the Lord of the Rings trilogy just before my eldest son left on his mission. In fact, I was so busy at the time, that my husband, Terryl took over and my last vision of Nathaniel before he left us was of Terryl reading the final chapters to him over bowls of their favorite ice cream. And of course we read all of the Harry Potter books. We read them in English and in American! My children would follow along in the American version to point out the variances. J.K. Rowling, to my mind, is a prophetess. I just think that woman is brilliant. If you think of the secular age in which so many children are being raised, the ideas of self-sacrifice, of love, of loyalty, of kindness… those are not being taught our children. I think she just gathered them all up and steeped her books in these virtues. The refrain in our house that preceded the hour or two of the reading was: “Mummy, is it Harry Potter time yet?” So they were steeped in literature. I do not remember being read to as a child but I loved to read and read voraciously. That being said, it was very difficult for me to digest anything of real substance myself when my children were young. I was too exhausted. My brain ceased to function once they were tucked in bed. Perhaps that’s why it was so important for me to read to the children. It was the only way I could digest anything myself. But I thought it worked out very well indeed. There were some books I probably would not have read, like the Brian Jacques “Redwall” series and I may very well have missed out on the “Harry Potter” experience had I not my children in mind. A wise woman once reiterated this truth to me: that there are times and seasons and, as women, we should throw ourselves into them with gusto because they don’t last long. No, really, we think that our small-children-time with the constant cleaning and attention and never being able to wear something pretty is never going to end. It does. In the blink of an eye. Now that my children are grown, I find I have much more time to devote to literary exploration. I just finished a thorough study of Julian of Norwich’s Showings and am currently reading Edward Beecher’s Concord of the Ages and Margaret Barker’s two-volume treatise, entitled The Mother of the Lord. I have also finished an in-depth study of Milton’s Paradise Lost, the majesty of which I was unable to fully appreciate as a teenager. My motto is: “If it’s difficult to read, it’s probably worth reading.” That being said I also believe that women must jump on the boat of becoming theologians. We must understand our scriptures. We must understand the sweet doctrines of the Gospel. It is our responsibility to teach ourselves and to teach our children. I felt very strongly that the instruction of my children was my responsibility. As a mother of six precious children, it was given to me to secure the environment of our home. And I felt this as a Divine mandate: I was given this universe that was my home, to create a safe place – a haven – for my children—to protect them from evil—to expose them to the good, the true and the beautiful. That’s why literature played such a huge part. I also screened very carefully what television programs and films we watched as a family. That’s not to say I was orthodox by any means. We viewed what I considered to be beneficial and/or enjoyable for the family. Again, I felt strongly, that securing the family’s well-being was my responsibility, my right, my duty. Our Sunday after-church discussions were very important because Terryl and I could ascertain what the children were being taught in Primary and youth classes and gently correct if needed. It was particularly important for me, as a mother, to be really aware of the scriptures and have a familiar feel and knowledge of them so when my children said, “My teacher taught me this,” I could support it or correct it. My husband’s knowledge of the scriptural record is phenomenal but I, too, felt the weight of that responsibility to teach and to redirect. Both Terryl and felt it our sacred duty as parents to ensure that our children were learning correct doctrine. That is not to say that I think our knowledge is impervious to error. We do the best with what we have and the limiting paradigms in which we swim. An example is the Word of Wisdom. It seems like an innocuous thing. But when my daughter said to me, “Our friend is a bad person because he’s smoking,” I realized that I had to correct her false notion. We had a quick discussion about how smoking is not a thing that makes people bad. It is injurious to one’s health, yes, but our friend is not a bad person for smoking. On the other hand, if we smoked we would be violating a covenant that we’ve made to keep the Word of Wisdom, and we would be responsible for that violation. It was my sacred responsibility to make sure my children were learning correct doctrine in every setting. It sounds like you feel motherhood is a rich opportunity for LDS women to explore and expand theology. Yes and no. Motherhood offers a rich opportunity but then do all the other stages of a woman’s life—teenagehood, singlehood, widowhood and all the other “hoods” in between. It still behooves all women in the Church to be theologians. At one point or another we find ourselves in teaching callings. In fact, most of the callings we will be requested to engage involve instruction on one level or another—Primary, Sunday school, Young Women, Relief Society. We find ourselves in educational roles in and outside of the home, in and outside the Church. Education takes on myriad forms. We educate in the way we interact with our superiors at work, with our colleagues, with those lower down the work-place rung. For all these reasons—as well as for our own, personal edification, we need to be invested in exploring our doctrine and our scriptures. As I mentioned before I have also been uplifted and edified by the non-canonical books I have read and continue to discover. Margaret Barker has encouraged my search of the Feminine Divine through her own work on the subject. Talk about a treasure hunt! The discussion of Wisdom in Proverbs is very provocative, for example. Wisdom is personified as a “she” and then we have this magical shift where the “she” becomes “I”. And she speaks: “I was in the beginning…” And it’s so reminiscent of the language in John 1. Then, there’s the whole reevaluation of the role of Eve. In our faith tradition she is depicted as the great heroine of the human family. It was her courage and initiative that moved humanity forward in their progress to return to the Father. In our faith tradition her initiative is celebrated and she is venerated as the Mother of humanity. She is not easily co-opted into a nefarious scheme. She weighs the advantages and disadvantages of eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and she chooses. On her choosing God makes this pronouncement: “they have become as one of us.” With her elevation to the role of heroine and champion of the human race, all women are likewise elevated. It is wonderfully liberating and empowering. This alone would make me proud to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But there is so much besides! What does it mean to you to have a female eternal identity? I feel empowered by my female eternal identity. This is influenced heavily by our belief in a Heavenly Mother. That resonates with me. Really, can one have a Heavenly Father and a Heavenly Son without a Heavenly Mother? I have always had a very good sense of self anyway; it may have had to do with the fact that I was educated in an all-female environment. I came out of that whole educative experience with a very strong sense of the strength of my identity as a woman. I also come from a historical and religious tradition of strong women leaders from Queen Boudicea to Mother Teresa. So, coming into the LDS faith tradition and then meeting Heavenly Mother was confirmation of everything I already felt. I would actually say that my background engendered in me a feeling of superiority rather than equality. I think this is why Eve resonates so strongly with me as does Adam’s portrayal of her in Milton’s Paradise Lost. For us school girls, young men proved to be invaluable dance partners and, if they added something intelligible to the conversation, that was always a plus. Which is probably why I’ve never fallen for the myth of infallible leaders either. I think it’s a very dangerous undertaking for us to airbrush our prophets and Priesthood leaders. Brigham Young himself said, “I am more afraid that this people have so much confidence in their leaders that they will not inquire for themselves of God whether they are led by him. I am fearful they settle down in a state of blind self-security. Let every man and woman know, by the whispering of the Spirit of God to themselves, whether their leaders are walking in the path the Lord dictates, or not.” That’s extraordinary. I start to worry when I see us putting others’ faces up on our walls in lieu of the Lord. It’s interesting to me that you have all this confidence as a woman and you love the feminine divine, and yet it was the over-importance of Mary in the Catholic faith that alerted you to that faith’s shortcomings. The religion that did put a woman in the forefront was actually suspect exactly because of that. It shows me that putting Christ in the forefront is actually a gender-neutral solution to focusing on those things that are most important. Absolutely. As a school girl, my historical and literary interests were, to a great extent, centered on the First World War. Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon have been two of the most influential poets in my life with their stark depictions of war. When “the flower” of Europe was being mowed down to whom were these young men crying in their death agony? It wasn’t their fathers. It was their mothers. We have, with the feminine, this idea of self-sacrifice and mercy and love and all of those beautiful attributes which Christ himself epitomizes. He is the one to whom both men and women can go for solace and understanding. However, I also think it is very interesting that He is mostly surrounded by women and that it to a woman He first appears when He is resurrected. I find Christ’s focus on women particularly empowering. The road to Golgotha, the gospels note, are lined primarily by women. It is that vulnerability in Christ to which we are particularly attuned as women. We, more than men, perhaps, understand what it is like to be vulnerable. And while men also can appreciate His vulnerability—Edward Beecher and Dietrich Bonhoeffer are excellent examples—it is women who recognize the Divine vulnerability for the salvific power that it is. I am reminded of Charles Dickens’ powerfully moving portrayal of Nancy in Oliver Twist. Christ’s entire life is an act of vulnerability, from His birth to His death, and for me as a woman that resonates very strongly. Is there anything else you’d like to share? I feel that women in the scriptures are there to prove that the Lord doesn’t work in any set pattern. And because they defy pattern-making, they are the evidence that the Lord reaches out to those you least expect. As soon as we limit ourselves to a specific kind of revelatory reception, we fail to see God in our lives. I think the women of the scriptures prove that God breaks patterns! It’s as though He’s saying: Don’t fall into a pattern because you will lose sight of me. If everything testifies of Christ, we need to be able to see His Presence reflected in myriad ways. Whenever we become too comfortable in our paradigms, that is the time for a shift. The Lord wants us to look for Him in the chaos and disorder that is often our life experience. It is then the revelation comes and we experience that we are loved by Someone whose vulnerable beauty draws us to Him with an infinite and loving power. It is then we see God’s gentle face all around us, “lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his…” (Gerard Manley Hopkins) At A Glance Name: Fiona Givens Location: Richmond, VA Age: 55 Marital status: Married to Terryl Givens Children: Six: 32,30, 28, 26, 24, 20 Occupation: Independent scholar, co-author of “The God Who Weeps” Schools Attended: University of Richmond—BA in German and French, MA in EuropeanHistory Favorite Hymn: “God Is Love” arranged for women Interview by Neylan McBaine.

As a young wife and mother, Maria miraculously obtained a visa to leave Mexico and join her husband in the United States. However, the visa eventually expired and Maria lived for many years as an undocumented worker, trying to keep her family together and make a living for her children. Maria has now obtained a visa and is working towards her GED, while sending her children to college and serving as Primary president in her ward. Where did you grow up? In Mexico, in the state of Guanajuato, in a beautiful city called Acambaro. It’s an ancient city, and it’s very beautiful. Acambaro is famous for its bread. They make really delicious bread there. How many kids were in your family growing up? There were nine of us kids in total — seven girls and two boys. But three of my siblings died as newborn babies. I only remember the youngest baby that died. My mother’s last pregnancy was twins, and the boy twin died in infancy. The girl twin lived and is grown and married now. Have you always been a member of the LDS Church? I was baptized when I was just a little girl, when I was eight years old. My parents were converts to the LDS Church. When my father was younger, he had been studying to be a priest in the Catholic Church, so I come from a very religious heritage. My parents, my grandparents, everyone was Catholic before. They always liked religious things. My parents were introduced to the Mormon Church when I was a little girl. So we were all baptized when we were young. We grew up inside the church. How involved were you with the church when you were growing up in Mexico? You could say that I had my moments of rebellion like any other teenager. I can’t say I was always perfect. But I went through the primary program and then the Young Women program. I loved the church; I always knew it was a good place to be. Of course, there were times when the classes bored me. So I’d leave class, and my dad would come to find me in the hallways, and tell me to go to class. My family, particularly my father, was very strict about religious matters. My father enforced Sunday as a day of rest. As many youth experience, I didn’t like all the rules and always having to go to church. It became monotonous for me. And I saw the other teenage girls getting all fixed up on Sundays to go out to the parks and to walk around town, and here I was, locked up in my house on Sundays, just watching all the other girls through my little window. I remember it was very difficult for me. We read scriptures together every day as a family. My father also made sure we had Family Home Evening every Monday night. With so many kids, sometimes we ended up fighting and debating each other. A funny memory I have about Family Home Evening–you have to understand that my father was very strict with us girls. One of the rules was that he didn’t like to let us go out very much to hang out with our friends or walk around town. But I knew that when we held our family council together during Family Home Evening, I could ask him for permission to do things, and because it was family council he would be more likely to give me permission to do what I wanted. So I would save up my requests to go out and do things with my friends for when we had our family council. And if I asked him then, my dad would always say yes. Did you attend seminary? All my brothers and sisters and I attended seminary. We got up at 5:00 am and went to the chapel. The seminary teacher was really nice and would meet us there with a lesson and with a small breakfast–hot tea and cookies. Every day! And from seminary we would go straight to school. It’s different there in Mexico than it is here–the churches aren’t so far away from the schools. So it was easy for us, as we didn’t have to drive long distances to go to seminary. There were usually about fifteen to twenty youth in each seminary class. When did you gain your testimony of the gospel? As I went along, I grew up, and started my independent life as an adult woman. I began to think about the church, and whether I had a real testimony or not. When I met the young man who would become my husband, he wasn’t a member of the church, but I taught him about the church. He eventually accepted the church, was converted, and he even went on a mission. I made that a prerequisite to marrying me–that he had to go on a mission. He served a full-time mission for two years in Puebla, Mexico. Maria de Jesus Cristina But I feel that I gained my real testimony of the church later in life. When I arrived in the U.S., I was a young mom, and I didn’t know how to get to church. I didn’t know where it was located, I didn’t know how to drive, and I didn’t know anyone. So I began to grow apart from the church, and that had never happened before in my life. But I began to miss the church, and I began to really need the messages and teachings of the church. I didn’t want to go to church just out of habit, or because it was what my parents had always done. I wanted to do it for me, and for the right reasons. But I didn’t know if I could say I had a testimony of the church. So I prayed to God for a testimony. I always had lots of faith in God since I was a child. I always knew I wasn’t alone. I knew God was always going to answer my prayers. So I began to pray again. I began to ask whether the church was really true, if it was what I really needed in my life. But God didn’t answer me at that time. Even though I hadn’t received an answer, I started going back to church again anyway. Members would pick me and give me a ride, and I just kept going to church, to see if I could get an answer. But I hadn’t resolved my anxiety about whether the church was true or not. So did the answer ever come? One time I was invited by some ward members to go on a trip to Nauvoo. I wasn’t very prepared for this trip, but I went anyway. Many members went together on this trip in large vans. I remember that it was raining, and it was very cold. We went to visit Nauvoo, and the other church history sites. We went to the jail where Joseph Smith was held prisoner, and it was there that I gained my real testimony of the church. When I entered into that jail I felt something strong–something beautiful. There was a tape recording with the voices of Joseph Smith and Hyrum, and while it was playing I felt a warmth inside of me. It was so strong! I began to cry, and I couldn’t stop. And I knew, I really knew, from that moment, that it was real. That God really can talk to us, that nothing is impossible, and that we can receive revelation. The Spirit testified to me that it was true, and that everything Joseph went through to give us the church, to give us the Book of Mormon, that all of this was real. It was so real. This is how I received my testimony. Why did you decide to come to the United States? I came to the U.S. because my husband came here. When we first got married, he went up to the U.S. to work for a few months. When our first daughter was born, I was actually alone, because he was in the U.S. working to earn money for our family. There weren’t a lot of jobs in our town so he didn’t have many options. My daughter was several months old before she met her father for the first time. And then he’d only been home for a few months when he needed to leave to go earn money again, and I didn’t want to have this separation for us, for our family, for my life. I knew as a married woman I had an obligation to be at my husband’s side, and I also knew that the best place for my daughter to be raised would be with a father in the house. So I decided to go to the U.S. My husband kept saying that he was only going to stay in the U.S. for a short period of time, but I knew otherwise. I knew how it would end up–that we’d always be separated. My husband in the U.S., me in Mexico, our daughter without a father. What options did you have to come to the United States? I started to investigate coyotes–the people who you could pay to bring you to the U.S. illegally. But that type of arrangement made me very nervous, because crossing the border can be dangerous, and my daughter was only a few months old. I had no experience with this kind of thing, and I didn’t want to put my child at risk, nor put myself at risk. My mom was very nervous when I announced my intention to follow my husband to the U.S. She said to me, “Look, I know you want to be with your husband, but don’t put your baby in danger. It’s too risky. Leave your baby here with me, I’ll raise her, and then you can join your husband in the U.S.” That night I was thinking, thinking, thinking about what my mom said. I looked at my baby sleeping next to me, and I thought about leaving her. I knew if I left her to go to the U.S., it would not be easy to come back and see her. I knew it might be many years before I came back, and I knew I just couldn’t do it. I realized that the purpose wasn’t just for me to go and be with my husband, it was to reunite us as a complete family. I didn’t want my daughter to grow up without the love of both of her parents. So I decided I couldn’t leave her. But I also wasn’t willing to put her life in danger. I didn’t know what to do. But God is good, and God prepared a way for us to come to the U.S. I was inspired to have an idea about how to arrive in the U.S. safely. My Heavenly Father showed me His power and love through the power of prayer. I have no doubt of God’s existence, and I know He isn’t far from us ever. He is always in constant communication with us. I began to pray to my Heavenly Father. I told Him how much I wanted to be with my husband, the man I had promised to be with. But I also told him how much I desired to be with my daughter, and how much I wanted her to be raised with two parents. I told God, “You know my husband isn’t really coming back. You know we’re never going to be able to have a normal life–he’s going to be there, and I’m going to be here. Please help me! I don’t want to put myself or my daughter at risk. But you know how to fix this, you will find a manner in which to help us.” How did God prepare a way for you to come to the U.S.? The idea came that I should try to get a visa, and with a visa I could travel safely to the U.S. to join my husband. I decided that I would do everything on my side to get a visa, to work as hard as I could, and that if I did my part, God would do His part. So I started all the paperwork. It’s miraculous, because to get a visa, you have to show that you have a lot of money, that you have a profession, that when you go to the U.S. you won’t become a burden. You have to show that you have a career and property in Mexico that you’ll be coming back to. But I had nothing. I was a young mom. I lived with my parents. I had no money, and I am not a very educated person. But I told God that if He would help me get the visa and get to the U.S., I would promise to always do good things while I was there, that I would never become a burden on the country or the people who lived there. But isn’t it pretty hard to get a visa? When I was working on the visa paperwork, no one believed I would be able to do it. My in-laws said, “Quit dreaming. It’s never going to happen. What makes you think you’re ever going to get a visa?” Everyone laughed and made fun of me. Everyone said I was crazy. They told me stories about really wealthy people they knew who had tried to get visas and were denied because even for them it wasn’t enough. But I didn’t listen to them. I knew I had put my life in the hands of the most powerful Being of all. So I continued with the process. When the time for my visa interview came, I went to the consulate the night before, so that I could sleep on the street outside to save a place in line. The line was so long, probably hundreds of people. During the night I talked to many of the people waiting in the line. One man told me about how he owned a large ranch and how he had a lot of resources to show to the consulate to prove why he deserved a visa. I was ashamed to tell him that I had nothing. I had basically just a small sum of money that one of my brothers-in-law had given me, so that I could put it in my bank account to show the consulate that I had financial resources to provide for myself while I was in the U.S. But inside I said to myself, “I have you, Lord, I don’t need anything else. If it’s your will that I get the visa, I will get it. You know that I don’t have any bad intentions in my desire to go to the U.S. You know my heart. I just want to reunite with my husband and provide a good life for our daughter.” What happened during the visa interview? When my turn came to talk with the officer, it was a very short conversation. He said to me, “Where do you plan to go?” I said, “To the United States.” He asked me, “But where are you going to stay?” and I said “I am going to stay with my husband.” He asked me about my financial solvency, and I showed him my bank account papers. He glanced at the papers for just a moment, and then he looked into my eyes and said, “You pass.” And he sent me to go stand in the line with the people who had passed the interview and would be getting a visa. I couldn’t believe it! These are the miracles that the Lord gives us when we put our confidence in him. Later that day I ran into some of the people who had been in line with me the night before. I found out that the man who owned the ranch was not given a visa. I don’t know why the officer gave me the visa, other than that God had answered my prayers. I came home from the consulate crying out with joy. I went and spoke with my in-laws and the others who hadn’t believed in me. I told them, “I got the visa! I got the visa!” and they could hardly believe it. And I didn’t just get a visa for me, I got a visa for my baby daughter as well. I called my husband in the U.S. and said “When do you want us to come? Because we have visas and we can come anytime you want.” That was fifteen years ago. If you came here legally with a visa, how did you become an undocumented immigrant? Although my daughter and I entered legally with visas, after a certain period of time we didn’t have legal immigration status anymore, because our visa status expired. If you don’t have valid visa status, life is really hard for you in the U.S. When I needed to start working, I began to realize how difficult it is to be undocumented here in this country. For many years I was able to stay home with my daughters and take care of them while my husband worked. But when I had to start working, I saw that the only jobs I would be able to get were the jobs that paid minimum wage, or even less than minimum wage. What are some of the jobs you’ve had since coming to the U.S.? My first job here was in a Kool-Aid factory. My job was to pack the envelopes of powdered Kool-Aid into boxes. There were hundreds of envelopes of Kool-Aid, packed into hundreds of boxes every hour, all to be shipped out around the country. It was difficult because the machine that brought us the envelopes was very fast, and I wasn’t used to moving my hands so quickly. It was hard to keep up. And doing the same movement with my hands all day caused my muscles in my wrists to become inflamed. I developed carpal tunnel syndrome. After my second daughter was born here in the U.S., I had other jobs as well. But it kept getting harder and harder to get a job. I found that most places wouldn’t allow me to work for them unless I presented a social security number to prove I was here legally. So the types of jobs that I really wanted to have, they wouldn’t allow me to work there. The only places where people were willing to hire me were the jobs no one else wanted. I got a cleaning job in a restaurant. I worked seven days a week, 365 days a year. I was never allowed a day off, not even for Christmas or other holidays. What kind of work do you do now? Today I work as a cook. I love my job. I am so grateful for this opportunity. I have always liked being in the kitchen, and I love being around people. I love to chat with people, and this job is perfect for that. I prepare food at a deli counter. I am in charge of a deli station. I open it up every morning at 10:00 am, and I make the food specials each day that my boss instructs me to make. I attend to the people, serve them their food, and I try to practice English with them as all of my customers are Americans. I try to speak English as much as I can. I’ve been at this job for over a year now. I’m very excited about my job, because it’s a fun place to work. I like it a lot. What is the church like for you here in the U.S.? I attend a very united ward–a Spanish ward. We are truly just one big family. We have maybe 200 or so active members. We have been growing a lot lately. A family with six kids just moved in the ward! I have been attending this same ward since I first came to the U.S., and it’s where I’ve had a lot of spiritual development. Maria de Jesus Cristina The majority of the members of our ward are undocumented. Well, primarily the parents do not have documents, but most of the children are born here so they are U.S. citizens. Many of the kids even have a hard time speaking Spanish at church, because they speak English at school all day. Some of the parents try to teach their children Spanish and have a hard time. I don’t think that the smaller children understand about their parents being undocumented, so I don’t think it affects them too negatively. But as they get older, I would say around eight or nine years old, they start to hear about their parents’ status and it makes them feel scared that someday they might be left here without their parents. They worry that their parents could be taken away from them and never return. They know that their parents could be deported to their country, and yet the kids would have to stay here because they belong to this country now. The kids in the ward also experience discrimination in school, because of the color of their skin, and because people assume that their parents are undocumented. They feel this rejection from the community, and it negatively affects them. It’s like a dark shadow that follows them around, always, reminding them that they are different from the others. What are some of the challenges of being in a ward with so many undocumented immigrants? A few years ago, there was a warning on the Spanish radio station that there was going to be a police checkpoint or road blockade in our area, and that INS was going to be stopping cars and checking people’s papers. We decided to go to church anyway, but when we entered we discovered the chapel was almost empty. During sacrament meeting, the bishop stood up and said how sad he was to see that so many members of the ward had decided to stay home. He challenged us to have more faith in God. He said that if God had brought us all the way to this country, he would protect us while we are here. He reminded us that when we are on the Lord’s errand, it doesn’t matter whether we are documented or undocumented. God doesn’t have borders or bars separating anyone from his blessings. God doesn’t care about immigration papers. God only cares about our hearts. God wants us to have confidence in him, and to make good choices to live our lives righteously. So long as we are doing our best, God will protect us in this country. Tell us about your calling. For the past two years I have been serving as the primary president. This calling has been challenging to me, because it’s something completely new for me. It’s a large responsibility to be in charge of all of the children. There are about thirty-five or forty kids that regularly come to primary. For me, as a president, I feel such a great responsibility to teach the children, to inculcate in them a testimony from a young age. It’s so important that they have a strong testimony of our brother Jesus Christ and of our Heavenly Father. This is my main goal in my calling: I want them to grow into young women and young men with strong testimonies of who their Father is and where they come from–to know that they are never alone. Besides teaching them on Sundays, we have lots of activities. I love having children near me. I want them to feel like they always have a friend. Sometimes I like to pretend in my mind like I am a child again, so I can put myself at their level and understand them better. We recently had such a fun activity, we had a water balloon fight and all of the kids were chasing after me and throwing their balloons at me. It was so fun for me, to be totally surrounded by these wonderful kids. One of the greatest satisfactions I have is when a child comes close to me, hugs me, and tells me, “Sister, I love you.” Priceless. This is the greatest gift I could ever receive from them–to receive of their pure love. While you have been serving as the primary president, you’ve also experienced other challenges. Tell us about those challenges. This calling came to me at a very difficult time in my life–probably the most difficult time I’ve ever had. It was right at the same time I was in the process of officially separating from my husband due to some abusive circumstances that had been going on for many years. So when the bishop extended the calling to me, I prayed to God and told Him I didn’t think this was the right moment for me to be taking on this calling. I didn’t feel worthy or prepared. I intended to tell the bishop that I was going to reject the calling. But when I prayed about it, I realized I couldn’t do that to my Heavenly Father. Many times over the past two years I’ve asked myself why I had to receive this calling now. It’s been hard being a single mom, and the divorce process has been so difficult. At several points I’ve held two full-time jobs, all while being the primary president at the same time. It’s also been tough because both of my counselors went inactive after they were called, and we struggle to have consistent teachers. There was one Sunday when not a single primary teacher showed up for church! There have been many challenges. But I know that I’m not doing this calling for the bishop, I’m doing this calling for the Lord and for the kids. It’s truly one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever had in my life. I have received an answer as to why God wanted me in this calling at this time–it has been such a blessing to me. My testimony has grown so much in this calling. And it has strengthened me emotionally. There have been times when I’ve been so sad and depressed about my marriage situation, and then I’ve gone to primary and immediately upon sitting down next to a child, I’ve been surrounded by such a peaceful feeling. My heart has been filled with happiness and joy. One time a little girl stood up to give a talk in Primary, and she spoke the most beautiful words of pure truth about her feelings about God, about how she knew God loved her. It touched my heart so much, and I realized what a blessing it is to serve in the primary. If I hadn’t had this calling, I don’t know if I would have had the strength I needed to leave my husband and start a new life. I might have ended up going back to him, as I had many times before, if I hadn’t been strengthened by the kids. God knows what we need in all moments. He has our lives in his hands. We just need to trust him. What do you wish that people understood about life in the U.S. for undocumented immigrants? In reality, it’s very difficult. I wish that everyone who was born here in the U.S. or has legal status could understand a little bit about us and our lives. I want them to know that our lives cannot be conducted in a normal way. Our lives are limited, and this frustrates us. We are people who have dreams, and we have goals. We want to progress and move forward, and without documents we are limited. There are things we are not permitted to achieve. We feel that the people reject us, that they don’t want us here because we aren’t documented, or perhaps because of our race. We know that we are qualified for certain jobs, but because of the fact that we don’t have a piece of paper, we cannot obtain those jobs. This is so frustrating and so sad. So we just focus on surviving. We have to survive. We fight so we can survive. An undocumented person experiences many miseries in this country. We can’t continue with our education, or with a career, as adults, and we also see that our children who weren’t born in this country have the same limits placed upon them. It’s heavy. It’s a sadness we have. To not have our papers, it means we can’t get drivers licenses, or other things that are part of a normal life here. So we confront difficult situations. There are so many risks to being here. We know that at any moment we can be picked up, and sent back to our country. We know that we could be separated from our children, that they might have to be alone. But we continue forward, and we can’t have fear. We just have to have faith. What are your biggest fears? We fear everyday when we leave to go to work, that since we’re driving without licenses we may be picked up. We know every morning that when we drive to work, there is a possibility that we won’t see our children again. At a moment, we could be detained, held, and investigated as if we were criminals–just because we want to drive to work or to church. The laws right now are hard. When people are detained by immigration, the bail money is set so high–they ask for amounts that are impossible for people who are just struggling to get by day to day. So I fear leaving the house every morning, not knowing what will happen to me on the way to or from work. If I am picked up, I’ll have to face a judge, a judge who will decide my fate without considering everything good I’ve done in this country, or that one of my daughters is a U.S. citizen, or that I have dreams, goals, or anything else. It’s very scary to think about. I also fear waking up one morning and no longer having a job. I know that if I don’t work, I won’t be able to feed my children. There is no safety net for people like us. It may sound drastic, but it’s my reality. It’s how I live. I greatly fear not having a job or the ability to work and provide for my family. How do you have the strength to keep going? I just focus on my children. I have two daughters, I am a single mom. I have to survive so that they can have a better life. And I remind myself that even though I don’t have papers, I shouldn’t be robbed of my dreams. I can still dream of a better life, of a better situation. I focus on just finding as many opportunities for myself and my daughters that I can. How were you able to fix your papers and obtain legal immigration status in the U.S.? God has given me so many miracles in my life. I am only here now because it is God’s plan for me. It is His will. As a survivor of domestic violence, I was able to qualify for a U-Visa. The government gives U-Visas to people who have been the victims of crimes and who help the police investigate those crimes. I look back now on the years of violence I endured, and while it was so horrible and so difficult, I have come to realize that without those experiences I would never have qualified to receive a U-Visa, and my daughter and I both would have remained as undocumented immigrants. Isn’t it interesting how the Lord works? God allowed me to have such difficult challenges, but then God put me in the right place at the right time to meet the people who would help me start a new life for myself and my daughters. What are some of your goals and aspirations? I came to this country with the intention to make positive contributions. I didn’t want to be a drain on this country. I think it is so important to give back to this great country. I always try to volunteer for community projects. Right now I volunteer with an organization that assists families in crisis in the community. I heard they needed assistance, so I contacted them and signed up to be a teacher. One night a week I teach classes about physical and emotional health. Times are hard for families right now. People are losing their jobs that they have had for years and years. The economic situation makes them depressed, and it causes problems in marriages. So I try to help these families by collaborating with them on positive changes they can make in their lives. Now that I have my U-Visa and legal work permit, I feel empowered to achieve even more with respect to my professional life. I’m finishing up my GED right now. I’ve passed all of the examinations except for math. So I’m taking a private math class once a week. In one month I have the math examination and then I’ll be done. Once I get my GED I would like to continue on with my studies. I would like to study nursing. I feel like I can help people who are sad and have hard things in their life by sharing my positive attitude and faith with them. This is a beautiful country, and I feel that my opportunities are now limitless. I am so grateful to be in this country. Tell us about your daughters. I am a very proud mom! My oldest daughter is eighteen and just graduated from high school and is going to start college at BYU this fall. She has dreamed of going to BYU since she was a little girl, and now she is realizing that dream. She has a calling at church–she is the ward librarian–and she also volunteers with a program that helps children with intellectual disabilities. She gives them encouragement and is a positive influence with them. She’s always changing her mind, but as of right now she says she wants to study medicine and become a doctor. My youngest daughter is a very positive and happy child. She always has a smile and is laughing. She enjoys sports of all kinds. I am very proud of my daughters because they have many aspirations and goals in life. They are girls that have passed through very difficult circumstances in their lives, but they are strong. They aren’t intimidated by the problems they have passed through. I am so proud of their faith–nothing makes me happier than when I walk by their bedroom at night and see them studying the scriptures for seminary or praying. I love it! This is the greatest blessing for a mother. Is there anything else you would like to add? I want to tell everyone to never give up on their dreams. No matter what your circumstances are, you must always have a goal. Nothing is easy in life. More than anything else, we can’t forget who we are, and where we came from. God is our father and is directing our lives and our circumstances. We must trust Him. Miracles don’t just happen in the scriptures, they can happen in our lives as well. We cannot doubt that God exists–the same God that loved the people in the scriptures is the God that loves all of us now. If we have sufficient faith, no blessing will be withheld from us. Don’t let anything intimidate you, just move forward and try your best. Take advantage of all the opportunities that come before you. Life is only a small moment, and we don’t know how long we will get to be here. We can’t waste any time being unhappy or focusing on the negative. Put your life in God’s hands, and have faith in Him. At A Glance Name: Maria de Jesus Cristina Location: United States Age: 40 Marital status: Separated, in the process of obtaining a divorce Children: Two daughters, ages 14 and 18 Occupation: Deli counter cook Schools Attended: Primary school in Guanajuato, Mexico; in the process of obtaining a GED in the U.S. Languages Spoken at Home: Spanish and English Favorite Hymn: “How Great Thou Art” Interview by Rebecca van Uitert. Portrait by Hailey Hobson.

When Joanne Dehlin first tried Bikram Yoga, she didn’t love it—but she knew she needed it in her life. Now she is a certified instructor and director of her own yoga studio. She sees the physical, emotional, and spiritual benefits of yoga, as well as the sense of community it fosters. “If you are in that place where you can love others and have the light of Christ,” Joanne says, “you are connected. You honor other people.” How did you initially become interested in yoga? I’ve always been worried about my weight. For years I tried everything, like running and working out with trainers. Almost eight years ago I did my first half marathon. When it was over I said, “I am never doing that again.” It was awful. My whole body hurt from my ankles to my hips to my knees and my heart. My sister asked me, “So, why do you run?” And I said, “Because I want to look good in shorts and I want to get the runner’s high.” But I never actually got the runner’s high. I worked with trainers and one of my trainers would always tell me that I needed yoga, because I am really inflexible. So I always had that in the back of my mind. One day my sister-in-law told me about Bikram Yoga, which is hot yoga, and how it’s really good if you are inflexible because the heat helps that. So I thought, “This is it. I know I’m supposed to go do this.” So I go to my first class and it was the biggest joke. I laid on the floor probably half the time just thinking, “I’m going to die. Any minute I’m going to die.” I thought I wouldn’t sweat that much, but I was sweating like crazy and it was just this unbelievable experience. I definitely didn’t love it, but I knew I needed it. So I just stuck to it and did it every day for thirty days. My first teacher really inspired me and encouraged me to keep going. Joanne Dehlin It’s now the only exercise I do. It’s very complete, in my opinion. It’s good for weight loss and for detoxification of your soul and body. It’s cardiovascular. It gets your heart beating like crazy. It utilizes your own body weight for resistance. An hour and a half is a big chunk of time, but to me it’s just so complete. It’s like getting a facial and going to the chiropractor all at once, and I’m very into one-stop shopping. What led to you becoming a yoga teacher and the director of your own yoga studio? As I started getting into yoga more, people started asking, “When you are going to go to teacher training?” So I really started thinking about it. And my husband said, “You would be so great at owning your own studio.” So I decided that when I turned fifty, I was going to go to teacher training and open a studio. The longer you live, you realize that coincidences really don’t happen; everything happens for a reason. Almost three years ago this summer, I was sitting on a bench in the Bikram Yoga studio in Sandy, Utah, after a yoga class one day, and this woman named Shelli Gardner started talking to me. She’s an amazing woman that owns an international scrapbooking company. We started chatting about yoga, and I told her about my goal to go to teacher training and own my own studio. So she said, “Well, how about if I build the studio and you go do all the training to become a teacher?” This was July of 2010. The world was falling apart economically. I was prepared to go to training in every way—spiritually, physically, mentally—but not financially. We had recently lost a business building custom homes, so I wasn’t ready that way. But she was. And she made up that difference. She is like my fairy godmother. Within two weeks, everything was set. She sponsored me and sent me to training and I was leaving my family to go on this journey. You have to teach for six months and get 100 classes under your belt and become a certified teacher in order to be an owner of a studio. You can be privately financed, but Shelli couldn’t be my official partner, but rather just a financier, which is what she was willing to do. When I got back from training, I just started teaching a lot and Shelli built this 37,000-square-foot building centered around Bikram Yoga. The building also includes a day spa, a juice bar, and a salon. Everything in this building is dedicated to making you a better person and to help you feel better on the inside and outside. People have said that there is a spirit about this building that is just really unique. Sometimes you don’t want to throw around the word spirit—you can say an energy or a feeling, but that’s because we are all united in trying to create a certain environment that is very encouraging, positive, and uplifting. It’s just been the most amazing experience. People are inspired—they feel good when they are here. How is Bikram Yoga different from other yoga philosophies? Bikram Yoga is a form of hatha yoga. The word hatha stands for sun (ha) and moon (tha), so the sun and moon come together. Yoga is considered a union of the body, the spirit, and the mind. In India, where yoga first started, this is their religion. Their scriptures are full of yoga postures and the whole point of yoga postures was so that the priests could get themselves into the lotus pose, which is a very difficult position to sit in for long periods of time. That’s how the priests would meditate and that’s how they would ascend to that higher spiritual level. The postures of yoga would help them get to a point where they could stay in that position for many, many hours while maintaining control of the mind. Joanne Dehlin A man named Bikram Choudhury created a sequence of twenty-six yoga postures. The sequence is very structured and works through the entire body on a very physical level. It is always the same ninety-minute sequence. It seems like it would get boring after a while, but there is something very powerful about the sequence. We are creatures of habit, and we like to improve upon what we are doing. Eventually you can turn off your brain and just let the teacher’s words move your body. The heat is an important part of the sequence. The room is heated to 105 degrees, with forty percent humidity. The yoga room in my studio is as high-tech as it gets. The floor is heated to your body temperature. The heat has a lot of benefits—it makes you sweat, it makes your heart beat faster, and it makes you more limber. It’s such a great detox for your whole body. There are about 1,800 Bikram Yoga studios around the world. How does yoga help women to feel more in tune with their bodies? I think that when you look in the mirror, you face truth. During yoga class, you stand there looking at yourself in the mirror with minimal clothing, dripping with sweat, and for those ninety minutes the facade is gone. If you can look at yourself and be okay with who is looking back at you for an hour and a half—that is huge. For some women, they are looking everywhere but at themselves during class. They look at the ceiling, the floor, the people around them, but they don’t want to look at themselves. More disciplined and experienced students focus on themselves and don’t let anything distract them. They have learned to be okay with who they are. That’s a very difficult thing to do. We are always comparing ourselves to this person and that person. There is a lot of judgment that goes on in our own soul that has nothing to do with what everyone else thinks. Yoga helps with weight loss, but it also helps with image. One student I have is this adorable girl that e-mailed me recently to thank me for encouraging her during class. She told me that she started coming to yoga to help her self-esteem. This girl is gorgeous. I would have never imagined in a million years that she would have a self-esteem problem. But she told me how much yoga is helping her to feel better about herself. I realized from that experience that you just can’t judge. You don’t know what people are going through. What do you love most about teaching? Teaching is an honor and a responsibility. I received a really great compliment from a woman who is also a Bikram Yoga instructor. I consider her a mentor. She said, “I have learned so much from you because you connect with your students, and you are so kind to them that they would do anything for you.” Every teacher has a different personality and a different style. But as a teacher, even if you are trying to correct something, you still encourage your students at the same time. What I realize now as a teacher is that people have emotional releases while doing yoga. Some of the postures are a little vulnerable and people will sometimes start to cry in class. It’s very healthy to detox on an emotional level as well as a physical level. You never know why people are in that room or what it is that they are dealing with. No matter who they are you have to support them and lift them up. You have to honor who they are. And sometimes those spirits are very vulnerable and protected, and yoga helps them to let that go. You are clearly a very busy woman. You have two children, you work as a dental hygienist, and you are the director of a yoga studio. How do you balance everything? You have to surround yourself with great people and you have to know how to delegate. You can’t micromanage. You have to teach them correct principles and let them handle it. My employees know what they would get in trouble for, which is usually not treating someone kindly. It’s all about being surrounded by great people. I also have an incredible husband who is very supportive, and I have amazing children. I feel very blessed. None of this would have happened without my basis in the gospel. Do you ever meditate when you are doing yoga? Sure. It’s a time to pray and to think. We always keep the room quiet, both before and after class. I’m sure that many students are saying their own prayers or mantras or whatever helps them to calm down. For you personally, is practicing yoga a spiritual experience? Yes, because for me it’s that moment when I finally take a break. Doing the savasana (the dead body pose) is that point where you can hear yourself think. There is no music. There are no cell phones. There are no little kids. Yes, the teacher is talking, but that almost just becomes a rhythm that you get used to. It’s just a time that is truly for you that is so rare and so precious. My best ideas and inspiration happen while I’m practicing yoga. It’s just like you are open and it’s quiet. It’s almost like going to the temple where you can just escape from the world. For me it’s a safe place where I can go. If you go to other gyms or fitness classes, you hear people joking, often about themselves, sometimes demeaning their own bodies. But here, nobody talks. It’s calm and quiet, and it’s all very internal. I love that part of it. It’s very conducive to spirituality—whatever that may be for any individual. It’s not selfish. It makes you a better mom, a better wife, a better everything. I truly believe that. Obviously it’s different than going to the temple, but it’s a quiet time that you carve out for yourself to honor yourself. Yoga is a physical practice, but it has emotional, spiritual, and mental side effects. It is personal for people. Nothing spiritual is rammed down your throat. There is nothing overtly religious about it. You could have any religion and any belief system and be accepted in that room, which is so great to be in Utah and to bring people together of all different religions in a place where they can love and support each other. With yoga, there is a strong sense of community. People really encourage each other here. There is no ego. You would think there would be a lot of intimidation, but there is no ego in the hot room. You find that out very quickly as you melt away and you have makeup all over your face. You just find yourself. And everybody respects everybody else because it is so hard. There is just a mutual respect that happens there. At the end of each class, the instructor says “Namaste,” and the students repeat back, “Namaste,” which means: “I honor the place in you in which the entire universe dwells—a place of light, a place of love, a place of truth and integrity. When you are in that place in you, and I am in that place in me, together, we are one.” Our spirits are connected. If you are in that place where you can love others and have the light of Christ, you are connected. You honor other people. It doesn’t matter how dark another person may be or how deep you have to go to find that light in them. I think that’s the gospel of Christ, without all the rules, without Sunday school or the three-hour block. The gospel is all about how you connect with people and how you love them. That’s what the Lord is going to ask us about one day, and for me, yoga is an avenue to do that in a very unique setting. At A Glance Name: Joanne Dehlin Location: Draper, UT Age: 46 Marital status: Married 23 years Children: Two – 20 year old boy and 17 year old girl Occupation: Dental hygienist for 23 years, Yoga Teacher for 2.5 years Schools Attended: BYU, U of U, Graduate of Weber State University-dental hygiene Favorite Hymn: “Because I Have Been Given Much” On The Web: www.bikramyogabrickcanvas.com Interview by Julie Rodriguez.

Having suffered religious persecution and losing a parent at a young age, Seraphine Kapsandoy Jones has had her fair share of trials. But the 35-year-old native of Kenya says she doesn’t worry about things she can’t control. She focuses on her faith, goals, and opportunities to serve. Now, the doctoral student at the University of Utah helps inspire, empower, and motivate women to soar high. You and your family were pioneers of the church in Kenya. Tell me about your family’s conversion. I was born and raised in Nairobi, Kenya. My dad did his undergraduate and graduate studies in New Mexico, and when he returned to Kenya, he was a Mormon. I was seven and I didn’t know who Mormons were; we were raised Catholic. My mom was very religious, so converting was not an easy thing for her, but she saw how much the church changed my dad and that had a big impact on her decision to be baptized. I got baptized when I was eight, in a pond with running water. It felt good. It felt cleansing. My elder sisters, Joyce and Sylvia, and my younger brother and sister, Samuel and Sariah, also joined the church. Since the church wasn’t registered in Kenya, we had church at home. We’d wake up and go to the living room. My dad administered the sacrament and one of us would give a talk. Those were our Sundays. It was fun. Seraphine Kapsandoy Jones and Her Mother Pretty soon, we started to have other people join. My dad tracked down other members of the church in the area. We formed a small branch and met at a house, and eventually the church got registered. Was there much resistance to the church? Other churches didn’t know much about Mormons. They did a good job of painting us as devil worshippers. In fact, we even made the front page of the national paper with the headline “Mormons: Devil Worshippers.” I was the only Mormon in my all-girl’s Catholic high school and remember the vice principal calling me into her office and asking me what religion I was. I brought her an Ensign and Book of Mormon, and then all this drama started to brew because the church had just been registered and it was new and people had concerns. It was ridiculous the things they said about us. But Heavenly Father had prepared a way to deal with all the ridicule. You told me your father passed away when you were young. How old were you? I was 14, in the eighth grade. He was traveling to our farm in Kitale and a semi-truck hit his SUV. Do you remember hearing the news? Oh, yes, it’s burned in my mind. It was a Monday. I was at school. I saw my sisters coming to get me—and I thought that was strange, because my sisters never came to get me. There were all these cars in front of our house and in the back of my mind I knew what it was but I didn’t want to know. My mom was sitting on her bed with some women and she told me we lost a member of our family. I cooked up an idea of an aunt or uncle—it couldn’t be my dad. I will never forget that. Those were rough times. What do you remember most about your father? The biggest gift we got from my dad wasn’t the material possessions, it was the gospel. That’s been the foundation of everything. It keeps me propelling forward. How did your father’s death affect your faith? It changed me. I questioned a lot. And I had a lot of anger. At that age, nothing makes sense. It was only later in life that I began to understand. My dad’s first goal was to get the church registered and his second goal was to get his family to the temple. By the time he died, the church was registered, but we hadn’t gone to the temple yet. We started saving money to make the trip to the Johannesburg South Africa Temple. We fasted and prayed and, though it seemed so impossible, we felt peace that everything would work out. Soon after, there was a Relief Society group in the U.S. that put money together to help us go to the temple. It was a miracle and answer to our prayers. Our family got sealed, and I think that’s when my faith really started to grow. What kind of things did you learn from your mom growing up? My mom taught us from an early age how to save our money. After my dad passed away, my mom had to occasionally travel up country to the farm to work and she’d give us 200 shillings while she was gone. I learned to stretch a shilling; she’d come back and I’d have change left. When I came to the States, I read everything I could to learn about how to be financially savvy. My biggest motivating factor for being financially savvy was that I didn’t want to see my family suffer. After high school, you went away to study nursing at Mississippi University for Women. What was that like? The church isn’t very big in Columbus, Mississippi. They had only one ward, but it was comfortable and made me feel like I was back home. The church was the one thing that gave me comfort and peace. It’s interesting to see that Heavenly Father prepares you for everything. People will disappoint, that’s a guarantee, but the gospel will never disappoint. If you have that foundation of faith, you have something to fall back on to give you strength. Tell me about your decision to come to Utah. I moved to be with my sister and also pursue graduate studies at the University of Utah. Moving to Utah was hard. I felt like I was in a blender, and I still experience that. It was not only the gospel culture, it was the fact that I was coming from Africa to Utah—a very different culture. At first, this made dating pretty interesting. I’m pretty fiery sometimes—well, I don’t know whether to call it fiery or headstrong, but I know what I want and I don’t compromise on fundamentals. Being able to find someone I could relate to was hard. I prayed about it a lot. And I came to the conclusion that if it wasn’t meant to be, that I would be okay. But I wanted my life to count for something. I didn’t want to waste my life. So, I focused on the things I could control and my abilities. I asked myself, “How far can I soar?” They say the sky is the limit, and we are the only ones who put the limits on ourselves, so we need to test the boundaries. I’m a problem solver. I went back to my patriarchal blessing a lot when things became blurry and confusing. It’s easy to make bad choices and you really have to have something to go back on to ground you. Seraphine Kapsandoy Jones Other than your patriarchal blessing, how did you survive those blurry or confusing moments? Good friends. You’ve got to find those key friends you can stick with. Sometimes you’re not seeing straight and you need a different perspective. And I prayed. I spent a lot of time with Heavenly Father. A lot of nights I would take personal inventory and do soul searching. In my prayers, I said, “You know what’s needed and you know the timing. So I leave this up to you.” I also tried to live outside of myself because there’s so many things that need to be done and if you focus on those things, you get so much more out of life. Even meeting Matt, my husband, I wasn’t focused too much on getting married. I was focused on other things like my work and school and involvement in community. When he came along, I wasn’t even paying attention. You’re very involved in the community. What all do you do? I serve on the board of directors of Women’s World Health Initiative, a nonprofit dedicated to healthcare for women in Senegal. I’m in my last year of my PhD program. I also work at Intermountain Healthcare. I serve in Young Women’s in my ward. And do a lot of other projects on the side. Also, I’ve been married for more than two years. What would your dream job be? My dream is to start something that gives women [in Kenya] opportunity and choice and resources. When you teach a woman, you teach a family and a nation. Seraphine Kapsandoy Jones and Her Husband What do you wish more people knew about life in Kenya? Life in Kenya is fun and very dynamic. The food is also fabulous. Do you have a favorite African meal? Sukuma wiki (kale), and pilau and chapati. If you could give one piece of advice for women, what would it be? Be strong. Know yourself. Know your value. Know that Heavenly Father is behind you. Nurture your value and never sell yourself short. At A Glance Name: Seraphine Kapsandoy Jones Location: Salt Lake City, UT Age: 35 Marital status: Married Occupation: Cardiovascular Clinical Programs Manager at Intermountain Healthcare Schools Attended: Mississippi University for Women; University of Utah Languages Spoken at Home: English and Swahili Favorite Hymn: “Oh My Father” Interview by Katherine Peterson.

Kristen Cox balances her family life with a career in government, negotiating a busy world with the added challenge of blindness. Having worked under three governors in Maryland and Utah, she currently works under Governor Herbert in the Office of Management and Budget. Here she discusses priorities, support systems, and the challenge of learning to be content while driven to achieve. And how the gospel message of eternal perspective makes all the difference. You started losing your sight at a young age. What was that transition like for you? It started when I was about eleven. It’s a genetic disease, this really rare thing that nobody else in my family has, but both my parents were carriers and it just showed up in me. It turns out I’m fairly resilient, which is good. I think the hardest years were in my late teens and my early twenties. It was gradual, and I lost a lot of vision on my mission. I served a mission in Brazil [Belo Horizante, now split up into several other missions] and I needed to use this magnifying device so that I could read. That was becoming increasingly difficult; I couldn’t read the magnification enough and I was struggling. So I thought maybe I wasn’t working hard enough, so if I could just push through it…I could figure it out. I got to Brazil and my machine got lost on my way down—with all the rest of my luggage—and finally, maybe six or eight weeks later, I found out it was broken. And I really had to spend the rest of my mission like that, not using my eyes! I had to start learning to use books on tape. My companion would help me out. Really having to learn those alternative skills, you know, listening to the Book of Mormon on tape and using readers, having people read to me….It was hard at the time, but it’s one of those lessons you look back at later in life and you understand why it happened and why that was important. It was a blessing in disguise. How so? What do you feel you learned? Well, I had to be pushed. You know, when you’re pushed off into the deep end of the pool and understand that you can actually swim? I’d been hanging on to the lenses and the little vision that I had, and it wasn’t working. I couldn’t keep up with my classes; it would take me like 30 minutes to read one page. I had to be pushed off into the swimming pool, and that gave me that push to know I could stay afloat. Many years after that I taught myself Braille. My first child was born when I was 26 and I didn’t know how to read to him, so I taught myself Braille. And then I had to learn how to travel, and all these other skills I had to learn to be successful. That stuff doesn’t happen overnight; those things take time. I learned that I could tread water after that. I knew that I could really become proficient. And other skills, like just adapting to technology, and how to use computers, and just all these things you have to learn to be as independent as you can be. Was there a specific aspect of the gospel that helped drive or encourage you during that time? One is eternal perspective. That’s always a hard thing to come back to. I get pulled into the issues of the moment. I think getting pulled back onto why we’re here, lessons to learn, why sometimes we face the things we face, how we should deal with people. That’s my ongoing issue, is to get to that eternal perspective. I think also the gospel is one of optimism; it is what it’s all about. It is the message of the Atonement, it is the message of the Restoration, it is the message of all the scriptures. I think we can get caught up in trials and tribulations and those things exist, they are real, but I also think it’s important to focus on the optimism and sharing in the gospel. After your mission you went back to school at BYU. How did you start your career in advocacy and politics? I started working on a volunteer basis in a non-profit and the president of the organization, the National Federation of the Blind, asked me to come do governmental affairs in Washington DC. So my husband and I went back and decided to just try it out. And from there I was an appointee into the Bush administration, then [Maryland] Governor Ehrlich asked me to come work for him and I ran for lieutenant governor on his ticket. And I came to Utah to work for Governor Huntsman and now Governor Herbert. The governor just asked me to move to the Office of Management and Budget. I’m basically the Chief Operating Officer for the state and I’m over the budget. The legislative session is so crazy because you have to get the whole budget through and all that crazy stuff. I don’t think it was so much a single organization I worked for that launched my career, but more some people along the way that believed in me; they had higher expectations for me than I had for myself. I had some very neat mentors that were really kind of hard: they didn’t let anything pass and had very high expectations about performance and results, and there were no excuses. Governor Ehrlich in Maryland took a big chance on me, running as his lieutenant governor candidate—a blind, Mormon young woman! Governor Herbert asking me on as his budget director! There are a lot of people giving me great opportunities along the way and I think that’s what has made the biggest difference for me. And hopefully we can do that as women for each other, right? So you feel a need to reciprocate that? Yes. There are so many women who have been good to me and I just think we need to be that for each other—to not be judgmental, to be supportive, to understand we each have our own path in this life and unique contributions. We’re not all going to be cookie-cutters, and I don’t think we’re supposed to be cookie-cutters in this life. And we need to support each other in our own unique ways. There are lots of ways for a woman to be a woman. In a sense that’s part of the Relief Society calling, to uplift and support each other. It should be, absolutely. To support, uplift….I hope I’m mindful of it. I don’t know that there’s anything I do deliberately, but there are women I work with and I hope that I’m mindful of the opportunities I was given and support them in being successful. By giving them feedback, having high expectations, and also being mindful that they’re maybe going to do things differently than I do, and to be okay with that. To understand they have lives outside of work, and to support them in those other roles and responsibilities, and to encourage that. You know, work is just one part of who we are. When you’re in the workplace it seems like a big deal, but we have all these other things outside of work that we have to respect and promote, and hopefully encourage people. So that’s important to me, letting people I work with also achieve that. What is it you enjoy about your work? What’s your motivation? I’ve been thinking about that! Politics is a stressful job! You know, being in the political world, it’s hard because there are a lot of strong-willed people with lots of opinions. But I think it’s just that I like the challenge, and it’s important to me to make a contribution—a meaningful contribution—to my family and to the community. You have one life. There are only so many minutes, so many hours, so many days to actually achieve things. I don’t know, I sometimes feel this urgent fear or strong drive to make a difference as much as you can and with all the time that you have. Kristen Cox I know exactly what you’re talking about, I’ve often felt that myself, the need to “do something about it.” It’s hard. There are a lot of different parts to life. The issue as Mormon women is you want to make a difference at home and yet we’re part of a broader society that has challenges too. I feel that we have an obligation in both of these. What wou­ld you say defines and drives you, spiritually, in your work and in life in general? That’s a tricky question, but I’d guess I’m a person of contradiction….It’s continual growth, that’s a big driver for me. Although sometimes that becomes too much and I can put too many things on my list, too many things to do, and it becomes overwhelming. And on the other hand, I have this desire for peace and contentment. So it’s an ongoing challenge and a conflict—to grow, to want more, to want to be more, and also to be content with where you are, and who you are, and with what you have. I think the ongoing thing is to find the balance between the two. How do you find the balance between, as you said earlier, family and the broader society? It’s a challenge. What I’ve come to understand is, I guess, two things. One, some things you have to let go. My house isn’t perfect! I know I’ve got a lot of work to do on my house, but we prioritize, right? So there are just some things I’m willing to let go of because other things are more important. And that’s not right or wrong for everyone. Everyone has to make her own personal decision. But I have had to let some things go, and that’s by design. I think the other thing is, there’s a time and a season. I don’t think you find balance every day. I do think you can find balance over a week, or a month, or over a year. I’ll be very busy for three weeks, and those three weeks will be insane, but I really protect my time with my family—that takes highest priority over everything else. So it’s really having to make priorities. Clear, deliberate priorities, what I’ll spend my time on what I won’t spend my time on. And then it’s also just a great husband and two great kids. That’s a great part of what my life is; what motivates a lot of what I do is making sure my kids are okay. Is your family supportive of your work? Yes, they are. We’re a good team! Just today my son and I went for a five-mile walk to kind of talk through a paper he’s writing at school. We talk politics and we talk ideas. My husband’s super-supportive, so it’s a team effort around here. It’s a good team! It has to be a team effort, and then you just have to let some things go, and that way you can kind of pull it off— but never perfectly! Do you aspire to running for office again at some point? Politics is harsh. It’s a full contact sport! I would need a real specific reason, that there was just a vacuum of qualified candidates that didn’t share my view. If that was the case I would certainly consider it, but I don’t want to run just for the sake of running. I’d have to have a specific reason. There should be a purpose for running for office, not just “running for office,” and I would have to have that clearly defined for me to seriously consider it. At A Glance Name: Kristen Cox Location: Sandy, UT Age: 43 Marital status: Married Children: Two boys (8 and 17) Occupation: Executive Director of the Utah Governor’s Office of Management and Budget Schools Attended: Brigham Young University Languages Spoken at Home: English Interview by Lydia Defranchi.

Betty Stevenson grew up in an African-American community near San Francisco. After spiraling through abusive relationships, drug dealing and jail, she joined the Church. Betty served for many years as the Relief Society president of the newly formed Oakland Ninth Branch, composed of some of Oakland’s poorest neighborhoods, and she is the founder of an organization that hosts free football camps. In addition, Betty is raising her three great-grandchildren. Tell me about your life before you joined the Church. I grew up in West Pittsburg, or Bay Point as it’s called now, in northern California. Poor people lived on one side of the freeway and white rich people lived on the other side, but they built a school where they brought all of us together. I think it was one of the first ones in this area to integrate. I would play with this little white girl at her house. Her parents really didn’t like having me around, but she was feisty. She would say, “You coming home with me.” If I ate off something at her house, they would throw it away. But for me to even be there was an amazing feat. I grew up as the youngest of three children. My mother had married a very abusive, drunk man who became my stepfather and so we were put second. I feel like we raised my mother instead of it being the other way around. I learned a lot of stuff in the neighborhood, and it wasn’t all good. I turned into a product of the system I lived in. There was no adult supervision. Taking the Lord’s name in vain was a way of conversation. Drugs were a way of life. I got into an abusive relationship for a while. In that darkness, there’s this haze that you’re not even aware of until you start receiving light. The thing that kept me human was my love for little kids and old people and people who were disabled. I was very protective of my own children. Betty J. Stevenson at Age 15 I ended up in jail. I was on probation for two years and parole for almost seven. I moved myself and my two kids from Bay Point to the flatlands of Oakland to get away from drugs. I have to laugh now because that was the city where the drugs were coming from, but when I moved, I didn’t know anyone there, so I just didn’t hook up. The Lord had set me up. I was getting in position for the missionaries to come. How did you meet the missionaries? Missionaries were tracting in Oakland in February of 1981 when they knocked on my door. It was just seventeen days since I’d gotten off parole. The first thing that jumped into my mind was that they were parole officers. So I kind of peeked out the door and I thought, “No they must be Jehovah’s Witnesses, and I don’t want to hear from them neither.” So I went back down the hallway into the bathroom and was just standing there when I heard a thought that said to my mind, “You’ve been praying for a long time. Why don’t you go open the door and see what they want?” So I let them in. Did you decide pretty quickly to be baptized? No! I’m amazed more than anyone that I would be involved in this community. I didn’t want to have anything to do with the Church. I knew nothing nice about Mormons. The reputation of the Church among black people keeps a lot of people from listening. When I actually listened to the missionaries, at first I didn’t believe any of it. It thought, “Oooo! These people ought to be ashamed of themselves going around telling people that.” I was sitting at home and the copy of the Book of Mormon the missionaries had brought me was on the coffee table. I picked it up and started to read. It was just amazing. It was as if the words were almost shimmering in my mind. When I read, “I Nephi, having been born of goodly parents,” the tears started to flow, and I realized that I wasn’t being a goodly parent. I didn’t feel like I had goodly parents. I had always known in my heart that God was almighty. I knew that even in my darkest hours. All my life I believed in God, but I just didn’t believe that He loved a black girl like me. Now, I was just amazed by the Book of Mormon. I had to try to figure out, do I believe it? Is it true? Did it happen? I think I must have worn out a couple of sets of missionaries. When they told me to investigate, that’s exactly what I did. My brother and sister were totally against my joining, and I was too, almost right up until I went down into the water. My eleven-year-old daughter got baptized before I did. I’d taught my kids, if you really want to do something, then you go do it. And that’s what she did: she got baptized. I asked her, “Why you want to join this church?” She said, “Because I listened to the missionaries and what they said made sense.” Eleven years old and she told me that. Eleven years old going on 42! A week later I got baptized. What challenges came to you with joining the Church? Coming into the Church was like walking into a bright light that hurts your eyes. In the community I was coming out of, everyone wanted to know, “What is it? You’ve got this glow. Why are you so happy?” But I really wasn’t happy yet. It’s a horrible feeling to be trying to make that change. I had to wait for years to feel the joy because all I was doing was losing, that’s how I felt. That was a scarier journey than being out there in the world. I tell people I had to give up my man, my money, and my dope when I joined the Church. Not in that order! The money was the hardest thing in the world to give up. When you’re out there dealing, there’s a lot of money. Money, money, money! The devil don’t have no recession. I could do anything I wanted, I could buy anything, I could go anywhere, and take my children places. But the Lord let me know by the power of the Holy Spirit that while it was all His, dealing drugs wasn’t the way to make it acceptable to Him. So I made a promise I would never deal again. I went from having lots of money to having nothing. I had to get welfare and food stamps. I was collecting cans just to have enough to buy a loaf of bread. This was beneath my dignity. I did wrong in the first place to keep from going this low. It was overwhelming to go from having to having not, but I did it. When I joined the Church, I was still smoking, and I was addicted to heroin. I used some other drugs, too—methamphetamines, different kinds of pills. I gave up the cigarettes. I gave up the drugs. No one knew I was kicking dope. I didn’t look like it. I didn’t act like it. The strength that had to come from God to let go of everything I had loved and had held to–well, I just feel really blessed I could give it all up. It was a lonely time. I had given up all the people I used to associate with. Once I joined the Church, my old friends thought I had lost my mind. I would bring out that Book of Mormon and everybody would get up and leave. I can remember standing in the doorway watching them walk away and thinking, “Man, this book is better than having a gun.” At first, I really didn’t have any friends in the Church either because I was very vocal. I loved fast and testimony meeting. They would walk up and down the aisle with the microphone, and as soon as they got to me, I grabbed it. I let people know I was aware of a spirit from the members—not the Holy Spirit—that didn’t want me there. It was right there on their faces. I said, “If I was the devil, where would I be? Right up here with the Saints. This is where sinners come. This is where I’m supposed to be.” I was not going to take any criticism. I was threatening folks and talking crazy. Women would go behind my back and criticize me to the bishop. The bishop would call me into his office and say, “Now, Betty, you cannot go around and threaten the sisters.” One sister, bless her heart and may she rest in peace, would call me up after church, and she would say, “You know, Betty, you said so and so, but I know what you meant.” And I was so grateful that someone cared enough to tell me instead of going behind my back and reporting me. And my vocabulary. Girl, I lost three-quarters of my vocabulary when I joined the Church! I would be talking to the bishop and every other word I’d be taking the Lord’s name in vain, because this is the language of where I came from. And every time I would do that he would cringe like I had stabbed him in the heart. I came home and prayed, “Lord please help me because I don’t want to kill nobody.” I had to get a dictionary! Betty J. Stevenson Was it difficult to be one of the few black members of the Church in your area at the time? When I started attending church, I became very militant. I wanted to know, “Where are the black people?” I knew they had to have some. So I went looking in Church history for black Saints, and I found them. Elijah Abel was the first black man that Joseph Smith ordained to the priesthood. His posterity held offices in the Church. Hark Lay and Green Flake drove the first wagon into the Salt Lake Valley, and they were actually the first two on the ground. Then they turned that wagon around and went back and picked up more Saints. Jane Manning James. The stories of these black Saints are beginning to surface. What were your first callings? Soon after I joined, instead of Sunday School, they had us go to a leadership meeting. I learned a few things and I was beginning to see that I had leadership abilities. Eventually I got called to teach the Social Relations class in Relief Society. I think I was guided to teach that class so I could learn how to get along with people. When I joined the Church, I was in Oakland Fourth Ward. Then they moved things around and we were in another ward with another bishop. I thought, “Oh no. Now I got to break another one in.” We were in a ward with the very rich people who lived up on the hill. I was amazed to see how some of these people lived. Their wealth! The homes they lived in! Their neighborhoods! Their lawns! I was like, “Lord, where are these blessings? Did I miss the boat?” The Church changed you, but did you also see your service and membership in the Church change your wards and branches? Oh, yes. They began to realize that a lot of them were in this little bubble and in order to serve like you’re supposed to, especially in Relief Society, you have to leave the bubble. One day it was raining, and these two ladies from up on the hill came down to visit teach me. I told them, “You know what this must be, for two rich white women to come down in the rain to visit me? It’s a miracle.” They just laughed. “Yes.” At first people would only go places if I went with them. I understand it. It’s just fear. These days I will go someplace and think, “Lord, I got to hurry and get out of here.” And in my mind, I hear, “You used to be all over those streets, in the dark, delivering drugs, and you didn’t even think about it then.” So I say, “OK, if you’re gonna bring that up, I guess I’ll go do what I need to do,” and I go take food to the sisters or encourage them or whatever. I’d been a member a year or two when the Oakland Ninth Branch was formed and I was called as Relief Society president. In that calling, I learned a lot of stuff about getting along with people and why the Relief Society was organized and what it meant to women to learn to finally support and love one another. That was an amazing time, to build that little branch. It was an inner-city branch in Oakland, right? It was a neighborhood group, really. There were converts coming out of the flatlands of Oakland, and I knew the language that they spoke. As Relief Society president, I couldn’t get anyone to go down into that area to visit teach or to take a meal, nothing. So I was doing it all, me and my kids. When the first branch president got released, everybody got released but me. So I was Relief Society president for the second branch president. When he was released, I was still Relief Society president for the third branch president. When he was released, I got called again to be Relief Society president. I told them, “I need to be released, or I’m going to lose my mind.” So they released me from that and called me to be the president of the Young Women’s. “Wait!” I said, “These people don’t release nobody. They recycle you.” And that’s the truth! So I served in that capacity for a while. Now that little branch is a ward, the Oakland Ninth Ward. Eventually I got called to represent the Ninth Branch in the international community in Oakland, so I had the opportunity to be exposed to Vietnamese, Chinese, Hmong. I also work with the Genesis Group. What’s the Genesis Group? The First Presidency saw that black members felt alienated, so they started the Genesis Group, which is black saints gathering together to serve. Our mission is the same as the Church’s mission. We started as a little group and now Genesis organizations are all over. Here in Oakland, we do a Martin Luther King Day program every year at the Interstake Center by the temple. For several years now, we’ve also put on a play about early African-American Saints. The love in the community that has arisen from that group is amazing. The work that we do, can’t anybody else do it but us. I did some speaking in those early years when I was a new member. I spoke at BYU Women’s Conference and was in a book, Something Extraordinary. PBS did a special on the Mormons and interviewed me. It’s amazing to me to listen to myself back then, saying things that I really didn’t know yet! I’d read that if I opened my mouth, the Lord would speak for me. And that’s what I did. Betty J. Stevenson Becoming Mormon really transformed your life. Becoming a Latter-day Saint. I don’t like “Mormon.” The black community had to get rid of the word “nigger.” Now it’s the n-word. Black people took the n-word and made it their own. They used it in good ways, bad ways, ugly ways. They started calling each other that. About a year or two ago I heard some kids talking, saying, “Nigger you this and Nigger you that.” I went over to say something, expecting them to be black, and it was some Tongans and some white kids calling each other “Nigger.” I shook my head and thought, “We took that word and made it legitimate.” The Latter-day Saints have done the same thing with the Mormon word. People gave that nickname to us so people wouldn’t believe we were Christians. We took it and ran with it. And now we got to correct it. We got to get rid of the M-word. I heard one of the General Authorities tell us, last year or the year before, “Quit doing it!” It has to be corrected. I tell people, “You can call yourself anything you want to, you can teach your kids to call themselves whatever, but I’m teaching mine about Jesus Christ. If you want to be my friend, don’t call me no Mormon. I don’t answer to that. I testify of the Book of Mormon, but I’m a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” If they don’t have time to listen to the whole name, then, I shake the dust off my feet! Thank you for that correction and the forceful witness! Tell me about where you are and what you’re doing now. I’m in Bay Point. I never would have dreamed I’d be back here. I didn’t think I’d ever leave the Ninth Branch, for one thing. But two years ago I found myself right back out here in Bay Point looking at the places I used to go and used to live. Somebody told me the Lord knew I needed two angels to go through this life with me, and my son and daughter have been that, right by my side. When my granddaughter got killed in a car wreck in 2007, she left three great-grandbabies. My son and I took responsibility for them. We’ve been raising them ever since. Betty J. Stevenson I formed an organization, Hope PC: Help Open Possibility, Encourage Positive Change. Through that organization, my son and I have put on free football camps for coming up on thirteen years. Three of my son’s players who were on his team when they were little guys are playing professional football now. One of their mothers said that my son was the first person to put a football in her son’s hands. I’m busy as a bee, visit teaching and taking people to pay their bills and stuff. Relief Society presidents call me; they got me on their speed dial. I don’t get paid for what I do. I have to pay to get gas to go help somebody. Building up the kingdom of God on this earth is the reason why I’m still here. At A Glance Name: Betty J. Stevenson Location: Bay Point, California Age: 70 Marital status: Single Children: 2 children, Rodney Parker 52, Shante Randles 44 Occupation: formerly a foster mother, in charge of battered women’s office in Richmond, California, and speaker about domestic violence; now raising three great-grandsons Baptism: July 5, 1981 Schools Attended: Intermediate and high school in Bay Point, GED, Dean’s list 2 semesters Merritt College, certificates in early childhood development and community social services Languages Spoken at Home: English and Trash Favorite Hymn: “I Believe in Christ” Interview by Annette Pimentel.

Although a devoted mother to four children, Patty has seen each of her children walk away from the Church. The death of one of her adult sons, Kevin, left her desperate for the healing balm of the Savior. She’s found solace in her role as a temple worker and in immersing herself in the scriptures. Although my upbringing prepared me in many ways to be a wife and mother, there was nothing like real hands-on experience. Being a wife and a mother to four young children was more challenging than I’d ever expected. It was made up of exhausting days and sleepless nights, cold food and a dirty house. I’ve wondered: if I was given the chance, would I do something else with my life? I can honestly say no. I am who I am because of my life’s experiences, so I wouldn’t change a thing. I loved and taught my children about God, and for the first twelve years, I took them to church alone. As their mother, I have anguished as each one has chosen to leave behind the teachings of Jesus Christ and journey into the world in search of their own truth, love, and happiness. But I know the Lord is mindful of each of them. He loves them even more than I do, and He is watching and waiting for them to return. When that day comes, I know He will be there to save them, heal them, and set them free. Patty Gutshall and Her Family In the spring of 2008, I was called to be a temple worker. I was told in my Patriarchal Blessing that I would be called to serve in the house of the Lord someday, and I was excited and humbled by the opportunity to serve in God’s House. It was an exciting time, a time of learning and of understanding spiritual truths. I believe my service in the house of the Lord helped to prepare and strengthen me for the intense trials that would come a few short months later. Your son Kevin has been a big part of your life. Can you talk about your experiences with him? Kevin was my joy. He was born with red hair and a fair complexion. He had the biggest blue eyes and the longest red eyelashes that naturally curled up to touch the top of his eyebrows. I’m sure that his red hair had something to do with his rascally personality. He served in the Air Force for a short time. On completion of his military service, he met and married his wife. They were a cute couple with what seemed to be bright future. Shortly after they married, Kevin was injured and never healed. Surgery was required in which three vertebrae were fused together. He was never the same. His pain was unbearable, and his anger, lack of ambition, and depression took its toll on his marriage. Just one week after his daughter was born, his wife left and took their little girl with her. Kevin was devastated. During the next year, I watched him turn his back on the Lord. He blamed God for everything wrong in his life. I tried to encourage him, but he wouldn’t hear me. He swore to never set foot in another church as long as he lived. I was devastated. I prayed for him constantly. I visited often, but I knew that it was his choice to decide the course of his life. He went back to his old ways—smoking, drinking alcohol, and fornication. I continued to pray for the Lord to reach out to him, to comfort him, strengthen him, and to help him see the course he was on and where it would ultimately lead. For six months, he told me how sick he was of being alive, how much he hated living on this wicked planet, and how much he just wanted to go home. That was such a hard thing for me to hear. I hoped and prayed I wouldn’t receive word that he’d decided to end his life. Then one evening he called. I went into a quiet room and listened to him pour out his heart. The words to say came into my mind and out of my mouth. It was so powerful and I knew they were directed from the Spirit – I asked Kevin if he knew I loved him. He said, “Yes, I know you love me.” I told him that I also knew that his Father in Heaven loved him even more than I loved him. He was quiet, so I continued. I said, “You know what? Heavenly Father knows the real Kevin, and I know the real Kevin, and even you know the real Kevin. The Lord hasn’t given up on you, I haven’t given up on you, and I hope you haven’t given up on you.” He started to cry and said he was really glad he’d called. I felt so much comfort and peace from the Lord, and I knew He had heard my prayer, inspired my words, and touched Kevin’s troubled heart. A few weeks later, Kevin asked if he could come home to live with us. We said he could, but that he’d have to follow the house rules. He said he understood and willingly turned back to the Lord and walked away from the world. I still believe that he came home that day to prepare for his journey to his Heavenly Home. He came to church with us those few Sundays. I remember the only music he would listen to was Jericho Road. At our family Thanksgiving Feast, he made peace with family members he’d struggled with for years, and for a time, there was harmony. Kevin was home with us for a brief three weeks before he suddenly passed away. He said to his father the night he passed, “This better not be a bunch of bunk.” On the morning of December 13, 2008, Kevin slipped peacefully to the other side. We were assured that there was no pain and no struggle. That was a great comfort to us. I still remember going in to check on him. When I entered his room I found him laying very still, face down with no covers on. I called out to him, but he didn’t respond; as I walked closer, I noticed that he wasn’t breathing. I don’t know how, but I knew he was gone. I went over to him, knelt beside the side of the bed, gently touched his back and whispered as tears ran down my cheeks, “Oh Kevin, it’s okay. You’re with Jesus now, and you’re not hurting anymore.” Then I called out to my husband. Before calling 911, we knelt together in prayer and plead with the Lord for His comfort, strength, and peace. How were you able to deal with Kevin’s passing? We were all in shock. It didn’t seem real. Like a bad dream that we were going to wake up from any moment and find him standing there and everything would be fine. We did wake up to find, in a sense, that everything was okay. We woke to a new understanding and appreciation for the power of the Atonement and the Resurrection. We woke to the promised peace that “passeth all understanding.” The days after the funeral were followed by tears, happy memories, and individual dreams we had of Kevin that added to our comfort and peace. One of the sweetest memories that I still cling to happened right after Kevin had moved back home. We had gathered to read scriptures and pray as a family. Kevin quietly put his right arm around my neck and pulled me close. Then he quietly whispered in my ear, “Mom – I just want you to know that you loved me back into submission to the Lord.” That is such a treasure to me. The Lord knew that those words would be a great comfort to me in the weeks and months and years that followed his death. Remembering the happy times is a healing balm. I can remember how his chubby fingers felt when I held his little boy hand. I remember his bright eyes, his freckles, his laugh, his love. Most of all, I remember our last embrace and look forward to the embrace we are sure to share again. I’m so glad I was the one that found him that morning. I was there when he came into this world, and how appropriate it was that I be there when he left. What were the events leading up to Kevin receiving his endowments? Within a week of Kevin’s passing, I talked with my husband about going to the temple in a year so Kevin could receive his endowment. My motherly concerns for Kevin’s salvation were confirmed when I had an experience I will never forget. A few days before Christmas I was out doing last minute shopping when I realized I needed a new calendar for the coming year. I stopped at a stand and began looking at the covers. I noticed a daily flip calendar that was entitled: Promised Blessings – Scripture Verses for Every Day of the Year. I felt prompted to flip through to the one year anniversary of Kevin’s passing. I picked up the calendar and quickly flipped to December 13th and read these words: “Send forth your light and your truth, let them guide me; let them bring me to your holy mountain, to the place where you dwell, then will I go to the altar of my God, to God, my joy and my delight.” I couldn’t hold back my tears. I took the flip calendar and headed for the checkout stand. I wasn’t prepared to receive such a powerful witness right there in the middle of the Christmas shopping bustle, but I will always cherish the comfort and assurance I received from my Father in Heaven that day. When my husband read the scripture verse in the flip calendar, he was on board with preparing Kevin’s name. After checking the calendar and noticing that December 13th fell on a Sunday, we decided we would go on the 15th. I went to the family history center and prepared the necessary information to take Kevin to the temple. Patty Gutshall with Kevin The year leading to the designated date was overwhelming. I had gone back to school. I had continued to work outside the home and to serve in my callings at church and in the temple. We had also decided to move out of our home and into a farmhouse to help a friend. It was the move that was my final straw, and I experienced a complete breakdown then and there. My breakdown occurred almost a year to the day of Kevin’s passing. I was so weak that just walking from the bathroom and back to bed would leave me completely exhausted. On the morning of December 15th, I was lying in bed when my husband came to ask if we were still going to the temple. All of a sudden, I remembered the scripture verse from my calendar. I got out of bed and said, “The only way I’m not going to the temple today is over my dead body.” I got up, dressed, pulled my hair back, and we headed for the temple. If we hadn’t gone that day, it would have been put off for at least another year because of the aftermath of the breakdown. What were some of the experiences you went through with your breakdown? Although I didn’t experience debilitating grief at the time of my son’s death, I did experience a tremendous storm one year later. At first, I had no idea what was happening to me. It was the first year anniversary of his death, and many people warned me that it would be the hardest grieving period. I began to think that this must the problem. I remember feeling overwhelmed and afraid because of the state of our American economy. I was afraid we wouldn’t be able to meet our financial obligations and that we would lose our house. I tried more than once to express my concerns to my husband, but he could not deal with my anxieties either and was dealing with his own issues and grief. I continued to push myself into a state of complete emotional and physical exhaustion. It got to where I couldn’t think straight or sort anything out in my life. I completely lost my appetite, and my physical strength was gone. I couldn’t sleep at all, and after two weeks of burning sensations all over my body, I dreamed I was going to die and join my Kevin. The next day my mother took me to the hospital where I was admitted to the psychiatric ward. This was the darkest time of my life. I was confused and afraid. I had no idea what was happening to me or why. I was physically and emotionally exhausted. I couldn’t stop crying, I hadn’t slept in two weeks, and I couldn’t eat. All I wanted was to feel normal again. Thankfully, I had a wonderful psychiatrist who found a treatment that helped. He said that I had anxiety due to too much stress and that it was manifesting itself physically. When I was finally released and sent home to recover, I was still in pretty bad shape. I remember avoiding mirrors because I didn’t recognize myself. I began grief counseling to work through Kevin’s death. After a few months of listening in group therapy, I was asked if I’d be willing to talk about my son. I didn’t hesitate to share what had happened and the peace I still felt about his passing. At the end of the session, the counselor took me aside. She wished to express that she didn’t feel Kevin’s death had caused my break down. I seemed to be in a healthy place regarding his death. I sobbed with relief and thanked her for her reassurance. I attended several more months of personal counseling to discover the root cause. Painful truths of heartache, neglect, and abuse from my childhood and beyond that I’d buried for years began to surface, and the process of cleansing them from my soul began. I remember feeling like I wasn’t worth anything to my husband because I was such an emotional mess and could barely take care of myself. I felt that he needed a strong, capable woman, and that woman wasn’t me. It was beyond difficult to let him hold and comfort me. I didn’t believe he could ever really love me in my current condition, and my own insecurities surfaced. I decided it would be best if I just left my old life behind because I felt that he’d be better off without me. I just wanted to figure out what was going on so I could do everything in my power to avoid it happening again. I am so grateful that God blessed me to work through these dark times, and through His grace, I was able to find peace in His loving embrace. My physical weakness continued for some time. All my life I’d enjoyed excellent health. I’d been strong and able—or at least I’d pushed myself to believe that. Now I could barely keep up. My time was spent resting and recovering from a weakened condition that had no predictable recovery time. I was told it would just take time, and that I needed to be patient and take care of myself, but I desperately wanted healing right now! I turned with full heart to the Lord for strength. I’d given all I had to this process, and I trusted that He could make up the rest. You struggled with your breakdown for quite some time. What processes have you gone through to heal? Healing has come as I exercise faith in Christ. I also choose, day by day, to love and forgive my husband for all the years of neglect and abuse, and I watch his heart soften in return. Through the prayers of family and friends, and through the process of repentance and forgiveness for both of us, our marriage has been saved. I’ve heard that when Christ touches something it lives. I know for myself that this is true, and because He touched our marriage, it lives today. I’ve learned to be positive and focus on the good things in my life, no matter how many bad things surrounded me. That is so hard to do when the clouds of darkness and mental noise are so consuming. I started writing down five different things I was thankful for each day. As I focused on my blessings, I began to feel better about myself and about my life. I realized I had so much to be thankful for, my attitude became more positive, and my mental clarity greatly improved. I learned to take things slow. I learned to say no and create boundaries. I learned to be realistic with myself, to pace myself, to take breaks and rest throughout the day. The process has been difficult, but I am learning to do what I can and find joy in simple daily accomplishments. In April of 2010, I received the miracle of healing as the Lord blessed me with a renewed and energetic body and mind. My healing journey is far from over, but I’ve come to realize that working through these experiences is just that—a journey—and now I embrace the power that comes from it. I know that God’s timing is perfect. I have come to trust not only in His will but also in His timing. I’m so thankful for the Savior, for His Love and Grace, and for the power He has to bless and heal us if we will trust Him and let Him. I echo the words of the Prophet Nephi as if they were my own: “Behold my soul delighteth in the things of the Lord; and my heart pondereth continually upon the things which I have seen and heard. My God hath been my support; he hath led me through mine afflictions in the wilderness; and he hath preserved me upon the waters of the great deep.He hath filled me with his love, even unto the consuming of my flesh.Behold, he hath heard my cry by day, and he hath given me knowledge by visions in the nighttime. And by day have I waxed bold in mighty prayer before him; yea, my voice have I sent up on high. Rejoice, O my heart and cry unto the Lord, and say: O Lord, I will praise thee forever; yea my soul will rejoice in thee, my God, and the rock of my salvation. O Lord, wilt thou encircle me around in the robes of thy righteousness. Wilt thou not place a stumbling block in my way – but that thou wouldst clear my way… Oh Lord, I have trusted in thee and I will trust in thee forever. I will not put my trust in the arm of flesh; for I know that cursed is he that putteth his trust in the arm of flesh. Yea I know that God will give liberally to him that asketh. Yea, my God will give me, if I ask not amiss; therefore I will lift up my voice unto thee; yea, I will cry unto thee, my God, the rock of my righteousness. Behold my voice shall forever ascent up into thee, my rock and mine everlasting God, Amen.” This October I celebrated my spiritual birthday. It’s hard to believe that it has been twenty years since I plead with the Lord for forgiveness of my sins. That day I made the most important decision of my life, the day that changed the course of my life, the day I decided to give my whole heart to Jesus Christ. I will never be the same. Yes, sometimes the journey is long, but it is in our darkest hour that we often turn to Him, truly come to know Him, and love Him, and trust Him. It is our greatest and most important decision to have faith in the Lord, in His perfect timing, and in His perfect will. It requires our very best, and when we do, He does make up the difference in our lives. I know in the future there will be more challenges to face and obstacles to overcome, but I will always believe Him and trust in Him. God lives. He loves us more than we can imagine. He does hear and answer every sincere and heartfelt prayer. We are known and loved by Him, and He longs to encircle us in the arms of His love. He has said, “Draw near unto me,” and in return has promised, “I will draw near unto you.” He is who He says He is: He is the God of Miracles and the God of Love. He is the Good Shepherd. He is the Prince of Peace. He is the Healer of our Souls, and He is our Savior and Redeemer. He guides us patiently, waiting for us to decide that we need Him more than we need the world or the struggles in it and realize He was there with open arms all along. At A Glance Name: Patty Gutshall Location: Potlatch, Idaho Marital status: Married Children: 4 Occupation: Hair Technician and Spokane Valley Temple Worker Favorite Hymn: “The Lord is My Light” Interview by Jessica Drollette.

As the founder of a consultancy that prepares and promotes women and minorities in politics, Sui Lang Panoke is trained to find opportunities for organizations to improve their representations of these groups. She sees her love of the Church as complementary, not in contradiction, to her professional training. As a single mother and Relief Society president in her Washington D.C. ward, Sui Lang shares her testimony of the Church’s divine organization and the opportunities the gospel gives each member to grow in her own relationship with the Lord. I’ll start with my parents’ conversions, because both of them are first-generation converts to the LDS Church. I was born in Honolulu, HI and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah from grade school through college. I moved to Washington, D.C. for graduate school about seven years ago and have loved living in the Greater Washington Area ever since. Major culture shock! In a good way. My mother grew up in a strong Catholic household, but always found herself searching for something more. After graduating from high school, she went to Utah to visit a friend who was a member of the Church. She received numerous invitations to go to church from friends, neighbors, and the missionaries, and one day she decided to attend. The moment she walked into the chapel on the University of Utah campus, she immediately felt the Spirit and knew in her heart that she had found what she had been looking for. She was baptized by the missionaries shortly after and has been a strong and faithful member ever since. My father grew up in Nanakuli, which is a small town on the island of Oahu. The legislative district in which Nanakuli is located has the highest percentage of native Hawaiian constituents in the country. My father is not a full-blooded native Hawaiian, but he’s over 60%, which is very rare for this day and age. He was fellowshipped by the missionaries when he was thirteen. They took him to church and he loved it. He was baptized shortly after and ended up being the first missionary ever from his branch to serve a full-time mission. He served a Mandarin Chinese-speaking mission in Taiwan. My parents currently reside in Holladay, Utah and attend the Chinese ward at the University of Utah. Sui Lang Panoke My parents met in Utah, were married in the Salt Lake Temple, and decided to raise their family in Utah. We have a very colorful family in Hawaii, and they wanted to raise their family around like-minded people who shared the same moral values and spiritual beliefs as they did. Utah is not a very ethnically or culturally diverse state–although it’s getting better! I still find it somewhat telling whenever I meet new people out here in the D.C. area and they find out I’m from Utah. I get the same three questions: Are you Mormon? Are you a Republican? And, are you a polygamist? I usually laugh and probe more about how they have arrived at these assumptions about Mormons and it then leads into a very interesting and in-depth political and religious discussion. Which, on the surface, most of us try to avoid–especially in D.C.–but somehow I find myself falling into these conversations all the time, unintentionally. I do have to say, though, I have often felt the Spirit during these discussions and always end up feeling that both myself and whomever I’m talking to leave the conversation with our hearts being opened in a new way. I am absolutely grateful for my upbringing in Utah because it taught me how to engage, communicate, and connect with people who are different from me. It was a great experience to always be the minority (since I am of Hawaiian descent) because it gave me an opportunity to voice my opinion on a variety of issues. Even when I didn’t think I really had an opinion, people wanted to know what it was. As an undergrad, I singlehandedly represented the woman, the minority, the progressive, and the Democrat perspective in all of my political science classes; I would often get called upon by my professors to share my perspective as a woman, as a minority, or as a progressive. Being the minority also led to a lot of leadership opportunities. For example, I was appointed by the governor to serve on the Martin Luther King, Jr. Human Rights Commission. The commission was charged with promoting diversity in education throughout the state. I was grateful for opportunities like that. One concern I often hear from people of color who visit Utah is that they feel a strong sense–or at least stronger than other areas of the country–of racial profiling and racial discrimination during their stay. I can understand how people of color can perceive any form of what they perceive to be unfair treatment as being racist or discriminatory. And I have experienced that feeling first-hand on many occasions–not just in Utah, but in various parts of the world. But in Utah, specifically, I can honestly say that I rarely felt like I was being racially discriminated against, because I was a member of the Church. In other areas of the country, like Washington D.C. where I live now, racial segregation still very much exists. But in Utah, I feel a stronger presence of religious segregation. Sometimes I feel like there is an unspoken separation between members and non-members. I experienced and felt that divide much more than the racial divide. I have dark skin, dark curly hair. I’m not Black, although often times people think I am. I have one of those ambiguous looks which allows me to essentially fit into just about any ethnic group: I have been mistaken for being Black, Asian, Hispanic–you name it. But I’m actually native Hawaiian, Filipino, and Chinese, and once people find out I’m from Hawaii they immediately open up to me, because hey, who doesn’t love Hawaii? I always felt accepted by my Caucasian counterparts in Utah because I was a member of the Church, and the fact that I was from Hawaii was like a bonus! So, I was “safe” and included in their social circles. I have always felt that our church leaders have had a special and unique love and compassion for Pacific Islanders–native Hawaiians, especially, because of the “Aloha Spirit.” I actually attended BYU-Hawaii my first year of undergrad. I was working at the Polynesian Cultural Center as a dancer in the canoe show, and while I was there we had the opportunity to meet President Hinckley and perform for him. We had devoted months and months of practice in preparation for his visit, and what struck me the most when he finally came was the manner in which he received the gifts and love we offered him–so humbly and graciously. I’ve heard numerous prophets and general authorities speak about Polynesians in a special way and testify to their love for our people, culture, and food! Sui Lang Panoke and Her Daughter I feel the Lord has a special place in His heart for people of color who have been unfairly treated because of the color of their skin, or children who have been born with severe physical or mental disabilities–basically anyone who has come down to this earth and has been ridiculed, discriminated against, or mistreated in some way because of aspects of themselves that are beyond their control. Striving to view them through the eyes of Christ is how I make sense of things that happen on this earth that seem unfair in the world. I have grown to see these circumstances and experiences as a compliment from the Lord, in that, He chose His strongest and most resilient children to come to this earth in those bodies, knowing the level of adversity that they would face. He was confident in their strength and knew that they had the capacity to love their persecutors unconditionally, the ability to exercise their power to forgive, and the spiritual maturity to view these experiences as learning opportunities. You run your own media and political training organization. How would you describe your career trajectory? In Utah, I got involved in local politics. I volunteered on campaigns and quickly became one of the leaders in the Young Democrats of Utah. After completing my undergrad work, I applied to American University’s School of Public Affairs to pursue my masters in public administration and a certificate in women, policy, and political leadership at the Women & Politics Institute. One of my passions is empowering women to engage in the political process, pursue public office, and work towards bridging the gender gap in public leadership. When I was accepted to AU for grad school, my daughter, my father, and our standard poodle drove across the country to Washington, D.C. The week prior to our move, I had no idea where we were going to live, where I was going to work, where my daughter would go to school; all I knew was that D.C. was where we were supposed to be and somehow it all worked out. My professional interests lie in getting more women and minorities elected to public office. As our population becomes more and more diverse I feel that our political leadership should, in turn, reflect that diversity. We have a long way to go with that. I’ve worked in the private sector, in the non-profit sector, in federal and local government, on the campaign trail, and on the Hill. I have gained a little experience in essentially every aspect of the political process. What I have learned, coming out of these experiences, is that the media is the playing field for politics in the 21st century. If you want to be effective in the political arena, you have to know how to effectively engage in the media. The media landscape has transformed the political landscape and vice versa. As I’ve studied the disparities that exist between women and minorities in political leadership, I’ve also learned that those same disparities exist in the media. It was with this basic understanding that the training organization I run was founded. We target women and minority groups–individuals and organizations–and train them on how to use the media as a vehicle to impact public policy. We offer training participants an opportunity to create “personalized media packages” that consist of three key components: an op-ed on a topic of their choice, a video segment of them speaking on that same topic, and a professional headshot. Each participant walks away from our trainings ready to pitch themselves and their viewpoints to the local and mainstream media with practical tools that they can immediately put to use. In 2010, I was invited by the International Republican Institute to conduct a training program for women aspirants in Lagos, Nigeria. The institute’s mission is to strengthen democracies around the world, and it has a women’s program that focuses on integrating and empowering more women to engage in the political process with the underlying belief that women’s increased political participation will strengthen a country’s social, economic, and political stability and infrastructure. That’s where I come in: training women on how to engage with the media, become leaders in their communities, and ultimately pursue public office. Together, we trained over fifty women aspirants and media experts on effective messaging and political communications on the campaign trail. I have been extremely humbled through my experiences working with women leaders in Africa and other developing countries around the world and I have gained a deeper appreciation for the basic rights and privileges and simple things in life that we so often take for granted in America. You were a single mother of a young child when you started pursuing your graduate degree. How did you make that all work? Sui Lang Panoke and Her Daughter Well, there’s no way I could have done it without my parents or the Church. Literally. For that I am grateful. My father is a retired public school teacher who volunteered to basically be my full-time nanny while I was in grad school. I worked during the day and went to school at night. Often times I would leave the house before my daughter woke up, and return home after she had already gone to bed. Looking back now, I think this was by far the most difficult part for me. I remember a time when I had taken my daughter to a doctor’s appointment and the doctor asked me when her last bowel movement was and I couldn’t answer the question. I cried that night. It’s times like these when you, as a mother, begin to take a step back and reevaluate your priorities. Did you always intend to keep the baby when you were pregnant with her? That whole experience of going through pregnancy and childbirth alone was extremely difficult. Initially, it was probably the darkest time of my life, spiritually. On one hand, I was really disappointed in myself, like “How did I end up here?” This was not part of my life plan. I haven’t always been active in the Church. But, through this experience I found myself on my knees praying day after day for God’s comfort and guidance to help me through this. I was quickly inspired to shift my perspective on my situation and instead of seeing my pregnancy as an obstacle, I looked at it as a gift–the greatest gift anyone could ever hope for. It was the Lord saying, “Come back,” and at the same time giving me the most precious gift of all–my daughter. No one ever aspires to become a single parent–it’s not your childhood dream–but I can honestly say that being a single parent has been one of the greatest blessings in my life. It has led to my testimony growing stronger than I could have ever imagined. I know that I would not have the testimony of the gospel to the extent that I do, had I not gone through this experience. I have gained a deeper understanding of why the Lord has us go through the trials that we go through. It’s all part of His master plan designed to teach us, humble us, and strengthen our faith. I think a lot of people, when they have children, begin to focus more on increasing their spirituality, and it was the same for me. The birth of my daughter ultimately brought me back to the Church. For that, I am truly grateful. It sounds like your family was pretty supportive when she was born. Did that support come immediately? Absolutely! I’m very fortunate–my family is very supportive in everything I do. I think a lot of it comes from our culture and upbringing in Hawaii. The “Aloha Spirit” breeds unconditional love and acceptance. My daughter and her father remain very close despite the fact that he doesn’t live with us. He and I have also been able to sustain a healthy co-parenting relationship over the years, which to me is essential to the emotional and spiritual well-being of all parties involved. My father, however, has ended up being the primary father figure in my daughter’s daily life. And I am extremely grateful for that. My father is the most Christ-like person I’ve ever known. And, he and my daughter have always had a very close and special bond. I remember at one point when she was two or three years old she would call him “Mama.” Where do you see your life plan and your career going in the future? As I get older, I really do want to settle down. I want to get married. I want to have more children. For someone who has had some pretty ambitious career goals, I find my career ambitions becoming less and less a priority. My role and place in the world become less important to me than the place that I’m at spiritually. I know this mindset may not seem very amenable to pursuing a career in the political arena, but as we grow our goals and priorities change. My goal now is to strive to achieve that balance between my responsibilities inside and outside of the home, being mindful of the energy I give to my family and my career. I continuously strive to be in a place where I can continue to pursue professional work that I am passionate about while moving forward with my family goals, too–which I realize, now more than ever, are most important. I don’t want to be one of those women who are consumed by their work. I see that often in D.C. I want to make sure I’m devoting as much time to my daughter as I am to my work. It’s difficult to find that balance, especially when I am sustaining the household on my own. It’s a process every day and every day we get better and better. We so often tend to compare ourselves to others–our successes, our failures, our trials, and our accomplishments–but I have learned that our lives are not a competition. Each and every one of us has a unique role and mission here on earth. No two are identical. It is with this knowledge I find peace and joy in any work that I choose to do. Is it tempting to have your career be all-consuming? Absolutely. I always have to check myself when I feel like I’m ignoring my kid! Anyone who knows me knows I’m notorious for dragging my daughter to conferences, meetings, networking receptions. But, anyone who knows us will also say my daughter’s a great networker herself! On our way home from one of my board meetings the other day, she was telling me how someone had recruited her to join their fundraising committee! My initial thought was, that’s brilliant! I was like, who wouldn’t want to give money to a bright, beautiful nine-year-old girl advocating for a good cause? I was an only child of a single mom myself. I got dragged around to a lot of grownup places too! I’m sure she’s doing beautifully. She really is. I actually look up to her! I think she teaches me more than I teach her. One of my closest aunts made an observation about my daughter a few years ago that I have found to be remarkably true over the years. She said that she has never seen a child at such a young age who “thinks before she speaks.” This is such an accurate characterization of my daughter and, hey, I don’t know very many adults that have learned how to do this, so this is a true sign of maturity in adolescence for sure. I do feel that I have unique blessings as a single mother in the Church. I get to call all the shots in my home. I get invited to all the singles and family activities. And, I’m always saying this to our missionaries, but one benefit of being a single mother in the Church is that I am required to have both sets of missionaries in my home whenever I invite them over for dinner. I love having the missionaries in my home. One of the reasons I love having them over is because I love feeling the presence of the priesthood in my home. I find it remarkable that these men at such a young age are so much further ahead, spiritually, than some of our world leaders that reside right down the street. Over the years we’ve had some very interesting intellectual, spiritual, and sometimes political discussions and we always arrive at the same consensus: even though I’m a big champion of diversity, we all understand that it ultimately doesn’t matter what your ethnic background is, what your political affiliation is, what country you come from. We are all daughters and sons of Heavenly Father and we all warrant the same divine love. We all have access to the same blessings. I love that the missionaries always get this. One of the things I’ve struggled with in the Church is the history of its treatment of African Americans. My daughter’s father is African American. Most of the men I’ve dated have been African American and I have sort of developed a reputation for dating black Republicans. Many of my friends wonder how I do it. But, I have learned a lot about the gospel and what it really means through these relationships. Me, being politically progressive but religiously conservative, finding myself drawn to African American conservatives actually makes perfect sense to me. I believe that when each of us is able to get to the point where we can sit down with people of opposing views and genuinely seek to understand where their beliefs are coming from, this is how our country–and, ultimately the world–will be healed. It is very difficult to get to that point, and it always ultimately begins with us. I feel that the gospel is what’s going to get us there. Or at least it is what’s gotten me to where I’m at right now spiritually. I haven’t always been as open and accepting as I am now. Since I’ve been formally trained to analyze organizations, institutions, or governments and assess where they stand in terms of women and minority representation, I find myself inadvertently doing the same thing with our church. I can’t help but understand the concerns that people of color have about the way minorities have been treated within the Church. If you look at our church worldwide, it’s extremely ethnically diverse. But in America, it’s overwhelmingly Caucasian and most of our leaders are Caucasian men. I see many similarities between what we face as a church and what other churches face with regard to integrating women and minorities into leadership roles. I know there will be a day when we see more ethnic diversity in the leadership of the Church, but every church has essentially struggled with this for centuries. That’s why I always say, “Why does the LDS Church always seem to be singled out in this regard?” Sui Lang Panoke and Her Daughter I want to quickly share an experience. When our stake got reorganized, Elder Holland came out to assist in the transition and it was the first time that an apostle had come to the Greater Washington Area in twenty years, so it was kind of a big deal. We prepared for this stake conference months in advance. You had to arrive four to five hours early just to get a seat. I was praying that I would get a seat in the chapel. One of my friends from my ward was serving as an usher and got me a seat in the chapel about a dozen rows from the front of the stand. It ended up being the most spiritual meeting I’ve ever been in. I think this is why: oftentimes I find myself looking up at the pulpit in sacrament meeting, stake conference, or General Conference and observing that the leadership of our church residing on the stand are overwhelmingly, if not all, “old white men.” I think I do this naturally because of my training. This meeting was different, because in this meeting, though I found myself looking up on the stand and once again seeing all white men, this time I was inspired to look beyond what meets the eye. And I didn’t see them as “old white men”; I saw them as men of God who just happened to be white. One after another they each testified of their love for their wives, their love for our Savior, and their love for each and every one of us there. Although they were sitting above all of us on the stand, I knew that in the hearts of these men, they did not set themselves above any one of us in the room; their leadership roles were more lateral than hierarchical. Each one of them came from a place of humility, meekness, and gratitude. It dawned on me that all of these years, I was hoping and waiting for the demographic of the leadership in the Church to change, when in fact, the Lord was waiting for me to humble myself to the point where I could switch my focus from viewing those around me through the eyes of the world to genuinely seeing those around me through the eyes of the Lord. It doesn’t matter what any of us looks like on the outside; what matters is what’s in our hearts. In fact, this is the only thing that matters to the Lord. It was the most powerful meeting that I’ve ever been in. It was also particularly inspiring to me because Elder Holland talked about how remarkable the Church is to have a divinely led process through which the transfer of power is passed on. I have always found this most fascinating about our church. He commented on how quickly and efficiently the reorganization of the new stake presidency was and how it was, most importantly, done with love. This made me think of the contrast between the Church and the political arena today, where it is pretty much impossible to have a smooth, expedient transfer of power from administration to administration, let alone “with love!” It seems like the absence of love is what’s prevalent throughout the world whenever a transfer of power occurs in the public or private sector. Where else in the world can you witness a transfer of power like the reorganization of our stake presidency? A transfer made so smoothly, so expediently, and with love? He was absolutely right. Hearing testimonies like that, I couldn’t deny it. I could not deny that this church is led by Jesus Christ. Another thing I have grown to love and appreciate about the men throughout the Church is that nowhere else will you see so many men crying in front of hundreds or thousands of people. I mean, you rarely see men cry, period, and if they do it’s in a private intimate setting behind closed doors. But, in our church grown men will be speaking to large congregations, or at a world-wide-broadcast General Conference and it is very common for our patriarchal leaders to break down in tears! To me, this is just another testament of the power of the Spirit and the humility of the men that lead our church. They become so overwhelmed with love and gratitude that their emotions take over, and they can’t deny the Spirit! It’s that strong. It will bring anyone to their knees. It’s a great thing! I have realized that as my faith in the gospel grows stronger, I find myself questioning the roles of women within the Church less and less. It is important to acknowledge that the Church and society play by different rules. When you truly believe that the Church is led and directed by Jesus Christ, your desire to question its precepts dwindles away. You were recently called to be the Relief Society president of your ward. What has been your reaction to that new calling? When the bishop initially extended the calling to me in his office, I sat there for what seemed a long moment of silence, allowing myself to process what he was saying. I was immediately overwhelmed–not overwhelmed with the responsibility that comes with the calling, but overwhelmed with a feeling of peace and love, I had never felt closer to my Heavenly Father. The first words out of my mouth were, “Are you sure you want ME?” I quickly became emotional because I had never thought of myself as being worthy or even qualified to serve in that role; in my mind, that calling was reserved for the “other” RS ladies, the ones I grew up with in Utah. The bishop’s response was very comforting as he replied, “Yes, you. The Lord does see you in that light and He wants you to serve.” Initially, I found it rather ironic actually that I would be called to serve in the RS, because growing up in Utah, I used to actually make fun of the RS ladies–wearing their Christmas sweaters, always knitting something, swapping Jell-O salad and funeral potatoes recipes. I never really felt like I fit into that mold. But, over the years I have grown to love the women in RS as I admire the manner in which they raise their children, foster sincere and loyal friendships with each other and their husbands, adhere to the needs of our communities, pursue successful careers outside of the home, and even serve in our armed forces. The women in RS have quickly become living examples in my life of the type of woman that I want to be. So, in many ways, this calling is a true testament to me of how much the women in RS have contributed to my own personal and spiritual growth over the years. For me to be given the opportunity to serve and lead this organization in our ward is a true honor and blessing in my life. I consider it to be my greatest accomplishment next to raising my daughter. As I think back now to my young adulthood years when I was graduating from high school and going off to college and really starting to think about what my career goals were going to be, I realize that I always had the desire to serve women. Most of the women I grew up around filled very traditional female roles. Many of them were full-time moms, and if they worked outside of the home it was a part-time job in administration, education, or healthcare. Of course I’m generalizing, but this is the image I remember. Growing up surrounded by that image of women, I always felt like I saw an even greater potential and role for women, especially women of color, and I wanted to inspire and empower women to become leaders not just in their homes, but in society as well. I wasn’t sure in what capacity or to what extent I was going to do this, but I was always so inspired by the women in my life that I wanted to pay that forward in some way. When I think about what makes a great leader I think of personal and spiritual strength, perseverance, humility, gratitude, high self-worth, low ego, and sincere concern for others. I’ve been blessed because pretty much all of the women who have inspired my life have possessed these qualities. In many ways I feel like women are any society’s greatest asset, and in many ways today they remain an untapped resource that has yet to be unleashed and utilized to its fullest potential. One of the significant differences I see between the Church organization and our secular societies at large is that the Church has been tapping into this invaluable resource called “women” since its inception, and the dynamic impact of women is being carried out through the Relief Society. The Relief Society is the vehicle through which the power of women is being utilized in the latter days to bring forth the gospel of Jesus Christ to all the world. I love that our church views men and women as equal partners walking side by side. We may each serve in different roles, but both are equally important and equally valued in the eyes of the Lord. As a child, when you go off to college and try to create a so-called “successful” life for yourself, eventually you come to the realization that all you really want to do is make your parents proud. You want to be able to call home and report that you accomplished “something great.” We’ve lived in D.C. for over seven years now and knowing all of the sacrifices that my parents have made in order for me to be here, not a day goes by when I don’t pray that this will be the day that I can call home to report on my “something great.” Although I have had many tremendous accomplishments during my tenure in Washington, I still felt like I hadn’t reached that pinnacle of success I was striving for, but when I received this calling I knew immediately that this was it! This was my “something great!” The opportunity that I was waiting for, the opportunity the Lord had been preparing me for, where I could do the work I’ve always had the desire to do and make both my earthly and heavenly parents proud. I can’t think of a better way to inspire and empower women or a greater mission than tending to the temporal and spiritual welfare of our brothers and sisters while spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ. This calling is confirmation to me that the Lord does know and love each and every one of us individually. He knows what’s in our hearts. He hears our prayers. And, He will never leave us under any circumstances–even when we don’t choose to follow Him. My testimony has never been stronger and it is because of the trials I have faced that have brought me closer to our Savior. It is because of opportunities like this that I have had to serve in the Lord’s church. It is because of the examples of the women in RS and the worthy priesthood holders that lead our church who have reconfirmed to me time and time again that this church is true. “Many are called, but few are chosen.” It is up to each and every one of us whether or not we become one of God’s chosen. For this opportunity I am indeed grateful and pray that I will serve in a way that is pleasing to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. At A Glance Name: Sui Lang Panoke Location: Washington D.C. Marital status: Single Occupation: Founder of Women Politics Media Schools Attended: BYU, University of Utah, American University Languages Spoken at Home: English Interview by Neylan McBaine.

For twenty-seven years, Rhyll Crowshaw and her husband have been working through the effects of his sexual addiction. With the help of therapists, bishops, introspection and prayer, Rhyll has developed the strength she needs to keep herself safe. She now also helps other victims of sexual addiction feel safe through her organization S. A. Lifeline. My husband and I were married forty years ago in the temple, in 1973. We both felt like we were really prepared and that it was the right thing to do. We started a family fairly soon. In 1986, when we had five children, one day my husband was driving towards our home and I was driving the other direction, and he saw me, stopped me, and asked me to come with him. He told me his whole history: he had seen pornography when he was six years old. He was very drawn to it. He kept looking for it after that. He had some history of inappropriate relationships in high school, and after we married, he felt like it was going to go away and that he would be just fine. He would be loyal and true. This is thirteen years into our marriage he is telling me all of this, but by then his behavior had just gotten worse. He traveled a lot with his business. He was very successful in the business world. When he was gone on trips, he started viewing porn in a motel room, and then he started going to strip clubs. Then he started picking up prostitutes. He had been doing that for most of our marriage. Can you elaborate on why it was possible for you to live with him for 13 years and not know? He was extremely good at hiding his behavior. We have worked with thousands of people now in the S. A. Lifeline program, and I’ve learned about the shame surrounding sexual addiction, especially in our culture. People get extremely good at living a double life. The majority of the women I have worked with never knew. I never saw one shred of evidence that he had a double life going on. With this particular addiction there is no smell, no needle marks. So that leaves us in fear of: What if? What if men we know are addicted, and we don’t know it? I answered that question for myself by learning instead what recovery looks like. How do I know if he is acting out? How do I know if I am safe? Safe emotionally, but safe physically too. That is one of the big questions every woman whose husband has been acting out with other people must ask herself and should ask herself. How do I know if I am safe? Rhyll Anne Croshaw and Her Husband After his first disclosure, he was sincerely interested in changing. He told me, he told our church leaders, he believed he could and would change, and he was sincerely interested in repenting. After his first disclosure, he was told by church leaders, “Just stop doing that. You’re better than that. And you are loved.” He was very successful in business and had church callings that were very important. So people knew him to be a very kind, good man. This other behavior, this Jekyll and Hyde, was very confusing to everyone, mostly to me because I’d never seen him act out. There was no shred of evidence that he had ever done porn. None of it. What was the catalyst that made him stop you on the street, after thirteen years of marriage? The catalyst was that maybe he had exposed me to a disease. He was a kind enough person that he certainly didn’t want to be putting me in danger. Obviously you were shocked. Did you think about leaving him? Were you always committed to staying with him? What was your reaction? I didn’t even consider leaving him. He was in tears. He was saying, “I’m so sorry. I don’t want to do this anymore. I’m so sorry I’ve done this to you. Can you forgive me?” And my belief was that we forgive. We do forgive. So I thought, “What is my responsibility here? It’s to forgive.” The only advice we got at the time was stop doing it, forgive and forget. Move on. That was twenty seven years ago. No one knew about sexual addiction at that time. At least no one talked to us about the fact that a person could be addicted to sexually acting out. Life went on. We had two more children… twins! Then ten years later, in 1997, he came forward to me again. He had been sober for three years, and then had hidden his behavior for the next seven. Did you say sober? Sober. Meaning he wasn’t acting out with other women. In sexual addiction, he could be sober by not acting out. He and I had a sexual relationship, but he could be sober which means he didn’t do porn, masturbation, strip clubs, and prostitutes for three years. Most people would think he had it completely under control. He was white knuckle sober: “I won’t, I won’t, I can’t, and I shouldn’t.” Was it something that you were talking about on a daily basis during those ten years to help him stay sober or was it something that went into the background of your life? I would ask him, “How are you doing?” He would say, “I’m fine. I’m doing well.” Sometimes his response was, “Why do you not trust me?” So he would put blame back to me. Then I started to believe — and this is what I call the “crazy committee” — I started to believe that I didn’t trust him enough and it was my fault if he behaved badly. He is a good man, and he is a nice man. So it’s not like he is an angry person, but there were no signs that he was an addict so I didn’t know if I was safe or not. The only way I could know was to ask him. So the second time he came out to me was in 1997, and I went through all of the spiritual guidance I could get. Temples, bishops, stake presidents . . . I knew it was my decision to stay with him or not. I kept asking God, “What am I supposed to do?” I felt I needed to help my husband; he could clearly not overcome his addiction on his own. We did find a therapist who finally said to us, “He’s an addict.” That was the first time I had ever thought his behavior was not my fault. I couldn’t be responsible for him. After he came out to me the second time, I bought this little rough handcart, just a tiny thing, and presented it to my husband and children at Thanksgiving time, because I had been reading the stories of pioneer women as part of the pioneer sesquicentennial and I related to those women. I said, “Dad’s struggling, but we are going to get through this together, and this handcart is a reminder that we can pull together. I will pull with the Lord’s help.” Did you personally at this time have anybody else you could really turn to? Were mentors and friends an important part of this, or were you dealing with this with isolation with him? My parents knew, some of his family knew, but they didn’t really understand because they hadn’t had this kind of experience. I have sisters who are wonderful; they knew that I was struggling, but nobody had really had experience with this sort of thing, so I did it mostly on my own. Our church leaders were wonderful. They were supportive. They were kind. They were also not certain how to help stop his addict cycle. Nobody ever suggested that it was your fault within a church setting? No! No! I know many women who have a church leader say, “Well, if you will only do this, he won’t do that.” But for me, nobody ever caused me to believe that his behavior was because I wasn’t enough. But that was already an internal feeling for me. No one needed to say it for me to feel I wasn’t enough and that, because I wasn’t enough, he was going elsewhere. I already felt it internally. That is such a damaging belief and attitude for women: to compare ourselves against the public plastic image of perfection or of sexual desire. It’s so damaging and it’s so false. It is so false. But I felt it internally. I would mention that to my husband and he would always say, “Oh no, you’re exactly who I want,” but it didn’t make sense to me. Then why did he act out with other women? Not until I learned about sexual addiction and I became educated about it did I understand that it really doesn’t have anything to do with these men’s wives or their girlfriends. Sexual addiction is not about sex, it is about lust. Rhyll Anne Croshaw and Her Extended Family Sexual addition and sexual attraction to one’s girlfriend or wife are completely separate things. That was really hard for me to believe at first. I mean, there were times that I said to him, “I think you’re lying to me” because I couldn’t make the connection. I understand it now. I certainly understand it much better than I have in the last twenty-seven years, but I still occasionally go to that place of not feeling my own worth. I go there and compare myself and say, “Well, I’m not enough.” That for me is a victim’s place, and I know that’s not who I ultimately am. So I have tools to bring myself back out of that place. I also know recovery behavior. I know the difference of what addition looks like, what it talks like, what its face looks like, how he deals with life. That’s the only way I know if I’m safe. I have my own boundaries and he has his own. Eight years ago, he came forward for a third time. At that point, I figured the marriage was over. That was when I said, I can’t do anything more. I had what I call my first major surrender moment. It was right on our front lawn on a Sunday morning, and I looked at him, and then I looked to heaven and I turned my hands up, with my palms up and looked to Heaven and said, “Take him.” The only thing I could do was to give him to God because I felt like I had done everything I knew how to do and probably tried harder than I should have to just keep making it work. I went to therapy with him, I encouraged him all along the way, and I thought I could help him. But the night before, he had had an experience when he came to himself, and I figured the marriage was over. What does that mean, he “came to himself”? He said, “I will do whatever it takes because I will die in this behavior.” It was a spiritual experience that he had. He had been arrested two weeks earlier. He believes that was God’s way of interrupting his life. So the day of that third disclosure, he went immediately to the bishop again, and he asked if I would go with him. I didn’t know what to do. I really gave my life over to God for that day. Then he called, or talked or went to every one of our children and sat down with them and told each one of them his entire story. They didn’t know until that point? They didn’t know all of his behavior. They knew that their dad had some challenges. They knew that he had some church discipline, but they didn’t really know the details and they didn’t ask. So he made the opportunity with every one of our kids to tell them the entire story. We had five married children and two teenage sons. That was an appropriate time to tell the children. The prostitution, strip clubs, the history. It was one of the hardest days of our married life and one of the best days because it was like opening up this huge wound that had been hidden and scraping it clean. The way that he did it was very humble. He could have reacted to the anger of our sons, in particular; our sons were angry that a father who had been such an example to them would have betrayed us so much. And yet within a few days, they each came to him with their arms around him and gave their encouragement, but they still needed to find trust as well. We all just took it one day at a time. In fact, we took it one minute at a time for me because they looked at me and asked, “What are you going to do, Mom?” I said, “I’ve been doing this for so long, I don’t know.” From that night on, he moved his stuff out to the camper and he said to me, “I don’t deserve to be in the same bed.” I was fine with that because it gave me some space to find some peace. That was eight years ago. We celebrated his eight year anniversary of sobriety a couple of months ago and it’s kind of like his birthday date. The eight years have been quite a process. We’ve learned that being white-knuckle sober just isn’t good enough for the long run. White-knuckle sober doesn’t work for any addiction. Because you’re just working so hard? All it takes is a bored, lonely, angry, stressed, tired trigger, and you lose your determination. In sexual addiction, there are lust triggers everywhere. And addictions are simply ways to medicate; this is about medicating your emotions. We’ve learned in our research that sexual addiction is a true brain addiction: the nature of the addiction means that the brain will always want more and different ways to feed the addiction. Why do sexual addicts go from pornography to strip clubs to prostitutes to affairs? Because it’s the nature of addiction that the brain doesn’t just want more, it wants different. How regularly did your husband visit a therapist? We went to marriage counseling at my request multiple times even before he got honest about his behavior. We have gone to therapy together on and off over the past twenty-seven years. A good therapist is very hard to find. After the second disclosure, we saw a therapist for one year and that was it because we were told we were good, and he thought he was. But then once he slid back into the behavior, he was so ashamed that he didn’t seek help again. It’s a vicious cycle. An addict will say they’ve stopped a thousand and one times. We have to learn not to start again, and learning how not to start again is the hard work. Because if you ask any addict how many times has he stopped, he will say, Every time I’ve acted out. So how do they learn to not start again? It’s a lot of hard work, a lot of education, therapy, and trust in God. We no longer regularly see a therapist and haven’t for several years, but working twelve step and helping others work twelve step is really a great blessing to our own recovery. Rhyll Anne Croshaw and Her Husband I’m now starting to speak about our recovery, and I mean “our.” Not just his. I never knew I needed to recover. I never knew that I had been deeply traumatized by the betrayal. As I’ve worked with therapists who are really researching this, and from my own personal experience and other women’s experiences, it’s PTSD. Just because he stopped acting out, there was nothing that could take my fear away that I was going to have to live my life in pain and fear the rest of my life, even if we were divorced. The trauma was not going to go away. Just to leave the relationship was not going to mean that the trauma was going to be gone. I wanted to come out of this fire more like the phoenix. Not just the pile of ashes. That has been a great gift to me. It’s a gift from God. Part of your recovery has been starting S.A. Lifeline. In 2009, we started the S.A. Lifeline Foundation. We recognized how we had stumbled and fallen and made so many mistakes and nearly ended our family over this. Was there a way we could help other couples and families recover, truly recover and not stumble and fall so much? Our goal is to offer hope and resources for those striving to recover from the affects of pornography and sexual addiction. We’re not a therapy group. We don’t run meetings. We are a resource but first and foremost we offer hope that recovery is possible and that’s our defined focus. You’ll notice that I said the affects of pornography and sexual addiction. That means it’s not only for the men or the women who have the addiction, but it’s also for the spouse. We have discovered that unless the spouse heals and begins to live a life of peace and serenity and joy, she stays in that victim place–fearful, resentful, angry–and the marriage is not going to thrive. What would you say is the most important thing that the gospel has helped you with over the past twenty-seven years? It’s a really basic testimony and belief that God loves me, that He knows my pain, and that He is there with me. I’ve also discovered that no matter how hard we try, we cannot change somebody else. Somehow I thought I could fix my husband, but I couldn’t make him give his will to God. I can’t even do that with my own children. All I can do is work with God. You know the serenity prayer? “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change . . .” It has meant a lot to me. I cannot change circumstances many times and certainly not other people. I need courage to change the things I can change, which is to look at myself. Do I have issues? Do I have “stuff” in myself? I do! So I need to spend more time looking at my stuff and working at it so that I’m being true to myself and gain the wisdom to know the difference between what is his issue and what is mine. I must be true to myself and God. Being true to myself also means supporting my husband’s recovery actions and behavior, but refusing to enable a spiritually deadening, relationship damaging, socially-harmful addiction. At the beginning, I don’t know if I could have handled that kind of self-analysis when I was going through so much trauma, but I do know that it’s part of the education that I went through. People have questions, “Why would you stay?” Kind of like, “You’re not very smart, are you?” I don’t make a judgment on that because I have occasionally thought, Why did I stay? I know that I asked. I know that I pleaded. I bloodied my knuckles at the door of Heaven over and over again: What am I to do? The answer was, “Stay just for today! I’m going to care for you just for today,” and He has. So I would humbly go to God and plead for His help and give my will to the most powerful, loving being in the universe. In the meantime, in order to be true to myself, He also told me to set boundaries. In the process of being true to myself I must say, What is right? What is wrong? Wrong is to lust after another woman in your heart. Wrong is to go out seeking prostitutes. That is wrong. Wrong is going to pornography. Those will not work in my life. And if another person forces those things into my life, the most loving thing I can do for both myself and my husband is to set boundaries. Can you tell me more about these boundaries? For instance, a victim attitude is an attitude that goes along with addiction: I’m unique, I’m a victim of problem I can’t control. So if he goes into victim mode, I’m not comfortable with that, and I will let him know. I will say, “I feel ‘victim’ coming from you and I am going to need to detach from that.” We call it “detaching with love.” It doesn’t mean that I’m leaving, I’m just detaching because I can’t fix this. We discovered that we don’t fix each other. God loves us and helps us. There is only one Savior and it’s not me. I wrote a book called, “What Can I Do About Me?” I discovered that writing about boundaries was the most difficult thing in all of my writing. Boundaries are about love for myself and my husband. I need to feel safe. A very basic boundary is that if my husband acts out sexually, then I will need a separation time. The “if… then” clause is critical. But how will I know, given our history, if he’s acting out? That goes back to understanding what his recovery looks like, and having a trusting connection with God. Many of us try to help our spouses, but we’re really trying to fix them. I think we can encourage, but there is a point where we need to say, this is not my business. It’s between him and God. And if he will take it to God, I have full confidence that God will help him. Just like if I take my worries and my sins and my stuff to God, He will help me. I have to give my will to Him. It’s like Elder Maxwell said: All that we have to give is our will, everything else is a gift to us, but we have one thing. I have one thing that is just mine and that’s my will. If I give that to God and I can trust Him because I know that He loves me, and He wants all the happiness in the world for me. If I can trust Him with my will, He will make wonderful things happen. That doesn’t mean that painful things are going to go away. In Mosiah 27 it talks about how the Lord didn’t remove the heavy burdens that were on the people’s backs. He didn’t remove them, but he made it feel as though they were not there. And I have written three dates next to that scripture where I knew that’s what God was doing in my life. I don’t know what the answer is for any other woman out there who is dealing with a husband’s sexual addiction, but I do know that my path, though hard and very painful, has been guided out of love by a very loving Heavenly Father who knew my pain. In our foundation work with S.A. Lifeline, one of my main goals is that I can help be an instrument in His hands. That’s my desire. Is there anything else you’d like to share? I guess there is one thing. We believe that pornography and sexual addiction is a plague. It is the one thing that will take more families down than any other addiction. However, we know that recovery is possible. It’s not easy and it takes a lot of time. It’s about living a healthy lifestyle more than just recovering from the effects of sexual addiction. My husband wanted that healthy lifestyle; he wanted to recover. If the man knows there are tools available to recover, and he has had time to take advantage of those tools but chooses not to, there is often no choice for a woman but to leave the marriage. That is a decision between her and God. However, if a marriage can recover and individuals can work their own recovery, families can survive. A strengthened family built on honesty, humility, accountability, and connection. Those four things will enable us to deal with the challenges that are facing our families and our children. Our goal is to let people know that it is possible, and it’s an amazing gift and blessing to have a marriage recover. It’s possible. I know it’s possible. Has it been easy? No! Some days, even now, are hard, even though I believe that my husband is not acting out because I have been given a gift from God to recognize his behavior and to detach when I need to. But our relationship is better than it has ever been in forty years. At A Glance Name: Rhyll Anne Croshaw Location: Mappleton, UT Age: 60 Marital status: Married for 40 years to Steve Croshaw Children: Paul 39, Amy 37, Megan 35, Spencer 34, Tara 31, Preston 23, Tanner 23 Occupation: Co-Founder and Vice President S.A. Lifeline Foundation Schools Attended: PMontana State University, Utah State University, BS of Family Life from Brigham Young University Languages Spoken at Home: English Favorite Hymn: “How Firm A Foundation” verses 3,4,5 and 7 On The Web: www.salifeline.org and www.rhyllrecovery.com Interview by Neylan McBaine.