Christanne Harrison, a stake Relief Society president in Boston MA, is a guest contributor today at MWP. Christanne grew up in a small town in Idaho with six sisters. She attended BYU and received a degree in Dietetics, during which time she also served a mission to Montevideo, Uruguay. After working at a migrant health center for two years, she went to the University of Alabama at Birmingham and receive a Master’s in Public Health. She currently works as a nutrition consultant and trainer for schools and child care centers and lives in Massachusetts with her husband and three children. She is an active member of the church and has had many different callings including serving in several Relief Society presidencies (president twice), Stake Young Women’s President and is currently the Stake Relief Society President. She shares with us some valuable thoughts on developing women’s local leadership in the Church. When I think back on my leadership experiences, the thing I regret the most is not taking advantage of the opportunity to build better relationships with other women auxiliary leaders. In my current calling as Stake Relief Society President, I have relied on my relationship with the Stake Primary and Young Women’s presidents. I am strengthened by their testimonies, and I have learned from watching their leadership. I value the opportunities we have had to plan activities together (such as service projects before General Women’s Meeting), brainstorm about solutions to problems in our stake, and discuss training. In most youth councils the number of young men and young women is about equal. From my experience the young women are just as eager, if not more so, to make contributions as the young men are. As these youth shift into Relief Society and Melchizedek Priesthood Quorums, leadership in the church changes, not just in representation but also in confidence. In general, men have more opportunities to be leaders as well as to be trained in leadership in the church. It is vital to women and to the church in general that we do more to build leadership in women and a strong connection among women auxiliaries. First, the church, and women and young women specifically, need to see the Young Women’s program linked to the Relief Society just as the Aaronic Priesthood is linked to the Melchizedek Priesthood. Sister Oscarson said, “Young women of the Church need to see themselves as essential participants in the priesthood-directed work of salvation and not just as onlookers and supporters. You hold callings and are set apart by those holding priesthood keys to function as leaders with power and authority in this work.” In a personal conversation that I had with a counselor in the General Relief Society, I asked her what advice she had for me as a Stake Relief Society President. One thing that she recommended was for the Women’s Auxiliary Presidencies to meet more often at the ward and stake level. Meeting regularly with other auxiliary presidencies creates a stronger link among the programs. In one stake the women’s auxiliaries meet together before Stake Council and they encourage ward auxiliary presidencies to meet together at least quarterly. By understanding what is happening in other auxiliaries, all leaders are able to offer their support and help solve problems. Once women have a clear understanding of the needs of other women’s auxiliaries they can be powerful advocates for righteous purposes. There are many ways that the connection between the women’s auxiliaries can be strengthened: In one stake all priesthood quorum presidencies, from age 12 on up, meet together at least twice a year for Stake Priesthood Leadership Training, thus reinforcing the direct link between the Aaronic and Melchizedek Priesthood. If Young Women class presidencies were invited to Stake Auxiliary Training with the women leaders, perhaps that same type of connection could be generated. The Relief Society President or a counselor can attend Young Women’s events like New Beginnings or YW in Excellence and be recognized or asked to speak. Women’s Auxiliary Presidencies can take more active roles in Girls Camp, leading a fireside or teaching a workshop. Auxiliary presidencies can plan a Primary Sharing Time. Also, pictures of ward and stake women leaders can be used in primary presentations and lessons (when appropriate). The Stake Relief Society President and/or all Stake Women leaders can attend PEC when a sister missionary reports to the High Council about her mission. Personal Progress can be used as a bridge between Relief Society and Young Women, with RS sisters either completing the program and serving as Personal Progress mentors. In addition to the once or twice a year Stake Auxiliary Training, Stake Auxiliary Presidencies can provide additional training. In our stake, as a suggestion from the Stake President, all the ward Relief Society Presidents meet with the Stake Relief Society Presidency every two or three months. This allows auxiliary presidents to meet together, share ideas, and encourage one another. Feedback on this training (even though it is held at 7:00 am on a Saturday morning) has been very positive. These meetings also mirror the Bishop’s Council led by the Stake Presidency.  If calendaring permits, the meetings can be scheduled at the same time. Then, as the Stake President and Stake Relief Society President find upcoming topics for these meeting that overlap, Bishops and ward Relief Society Presidents can meet together. By receiving relevant information at the same time in the same meeting, Bishops and RS presidents feel more like partners. In our area, all of the Stake RS Presidents in the coordinating council meet twice a year with the Area Seventy assigned over the coordinating council. There is no female leadership in the church between the Stake Auxiliary leaders and General Auxiliary leaders leaving a void in training and idea sharing among stake auxiliary leaders. Having the opportunity for Stake Auxiliary Presidents to meet provides valuable perspective and vision for these female leaders. As women in the church become stronger and better leaders, the church becomes better and stronger too. A more robust cooperation between auxiliaries will impact the visibility and effectiveness of women’s leadership, and thereby the vision and sense of purpose that especially younger women have for themselves in the church. Such cooperation not only bolsters the knowledge, skillset, idea bank, and support system of women leaders—it underlines the spiritual link between women of all ages, as they progress to higher callings and responsibilities.

I had served as the Primary President for about 6 months when a new Young Women’s President was called. She joined us in Ward Council where a a discussion took place about which priesthood quorum’s turn it was to walk the sisters from the assisted living facility next door to the church building. Our ward rotated this responsibility each month between the High Priests Group, Elder’s Quorum, and Young Men’s quorums. The next month, the Young Women were added to the rotation. As I pulled into the church parking lot that week, I couldn’t help but smile as I saw the sweet young women in our ward visiting cheerfully with these sisters as they pushed their wheelchairs down the street to church. They were blessed by an opportunity to serve and by their leader’s ability to recognize the opportunity.

Neylan McBaine, author of Women at Church: Magnifying LDS Women’s Local Impact (Greg Kofford Books, 2014), joins Meredith Nelson to discuss her book and her additional perspectives and experiences since its publication. In Part 1, Neylan talks about some of the challenges we currently grapple with as church members when it comes to gender relations. In Part 2, she outlines some creative solutions, and her hopes for the future of the Relief Society. Guest Bio: Neylan McBaine, a life-long Mormon, grew up in New York City and attended Yale University. She currently lives with her husband and three young daughters. In addition to founding the Mormon Women Project in 2010, Neylan is the author of Women at Church: Magnifying LDS Women’s Local Impact. Neylan is also the CEO of Better Days 2020 , an organization dedicated to celebrating Utah’s women’s history by popularizing the past in creative and communal ways.

In this episode, Jenny Reeder and Kate Holbrook join us to talk about women’s authority, titles, words, themes, and experiences across church history. They are the editors of At the Pulpit: 185 Years of Dicsourses of Latter-Day Saint Women , recently published by the Church Historian’s Press. The book has a dedicated webpage , including additional discourses which the editors were not able to include in the printed volume. Jenny Reeder is the nineteenth-century women’s history specialist for the LDS Church History Department, where she recently co-edited Át the Pulpit: 185 Years of Discourses of Latter-day Saint Women with Kate Holbrook and the Church Historian’s Press. Other recent publications include The Witness of Women: Firsthand Experiences and Testimonies from the Restoration , co-edited with Janiece Johnson. She earned her PhD in American History at George Mason University, emphasizing women’s history, religious history, memory, and material culture. Kate Holbrook, PhD is Managing Historian of the Women’s History Team at the LDS Church History Department, where she studies the ways Mormons make meaning and make history. She is co-editor of The First Fifty Years of Relief Society: Key Documents in Latter-day Saint Women’s History, Women and Mormonism: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, and At the Pulpit: 185 Years of Discourses by Latter-day Saint Women. Her dissertation, Radical Food: Nation of Islam and Latter-day Saint Culinary Ideals: 1930-1980, explores the everyday theological priorities carried in food, and she received the first Eccles Fellowship in Mormon Studies at the University of Utah for that work.

Last year, I enjoyed being a part of the Gospel Essentials class in our ward. Before I was called to be a teacher in the Primary, I attended this Sunday School class regularly. We met in a room with a long table around which we all could gather and discuss, as a group of about 10 or less. Men and women of all ages sat at that high council table, discussing the gospel topic of the day. My husband and I worked to base comments off of scripture, and clarify doctrine as needed. I appreciated being able to learn from other opinions and respectfully disagree about some things. It brought a humbling spirit of learning and growth when people were thoughtful- not defensive or dismissive.

Janiece Johnson and Jenny Reeder joined us in March to discuss the experiences and distinct voices of women in the early days of the Restoration. They share anecdotes from church history you may never have heard before, and discuss the importance of knowing the stories of LDS women, and hearing their testimonies. Together, Johnson and Reeder recently authored The Witness of Women: Firsthand Experiences and Testimonies from the Restoration , which we discuss in this interview. Janiece Johnson is a transplanted Bay Area, California native who loves history, design, art, good food, and traveling. She has master’s degrees in American Religious History and Theology from Brigham Young University and Vanderbilt’s Divinity School respectively. She finished her doctoral work at the University of Leicester in England. Janiece has published work in gender and religious history—specializing in Mormon history and the prosecution for the Mountain Meadows Massacre. She is currently a visiting professor of Religion at Brigham Young University-Idaho. Jenny Reeder is the nineteenth-century women’s history specialist for the LDS Church History Department, where she recently co-edited Át the Pulpit: 185 Years of Discourses of Latter-day Saint Women with Kate Holbrook and the Church Historian’s Press. She earned her PhD in American History at George Mason University, emphasizing women’s history, religious history, memory, and material culture.

Every talk touched me this conference. There isn’t one I would have done away with. In the wake of many flurried conversations over there being only a single female speaker last weekend, I give the benefit of the doubt to those planning the conference sessions. There are many more male leaders than female leaders in the church, and some disproportion in General Conference is therefore to be expected (though speakers could also be drawn from the RS, YW, and Primary General Boards). Perhaps the choice to eliminate one female speaker was also impacted by the reorganization of two women-led auxiliaries. I am not offended at the final arrangement, as disorienting as it is that one to two female speakers is our norm when 54% of the church body is women. One month after the Church Historian’s Press released a collection of LDS women’s discourses, At The Pulpit , we are left with mixed messages about who belongs there. I do wonder if we are living up to our privileges as a church. A single ten-minute female speaker in eight hours of general sessions suggests tokenism. If women are worth hearing from — if their insights, experiences, knowledge, and influence are important for the church as a whole — then they are worth hearing from in greater numbers. If a general session is not the place for women to share and exhort, then why does even one woman speak? I believe it is the place; it is the only time when men, women and children gather in global unity to listen. I want to interject that equality between men and women is never the end itself. Equality would be an arbitrary goal. Equality is a means toward many good temporal ends, but the ultimate goal — the end goal of our existence — is to become like God (like our Heavenly Parents). How would hearing from many more women in General Conference help church members to become like God? It would help women believe in and claim their spiritual privileges. If my daughter grows up hearing and seeing women leaders in balance with men, she will not doubt that her influence, her knowledge, her message, her study and expertise in the Gospel is as needed as her brother’s (her brother won’t doubt it either). One would be right in suggesting that these motivating feelings can be accomplished in other ways. But the dearth of female speakers in conference is not a neutral thing. It is potentially an anti-message to all of the above. It might say that it is more important to listen to men than to women. It might say that women do not need to exhort, to teach, or to know as much as men. It might say to some members that women do not have authority to teach male audiences. It might limit our notion of the female Mormon experience and the female Mormon authority, which is not anywhere else so prominently and officially on display. Seeing and hearing women at the pulpit sends a message: that women have Authority. When a young woman sets off on her mission, or to a far-away college, or begins her motherhood journey, she will more likely believe in her own authority if the church has held up women as authorities — not just in pictures, but in voice. Elder Nelson recently urged women “to speak up and speak out!” and Elder Christofferson instructed women to “apply our influence without fear or apology.” If we hear only one woman speak in a general session of conference, will we check ourselves before speaking out in our wards and communities? Will we think, “Am I the woman to speak on this issue?” Seeing and hearing women at the pulpit asserts that women can and should expound the scriptures and exhort the church (as Emma, and “all,” are called to do in D&C 25). If your daughter grows up seeing plentiful examples of women preaching in balance with men, she will not doubt that her call to preach and expound — and her ability to understand — is as real as a man’s. This belief will drive her to study and interpret the scriptures, turning her heart to God and to goodness. This belief will motivate her to preach, purifying her heart through the love, grief, and discipline of discipleship. Seeing and hearing women at the pulpit teaches us about the women in our congregations. As the number and variety of women speakers increases, we have the opportunity to recognize the diversity of Mormon women: diversity of expertise, diversity of life experience, diversity of gifts and of needs. Hearing from many women authorities (not just one who might be assumed to represent us all) broadens our notion of what a righteous Mormon woman can look like. Seeing and hearing women at the pulpit, in balance with men, models a cooperative paradigm which we should mirror in our congregations and families, and which I believe is the pattern of heaven. In the cooperative paradigm, men and women work side by side, relying on each other, respecting each other, learning from each other and serving each other. The cooperative paradigm insists that for us to be like Jesus, we must all develop his attributes and gifts, and all be filled with his pure, powerful love. Nevertheless, under the cooperative paradigm it is understood that men and women do have different callings, spheres of influence, stewardships and gifts, but these overlap and intertwine in often surprising ways. Women standing behind the pulpit will not be expected to give the same talks as men — their life experiences, their spiritual intuition, and their approach to teaching are likely to be different. This is precisely why men need to hear from them. This is why women need to hear from each other in addition to men. When we learn how to learn from each other, to reason together, to empathize and mourn with each other, to yield to each other, to strive for each other, then perhaps we will be ready for the counsels of heaven.

Janiece Johnson and Jennifer Reeder. The Witness of Women. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2016. Thousands of stories in delicate pointillism convey the grand picture of the Restoration. Remove the women’s voices and experiences — remove half the dots — and the image loses half its color, half its clarity. Include them, and our vision of our history expands, our understanding of modern Mormon women sharpens, and we have new potential to understand the course of our people’s future. A recent and welcome momentum in Mormon Women’s history continues with the publication of The Witness of Women , by Janiece Johnson and Jennifer Reeder. Academic in methodology, the book is yet wonderfully accessible in presentation. Its introduction describes its audience as “Gospel Doctrine teachers, Young Men and Young Women teachers, religion professors, family history researchers, and church members in general.” Any of the above will find it a useful and approachable tool. The Witness of Women is an unprecedented and long-overdue resource. It is not, as it states itself, a standard historical narrative. It is a collection of women’s experiences and testimonies from the early days of the Church, organized by topic for ease of use. (Yet when one reads cover to cover, the narrative becomes clear and Story is everywhere present.) The book includes eighteen topics, and many sub-topics, ranging from “Gifts of the Spirit” to “the Book of Mormon” to “Abrahamic Sacrifices.” Our foremothers speak for themselves in this volume, with the authors providing minimal but helpful context by way of introduction to each excerpt. If I have one complaint about the book, it is that I yearned after reading each entry for more context. I wanted the hear more about Alice Merrill Horne, who served in the Utah Legislature and on the Relief Society board. I wanted to read Laura Farnsworth Owen’s “Defense Against the Various Charges that Have Gone Abroad.” I wanted to hear the rest of the story, when it was mentioned that Elizabeth Ann Whitney journeyed to the “Great West” of Ohio with “an adventurous spinster.” Of course none of these footnotes could feasibly fall within the scope of this volume, and their absence is in the end not a shortcoming of the book. On the contrary, it urges the reader onward to more exploration of the lives and words of these women. This book is crowded with joy (Zina Diantha Huntington Young: “I pressed [the Book of Mormon] to my bosom in a rapture of delight, murmuring as I did so, ‘This is the truth, truth truth!’”), with yearning (Emma Smith: “I desire a fruitful, active mind”), with grief (Amanda Barnes Smith: “Yet was I there, all that long, dreadful night, with my dead and my wounded, and none but God as our physician and help”), with testimony (Elizabeth Jones Lewis: “I testify today more strongly than ever before that this is the true gospel of Jesus Christ in its power”), with wisdom (Mary Jane Crosby: “There is no end to the intelligence that might be gained by study, by reading, and by reflecting”), with agony (Emmeline B. Wells: “Oh I wish life were a dream, a vain delusive dream, but no, O no, it is an awful reality”), with hope (Temperance Bond Mack: “We have been sifted, and if we should be faithful, what remains will be so much better”), with exhortation (Mary Tyndale Baxter Ferguson: “Sisters, do we understand the honor and privileges that are bestowed upon us through the Holy Spirit and everlasting priesthood of God?”), and with instruction (Susa Young Gates: “A new angle on an old truth, a fresh facet turned on an understood fact, makes for intellectual elasticity”). Its hundreds of entries, from church leaders and from women whose names we may never have heard, illuminate the Restoration even as they cast light on our present condition as a church and as individuals. Modern women and men may seek guidance in our private lives as we navigate parenthood, education, work, and church membership, from these women who have gone before. Modern church members can establish ourselves more firmly in the truth, learn the realities of discipleship, and above all be filled with gratitude for the women who laid our foundation, co-laborers in the great work of Restoration which continues to unfold in our day. We encourage and entreat every teacher and missionary and member to search the words of women. They are more than just half of our story — they are infinite in value.

Several months ago I gave birth to my second child. This Christmas as we celebrate the birth of Christ, I find myself contemplating not just the Nativity, but the morning after. Mary, through her willingness, blood, and exertion brought Salvation into the world. Some traditions hold that Mary felt no pain in her labor, because she and her baby and this moment were too holy for pain. But if the scriptures and a history of devoted saints tell us the truth, holiness and pain are likely companions. I attend women in labor professionally, and will be the last to abuse the word “pain” in relation to childbirth. But by far most labors are physically intense and exhausting, and every labor I have witnessed has involved a depthless yielding on the part of the woman. I imagine Mary, mother of Jesus, herself to be a type of the Savior of the world — her labor a foreshadowing of his, her blood and pain a preface to his prayer in Gethsemane. In those moments of radical willingness during labor, I have also seen women access the unimaginable. Birth is inherently a miracle time. But a woman in labor is often touched by power beyond her own — transcendent. A few times, I have witnessed a laboring woman’s face and body emit light. If Mary experienced the intensity and exertion of labor, I imagine her also enwrapped in sustaining light and power. In Mary’s story, additional miracles abounded. Circling angels lit the air with song, a new star filled the sky with unusual brightness, and worshipping shepherds brought tales of heavenly messengers. Months before, Mary and Joseph received angelic visitors of their own, and Mary was “overshadowed by the power of the Highest.” Surely these were days of immense wonder for her, even as they perhaps intermingled with moments of pain, dislocation, fear, and physical hardship. The morning after the Nativity, and the morning after that, I wonder if Mary — her nipples cracked and sore from nursing, her afterpains still visiting, her blood still coursing, her baby crying for food and needing to be cleaned and changed — if she lay there and asked, “What happened to the angels?” Later, in the haze of postpartum pain and sleeplessness, after such an abundant immersion in divine love and power, was there a moment when Mary asked, as her son later would, “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” This thought prompts me to use the Christmas season to bring support, nourishment and companionship to the postpartum women in my life. The week after my baby was born, I read stories in the news about political campaigns, police violence, and impoverished refugees and wanted to cry out to the world, “Don’t you all know that a baby was born?” The miracle had been cosmic, but somehow was contained only in me. Did Mary hear the street vendors calling out their wares, and the donkeys braying for their food, and want to call to them, “Don’t you know?” Transcendent moments of communion, miraculous times of change, and empowering challenges dot our lives without rhythm. Jesus’ birth was the first of so many miracles Mary witnessed in her life with him. But most of her time, I imagine, was occupied by earthly, human, unmagical living. Those in-between times can leave us forgetful and wondering if God has ceased to be a God of miracles. Or they can be times of straining, of yearning for a fresh witness. If we are wise they are also times in which we can live in patient remembrance, and give thanks for miracles past. The world still awaits the next visitation of the Savior, and while it does the street vendors call out and the animals bray. Today is yet another morning after the miracle. While I hope for a new day of miracles, I give thanks for my Savior who brought salvation to the world. And I give thanks for Mary, who brought Him.

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

“Be useful” is Leslie Graff’s motto. Because of her training as a child life specialist, her youth in Turkey and her experiences on medical missions with Operation Smile, Leslie is committed to a life of global service and philanthropy, which, she proves, is not just for the wealthy. The sale of Leslie’s skilled paintings help fund her family’s giving. You are a child life specialist. What does that mean and how did you settle on that discipline? I received a BS in Elementary Education and a Master’s in Marriage, Family and Human Development with an emphasis in early childhood. Then I went on to do clinical training at Johns Hopkins Hospital to become a child life specialist. Child life is a clinical subspecialty that provides therapeutic play, psychological preparation and emotional support to children in the face of hospitalization, grief, loss, & trauma. After graduate school, I taught on the early childhood studies faculty at a Ohlone College, and worked as a child life specialist at University of California, San Francisco. If there is one word that describes me it’s probably “creative” and I’ve always loved painting. It was hard for me to leave art behind during my schooling. I considered going to art school, but I wasn’t ready to abandon my equally loved academic interests. I found ways to merge my creative endeavors with my academic strengths as a child life specialist. It is the perfect fit, my creative skills are very useful in developing good therapeutic activities with patients. Leslie Graff How did you get involved with medical missions through Operation Smile? I got married right after I finished graduate school and moved to California, and at that point, I felt like I could turn my attention to helping globally and my husband was 100% supportive. I’ve always had strong feelings about global service. I lived in Turkey for a few years as a child and I think when you spend much time in developing countries it really gives you an understanding that there is a lot we can do to help. I remembered a colleague at Johns Hopkins who was involved with Operation Smile, which is a children’s medical charity treating facial deformities such as cleft lips and cleft palates all around the world. So I looked it up and I saw they had a two-week mission to Kenya. I’d always wanted to go to Africa so I sent them an e-mail asking if they needed a child life specialist in Kenya. They responded, “Actually we do, and we’re leaving in 3 weeks, can you go?” Over the course of that next year I went on medical missions to Kenya, Morocco, the Philippines, and Siberia. That last one I did when I was pregnant with my first child. My role on these missions is basically to provide a playroom for the children pre- and post-op as well as prepare them for the surgeries, help them understand the hospital experience in a child appropriate way, and allay any fears. It is one of the most fabulous jobs around! When my first son was a couple of years old, the story gets crazy. I was going through recurrent pregnancy loss: I had my one son and then I had seven miscarriages. And so during that really rough period of time, I just needed to do something to get out of my own troubles. So I went back to Morocco on another mission. We finally figured out why I was having all the miscarriages and I was able to have two more sons. So while my children have been young, I have limited my trips, not wanting to be gone, but now as they are getting bigger, I hope to go every two years or so. I am actually headed on my next mission to Amman, Jordan, in February 2010. When you started having your own children, were you able to transfer the feelings you had about your medical missions and your academic pursuit of education into the actual practice of motherhood? When I was about to have my first child, I told my colleagues I was going to be staying home with the baby. They were really surprised by my decision, I was kind of on the fast track, and they said, “Oh, you are going to hate it, you’re going to want to come back to work!” And my response was, “You know, if I can handle being around other peoples’ kids all day, I think I am going to like being with my own!” I’ve always loved being home, some people tend to feel kind of isolated but, I’ve never felt that. I actually thrive on the unstructuredness of it. So it was a really smooth transition for me. Because my field is children and families, motherhood didn’t require me to backburner my interests, it just became a living extension of it. There is a luxury in being home, it provides the flexibility to do things like my art, that I couldn’t if I was busy with work. Leslie Graff and Her Sons The hardest thing about motherhood was the hiccup in the plan when I was suddenly like, “Wait, I have one child, and now I want two…” and two didn’t happen right way. My whole identity as a mother was kind of stuck, in this place because I didn’t fit with people who had no children, but at the same time I wasn’t in the inner circle of supermoms yet because I just had one. Those three years when I had my seven miscarriages was the time that I started returning to my art. I just started painting things for my house, but then a woman came to my house for dinner and wanted to buy one of my pieces. That led to showing my pieces in a shop and then having my own solo show… and now a full studio in my house. Those years of recurrent pregnancy loss were really tough for me. It was a very isolating experience, some people might have a miscarriage or two but when you get up to six and seven you are such a statistical outlier, no one can really relate. It’s hard to resolve having that type of experience. I decided I could use my child life skills to help other women through similar experiences. I led pregnancy loss groups through Resolve, which is an infertility organization. So many times I read peoples stories and they always tell their story when they are at the end of it. It’s always something like, “Looking back, it was hard, but its okay now… we adopted this baby or we eventually had a baby ” But that doesn’t really help people who are right in the middle of it. A person who’s in the middle of a traumatic experience like recurrent pregnancy loss doesn’t really know what the end is going to be. So I thought, I want to help other people who are in the same situation as me now. Not when I’m on the other side, down the road, telling everybody it will all work out. Because you never know how it is going to end up. The strings don’t always tie up neatly. Aside from leading pregnancy loss groups, I thought about how I could memorialize this really difficult time in my life. I had been trained to work with loss, bereavement, grief, and coping with medical conditions… But I didn’t have a good support system for myself as I was going through these losses. I began to approach coping with my own challenges as I would have with a patient, but in a different development paradigm. So I started devoting more time to my art and creating a world filled with beautiful things. Creating art became a form of generative coping, a therapeutic process for me. Out of this personal tragedy came the decision and opportunity to develop this talent, to say through my art, “We are all going to go through hard things, but we can create beauty and meaning out of it.” I am passionate about painting but I love that I also do it with a purpose. I try to use my art to help others; I use a lot of the money I make from my paintings to fund service projects we do as a family. I donate them to support some of our favorite causes. I’ve often give my paintings as gifts to friends who lost children or gone through other difficult experiences, and in those ways it is a very personal, empathetic sharing. Trials can become gifts, and often the open doors to better things. Leslie Graff and Her Sons As my art has evolved, I have found more ways to incorporate my voice into my art. My abstract and organic pieces, explore intangible things that are important to me as a woman and a mother: our influence, our relationships, our connections we have with people, other groups explore my feelings on domestic life. So my art renaissance had a very unusual beginning but has a good end. Did you have a mentor growing up in your own mother or someone else who set an example of a woman who could have a broad influence? I have extremely supportive parents and my dad was always a big champion of smart girls. My mother is a convert to the Church, and I was born when both she and my dad were both in graduate school. She was getting her Masters degree in maternal child nursing and my dad was getting his law degree and so education was just always a part of our family. My parents adopted my sister and then I was born, and my mother chose to stay home with us. That was very empowering to me because I knew that she was in high demand for her skills. She could have been out making a lot of money, but she chose to be home with us and in my mind that placed a tremendous value on us and mothering. She was very active using her skills both at home and in our community. My mom is legendary in her scope of influence. She is always the one people called to answer questions or help them out. That was the model for me: you can have a great education, you can use it to work, but there are a hundred and one things you can use it for besides a nine to five job. It was very natural for me to take on a similar role when I grew up. I wanted to get an education that gives me the opportunity to work whenever I want to or need to, gives me the opportunity to help and serve other people, and lets me use my talents. Why did you live in Turkey when you were a child? My dad was an attorney for the Air Force and he was doing legal negotiations for the government there. We also lived in Arizona, South Dakota, Florida, Illinois and Colorado. We moved every two or three years. People always think, Oh! That must have been so hard, but it was actually really good. Moving around that much, you get used to change and it is the constant in your life. There is kind of a thrill and an energy that comes from new things. Why is global humanitarian service so important to you, if you, as a member of the Church, already give at least 10% of your income to tithing and fast offerings for the Church to distribute where it’s needed? I can’t stand the tithing excuse. I am a big believer that philanthropy is for everyone and not just for the rich. We have a philosophy of giving in our family. If you are not sacrificing some wants then you are probably not giving enough. I know that’s not the commonly held belief in our culture, but for me, growing up in Turkey, I saw extreme poverty. We would go to the nearby village to get our water every week and we would fill up our buckets from the well right next to everyone else. We lived on a embassy-leased building, but amidst Turkish neighbors. My parents really took advantage of that time to take us on road trips through the country, shopping the markets, everything. We really got to know and love the people there. That embedded in me a real sense of respect and stewardship. Leslie Graff My medical missions with Operation Smile compounded that sense of stewardship. I worked with a young man once who was 17. The surgeons had just fixed his cleft lip and I went to see him after surgery. He was crying and I wanted to make sure that something wasn’t wrong. So I asked one of the translators, “Can you ask him why he is crying?” And he explained he was happy, with his cleft lip repaired, because now someone would marry him. A simple surgery that cost $250 to do. His family just never had that kind of money. His sense of self changed dramatically with just this one hour procedure. A ten year old boy Sammy, in Kenya, wrote me a message on the small white board, thanking Operation Smile for operating on his burns “because now my enemies won’t be able to tease me any more”. It really gave me pause to think about his life and what he had been through. You can’t forget things like that. A dad I worked with in Morocco asked me if I had an extra book he could give to his son. They were Berber, nomadic people. “We don’t have schools where we are and I feel really bad about it,” he told me through the translator, “but this is our livelihood. I have to feed my family, but it makes me sad for my son.” I come back from these experiences and I can’t sleep at night. How do I reconcile living in a world that has so much, where all my needs are met? I’ve come to the conclusion that paying tithing is just the baseline, but then it is the stuff you give beyond that that really demonstrates where your heart is. I actively try to incorporate service as a part of our family culture, and my boys hear me talk about the medical missions a lot. Now my three boys are 9, 4, and 2 years old. There are some really great books we use in our family: A Life Like Mine and Children Just Like Me, for example, which really show what it’s like to live in different countries. I love reading those with my boys so they can understand that a lot of kids have to work or have to walk to get water for their family or don’t have access to education. Just help them get out of the microcosm bubble that we live in. Kiva loans have been really fun for my family. [Kiva.com is the “world’s first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend to unique entrepreneurs around the globe”.] We look at the list of entrepreneurs who are requesting loans and we decide what loans to fund. For instance, my husband played the accordion as a child and recently we found a man through Kiva who wanted to expand his accordion business. We had to fund that loan! There was another guy who had an aquarium and fish business and my 9-year-old son loves fish… The great thing about Kiva is that such little amounts of money will go such a long way, so my kids can really feel like they’re making a difference. Leslie Graff One thing we do is, when school supplies go on sale, we stock up on those we send them to Operation International Children which distributes them to school kids wherever the U.S. has a military presence. Again, this is something so simple that gets such a powerful point across to my kids: I say, “Look, you guys love to draw. Don’t you think other kids like to draw too? They don’t have reams of paper lying around at home and lots of markers like we do. So let’s do what we can to give them the same opportunities.” We try to be active in volunteerism. We also do work with our food bank, town educational foundation, and the boys’ schools. We gather and donate medical supplies and unused medications to a local free clinic though our town health department. It’s rewarding to see my sons becoming passionate about it. My boys always ask to add donations from their own banks and tooth fairy money to the Perpetual Education Fund and the Church’s Humanitarian Aid. A key to making this all work is to talk about why we do these things and why we believe it’s important. We talk with them about how we can’t wait until they get older and we can take them to see all the amazing things these countries and cultures have to offer. Because of my medical missions and my work as a child life specialist, am I very sensitive to people’s attitudes around poverty and service. I’ve seen so many people point at a charity organization and say, “Oh look, we’re helping the poor people. Oh, we’re helping the sick children.” I feel that’s not the right attitude. Instead, we should look at all the richness and greatness that these people have in their lives. They are vibrant, they are creative, and we can simply help by providing more opportunities. I want my boys to see real cultural flavor in the world, not just tour the cathedrals of Europe. Seeing as my paintings fund much of the service that we do, my boys get excited when I’m painting because they know that means we’ll get to do a project we’ve been planning. Funding our projects is an integral part of our family budget. I talk about money when I’m at the store with the boys: “Let’s weigh this out,” I say. “How important is it to you to have another pair of jeans when some kids only have one set of clothes?” Some people may say that’s making my kids feel guilty, but I think keeping those questions always in your mind when you are at the store and throwing stuff in your cart is important. I constantly ask myself, Can I use this money in a better way? I think so many women struggle with trying to feel important or feel worthwhile. I get such a tremendously rewarding feeling when I do little things every day that make a difference. Whether it is for my child, whether it is for a friend, whether it is for someone halfway around the world…. You go to bed at night thinking, “You know, I might not be perfect but I did something good today, I created good things. I did something worthwhile.” I think it is a very psychologically protective thing to look for and find ways that you are making a difference. What do you think LDS women could do differently to have more of this sense of worth and fulfillment in their lives? We emphasize service and education in our church doctrine — “The glory of God is intelligence” and all that — but for some reason there is a disconnect. We talk a lot about our roles as women and mothers but not always about how our individual talents fit into that. A woman can be a mom, but if she has education and skills and passions she can be mom to the tenth power. I think we need to focus less on the superficial. For me my sense of self-worth is not caught up in how I look, it’s in the things that I do. The power is in what we chose to make of ourselves. We need to do a better job of showing our girls how much they can do with their lives even if they are home with children. I think a lot of it is just building that more into our culture. For me, being a child life specialist blends perfectly with being a mom, so does being an artist. I am such a better wife and mother because of the knowledge and experiences I have had. I am 33 and I have a lot of years ahead of me. What am I going to do over the next 60 years? I hope a lot of amazing things. I think sometimes we don’t always take that long term view. I don’t know if we are done having kids yet or not, but if I am done, then in a few years my boys will be in school and then they will be on missions and then college and gone… and I still have a lot of years that I want to be vibrant and rich and full of rewarding and useful things. I want to look back and say I used up my life in the cause of good things. There is incredible satisfaction in being useful. At A Glance Name: Leslie Graff Location: Sutton, MA Age: 33 Marital status: Married 11 great years Children: Three boys (9, 4 and 2) Occupation: Mother, Artist, Child Life Specialist Schools Attended: Brigham Young University (B.S., M.S.) Languages Spoken at Home: English Favorite Hymn: “High On A Mountain Top” Current Church Calling: early morning Seminary teacherOn the Web: www.lesliegraff.com and www.smartmama.blogspot.com Interview by Neylan McBaine. Photos by Leslie Graff.

Are you hosting a discussion or book club about Women at Church? If so, feel free to use these questions to stimulate discussion. Also, add your own questions or responses in the comments section here for others to learn from and use. Which experiences related in the book resonated most strongly with you and why? Was the author successful in her attempt to create greater compassion and understanding for women who struggle with issues in the church? Did you feel moved or changed by what you read and how? Does she address the full range of issues that are making women uncomfortable, or did you think of others as you read? Which changes suggested seem most important to you? Do you think they are possible on a local level? Which changes suggested don’t seem possible or necessary to you and why? Did reading this book make you feel more powerful or less so as a woman in the church? Why? Do you think the author’s establishment of the Church Handbook of Instructions as a standard for orthodoxy is fair, or should she have engaged with other sources such as conference talks and published leadership trainings, etc.? The author does not deal with the issue of women’s ordination to the priesthood. Is this a strength or a weakness of the book and why? The book gauges small changes in women’s visibility and participation as big progress for women in the church. Do you agree with this assessment and why? The author states that Mormon doctrine claims “one of the most progressive gender doctrines among any Western religion” (xvii). Is this true, and in what ways is Mormon doctrine progressive or not with respect to women? What effect would it have on the church as an organization if we did and heard more teaching about women as role models and heroes in the scriptures, the Relief Society and Gospel Doctrine manuals, etc.? The author suggests that LDS members would be better served if they stopped claiming gender equality in the practices of our church in the same way that other institutions claim it (52). Do you agree with her that we should disregard this term, or is it helpful for us to continue to claim that women are “equal” to men in the church? In what ways do women in the church “roadblock” other women (107-117)? What can we do, as sisters, to ensure we are not hindering the progress of other women in our church on local and also church-wide levels? A good deal of controversy has arisen over the author’s assertion that “visual representation matters deeply” (126-130). While the book asserts the deep importance of women’s visibility in leadership positions of the church to both women and men, some critics have dubbed woman’s desire for visibility beyond the status quo to be unholy ambition and worldly vanity. How do we reconcile Jesus’ teachings that we not seek for the glory of the world while nevertheless recognizing the contributions of women in more significant ways? How can we ensure that our sons and daughters learn proper respect for female religious leadership as well as male? Beyond just our church leaders, how can we as parents change how we teach these notions of gender in the home? How can we do a better job on a local level of recognizing and honoring women’s skills and abilities beyond motherhood and marriage to build a more inclusive ward family? What did you think about the author’s assessment of women’s current participation in ward council and PEC? How can our women leaders better represent the women in their stewardship in these meetings? The author’s sources include books written on business, communications, and advertising, among others. In what ways are these useful and appropriate books for the management of gender relationships in the church, and in what ways may such sources fall short? What other sources might be useful as we ask for the greater participation and visibility of women in the church? When our ideas or suggestions for change are not heard or valued by our church leaders, how can we become more adept at “assessing our spiritual lives separately from our Church experiences” (169)? How do we find the strength to persevere in a less-than-perfect church, surrounded by and governed by less-than-perfect people? How can we support others who are struggling to persevere despite their pain and their doubt?