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NEW TESTAMENT Matthew 1–2; Luke 1–2; John 2:2–5; 19:25–27; Acts 1:14.(Prophesied of in scripture: Isa. 7:14; 1 Ne. 11:13–20; Mosiah 3:8; Alma 7:10) ALMA 7:10 The Lord has called me before I was born. Mary's earthly mission was foretold by many prophets and recorded in scripture long before she was born (see Isa. 7:14; 1 Ne. 11:13–20; Mosiah 3:8; Alma 7:10 ). Much like Mary, before the creation of the earth, we were foreordained to carry out certain responsibilities and duties. As we prove ourselves worthy and ready, we will be given opportunities to fulfill these assignments. ​ Russell M. Nelson taught, "Our Heavenly Father has reserved many of His most noble spirits—perhaps, I might say, His finest team—for this final phase. Those noble spirits—those finest players, those heroes—are you!" He continued,"...these surely are the latter days, and the Lord is hastening His work to gather Israel...And if you choose to, if you want to, you can be a big part of it" (Russell M. Nelson and Sister Wendy W. Nelson, Hope of Isreal Worldwide Youth Devotional, June 2018). ​What wonderful mission were you sent to fulfill here on earth? To learn more visit Gospel Topic: Foreordination. See also Mary and Joseph by Robert J. Matthews. LUKE 1:26-38 As we accept and magnify God’s will, He can do great things through us. Mary humbly responded to the angel that she would do what God asked of her. She did not know how things would work out, or any details of what was to come, but with trust in God she accepted His will for her. Because she said yes, she became the mother of Jesus Christ—the Savior of the world. ​ There may be times we feel that the work He asks us to do is impossible, but let us remember Dieter F. Uchtdorf when he said, "I promise that the Lord will cause unimaginable things to come from your righteous labors" (Dieter F. Uchtdorf, God Will Do Something Unimaginable General Conference, November 2020). Have you ever received a calling for which you did not feel prepared? What blessings have you seen from embracing your calling? ​ See also the General Conference talk given by L. Whitney Clayton, Whatsoever He Saith Unto You, Do It. Learn more about Mary by reading Magnifying the Lord: Mary's Example For Us by Sheryl Condie Kempton and Mary the Mother of Jesus by Gaye Strathearn. LUKE 1:39-56 We are not alone in our trials and challenges. Elisabeth’s miraculous pregnancy was a sign to Mary that she was not alone. Bonnie L. Oscarson said, "I can only imagine how very important the three months they spent together were to both of them as they were able to talk together, empathize with each other, and support one another in their unique callings" (Bonnie L. Oscarson, Sisterhood: Oh, How We Need Each Other General Conference, April 2014). How comforting can it be when there is at least one other person who has some sense of what we are going through? ​ Taking it one step further, it's difficult to believe that Mary and Elisabeth's paths were not divinely directed to cross. As Ronald A. Rasband explained, "There are no coincidences, we are placed in each other's lives for a reason" (Ronald A. Rasband, By Divine Design General Conference, October 2017). Have you ever felt a friendship of yours has been led by divine design? ​ For more, listen to The Doctrine of Friendship with Melinda Brown on the Magnify podcast, produced by LDSLiving. JOHN 19:25-27 I can teach my children by example. Mary was Jesus's first disciple, but she was also his first example. Let's remember her response to the angel, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word" (Luke 1:38). Many years later, having grown up witnessing the remarkable and unwavering courage, sacrifice, and obedience of a mortal mother, Jesus Christ echoed her words in Gethsemane saying, "not my will, but thine, be done" (Luke 22:42). ​ Heavenly Father has given latter-day parents the sacred responsibility to prepare his children for the challenges of the last days. Although Mary's vital role as the mother of Christ is explicitly unique, what can we learn from her story of discipleship? What are some things you can do to turn your home into a sanctuary for your children? Consider ways you can strengthen your family by being a good example. ​ See also Be Thou an Example by Jeffrey R. Holland. You can also watch "Strengthening Our Kids for the Last Days" with Tad R. Callister and Dina Alexander. CONVERSATION STARTERS How can you prepare to be willing to do whatever God asks of you? What experiences have you had when the Lord has helped you as you served? How have you seen God's hand in your friendships? What sacrifices does a parent make for thier children and what blessings come from such sacrifices? OTHER STUDY RESOURCES Margot Hovley, Mary, Mother of the Savior Ensign, December 2019. Susan Easton Black, Mary, His Mother Ensign, January 1991. Mary Pratt Parrish, Mary Ensign, December 1971. Jeffrey R. Holland, Behold, Thy Mother General Conference, October 2015. Gordon B. Hinckley, The Women in Our Lives General Conference, October 2004. Howard W. Hunter, To the Women of the Church General Conference, October 1992. Russell M. Nelson, Woman—Of Infinite Worth General Conference, October 1989. Ezra Taft Benson, The Honored Place of Woman General Conference, October 1981. Mary F. Foulger Motherhood and the Family General Conference, October 1980. Naomi M. Shumway Teaching Our Little Women General Conference, October 1979. Neal A. Maxwell, The Women of God General Conference, April 1978. Thomas S. Monson, My Personal Hall of Fame General Conference, October 1974. PERSONAL STUDY IDEAS Study what it means to align your will with God's. Clyde J. Williams, According to Our Will Ensign, September 2016. David A. Bednar, Accepting the Lord's Will and Timing Ensign, August 2016. "I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me" (John 6:38). Desire to discover what you have been called to do here on earth. Susana Lyou Mantle, Finding My Purpose Ensign, June 2009. Study your patriarchal blessing. Seek to understand what it means to "rise to your call". Henry B. Eyring, Rise to Your Call General Conference, October 2002. ACTIVITIES Return the favor. Think of a friend who has been there for you. Ask Heavenly Father in prayer to guide you to recognize an opportunity to serve that someone or a way to honor them for all the good they have done (Mosiah 2:17). Invite friends over for a Sip-n-Share. Host a soda bar for your friends. Make it fun with a variety of syrups and other delicious mix-ins. After you've all made your drink concoctions, gather around a table or sit in a circle. One by one, take turns sharing what spiritual learning moments you have had that week. Maybe you have a new insight you gained from rereading a scripture or a gospel principle you applied to your life. Take the time to simply enjoy, learn, and support one another.

DOCTRINE & COVENANTS Doctrine & Covenants Section 25 DOCTRINE & COVENANTS 25:1-10 You are an elect child of God and He has a special work for you to do. Seeking divine guidance for her life, the Lord outlined Emma Smith's calling in Section 25 of the Doctrine & Covenants. She was counseled to be an aid and comforter to her husband, to write, learn, expound scriptures, and select hymns. Emma was an active participant in the restoration, enduring years of trials and persecution at the side of her husband. Yet, she persevered and fulfilled all that was asked of her. Gordon B. Hinckley explained, "...under the plan of the Lord women carry tremendous responsibilities and they are accountable for the fulfillment of those responsibilities." He continued, "Each of you is an elect lady. You have come out of the world as partakers of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. You have made your election, and if you are living worthy of it, the Lord will honor you in it and magnify you" (Gordon B. Hinckley, If Thou Art Faithful General Women's Meeting, November 1984). Consider what work the Lord has for you. Ponder on ways you can prepare yourself to answer His call. ​ See also A Work for Me to Do by Julie B. Beck and Decision Making—The Lord’s Way by Steven C. Wheelwright. DOCTRINE & COVENANTS 25:11-12 "...the song of the righteous is a prayer unto me" Emma was entrusted to compile a book of hymns, so that the people may worship with song. Some may dismiss this task as trivial and not see the magnitude of influence that resided in this sacred calling. Russell M. Nelson taught, "Remember, music has power to provide spiritual nourishment. It has healing power. It has power to facilitate worship; it allows us to contemplate the Atonement and the Restoration of the gospel with its saving principles and exalting ordinances. Music provides power for us to express prayerful thoughts and bear testimony of sacred truths" (Russell M. Nelson, Power and Protection Provided by Worthy Music BYU Speeches, May 2008). What blessings have you received from incorporating spiritual music into your life? ​ Learn more about Why Emma Smith didn't let the destruction of her first hymn book stop her by Jennifer Reeder, excerpted from First: The Life and Faith of Emma Smith. DOCTRINE & COVENANTS 25:13-16 As I cleave to my covenants, I will receive joy. The Lord said to Emma "...lift up thy heart and rejoice, and cleave unto the covenants which thou hast made." Barbara Thompson said, "As we have faith in Christ and cleave unto our covenants, we will receive the joy spoken of in the holy scriptures and promised by our latter-day prophets" (Barbara Thompson, Cleave unto the Covenants General Conference, October 2011). What blessings can we receive if we keep our covenants? ​ See also The Power, Joy, and Love of Covenant Keeping by Linda K. Burton. CONVERSATION STARTERS What can you tell about the kind of person Emma was from the things she was asked to do? What hymn has played a significant part in building your testimony? How has being a covenant keeper brought you joy? OTHER STUDY RESOURCES Valeen Tippetts Avery and Linda King Newell, The Elect Lady: Emma Hale Smith Ensign, September 1979. Gracia N. Jones, My Great-Great-Grandmother, Emma Hale Smith Ensign, August 1992. Jennifer Reeder, I was an Active Participant: Emma Hale Smith and the Scriptures Ensign, March 2021. Jennifer Reeder, Emma Protected Scripture Ensign, March 2021. Jennifer Reeder, Emma Smith—Giving All That Is Required All In: An LDS Living Podcast | Episode 123, March 2021. Jennifer Reeder, Understanding Emma Smith Latter-day Saint Women Podcast, May 2021. Doctrine & Covenants Student Manual: Section 25 PERSONAL STUDY IDEAS Learn more about the influence of music. Music Will Continue to Have an Important Role in Primary Primary General Presidency and Board, 2018. ACTIVITIES Share your favorite hymn. Share your feelings about a particular hymn and how it has made a difference in your life.

OLD TESTAMENT Book of Esther ESTHER 4:14 God has a divine purpose for my life. Esther realized that while she was in a rare position to help her people, doing so would put her own life in danger. As she hesitated to take on this challenging task, Mordecai gave her this question to consider, "And who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" (Esther 4:14). Her courage to continue forward may have come from the timeless certainty that God has a plan and a divine purpose for each of us. ​ Camille N. Johnson said, "Esther is another beautiful example of letting God prevail. Rather than sticking with a cautious narrative of self-preservation, she exercised faith, turning herself completely over to the Lord" (Camille N. Johnson, Invite Christ to Author Your Story General Conference, October 2021). We have been taught that God is willing to make known His will for us, but that we must invite Him to do so. Are you willing to ask and then accept the answer you receive? ​ Consider how you can prepare to invite the Lord to become the author of your story. ​ See also The Faith to Ask and Then to Act by Henry B. Eyring. ESTHER 4:16 Miracles can happen when we exercise our faith together. In the book of Matthew we learn that "where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20). Esther understood that when we unite with others to fast and pray for the Lord’s help, we invite His blessings and miracles into our lives. She instructed, "Go, gather together all the Jews that are present in Shushan, and fast ye for me...I also and my maidens will fast likewise" (Esther 4:16). What difficult things are you facing that you might want to fast and pray about? Who would you ask to join you in your fasting and prayers? ​ Learn more about the blessings that may come from fasting by reading The Law of the Fast by Joseph B. Wirthlin. ESTHER 5-7 When we are on the Lord's errand, we are entitled to His help. After the King promised Esther anything she desired, it was surprising that she chose to invite the King and Haman to a feast rather than immediately make a request on behalf of her people. However, we have been taught that “the Holy Ghost … will show unto [us] all things what [we] should do” (2 Nephi 32:5). Although her actions may have seemed strange, we can see the Lord's hand at work in them, ultimately resulting in the salvation of her people. When we do our best and act upon the promptings we receive, the Lord will add to our efforts, even unto deliverance (1 Nephi 1:20). What blessings have you experienced as a result of following an unusual or unexpected prompting? ​ Find more examples in the scriptures about divine guidance. See also By Divine Design by Ronald A. Rasband and The Tender Mercies of the Lord by David A. Bednar. CONVERSATION STARTERS God is not mentioned in the Book of Esther, however, where do you see him in her story? Where have you seen God's hand in your story? How can you bless the lives of others in your particular circumstances? How do you prepare to do difficult things? Who are your maidens? OTHER STUDY RESOURCES Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Resources for Children. David Butler & Emily Belle Freeman, Come, Follow Me: Story of Queen Esther Don't Miss This Podcast, 2022. Melinda Wheelwright Brown, How to Identify & Fulfill Your Divine Purpose Like a Watered Garden Podcast | Episode 32, July 2022. Our Turtle House, Esther Part I: Dr. Ariel Clark Silver, Follow Him Podcast, July 2022. Our Turtle House, Esther Part II: Dr. Ariel Clark Silver, Follow Him Podcast, July 2022. Kaytlin Jenks, Queen Esther: An Example of Faith, Courage, and Doing the Right Thing, Liahona, July 2022. Ciro Schmeil, An Instrument in the Hands of the Lord, Liahona, July 2022. Michael T. Ringwood, For God So Loved Us, General Conference, April 2022. Camille N. Johnson, Invite Christ to Author Your Story General Conference, October 2021. Thomas S. Monson, May You Have Courage General Conference, April 2009. James E. Faust, The Virtues of Righteous Daughters of God, General Conference, April 2003. Mary Ellen W. Smoot, For Such a Time as This, General Conference, October 1997. John H. Vandenberg, My Brother's Keeper, General Conference, April 1971. PERSONAL STUDY IDEAS Seek to deepen your trust in the Lord. D. Todd Christofferson, Our Relationship with God General Conference, April 2022. Michalyn Steele, Choose to Trust the Lord BYU Speeches, June 2019. Bonnie H. Cordon, Trust in the Lord and Lean Not General Conference, May 2017. Study to understand the power of fasting. Henry B. Eyring, Is Not This the Fast That I Have Chosen? General Conference, April 2015. ACTIVITIES Learn about the joyous Jewish holiday Purim. Purim is a holiday that celebrates the bravery of Queen Esther and the survival of the Jews. It is a fun event with some amazing traditions. Learn more about this wonderful event by conversing with your local Jewish community.

Janelle Susan Cunningham NEW TESTAMENT Luke 8:2; Matt. 27:56; Mark 15:40; John 19:25; Matt. 27:61; Mark 15:47; Matt. 28:1; Mark 16:1; Luke 24:10; John 20:1, 11; Mark 16:9; John 20:14–18 JOHN 19:25 (suggested reading John 19) As followers of Jesus Christ, we promise to “mourn with those that mourn.” Despite going through excruciating sadness and risking her personal safety, Mary Magdalene stayed at the feet of Jesus throughout his suffering and death on the cross. Russell M. Nelson taught, "Mourning is one of the deepest expressions of pure love. It is a natural response in complete accord with divine commandment: “Thou shalt live together in love, insomuch that thou shalt weep for the loss of them that die” Doctrine & Covenants 42:45 (Russell M. Nelson, Doors of Death General Conference, April 1992). Even though it can be one of the hardest callings we have in this life, mourning with those who mourn is one of the most sacred opportunities we can take part in. Ponder on the times when you have been comforted. What are some ways we can truly help those that are grieving? ​ Annie Poon Study for a deeper understanding of the Atonement and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. See also The Grave Has No Victory by Reyna I. Aburto and Sunday Will Come by Joseph B. Wirthlin. ​ For those suffering from the loss of a child, I hope you may find joy in this illustration, The Lost Children by Annie Poon and comfort in these words of Joseph B. Wirthlin, "Because of the life and eternal sacrifice of the Savior of the world, we will be reunited with those we have cherished." JOHN 20:14–18 You can bring hope to others by sharing your witness of Jesus Christ. In the October 1996 general conference, James E. Faust spoke about Mary Magdalene. He said, "The grieving Mary Magdalene was the first to visit the sepulchre after the Crucifixion, and when she saw that the stone had been rolled away and that the tomb was empty, she ran to tell Peter and John. The two Apostles came to see and then went away sorrowing. But Mary stayed. She had stood near the cross. She had been at the burial. And now she stood weeping by the empty sepulchre. There she was honored to be the first mortal to see the risen Lord. After He said, “Woman, why weepest thou?” she was instructed by Him: “Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God" (James E. Faust,“Woman, Why Weepest Thou?” General Conference, October 1996). In verse 18, we read that she went and did just as the Lord had asked. Like Mary, we've been invited to share our testimony of Jesus Christ and to spread the joy and hope that His sacrifice and message bring. Think about some ways you can share your testimony with others. ​ Not sure how to share your testimony? Read Sharing in Word and Deed by Gary E. Stevenson or see How to Share Your Testimony More Naturally CONVERSATION STARTERS In a time of grief, how can someone best serve you? What have you done in order to help yourself get through adversity? How have you become a better person as a result of your trials? What eternal truths might we look to for comfort when we grieve the loss of a loved one? OTHER STUDY RESOURCES Mandy Green, Mary the Magdalene Reflecting Light Podcast, July 2024. Mary Magdalene: An Example of Modern Discipleship with Janiece Johnson Magnify: An LDS Living Podcast, March 2023. Mandy Green, Mary Magdalene and the Christianity We've Never Tried Reflecting Light Podcast, April 2022. Easter - Mary Magdalene with Mandy Green Talking Scripture Podcast, April 2020. Catherine Gines Taylor, Mary Magdalene at the Tomb BYU Maxwell Institute, April 2019. Margot Hovley, Mary Magdalene—Tower of Strength Ensign, June 2019. Camille Fronk Olson & Elspeth Young, What We Know About Mary Magdalene Ensign, June 2019. PERSONAL STUDY IDEAS Learn how you can better offer understanding, support, and help to those who are grieving. Mourn with Those That Mourn Hope Works, Video Collection. Ministering to Those Who Have Lost a Loved One Hope Works, Video Collection. Death, Grieving, and Loss ChurchofJesusChrist.org, Life Help Resources. Read Young Widows and Widowers Open Up About Dating, Remarrying in the Church LDS Living Article. Listen to Leading Saints Podcast | Ministering to Individuals Who Lose a Child with Julie Cluff Listen to All In: An LDS Living Podcast | Jenn Knight: On the Other Side of the Veil Listen to All In: An LDS Living Podcast | Jenedy Paige: The Power of a Personal Relationship with God ACTIVITIES Stand with someone who is grieving. We can join those who are grieving, just as Mary Magdalene did when she stood by the cross. See who in your community has suffered a loss and could use some help or cheering up. Remember, grief is not limited to the passing of a loved one. Grief can often be the result from a job loss, unforeseen medical issues, or unmet hopes and dreams. The sudden loss of a limb, receiving results of infertility, a withdrawn job offer, or a rejection letter from a dream college are all events that could cause significant grief. Find someone near you who is suffering from any loss and ask them how you could best support them, then go and do! Visit with the Widows. Take some time out of your week to visit with a widow in your area or drop off a kind note to let them know someone was thinking about them. If you have some extra time, offer to help them write down some of their recollections of their spouse, assist them in creating a book of memories, or help them in uploading videos to the family history website. Write your testimony and insert it into a Book of Mormon to share. In the Book of Mormon, Jesus Christ appears in the America's after the crucifixion and proclaims His atonement. Add your witness to this remarkable event! Pray for inspiration about who you should share this book and your written testimony with.

Sherry Young raised five highly educated and successful children (including Hall of Fame football quarterback Steve Young). Now she’s reveling her own opportunities to have her own newspaper column and look back on a life full of lessons. Among other words of wisdom, Sherry reflects on the hard work of marriage, the importance of friends and the realities of parenting a famous child. Tell me about your early years and how those shaped you. I was born in 1939, a difficult time because of the Great Depression and the beginning of World War II. My father managed to find enough work to keep us going, but my mother tells of sometimes sharing a can of soup for dinner and being grateful for it. In 1943 my Dad joined the Navy, so we moved to Farmington, Utah to live with my grandparents while he served on a destroyer. When my dad returned we bought a small home down the street from my grandparents and lived there until I was sixteen, when my dad got a great opportunity to work for the White Sands Missile Range in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Moving down to New Mexico was a huge change for our family. Leaving all our cousins and friends was difficult since we were Davis County residents forever, from way back when they came into the Salt Lake Valley. I hope it doesn’t sound wrong, but we called it, “going to live with the cowboys and the Indians.” I thought my life had ended, but in reality it was just beginning because the experience enlarged my world. Living in the “mission field” proved interesting, but wonderful. My dad was in the bishopric so until we finally got a ward building, I would help him go clean out the debris from the Elks Lodge so we could hold church there. It was also during that period that I learned to love the Hispanic people. Most importantly, our time in New Mexico got me ready to live in Connecticut all those years later. I think it would have been more difficult had I always lived in Utah, rather than knowing that you can build another life and life does go on. You’ve worked in education and are now a writer. What is your educational background? I started at Brigham Young University in the fall of 1957. Like most girls of my era, I studied human development and family relationships. I had an emphasis in clothing and design because I was always really interested in sewing. It’s funny because back then you had to go to a lab and burn fabric to know what was in it. Nowadays, that would be so obsolete. In fact, sewing is almost obsolete, I think, unless you’re a quilter. While at BYU, I met my football player husband, LeGrande (Grit) Young and we decided he would attend law school and I would work, so I didn’t finish my senior year of college. Instead I got a well-paying job as a secretary at Kennecott Research Center on the University of Utah campus. When we found I was expecting our first son, Steve, I quit working and went to school for another semester. I thought I would eventually go back and finish, but never did. Was it a difficult decision to quit your studies so your husband could go to law school instead? The mindset was that a girl didn’t necessarily need an education in the same way a man did, which is a fallacy, especially now, because you never know when you’ll need to lean on that. It just seemed like the thing to do because we certainly didn’t have parents who could help us and because I wanted to be a mother. If I could do it again I’d study ancient Spanish literature or something. What took your family to Connecticut and how was that transition for you personally? After graduating from law school, Grit got a job with the Anaconda Company as house counsel and we lived in a little house in the Cottonwood area of Salt Lake City. We moved to Greenwich, Connecticut, a few years later in 1970 after my husband became a labor attorney. Living in the East was a daunting experience, especially in a town like Greenwich. We didn’t live in the chi chi backcountry, but to live anywhere in Greenwich was an expensive proposition. The women tended to be very bright, well educated, take-charge, and quite aggressive, both with childrearing and their expectations in life. Because a lot of them didn’t know very many LDS people, I was their token example, and I was struggling just to keep my head above water, let alone be an example. No one treated me like I was this little hick from Utah, but that’s how I felt. I eventually overcame my own feelings of inadequacy. It was a hard period because that was the time of the big labor conflicts of the early 1970s, so my husband was traveling much of the time and I was lonely and overwhelmed. I had four little children eight years and under, everything was so new, and the church was 25 miles away in Scarsdale, NY. There was one period where Grit went to Washington and the President locked him up until they settled the strikes, so he didn’t come home for almost a month. I look back and am grateful I made it through with good neighbors, good friends, and the Church. There weren’t very many Church members in Greenwich, so I really relied on my neighbors. My experience living in New Mexico was a boon to me at that time—I’d learned to reach out beyond the Mormon experience, to make friends, and accept people for who they are and to enjoy them. My neighbor across the street became a lifelong friend and actually later moved to Salt Lake City, which is ironic. I loved my life, my husband, and my children, but those first five years were difficult ones until I could raise my head out of the cookie crumbs and diapers. I saw that I had a good mind of my own and that I actually handled myself very well, that people thought of me as a friend. It also helped when Grit was changed from the labor counsel to house counsel. There was still travel but not like it had been. How did you find fulfillment during those strenuous years of young motherhood? I think you have to just kick back, gear yourself down, and do the best you can. I baked a lot of cookies. It is a time when you can totally devote yourself to your house and to your family. We would do things together a lot because my husband was traveling so much. I’ve always loved music and my kids will tell you we played a lot of music and listened to stories on old records. You just have to fill each day with the best joy you can, and for me that was keeping the kids happy and busy. I’m the kind of person that if you get my nose in a book I forget everything around me, so I really didn’t do a lot of reading at that time. I always felt like it wouldn’t last forever and tried to keep the perspective of being the best parent I could be. Church was also a huge commitment with meetings during the week. We went into Scarsdale twice on Sunday, on Tuesday for Relief Society, and on Wednesday for Primary. It would take us at least a half hour to get there, depending on the day. We got a red station wagon a couple of years in and we’d just load it up. Sometimes we’d pick up investigators or other people’s kids and have wall-to-wall people in a nine-passenger wagon. It was so much easier because we didn’t have car seats, or seatbelts even, so the kids just bounced back and forth. Finally, in 1978, we went into the New Canaan Ward, which was closer. What advice would you give to women going through a similar stage of life? You’ve heard all of this. It goes quickly, so put your head into it and do the best that you can do because it’s such a halcyon time of learning about who you are and who your children are, and they will look back at those times with love. Of course, you can’t just have fuzzy eyeballs and just focus on them all the time; you should develop your own self and those opportunities should be taken to a point. But if you have been trying to do more than you should and take opportunities for yourself more than you serve your children, I think you’re going to be sorry someday because you never get that chance again. When you’re in it you often can’t see beyond and sometimes think, “I need to get out of here, it’s just so hard!” But when you have a child you’ve made a commitment – a commitment to love their father, a commitment to love them, and to be the best mom you can be. Don’t always be so focused on what you think you want, that you can’t change and be something else. The opportunities are there. By joining book clubs, by volunteering, by doing all kinds of things you just might find out there’s something you do well that you hadn’t any idea you could do. You have a family full of children who are highly educated and accomplished professionally. How did you encourage your children to succeed while they were growing up? Steve is a Hall of Fame football quarterback and analyst for ESPN; Mike, Tom, and Jim are doctors; and Melissa worked as the director of creative services for NuSkin until leaving to become a full-time mom. They weren’t raised in a slacker environment in any way, shape, or form. My husband expected a lot of the kids. I was the cookie baker, the knee patcher, and the hugger. We also lived in an environment in Connecticut where education was the end all, be all, and the competition at the high school really made you want to be better, so I think it had a lot to do with where we were. They were all athletes, which gets you over that hump of being afraid to fail. Athletics has played a big part in your family’s lives. Was it heavily emphasized, since your husband was a college football player, or did it just come naturally to your kids? All of our children have been outstanding athletes. I suppose the genes connected well somehow. Although Steven has received the most accolades, the others have had their own kudos enough to be happy with what they accomplished. While I think athletics came naturally, it wasn’t like they had to play football. The boys all played three sports, were all-State football players and played football at BYU. Our daughter ran track and was a high school all-American swimmer. Jimmy was a little different and did lacrosse instead of baseball. They liked athletics and it pleased their dad because he always thought it was great training. He spent a lot of his nurturing time throwing the ball to the boys and laughingly will tell people that he’s got one arm longer than the other from doing that. Would you classify yourself as athletic? Not really, but I started playing tennis when I was 30 and still play to this day. I began when Tom was young and just worked it in. I was unfulfilled athletically until that time, and it was a wonderful eye-opener to see how much fun doing something like that could be. Some friends and I decided we were going to learn and Greenwich had a great community center where we took lessons. I got to be pretty good when I was expecting Jim and had to give it up for a little bit, but I loved it so much that I went back to it fairly quickly. It is my favorite thing to do other than read or be with grandchildren. It sounds like your kids are good friends. How did you foster good relationships among your children? They were good enemies and good friends. They love each other, but believe me, they’re competitive and had their goes at it. We also tried to have Family Night. I’m not sure we did it as often as we should, but we did it. As they got older they gained respect for one another and then they needed each other. The boys all played for BYU so they helped their sibling get where they needed to go, and that created a nurturing process. The three boys being doctors also creates a friendship. Jim is going to be a dermatologist, Mike is an ER doc, and Tom is an anesthesiologist. In fact, sometimes Steve will be standing there and they’ll get doing their doctor stuff, and he’ll say, “What am I, chopped liver?” How did you deal with you and your family being in the spotlight, having a child who is a public figure? My advice to anybody who thinks that their kid is going to be in the NFL or professional basketball or anything is to be careful what you wish for. Your parenting can only go so far. For instance, what advice do you give a young man who is in the NFL making 50 times more money than you ever thought you would and has all that attention? If he doesn’t make the right decisions, then you’re in big trouble. So it’s not always the end all and be all to have someone like that. But we have been so grateful that Steve made good choices and that he was the person that could do that. Steve stayed close to the other kids so they always felt he was a sibling that cared about them, and they’ve had a lot of fun opportunities afforded them that wouldn’t normally have been available. So then you’re willing to put up with more. Because Steve is a good person, it was mostly good and we’ve had a fun ride. A lot of it is you guard your mouth. You’re careful about what you say because you certainly don’t want to cause problems for them or embarrass them. I got in trouble once after he got a concussion and a guy from the Tribune I knew really well called me and I made a comment. We’re kind of old shoes now, so it doesn’t go to our head very much. But when Jimmy was a little boy, it actually frightened me. My friend and I both watched him like a hawk because you didn’t know when some crazy person would get a wild idea. So there are good things and bad things with it. We just had a guy come to our house to interview us. We thought that was all over, but they set up cameras and asked us all the questions again. But I am Steve’s mother, so that’s part of me. You get a lot of attention because of it and we like to know that people like us for us, and not because we’re his parents. Your close friends are your close friends, and of course there are those people who will be standing and talking to you and if someone says, “Oh, did you know that they’re Steve Young’s parents?” all of a sudden they’re a lot more interested in us. It’s always amusing to see the light in their eyes go on. At what point did you gain your own testimony and how did that experience affect your outlook or approach to life? Sometimes you can go through life as an LDS person borrowing other people’s testimonies. I was active in the Church and had never really cared enough to question that on my own. But after we moved to Greenwich, I was called to be the Young Women’s president and I felt if I was to lead the young women I had to know for myself if the Church was true. I told my husband, “I’m not really sure I have a testimony; I’ve never really thought about it a lot, it was just there.” He replied, “You’ve got to ask.” It was then that I really started to ponder and pray diligently for assurance. Normally I move quickly and never sit still, and I still remember one particular morning after I’d been praying, I started going about my busy day rushing here and there. As I was walking through the living room by the bookcase it was as if someone put a hand on my shoulder and said, “Stop.” It was then I had an overwhelming feeling that the Church was indeed true and I would find much joy in serving the young women. It’s so important to stay strong in the Church, serve, do the basics, read your scriptures. It does make a change in your life and if you’re close to the Spirit when you do reach a choice or cross in the road, you will definitely be guided. I know that sounds trite, but it is so true because it’s that having that Spirit with you that will alert you to problems and dangers and will help you overcome hurdles that you never really thought that you could. What were some of your most rewarding experiences serving in the Church? When our older kids became teenagers, my husband and I taught seminary and we took turns going in to Scarsdale every morning. It was great because you really study and grow and it’s fun to be with your kids. I was also called to be the Young Women’s president about the same time Steve went to Young Men’s and I often look back at how grateful I was because I hadn’t really worked with teenagers a lot up until then. When you know what other teenagers are like, you’re a little more sympathetic with your own. Without being nosy, you have to try to find out what’s going on in their lives so that you can help. If I’d been in Primary forever, I probably wouldn’t have been such an understanding mom. After Grit retired we taught Institute. The best was Old Testament, and the two of us studied and studied. He’d just retired, so we studied every day and learned so much, although I’ve probably forgotten it all. But it was just such a wonderful blessing. If we’d been somewhere else other than Connecticut, they wouldn’t have had us be the Institute teachers, being untrained as we were. Many times like that you’re given the opportunity to serve in a capacity that really stretches you a lot. How did you decide what to pursue once your children were older – either in school or out of the house? My youngest son, Jim, was eight years old when everyone else left the house. He was a walking, talking toy to my other children and my husband and I were a little concerned about him not having siblings at home since the rest were all out west. So I just went where he went, one step behind him. The Greenwich Public School system allowed me to be a substitute teacher, and I found out that it was very rewarding and fun to be involved with the kids. I was the permanent substitute in his junior high school, and when he went to high school I did it for a while before I was asked to run a learning center part-time. Freshmen who needed assistance and supervising came in and we helped them do their English and social studies homework. I loved working in education, working with the teachers, schlepping books. My husband kept saying, “Why don’t you just go back to school so you can be a real teacher?” And I said, “Because I don’t want to grade papers!” Had I been a younger woman, I would have needed to do that to support my family. At that stage of my life, it was nice just to have it be part of my life and not my total life. I could have gone back, but I guess my lazy nature forbade me. During that time I also served on the board of Pathways, which is the mental health organization in Greenwich, and I wrote for the Greenwich Time. I had time in the learning center to write a lot of my articles. I actually kept going to the learning center for several years after Jimmy left, but then you start having children who need you for babies and different things, and so we were traveling a lot. Your life changes. How did you begin your career as a newspaper columnist? By just going with the opportunities that came to me. I certainly didn’t grow up thinking I would be a journalist or write articles. I took a lot of journalism and English courses at BYU; I always loved English literature and English classes. I was one of the crazy, silly kids who loved to diagram a sentence and I really don’t like to misspell words. In the 80s, during the Reagan era, I was called as the Church’s representative to promote Family Month in Greenwich, which I did for several years. By then I had a lot of friends and knew people because of my kids, so I got people to write articles and do spots on the local radio station. After that the editor of the op-ed page asked me to be on the board of contributors and I started writing articles. It was hit and miss for a while, and then it got to be once a month. In 2005 we sold our home in Greenwich and moved to Provo, Utah to be nearer to our family. When we moved I knew I couldn’t write for the Greenwich paper anymore because they wanted a local voice. So one day I had a light go on and sent some articles to Lee Benson of the Deseret News. He used to write for the sports page and I knew him quite well, and he forwarded my work on to the editor. Within a few hours I had another job. I was thrilled and have written a personal interest column twice a month for the Deseret News since October of 2005. Is it difficult to come up with topics to write about? I’m constantly looking for ideas, which makes you more interested in life and in people and in things about the world. My husband is a newspaper reader, so he’s always passing me articles that he thinks might help. I find inspiration all over the place. If I have a great idea, I can sit down and write and it just comes, and I can have it finished in a half hour with a few touchups. But if you have writer’s block, with that blank page staring back at you, sometimes it’s just desperation. “Oh my gosh, I’ve got to get that in!” So I just sit down and start and make it go. My favorite subject is my grandchildren, but I try not to overdo that, talking about yourself. I try to make it varied. How long do you plan to continue writing for the Deseret News? Oh, as long as they’ll let me, I guess. You know, I am 71 years old; I’ll be 72 this year. I suspect there will be a time when maybe they’ll want a younger voice, but so far it’s been great. How do you maintain close relationships with your children, now that they’re adults? Well it hasn’t been hard because mostly they need you to come and babysit. What a privilege it is to be given the responsibility of taking care of those children from time to time. As we get older, it gets more difficult to keep up with really young children. But it’s the way you get to know them, just like raising your own children. It’s nice to be able to go help out for a few days or a week, and your children can go off with a mind free of worry because you’re there. It doesn’t mean that something might not happen, because accidents happen, but certainly with grandparents there it’s going to be less likely and they’re going to be in the next best hands. What are the blessings and the challenges of each different phase of life? Service is always key to whatever you do in your life. That doesn’t mean you have to be a slave to anything, but it certainly is how you get over yourself and learn what other people are made of. And those opportunities change with the period of life you’re in. For example, I cooked and baked a lot when my children were young, but I hardly cook at all anymore. I mean, what a waste of time now, but not when you’re raising a family. My mothering was probably easier than some people’s because I had focused kids and I am grateful because our children were healthy. So I was lucky. If you have children with special needs, that totally changes your life and I have great admiration for women who deal with those challenges. I worked in the school system with children who were in special education and those kids worked harder than A students. By spending that time with our kids when they were little, by the time they got to high school and they were doing all these wonderful things with their athletics, it was so fun to just go watch them and participate. Then as they went on to college we were able to do that all over again. How have you and your husband maintained a strong relationship over the years? There’s a time when you exist through your children, and then once they leave, you have to get past that. A good marriage is a lot of hard work. Sometimes you really don’t like that person very well, sometimes you get irritated or you change in different ways, and I think it’s important to keep working at being together on things, to keep working on finding something in that person that you admire and like and keep a friendship going, or it would be easy to just exist side by side. You have to be good friends or you’ll never make it. When you’re raising your family and your husband is going to work every day, you don’t really know him the way you get to know him when he’s there 24-7. We’ve found strengths and weaknesses that we didn’t know the other had. You always work together as parents, but when he went to work and I stayed home, it was a very typical lifestyle with the man as the head of the house and the woman taking care of the house. That was our age. Now I see my kids and they share a lot more. My boys help out in the home and my daughter’s husband helps a lot. There aren’t such divisional lines from mine and my husband’s age. There were lines of demarcation when you entered that other arena, and now there are none. So now he vacuums and cleans and does all the stuff and helps. You work together on things, which is really very nice. Now that he’s retired we golf and play tennis together. He doesn’t read like I do; he does crosswords. We like each other, so we get along just fine. How can women best support each other during their various phases of life? By not judging, but accepting and just being a friend. What would we do without our friends? It’s the most wonderful thing to have a good friend who will love you no matter what. One of my dearest friends to this day is an Englishwoman whose backyard joined ours in Greenwich. She moved there just before we both had our youngest children, and we raised those boys together. She’s very different than I am, a very take-charge person, very English with this clipped verbal ability. I will take charge, but I’m also pretty easygoing too, and she was a great help while I was raising Jimmy. We’d take turns babysitting and we both say we would have never made it through that last child alone. Without someone to assist you, with no family around, she was key to survival. Where do you find the greatest satisfaction? Looking back and knowing I did my best. There were times when I could have been a much better mother, a much better wife, but I did improve and learn. I feel that I have maxed out a lot of my possibilities and I’m pleased with that. For me and my abilities, I’ve done okay and I’m glad I like myself. At A Glance Name: Sherry Young Location: Mesa, Arizona and Provo, UT Age: 71Marital status: Married Children: 5 children – Steve, Mike, Melissa, Tom and Jim Occupation: Columnist for the Deseret News Schools Attended: Bountiful High School UT, Las Cruces High School NM, Brigham Young University, University of Utah Languages Spoken at Home: English Favorite Hymn: “This Is The Christ” Interview by Nollie Haws. Photos provided by Shamberlin Young.

Trina Caudle is a writer and editor with emphasis on personal stories and relationships. She brings that talent and skill set to the LDS Women Project as our Interviews Editor. Trina Caudle To begin, share briefly about your personal journey that got you here today. I grew up in Oregon as the oldest of eight kids, and we were raised in the Church. From the time I was a kid, I always wanted to be a writer about real life things. Nonfiction, especially biography and memoir, is my favorite thing to read and I love to learn about people. When I was ten, I read a book by Erma Bombeck, who was the original mommy blogger before mommy blogs existed. She was a newspaper columnist starting in 1965, writing about funny things that happened as a parent. Growing up in the LDS world, I was “of course” going to be a mom, but hey look, I could also be a writer. In both high school and college, I wrote for my campus newspaper. I was always the news section editor because I wasn't afraid to talk to the superintendent or the university president to get the heavier stories. I just asked a lot of questions. My university didn’t have a journalism major, so my degree is that I put together a weird composite of history, journalism, and oddly enough, political science. I had never intended to work in government, but it opened a door to the job I started two weeks after graduation with the Oregon state legislature. I did the minutes of the House of Representatives floor debates – every speech, every reply, all the roll call votes. From there, I moved to Washington, DC in 2003 to work for a states advocacy group called the National Conference of State Legislatures. I intended to come to DC for a year, and then I would go back to Oregon, but I met my husband six days later. I never moved back to Oregon, we’ve been on the East Coast ever since. As you were figuring out how you wanted to be in the world, how did your faith travel with you? I grew up as a good little Mormon girl who didn’t rock the boat. The only thing I was not happy about was my brothers got to go camping all the time with Scouts, and I did not. When I was 18, nobody I knew took higher education seriously – college for girls was only until you got married. So I didn’t take education seriously. I worked a minimum wage job and just hung out with friends. Fortunately for me, a young adult branch was created in my stake and it was a bunch of 18 to 21 year olds getting ready for missions. I went with the wave and served a mission in California right when I turned 21, which was the age limit at the time. It was common to assume sister missionaries served only because they “couldn’t” get married but really, a lot of women served because they chose to be there and we did really good work. Trina Caudle with her husband Were there key moments that you can recall, or was it gradual to go from somebody who doesn't rock the boat to somebody who does? In my faith and my church participation, I don’t think I rocked the boat much. I did what I was told. Every now and then, I’d pop off about something in a calling, like when I got annoyed enough to start day camp for Primary girls in my stake. The Young Men and Primary boys had all the Scout activities, the Young Women had Girls Camp, but the Primary girls had literally nothing all summer. That was not okay with me. But honestly, nothing really turned my head until I was married, I’d had 1,700 callings, and I had five children. Then I had my moment of, “Wait a minute.” That moment was when my oldest daughter was baptized. Ten minutes after she’d gotten out of the font, we were listening to the talk on the Holy Ghost. In the middle of it, she turned to her dad and whispered, “So when do I get to pass the sacrament?” It was completely out of the blue. Adam and I looked at each other with an “Oh crap” expression. I wanted to tell her, “You don't get to do that, but instead you get to …” and I had nothing. I was 41 years old, and that was the first time I questioned anything. I spent that entire summer studying the history of the Relief Society. What do women DO in this church? What did that questioning lead to? Where I landed at that point, and I still hold to, is that in the Church, there's a difference between minister and AD-minister. For the record, this was a few years before the change from home/visiting teaching to ministering, so I was – ha ha – “ahead of The Brethren.” Anyway, administering is planning, logistics, who can sign the check. It’s management. I kind of settled myself with administering being done by the men – fine, whatever, those are their chores. I have other chores. Ministering is one-to-one working with people, serving people, loving people. It’s the relationship building that can be done by anyone, and it’s what Christ Himself did. How many times in the scriptures is He talking about scheduling the building or deciding who gets what calling? He’s not. The stories about Christ are about direct interactions with people: supporting them, teaching them, uplifting them, telling them they have value. That's where I have focused my faith journey. A few years ago, I was Relief Society president. I was advised by a friend to focus on ministering to people directly and delegate everything else, and I took that literally. I tried really hard to build relationships and help the women work through whatever challenges they had. I commented to my husband once that I could feel my testimony shrinking at the same time it was growing. It was shrinking relating to things like the Word of Wisdom or tithing – those things became less and less important to me. I cared about people, individually, a lot more than any teaching or policy. The clearest example of the contrast was that I was told by the bishop that I could not call on a specific woman to teach or pray, and she couldn’t have a calling or ministering assignment. She was under church discipline for something, of course I never knew what. The more I was around her, the more I thought – why are we preventing this woman from serving during her repentance process? Wouldn't it help her to have a ministering assignment? Wouldn't it help her repentance to attend the temple? If you want someone to draw closer to God, why are we blocking them from the things that we teach that do that? The bishop was not withholding these things from her to be mean, he was (is) very good friends with her, and he was following the Handbook. But the entire situation was so bizarre to me. That's what I mean when I say I don’t care about the policy checkboxes, and I care more about people as people. Trina Caudle with her family How do you navigate seasons when faith feels quieter or harder? I take a lot of walks. I feel very connected to God in nature. Two of my kids have special-needs issues, so for a long time I went to Young Women’s camp every year, no matter what other calling I had. I was doing the camp leaders a favor, taking care of meltdowns so they didn’t have to. Now I’m a Scoutmaster of a girls troop in Scouting America (the new name for Boy Scouts) and I go camping every month. When I come home from being outside, Adam comments that I’m a lot calmer and more centered. The calming is as noticeable and dramatic as if I’d just been to the temple. How do you hold complexity as part of your identity as an LDS woman? I don't think of myself as a complex person. What you see is what you get. I find myself in complex situations, but I don't think of myself as a particularly complex person. Some of the complex situations are that I have an LGBT child in the LDS Church. I have an autistic child who needs extra community services. My marriage is evolving to mixed-faith because my husband is not believing the same things he used to. But when dealing with all of the complexity, it comes down to – what is my relationship with each of these people? What is your relationship with the people in complex situations around you? Look at people as whole beings, not only gay, or only in/out of the Church, or only whatever. It doesn't have to be super complicated. My husband, with all of his religious questions, is still a brilliant and generous person. My LGBT kid, before and after they came out, is a theater nerd and can tell you anything about Greek mythology. My autistic kid says the most hilarious things, wants only books for Christmas, and loves to swim. Whole beings. Lots of ways to interact with them. Trina Caudle with one of her children What you’re saying reminds me of that quote from President Monson that people are to be loved, not a problem to be solved. For real. People are people. They’re not problems. They need to be loved, not solved. Like, when people are inactive, people get contacted by the church. It’s like, are you contacting them because you care about them? If you feel caring towards them, do you actually know them? Or are you contacting them because they’re on your checklist? The only time I ever activated anybody was when I did not bring up the Church. She knew I was a Relief Society counselor. She knew that’s how I’d gotten her phone number in the first place. There was no mystery that I was there to invite her to church. But I just said, “Hey, a bunch of friends are getting together to do this activity. Come with us!” She came back to church on her own, because I was her friend with no pressure. I didn’t turn her into a project and drop her when she didn’t come back right away. I’m seeing a theme in this conversation of relationships and how center they are for you, and how they drive so much about what you do. Using ministering as an example, there’s something that you seem to have figured out that is a sticking place for many people, including me. How do we move from the checkbox/task to the person? Sure, it starts as a checkbox. But when you contact them, don’t approach them as a checkbox. When the COVID shutdown happened, we called literally every single phone number on the ward list, didn’t matter if they had a “do not contact” note. The people that I talked to, and I also heard back reports, we said, “Hey, we’re calling from the church and you’re on our roster. Obviously, I’m not inviting you to church because that’s closed down for now, but just checking in. Have you lost your job? Do you need food? Do you need anything?” We didn’t reactivate anybody that I remember, but people appreciated the phone call. They said, “I’m fine. I don’t need anything. Please keep me on the do not contact list. But thank you for showing concern in this time of national trauma.” You could start with, “I’m calling you because I’m the new Relief Society president, and I’m trying to meet people.” I said, “I’m the new Relief Society president” the entire time I had the calling. I would invite them to lunch or get ice cream and just talk to get to know them. Books edited by Trina Caudle You've done a lot of work with the Cherish books and the Heavenly Mother movement within the Church. I'd like to hear more about your relationship with Heavenly Mother. I grew up with the teaching, myth, story, whatever, that we don’t talk about Her because She’s too sacred. I didn’t question it and just went on my way. I didn’t have any experiences with Heavenly Mother until the Covid pandemic. I give President Nelson credit for this, because the week after I was called to be Relief Society president, he gave his talk in the women’s meeting called “Spiritual Treasures.” (October 2019) He talked about women having the priesthood through the endowment and gave us homework: go home and study these sections of the Doctrine & Covenants. I was terrified of the calling, so I went home and I studied the daylights out of all those scriptures. Then we had the pandemic, and that narrowed my focus even further into relationship, relationship, relationship. I was also thinking about my relationship with my husband and what it means to be an eternal couple. One day on Instagram, I came across Rose Datoc Dall’s painting Worlds Without Number, which depicts Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother together. It stopped me cold. I still don’t have words for it, but that is what I’m working for with my husband. I saved the picture and started following her account. Other Heavenly Mother art kept popping up because of algorithms, and one day someone asked in a question box: “How did you seek for Heavenly Mother?” I looked at that and thought, “Huh. How did I seek Heavenly Mother? I didn’t. She just showed up.” Everything clicked. Ooohhhh. I didn’t seek for Her. She came looking for me. About six months later, McArthur Krishna posted a call for submissions for poetry for a book she was starting with Ashli Carnicelli. I had been working with Richard Ostler on his Listen, Learn & Love books for two years at that point so I knew the editing process for full length books. I sent McArthur a message, “I don’t write poetry but I can put your book together.” In less than five minutes, my phone rang and that was it. God will find you where you are. When God the Mother found me where I was, it was on social media. You’ve had conversations with more than fifty women in your role as Interview Editor at the LDS Women Project. As you have listened to all of these women and their perspectives, how has that informed the way you show up as a Latter-day Saint woman? I don’t know that it informs how I show up as an LDS woman so much as I’m showing up as myself. This is me, it’s what I do, it’s how my brain works. It brings me back to the beginning – a writer of real stories, interview skills from my campus newspaper time, and all these interviews are mini biographies! I love talking to people because, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, everyone is so different. They have different interests. They have different capacities. And you accept people as they are. You care about who they are and where they are and what they do. It’s the only way. The American political drama of rejecting the word diversity is the stupidest thing I have ever heard, because we’re not clones. Diversity is everything. I read a book about nature that talked about plant diversity in your front yard – golf-course grass takes a lot of effort to maintain because it’s not healthy. You need at least five to ten different types of plants, flowers, ground cover to even start to have a healthy ecosystem in your yard. It’s the same with people. I hit a lot of the LDS woman stereotypes: I am a stay-at-home mom. We are a single-income family. I have five kids. I bake bread. I sew quilts. I homeschooled for a long time. I quit my career when I had my first baby because I was taught that this is the right thing to do and having a career is wrong. Now I would go back to full-time work if I could, but my special-needs kids preclude that. I know another stay-at-home mom of five with a special-needs child, who also bakes bread and sews quilts, is in the Relief Society presidency and goes to Girls Camp … she hits the exact same list of stereotypes. But we have really different personalities, interests, and hobbies. Diversity. There are as many paths to return to our Heavenly Parents as there are people. The journey to heaven is not a single-file line. It’s not healthy, and it’s not even possible. What I hope to do through the LDS Women Project, and how I choose to interact with the world, is to acknowledge the infinite ways of living the gospel and recognize everybody’s different talents and skills and interests. I want to celebrate the beauty in diversity. Trina Caudle at the Restore Conference And Christ and the building of Zion are in that diversity. That was what I wanted as Relief Society president. My theme word was Zion, one heart and one mind. That does not mean one life and one path. It means we have a common goal. We’re all working toward the same thing. I hope what we’re working toward is living together in peace and harmony and love and acceptance, not personal suppression and conformity. What would you say to LDS women who may feel unseen or unheard or unsure of their place? That is a valid feeling. They very well could be unseen and unheard, and they might not have a place. You can’t belong your way into a group of people. I’ve tried it more than once in church and non-church situations, and it doesn’t work. I’m very aware, for example, that many LGBT people would love nothing more than to belong in the LDS Church. But they don’t, because the people around them will not accept them or allow them to belong. Belonging comes from outside one’s self. It is external, not internal. I can contort my personality and behaviors into whatever is “acceptable” to try to fit in, but unless I’m accepted for myself as I am, I do not belong. Belonging only comes from other people. For the women who do not feel that they belong, they might not. In which case, I hope that they will create belonging for other people. If you feel like you don’t belong, go look for somebody else who also doesn’t belong, and belong to each other. If you are in the center of the ward or whatever social circle, you need to know that you control whether or not another person belongs. Your reaction and acceptance is what helps them belong, or not. Being in the center is great for you, but other people are out on the fringe. It is your responsibility to bring them into the center. They cannot force their way in. You have to let them in. AT A GLANCE NAME: Trina Caudle AGE: 53 LOCATION: Northern Virginia MARITAL HISTORY: 22 years and counting CHILDREN: Five creatives CONVERT TO THE CHURCH?: Born and raised EDUCATION: Western Oregon University OCCUPATION: Editor and writer, Scoutmaster, Road trip driver LANGUAGE SPOKEN AT HOME: American teenager - skibidi! FAVORITE HYMN: I’m Trying To Be Like Jesus SOCIAL: Instagram @libraryhouseediting Interview by Elizabeth Ostler

When Josiane Lazeras was thirteen, she was baptized and joined a small, close-knit group of pioneering Latter-day Saints near Paris, France. Even as the gospel helped her develop spiritually, Josiane found that the Church also encouraged her creativity and talents. And it made her consider the significance of becoming “a mother in Israel,” where love, spirituality, and action combine. Motherhood, she says—like the gospel of Christ—is a stimulant: “It pushes you to action. It’s something that permits you to go beyond your strength.” Read this interview in French: Lire cette interview en français. What was your childhood like? I am Parisian. I was born in a region near Paris and I’ve always lived in the Paris region. I love Paris. I love always going to Paris: going to the museums, walking in Paris, seeing the exhibits and the theater. I’ve traveled the world, but I am always happy to come back. I’m happy to come back to my home. I think it is a wonderful city and a beautiful region as well. I learned about the Church in Paris. It’s a very funny story. The missionaries were going door to door and passed by my house. One of the two missionaries was called David Crockett. When my brother, who was fifteen at the time, saw David Crockett, an American, he instantly thought of cowboys and Indians. That night he said to us, “David Crockett is going to come to our house!” David Crockett did come, but he didn’t talk about Indians or cowboys. He talked about Joseph Smith, the First Vision, and The Book of Mormon. My brother was disappointed and he never converted or was baptized. My younger brother, who was eleven years old, and I (I was thirteen years old), were both touched by the message. We were both converted and baptized at that time. My mother was also baptized three years later. My mother is very religious. When I was young, I saw her praying. I learned to pray. When the missionaries asked us to pray to know if the message of Joseph Smith and The Book of Mormon was true, for me and my brother, prayer was already something we were accustomed to. Even when we were young, we had the habit to get on our knees and pray. It is something wonderful that my mother passed to us, a spiritual heritage. I’ve done genealogy work for my mother’s Swiss side and I was astonished and happy to see that many of my ancestors were named Isaac, Abraham, Jacob, or Moses. There really has been a spiritual heritage that has enriched me, I think. Then, after my conversion, the Church has enriched me spiritually as well. I was baptized in 1962. At that time, the Church in France was very small. There were only three branches in the entire Paris region: one in Paris, one in Versailles, and one in the southern part of Paris. That was all. Now, there are three stakes (since September 2013). Many people have the impression that the Church hasn’t progressed a lot in France, but when I look back I can see the progress! I grew up when we were very few in number. At school, no one knew about Mormons. My brother and I were the only Mormons there. Josiane Lazeras Was it difficult to be the only Mormons? No, frankly, it wasn’t difficult. There were only a few of us, but we were a very close group and the missionaries helped us quite a bit in preaching the gospel and in our personal progression. We had to walk for miles to go to church because there wasn’t a bus. We were a little like pioneers, I believe. I think if we asked the pioneers of the Church if it was difficult to be a pioneer, they would say “no” because they were supported by the Spirit even if they had difficult moments and many who died. But they were together—they danced and sang together. For me, I never felt that it was hard. We were sure in our testimonies. We were doing well. And we were together. I wasn’t alone. We were a small group, but it wasn’t difficult. In fact, being in the Church pushed us to accomplish things. For example, when the first chapel was built in the Paris region, it was at Versailles. It was necessary for us to contribute financially. We were adolescents and without income, but with the small group of members in our branch we created a show that we performed for every branch we could. We also asked the sisters to make cakes which we sold during the show. All of this was to earn money for the construction of the chapel. We did shows, and trips, and many things. I think it was the Church—the gospel—that pushed us to find ideas, to be inventive, to find things to do, in order to talk about the Church. I had a beautiful adolescence thanks to the Church because it encouraged us to do many things. What were your dreams for the future when you were a child or adolescent? My dream was to marry in the temple, have children, and raise my family in the gospel. It was a dream I accomplished, which is wonderful! I never had grand professional ambitions. I studied, I had goals, I worked, I tried to get to the best possible level of education, but I never had dreams of becoming the President of the Republic. For me, the most important thing is the family. Loving my husband, my children, my grandchildren, my parents, has been most important to me because I know that I will find them again after this life. My home will no longer exist, but my family will—I hope that my family will be there with me. I do everything for that goal. My dream is to have an eternal family. Since my adolescence that has been my dream. Josiane Lazeras and Her Family Do you think that your conversion changed your dreams for your life? I read a comic strip once that I really liked. There was a little boy who was looking at his mother’s wedding pictures with her. She showed him: “This is your grandpa, this is your grandma, this is me…” The little boy asked, “And me, where am I in the pictures?” “You didn’t exist yet” “I didn’t exist? That’s not possible!” When the missionaries taught us the plan of salvation and that we came from a pre-existence, for me that was obvious. For me, it wasn’t possible that we didn’t exist before this life. Even if I didn’t know the gospel, I would still have the feeling that there was a pre-existence. I said to myself, “Yes, this is natural. It couldn’t be any other way.” Without doubt, the reason why I accepted the gospel so easily is because everything seemed natural to me. I don’t think my conversion changed my life at the time. If I was much older, perhaps, it would have changed it, but no, at the time it didn’t change my life or my dreams. What was your experience becoming a wife and mother? I met my husband, who is also Parisian, in the Church. We’ve raised our family by our religious principles. The first time I had a baby, it was very difficult. I had been sick during my entire pregnancy and then my daughter was born a month early with many problems. We didn’t know much. Then doctor told us that it was certain that she would not survive. That was a shock. When I learned that this baby, my baby, a piece of myself was perhaps going to die, I cried a lot and prayed a lot. In my despair, I remember saying, “Heavenly Father, if you take this baby, take me with her.” I wanted to die with my baby because I did not want to leave her. It was very, very difficult. Under the priesthood, she was blessed by my husband and father, and she survived. I realized afterward that I never said, “God does not exist,” or “God is evil.” For me, even in my grief, I knew that my Heavenly Father was there. I wanted to die so I didn’t have to be separated from my baby, but that experience greatly expanded my testimony. I could say to myself, “Even in the worst moments, I know that He is there.” When I was fourteen years old, I received my patriarchal blessing. It said that I would see “the accomplishment of my vocation as a mother in Israel.” At fourteen years old, I said to myself, “What does that mean?” I wasn’t one who liked to babysit. Little children did not interest me. I didn’t have little brothers or sisters or cousins at the time. I said to myself, “What is this, a mother in Israel? I don’t want to live in Israel!” I didn’t understand what it meant. It was marked so each time I opened my patriarchal blessing during the years, I asked myself about it. Yet, those blessings spoken of in my patriarchal blessing have been very present in my life; my role as a wife and mother has really been the most strong and the most important thing for me. If something happens to one of my children, it affects me a lot. Because of this, I am always ready to help if it’s necessary. I had the opportunity, when my daughters were young, to take care of one of my nieces for a month. I realized then that I had developed the same bond with this child as my own. If I had adopted a child, I think I would have had the same love for that child as my own. It’s possible, I think, to have a maternal bond without a biological bond. It depends on the person, of course. But for me, I really believe that I could. There were two languages in your home? I studied English and received a degree in translating and interpretation. When I got married, someone told me, “That’s good! You can teach English to your kids.” But I wasn’t able to, I think, because English isn’t my native language. When you have all your children around you, can you really speak in another language? Things would come spontaneously in French and so I never really spoke to them in English. But I always had a lot of books in English at our house. Now DVDs are in several languages, but when my children were small, there were only VHS videos—Disney videos. I always bought them in English. My children would complain when they watched the movies: “But why? We don’t understand them.” I would say, “You understand the images. You will have the sound of English in your ears.” When my children were adolescents, I realized that they didn’t learn a lot in the language studies at their French middle school. So, when they were around fourteen years old, I sent my children to the United States for four months to live with an American family who didn’t speak French. It was hard for them at first, but when they came back they spoke English! I remember one of my daughters cried on the phone saying, “Mom, I don’t understand anything.” I told her, “Speak with your hands. That will work.” Twenty years ago I realized that English was indispensable in the world and in the Church. I subscribed to the New Era because it was necessary that my children could also read English. I tried to give them lessons in English and I think they’re happy now that I did. It’s useful everywhere. Josiane Lazeras and Her Family Do you feel you are a model for your daughters as they become mothers? I hope so! I really hope so. It’s hard to say because they are all different. Each one has a different life. I try not to give them advice. When I had my first daughter, I was advised to always lay babies on their side. Then, when I had my second daughter, it changed to laying babies on their stomach. After I had my other daughters, it changed to laying them on their back. When my oldest daughter had her first baby she asked me for advice. I don’t know why. I said, “Listen, I don’t want to give you advice. I’ve experienced everything: laying babies on their back, on their stomach, on their side. It changes all the time! You decide with your pediatrician and with your husband. Decide together. I don’t have advice to give.” That is a small example, but my daughters have independent lives. When they come to my house, it’s my house. But their house is their house. I don’t want to interfere—not in the sense that I don’t want to help—I do want to help, but it’s them who observes, who decides, and who acts. I think each woman is different and each woman is going to raise her children differently. I am not sure if I raised my four children in the same way. I think there were differences between the first ones and the last ones. It’s important to love your children, but that comes naturally when you have children. What is your definition of motherhood? It’s not a sacrifice. It’s not a commitment. It’s a bond that is very, very strong. It’s difficult to define. It’s a bond, but it’s more than that. It pushes you to action. It’s something that pushes you to act and permits you to go beyond your strength. There are nights as a mother when you collapse on the bed and ask how you had the strength to go that far. Motherhood is a kind of stimulant that pushes you to act for the well-being of your children. I don’t really know, since it’s hard to define. It’s love. It’s not something material or physical. It’s an emotional bond that is a push to action. Motherhood is love. I will define it as that. What do you think motherhood is for women who don’t have children? My youngest daughter isn’t married yet. She is a teacher and works in an elementary school. She has always loved children a lot. She has had nieces and nephews since her adolescence. I believe she fills a maternal role for the children at her school. I think that we can have a role towards children that approaches motherhood without being married and having children. It may be difficult to not have your own children. But by helping other people’s children, we can love the children on the earth and in the Church as well. Spirituality is part of a maternal role? Yes, it is very important because having children on this earth is wonderful, but life on this earth doesn’t last long. If we don’t prepare for eternity, we won’t have much after. If we don’t work to develop the spirituality of our children in order to be sealed to them in the temple, we will not be sure of having them in the eternity. And life is short. Spirituality for me is fundamental. The ordinances of the temple have such great importance—the sealing for me is essential. Otherwise, what will I have? I will only have a small amount of happiness and then afterward, an emptiness. Developing spiritually is the most important part. The most important. At A Glance Name: Josiane Lazeras Location: Paris, France Age: 65 Marital status: Married since 1974 Children: Four daughters (38, 35, 32, 27) Occupation: Retired translator, current missionary Baptism: September 22, 1962 Schools Attended: Degree in translation and interpreting Languages Spoken at Home: French Favorite Hymn: “Divin Amour” Interview by Ashley Brocious and Lauren Brocious.

Families with trans-racial adopted children are becoming more common, both within the LDS community and without. But what is it like to grow up as that child in a family that doesn’t look like you? This anonymous perspective, from an Asian woman adopted into a white family as a baby, shares the pain and joy of being adopted into a trans-racial family. You were adopted as an infant. At what point did you realize your family was a little different than others? I was adopted by my family before I was one year old. Shortly after birth in my home country, I was abandoned on a doorstep. I came to the US on a plane with several other adoptees, and my mother was waiting at the airport for me. My mother says I realized from an early age that I looked different; I was surrounded by white people, but I still knew I was different. One day, when I was young, I found a picture of an Asian baby in a magazine and carried that picture around with me for weeks. My siblings say they didn’t notice anything different, and just accepted me as part of the family. But, there were moments when we were younger when they were embarrassed about being different from other families or didn’t know how to handle inappropriate questions or comments. People at church – a place where you should feel safe and accepted – would make comments that hurt, like my skin was darker because I was cursed. I felt alienated and hurt. I couldn’t express much of what I was feeling because there was such an outpouring of optimism and expectations of gratitude, like “You’re so lucky to be saved from a bad life in that other country.” It felt wrong to tell people I wished I had another identity. I spent so much time wishing I were white or fit in better with my family, which isn’t something that’s healthy for children. My parents are both white and had grown up in white communities so they didn’t realize things were that different for me. I grew up during a time when people didn’t know that trans-racially adopted children struggled to reconcile competing visions of how they fit in the world and their families. Adoptee families will often say things like, “Race doesn’t matter, we love you no matter what you look like, and we’re all the same on the inside.” There was little dialogue about the need to prepare children for the fact that people, even well intentioned people, frequently comment on trans-racial adoptive families in insensitive and sometimes inappropriate ways. How did you come to terms with your adoption? I had so much anger and hurt built up inside of me about abandonment and the isolation I felt. My family lived in an area that was similar to the ones they grew up in, so there were virtually no other racial groups. Additionally, I didn’t feel like a “real” Asian or Asian-American because my parents weren’t Asian. I had no idea where I fit because I was constantly reminded that I wasn’t white. Because I had no way to understand or articulate the pain I was in for so long, I started making really destructive choices. After college, I had a crisis point where everything became too much and I thought it would be better not to be alive than continue on. At that point, I started learning that my parents loved me and weren’t going to send me back, and that they never thought of me as second best or a substitute for a biological child. I started going to counseling, and my parents went too. Without their unfailing support, especially my mother’s, I doubt I would have made it. We had to work through what it means to be a minority family and learn how to talk about race. We also had to work through abandonment issues just like other families who adopt, regardless of race. Developing my faith and a relationship with God helped me heal. The Atonement came into play for me when I realized that I could be healed from all the anger, isolation, and bitterness I had. I’m friends with a lot of adopted people who carry so much bitterness and hurt with them from their upbringing – they’ve cut off contact with their adoptive families, even moved to other countries, trying to get away from the hurt. But I’m lucky; I haven’t had to do that. How can trans-racial families help bridge the gap and help their adopted children to feel part of the family? Some say all you need is love to raise a child. Others rely on resources like culture camps and so forth. It’s not so much about keeping or adopting cultural practices as the cure-all, but more about helping children feel accepted and part of a community. Some families find groups of other adoptive children and spend time with trans-racial families. This lets their children know that they can be part of another culture and part of the family at the same time. It’s important for many families to have a support network so that children don’t feel like they stand out and stand alone. How has your background affected your parenting style? Becoming a mother changed me. I was a little nervous to have children, because of my history. I want to believe that my birth parents decided to place me for adoption out of necessity and not because they didn’t want me. Once I had children, I realized that it didn’t matter why my birth parents placed me; my adoptive parents chose to raise me and they taught me how to love my own children. Once I had children I stopped worrying that there was some flaw in me handed down from my birth parents. Having children and creating my own family unit healed me of a lot of the hurt I’d harbored my whole life. Race is a big, conscious focus in our family. My husband and I are a trans-racial couple and our kids definitely look like me. When he is out with the children, people assume they are adopted or that he isn’t related by blood to them. People ask questions like, “What are they?” The kids notice difference in race, in our family, and in our community, but we try to explain that being different isn’t bad – it’s just different. We’ve lived in very diverse cities, and in places that are predominantly white; no matter where we go, race comes up. We just work through it a day at a time. It’s heartbreaking having to explain to my children why another child makes faces or teases them about the way they look. At the same time, I’m grateful that I have the Gospel and my own parents’ example so I can teach my children about Christ-like compassion for others. Interview produced by Lyndsey Payzant Wells.

As an early member of the Church in Moscow, Tatiana was an essential contributor to the establishment of the gospel in Russia. For seven years, she led a choir of church members that sang hymns and folk songs, toured with their performances and recorded albums. Tatiana speaks astutely about the impact of Russian culture on spirituality in her country and about the tremendous work she’s put into building the Church in her homeland. What was your religious background before you learned about the Church? I had nothing to do with religion. Nothing at all whatsoever. My parents were rather atheist. It was that kind of a time; everyone figured that God didn’t exist, and we didn’t talk about it at home. I just never thought about it. I only started thinking about it because my husband, Alexei, brought it up. He had been thinking about it, and we started to discuss it. One day we had an active discussion for a long time. We decided that we needed religion somehow. We figured that God existed and we believed in Christ. We realized that we knew God was in heaven and we are here on earth, and we wanted to somehow formalize our relationship with him. We thought a lot about how to do it. We have the Russian Orthodox Church here in Russia, so we decided we needed to be baptized and build some kind of relationship with the Church. That was in 1993. We thought about it for a long time, and then were baptized. It was a completely conscious decision. We were baptized by full immersion in water. We found a very good priest who could discuss things with us, complete immersion in water, all as it should be. It was in a church. Not all churches do it, but we found a church that did it that way, because we knew that there should be total immersion in water. Tatiana Marchenko and Her Husband at the Kiev Temple Had you read the Bible? We read it all, and that’s how we learned baptism should be done by complete immersion in water. After that we were baptized. A month and a half or two months went by, and we met missionaries, Elders Tobias Bradford and Garth Quigley. They saw us on the metro. The whole family was walking together. We had just come out of the Tretyakov Gallery; it was the weekend. They saw us and ran after us in the metro, which was quite crowded. The Spirit probably prompted them and they ran after us. They overtook us and stopped us, panting, and started talking with us, and we became interested. I thought, “We’ll explain everything to them. They just don’t understand. We’ll just explain everything.” So we invited them to visit. That’s how we began to listen to the discussions, and it turned out to be very interesting. We had very strong missionaries. The Lord knew to send them to us. We talked a lot and went through all the discussions. But because we felt that our baptism was true and that we had already done what was necessary, we went a whole year as investigators. We didn’t miss one meeting. We even tried to pay tithing, but they didn’t accept it. We liked everything about the Church. We had English lessons in our home and were always very active. And then a year later, we all got our answers that we all should be baptized again, but into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I got my answer first, but I received an answer that I should listen to my husband. I felt that I wanted to be baptized, but that I should be with him. We were baptized together on May 7, 1994 in the Moscow River. It was very cold, but it didn’t matter. Were there any other obstacles to your joining the Church? No, it was just that we thought that our first baptism was true. We felt that we had made a covenant with God. It wasn’t clear to us why we should do it again. But then something happened. We read more. It wasn’t like someone could just explain that it should be a certain way. No, it had to come from an inner witness that we should commit an act of obedience and join this Church because there was a fullness of the priesthood. We had long before received a testimony that the Church was true and that the Book of Mormon was true. They were very bright, these testimonies. What changes did you see in your life after you were baptized? First of all, our very way of life changed, but that changed after we came to church. After baptism, we had a changed sense of accountability. I felt a great responsibility that I had been baptized and was now accountable. I had made a covenant with God and had to do my part. Because the Church was very young in Russia and we were the face of the Church to some extent, I had to work very hard to create something. Now we have a church building, many active Church members and priesthood holders, many wonderful sisters. But back then there were very few people. There weren’t very many branches then, and there were few people in each branch. Because of this, one person would have many callings, whereas now we have just one calling and they try not to give a second calling to anyone. But at that time I was immediately called as a Sunday school teacher, and I prepared a lesson every Sunday. I was also the music director. At the same time, a little while later, I was an Institute teacher and taught two classes a week. My husband was working for the Church Educational System. It was like full-time employment. And one of the classes was completely in English. It was very difficult, because I’m not fluent in English, and it required a lot of effort. Not that I was special in any way – many people served in several callings. I wasn’t called to do this, but I also organized many different activities: picnics, goodbye parties for missionaries. The missionaries were always very close to us at that time, like members of the family, and it was like tearing out a piece of our heart when they left. A missionary would leave the branch, and everyone would be in tears. This isn’t generally the case anymore. But it was natural then. It was a step in the Church’s development. Tatiana Marchenko with Her Youngest Son at School We also had a choir on and off, and I felt by the Spirit that we needed to start it up again. So I took on that responsibility and in time we grew into a wonderful choir. I led the choir for many years, from 1995 to 2002. I stopped leading the choir when our youngest son was born. Two wonderful conductors, Julia Burykina and Alexander Prach, continued to lead the choir and did great work. We recorded two CDs. It was certainly not the Tabernacle Choir, but we sang the hymns with the Spirit, and recorded them with a strong spirit. We traveled to different cities, including St. Petersburg, Voronezh, Nizhny Novgorod, and Khmelnitsky, in Samara. We traveled on our own dime and gave concerts. There was a strong spirit in Voronezh, and after our concerts there were many baptisms. It was such a strong spirit. We also gave concerts in Kharkov and Kiev, in the Ukraine. What kind of music did you sing? Mostly we sang hymns, but we also sang folk songs. This was one of the most wonderful chapters of my life. As a child I sang in a very good choir. It was a professional children’s choir. We rehearsed three times a week for two-and-a-half hours. I never imagined when I finished school that it would someday come in handy. Later, when I started conducting in the ward, I felt that I had a knack for it. We prepared a musical number and it turned out really well. That’s actually why I took up the choir, because I saw that it worked. The Lord gives us these talents when they’re needed. It just opened up to me like the gifts of the Spirit described in the scriptures. It was given as a gift. I never in my life planned for it. I lived my life, and it just happened in such a magical way. How many people sang in the choir? We had about 30 people from various branches. At first the missionaries helped us. After a while they stopped because they weren’t allowed to, but they weren’t necessary. We did have some problems finding male voices, but they turned up. Fewer men in general can sing. The second problem is getting them to come to sing, since they are always busy. We had basses, we had tenors – my whole family sang. My oldest son at first sang soprano, then alto, then he didn’t sing at all, and finally he started singing bass. My daughter also sang, and my husband sang bass. Rehearsals were on Sunday. We all went together from church meetings to choir practice. First we met in an apartment. We always participated in the choir, and my oldest son even found a wife in the choir. She sang alto. She also played the piano, and now they’re married and have two children. So there were many blessings. We even went to Stockholm. The entire choir traveled to the temple there and gave a concert. We had a wonderful concert there. Even the temple president came and gave us letters that we could keep to remember the evening. Everyone loved it. There was a very strong spirit, which was the most important thing; the Spirit was there. The best thing about our choir was the very strong, special spirit with which we sang. It was very cool. I have also been a teacher in the Church all my life. At this time I was still a seminary teacher. I taught my own children. And did you sense that your education as a teacher also prepared you for this calling? Yes. I was an institute teacher, then a seminary teacher. We began on another schedule, so to get on the same cycle as the rest of the Church, we ended up studying the Old Testament two years in a row. It was a special blessing. It became my favorite book. I have such a strong testimony of our church thanks to the Old Testament. I realized this is how things should be, the relationship of a prophet with God and with the people. It’s amazing. All of these prophets became like my close friends, I don’t know how to explain it. Once I was teaching a lesson on the Old Testament in Sunday school. A sister said to me, “You’re talking about David as though he is your friend, as if you drank tea with him yesterday and now you’re telling us about him.” Another time we stopped in at an Orthodox church. Sometimes there is a priest who reads the Bible. He reads it in Old Church Slavonic, but you can still understand something. I heard the priest reading a story about David. I thought, “He’s reading about my David.” I think of him as such a familiar person. Has it always been easy for you to grow in the Church and stay active, or were there any challenges after your baptism? Well, there was just so much to do. We just had to move forward. There was no time to stop. I ran, ran, ran and only stopped when my son Ilya was born. Besides all there was to do, we started taking trips to the temple and became temple workers. It was interesting that we were called as temple workers when we hadn’t even been members of the Church for a year yet. Alexei’s brother, Dmitri, was baptized, too. He was going to the temple to be sealed to his wife, Sveta, but we were still two weeks away from our year mark as members. We were allowed into the temple two weeks early to attend the sealing of Dmitri’s family. On the trip they called us as temple workers. Moscow CES Choir It was such a good period of life. Doing so much can’t and shouldn’t be like that now. Not all people are in a position to serve so much. But at that time it was needed. Because, well, if not us, then who else? And I understand that your husband has also always had many callings. Was it difficult for you to always be so busy? Somehow we just didn’t think about it. It was probably hard. But frankly, we received so much joy and so many blessings from it, I can’t even say it was hard. If it had felt hard, I might not have done it. The Lord probably blessed me in a special way. It was certainly difficult, of course; it took up so much time, but the joy from it was so great. We saw the fruits. We saw the results. I always liked to teach because it was my profession, and here I was actually realizing my potential. I had so much to do; there was no time at all to feel bored. And I realized so many of my talents. Do you think the Church is Russia has distinct characteristics? How would you explain it? I think the Church in any country has its own character because you have your own way of thinking, your own cultural traditions. These inevitably leave a mark. The Church in Japan is not like the Church in Russia, because they have very different preconceptions and understandings. They have a different way of understanding what is good and what is bad because of how they have always lived. Tatiana Marchenko Leading the Primary Choir It’s the same here. Russia has its own peculiarities. Thanks to the Orthodox Church, the Russian people have thought a lot about Christian beliefs in terms of spirituality, and they have a disdain for the material world – meaning that the material world is bad, and the spiritual is everything. This is important. And since everyone can’t be extremely spiritual, they consider themselves inherently quite sinful. Only monks and special priests can be very spiritual. The way they relate to the Church is very complicated because there were so many priests who didn’t conduct themselves worthily, who could be compared to the villains in a Russian folk tale. That’s also part of our national character concerning leaders and government. We don’t feel a need to listen to them. The people and the state are separate. It is a national characteristic. In certain countries, it’s one way, and for us, it’s another. How does this influence the character of the LDS Church in Russia? First, it’s difficult for people to obtain testimonies. It’s more difficult to obtain a testimony that Joseph Smith was a prophet, because who is that? Then there is the relationship to leadership in the Church. Church leaders should be obeyed. It’s difficult for us to obtain a testimony that we should obey our leaders. We don’t always obey, and it was even a kind of special display of courage not to obey state leaders. It’s always kind of been that way. So, on the one hand, we have deep spirituality, because spiritual things were always revered. But the deepest spirituality is impossible to achieve, we are always sinful, always bad. This belief leaves a psychological imprint. It was very important for the Russian people, and it’s probably because of this that we have such beautiful Russian literature and music. We have very deep feelings, but at the same time there is a big economic gap. On the one hand, people have great spirituality and inner wisdom, and on the other hand, there is great ignorance. How would you say your extensive church service has helped strengthen your testimony? To be a member of the Church is a lot of spiritual work. It’s also like the parable of the laborers in the vineyard. One came earlier, another came later, but no matter when you come, the important thing is whether you endure to the end and preserve your testimony. When people join the Church, they have such euphoria. It’s something new, something interesting. It’s unusual for them, and there are interesting activities and interactions. Then later you have to constantly strengthen your testimony because there are many trials from different directions, things you don’t expect. But there is also a huge sense that God is watching us and that He lets us see life from all sides. Tatiana Marchenko at Her Son's Baptism If you don’t serve in the Church, big temptations come. I especially felt that when I had my first baby. Thoughts like, “I’ve done so much, now I can relax.” As soon as you start thinking like that, you move backwards. It’s not a coincidence. It’s the law of growth. It’s like a plant. If something has a place to grow, it must grow. It doesn’t stop until it’s time, and then other processes start. It begins to bloom, then fades, and then gives seeds. And then it dies, and then rises and grows again in an endless process. We are like that. We can’t stop, ever. We can never relax and say, “Look, we’ve done everything, and we’re so good that now we can relax.” We can’t ever rest spiritually. This is my message, that we always have to strive and we always have to serve. We can’t say, I served, now let others serve. It’s important to serve in everything you can. If you’re a visiting teacher, then be a visiting teacher. It’s a calling. It’s something you’re trusted with. There will come a time when it seems difficult to do even that, for various reasons. They may be objective reasons or subjective reasons. It doesn’t matter. If you do what the Lord has asked you to do, that’s what’s important. And you don’t stop. Even if there are problems, gradually, somehow, things get resolved. You just can’t stop. At A Glance Name: Tatiana Marchenko Location: Moscow, Russia Age: 49 Marital status: Married Children: Three (ages 26, 24 and 7) Convert? May 7, 1994 Language: Russian Interview by Allison Pond.

The first time Faustina Otoo went to church, in Nigeria in 1985, the members’ love made her feel like she was in a “wonderland”. Since that day, Faustina’s journey in the church has taken her back to her native land of Ghana where she now serves as the front office receptionist at the Africa West Area office complex at the Accra Ghana temple. As the single mother of two children, Faustina is especially proud that her daughter is about to graduate from college. How did you first became acquainted with the church? I lived in Lagos, Nigeria with my husband and my children and I found the Church there in 1985 through a friend. This friend and I were going to meet part way to the church so he could go with me, but when I got to the meeting place, he wasn’t there. So I asked people around the area and they directed me to the church. This was a small place in Lagos, and when I got there the morning session was over and people were coming out of the meeting. And everybody who came out met me, or shook hands or hugged me or gave me a kiss, a peck on the cheek…. My friend was no where to be found and I was like, “What is going on? I don’t know these people!” I have not seen such love anywhere in my life. I was a bit scared. I said, “Did my friend sell me to these people or are these people crazy?” I was really really in a wonderland. Then the couple missionaries asked if they could tell me more about the church before the afternoon session was packed. I loved everything they told me. I loved the story of Joseph Smith, even though I was skeptical, something told me it is true, it’s right. So I accepted the Book of Mormon and went home and I fasted and prayed. And I loved the testimony from the Spirit. I got to a time in my life when I was wondering. I asked myself three questions: Why am I here? What am I doing here? Where will I go after this life? That was when I really started going to church. And I was jumping from one church to another. I remember the very day we were coming to the Latter-day Saints church, my little daughter was about 10 years old, and she said, “Mom, why are we changing churches every day?” And I said, “Well, until we find the church that is right we will never stop going. We will keep going until we find the church of Christ.” And that is when I came to this church. I was given the triple combination scriptures. I prayed, “Lord, I have read in the scriptures that we should not add or remove anything from the scriptures. Why this Book of Mormon? Why do I have to get another scripture?” And after my prayer, I took the book again and I opened. It went straight to Doctrine & Covenants Section 138 where it talks about the three days of the Lord in the spirit world and how He organized the righteous spirits to bring the Gospel to the unrighteous and it made sense to me. It makes sense. This Section 138 makes First Peter in the New Testament clearer, when Peter wrote, “For this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the Spirit.” (1 Peter 4:6) What Peter wrote is more reasonable to me now that I have the Book of Mormon. And so I accepted this book. I got baptized, and my daughter got baptized with me. You mentioned a husband. Were you married at this time? Yes I was. It was a difficult time in my marriage because my husband was going out with other women and doing all sorts of things. So he left us on our own. I was a full-time housewife and things were very difficult for me. But that’s when I found the Church. He never came back and we finally got divorced. When he left us, I told everybody in the Church that I needed a job to sustain myself and my daughter. I stayed in Nigeria for two more years. I met Sandra Rogers, a white lady from Utah. She made me feel that I am also a child of God, and she became my role model. I finally decided to come back to my country with my daughter. I am from Ghana originally, and my son was already living back in Ghana too. Faustina Otoo and Her Family You now work as the front office receptionist at the temple office complex in Accra. What led you to this position? When I got home to Ghana I was practicing hair dressing to raise my children. I decided to do some cleaning jobs too and I got to clean the homes of the area presidency here. At that time we did not have this temple complex, so they just had a lot of offices around the city and I was cleaning those church offices too. In addition to cleaning, I was serving as a church welfare missionary in the employment resources center. There, I learned computer and office skills and all those things very well. There I got a job as a part-time secretary to the Church Educational System Coordinator. I worked in the CES Coordinator’s office as a part-time secretary for two years. Now I am at the front office in the Africa West Area office here at the temple complex. Have you had experiences while you’ve been working there that have helped your testimony grow? Yes, a lot of them. I remember before we moved into the temple complex here we were in a rented place. We had a visit here in Ghana from Elder Burton of the Presiding Bishopric. I’ve listened to his talks a lot in General Conference. He is a good speaker and I love to listen to or read his talks. When he came here he was going to meet with the area managers and their spouses. I was not an area manager and there was no way I could attend that meeting and hear him talk. So I prayed: “Lord, I know that I don’t belong to this category but I want to sit at the feet of this, your servant, and listen to him talk.” The following day, the Area Temporal Affairs Director came to the front office and said, “Faustina, Elder Burton is going to talk to us tonight and I want you to be there, even though you are not in the area management. What you can do is help my wife get the place ready and then when everybody is settled you can also be there to listen.” It was a wonderful experience for me. I got a chance to listen to Elder Burton. Another instance was when Elder Holland came to Ghana with his wife, Patricia. Then also, I wanted to be there. The then-Area President’s wife, Sister Jolene Pace, called me and said, “Faustina, Sister Holland is meeting with some sisters. Will you please come and help make my house ready for her?” So I cleaned the whole place and got it ready. I got a chance to sit with Patricia Holland and listen to her and learn from her. She gave me a gift of a book she wrote. Those kinds of experiences clearly help you feel connected to the core leadership of the Church. What else helps you feel connected to the women of the Church, specifically? Just a month after my baptism, I was called to be the Relief Society president in the Bariga branch in Lagos, Nigeria. At that time I didn’t even know what the Relief Society was all about. I answered the challenge, and that’s when I started working with the sisters. I asked questions and I learned hard. It was a small branch, so I was the Relief Society president and the teacher, the compassionate service leader, a visiting teacher… and I did all of these things with the help of the couple missionaries. We went and visited everyone, and I encouraged the sisters to come. Faustina Otoo I didn’t know if I was doing anything good until about ten years later when I visited the ward in Lagos that I had been baptized into. When I got to the Relief Society room, a woman was standing before the sisters, teaching them. she ran to meet me when I entered, hugged me hard, and she was all in tears and she told the sisters, “I am here because of this woman. She taught me how to come to church, even though I had to change many buses before I got here. She taught me how to take care of my children, how to prepare simple, nutritious food for my family during home making. She taught me how to pray for my children…” and all that! Since I moved back to Ghana I’ve also been involved in the Relief Society here. Recently, I lost my father, and we held a funeral. All of my Relief Society sisters were there to support me. When I got home, a friend called and said, “There were only four sisters in our Relief Society meeting that Sunday. Everybody else went to your father’s funeral!” It showed me that we are working together to bring our families to Christ. These sisters really make me feel good. We relate to each other very well. Visiting Teaching is good, Enrichment is wonderful: we eat, we learn, we dance! It’s so fun. I love it. Faustina Otoo Would you tell me about your children? You have been a single mother for many years now. What have been the greatest challenges raising two children by yourself in the Gospel? I actually had three but I lost one. When my marriage was over, I prayed to my Father in Heaven. I said, “Father, I did not go to university or college. I have been a housewife all my life. But I put my hand in thine. I want my children to go to university. Whatever it takes. Help me.” I washed, I scrubbed, I cooked, I did all sorts of things. Any job at all I would do, just to send my children to school. My daughter is graduating from Utah Valley University in April 2010. You can imagine how that makes me feel. Sometimes I have to pinch myself and see if I’m still alive. To see if this is happening in reality. The Lord has dug me out of a pit, a pit even deeper than the pit of Joseph when his brothers threw him out to be eaten. The Lord has brought me out of that pit to a high mountain. I can go into the temple and I can sit in the Celestial Room and I can talk with my great Father. I am so blessed and I am so happy. It’s really good. I have a lot to improve upon. But from where I am coming from, the Lord has carried me on His shoulders. At A Glance Name: Faustina Otoo Location: Accra, Ghana Children: Three (one diseased) Interview by Neylan McBaine

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

Two of Lynn Anderson’s natural born children carried a rare genetic disease — epidermolysis bullosa (EB) — which prevents a child’s skin from growing with their body. After thirty years of nursing her children and grieving their deaths, Lynn founded an organization that raised money for EB research at Stanford University. Lynn now rejoices in a newly-approved treatment that will save the lives of many EB children. You had two children who suffered from epidermolysis bullosa. Chuck passed away in 1988 at age 27, and Christine in 1993 at 14. What is EB? The term epidermolysis bullosa essentially means “skin blistering.” There are several forms of the disease. Christine and Chuck suffered from one of the two lethal forms. Because of a genetic defect, the protein that connects the two layers of skin was missing. You can think of it as having no “glue” to hold the skin together which resulted in the skin tearing or blistering with the slightest provocation. Their skin was so fragile that lifting them under their arms as a baby completely removed the skin. Pants rubbing on knees and the pressure of shoes caused blisters or sores. Simple activities such as walking, bathing, or even enthusiastic hugs would tear the skin. Blistering and scarring also occurred in the mouth and esophagus. Sometimes they couldn’t open their eyes for days because the rapid eye movement of sleep had caused lesions on the eyes. Lynn Anderson and Her Husband Baths were the hardest part of their lives. If you have had a cut finger, and know the sting of putting it in water, you can imagine the excruciating pain of climbing into a bathtub when most of your body is an open wound. The old bandages had to be soaked off because they often stuck to some of the sores. A whirlpool bath of Clorox water was then used to cleanse the wounds. Because towels caused too much friction, we used a blow dryer to dry the skin. The wounds were then covered with antibiotics and non-stick bandages. The final layer, a soft gauze wrap, covered them from neck to toes. This process took about three hours and left them totally exhausted. One of the most disabling effects of EB was the scarring that occurred between the fingers which caused severe deformities. Chuck’s hands were surgically corrected to free the fingers. The surgeon cut around the wrist and actually removed the whole outer layer of skin just like a plastic glove. He then would wrap the fingers and splint them while new skin grew. This painful process went on for ten summers before Chuck decided he just didn’t want to do it anymore. Because most of their calories were used for healing, Christine and Chuck were also plagued with chronic anemia and growth retardation. At their healthiest, they weighed no more than 80 pounds. The worst effect of EB was the pain. During the last years of their lives, 70 to 80% of their bodies were covered with angry wounds much like burns, only their wounds never healed. They never knew a day without pain. What kind of quality of life did your children have? In spite of their suffering, Chuck and Christine were amazing in their ability to find meaning and joy in their lives. They loved their brothers and sisters who were helpful and loving. I don’t remember a time when Christine or Chuck was angry or bitter towards God or felt hateful about their lives. At times I would look at their wounded bodies and think, “If I had to live with this, I would throw myself off the Golden Gate Bridge tomorrow!” At one time I asked Chuck how hard was to live with EB, and he answered “I don’t really know because it is all I have ever known.” Chuck was particularly gregarious and had an amazing self image for a young manplagued with EB. When I think of heroes, he is truly one of mine. We lived in anaffluent community where the high school students were pretty sophisticated. Chuck wasso much his own person that he wore overalls to school because they didn’t rub his waist.Add snap-closing shirts (buttons were too hard for him), tennis shoes, and a cowboyhat. You get the picture! He had a remarkable ability to draw people to him andmade friends throughout the community. Chuck would “hang out” at the police station where they eventually invited him to ride inthe police helicopter. He regularly rode the Goodyear blimp when it was in town andoften sat in the control tower at the Oakland airport watching the airplanes come and go.From age 16 until 22, as “Honest Chuck,” he co-hosted a game show on San Francisco’smost popular radio station. Christine had a harder time being “different.” One of my most vivid and lingeringmemories involved the morning drop off at school. She would wince in pain getting inand out of the car, but once on the school sidewalk, she would put a smile on her face,force herself to stand tall and walk as though no hurtful wounds hid beneath herbandages—amazing courage for one so young. She was the essence of sweetness. Herbedtime routine required about 30 minutes to deliver medications and hook up herfeeding tube. She would often say, “I’m so sorry you have to do this when you are tired,Mom.” Imagine! Chris and Chuck were an inspiration to our family and to all who knewthem. Near the end of their lives, when life became void of any quality, both Chris and Chuck reached a point where they really didn’t want to live anymore. They were ready to move on. Both died within two weeks. I have always believed that God knew their desires and, in His love and mercy, took them when they were ready to go. What were some of the spiritual lessons you took away from your experience with these children? In many ways, my experience with Chuck and Christine was a spiritual journey from the beginning. My belief in the hereafter was the only way I could accept their having this horrendous disease. That belief also sustained them. If I had thought this life was all there was for them, I think I would have been bitter, angry and frustrated toward God at the unfairness of it all. I also learned that God does give us with strength when we face difficult challenges. When Chuck was born, I knew nothing about the disease. The disappointments came in small steps as the disease progressed and more symptoms became evident. After our second son, Cory, was born healthy, we arranged for genetic counseling and learned that our chances were one in four of having an EB child with each pregnancy. We decided not to have more natural children and were blessed with the adoption of two girls. We were looking for another adoption when I found myself unexpectedly pregnant with Christine. Gary was a bishop at the time and, being the optimist that I am, I believed this pregnancy was an answer to my prayers. The baby would be healthy because Gary was working so hard as a bishop. When Christine was born with EB, I was totally unprepared and overwhelmed with despair. The whole map of this awful disease lay before me, and I felt horribly guilty for bringing such suffering to this child. I truly felt abandoned by God. It was a real crisis time for me. Fortunately, that feeling was short-lived because I needed my Heavenly Father more than ever before. I felt such grief that there was a heaviness that was actually a pain in my chest. It was Christmas time when we brought Christine home. As we walked down the stairs to our house, I could see could see my mom through the window playing with our other children and I thought, “I will probably never be entirely happy again, but I’ve got to summon the strength to make life normal.” I didn’t want the children to know how absolutely devastated and heartbroken I felt about Christine’s future. I protected myself by going to the grocery at night when women with healthy babies would not be there. I rarely went anywhere but to church and left early so that people could not show their sympathy, fearing I would burst into tears. Isolating myself in our home was comforting, though not healthy. Christine was about 9 months old when I was blessed with an insight at a testimony meeting. A woman spoke about issues that were difficult for her. I felt a kindling in my heart for this woman and baked cookies for her that afternoon. It was so healing to get out of myself and my own problems. I look back now and wonder why it took me so long to plug into the message of the gospel: that we will find ourselves in serving others. For a while service was my therapy. If I was having a bad day, I would bake cookies for someone. Within a very short time, my grief totally left me. I felt free of despair and truly happy again. Actually, I think life with Christine and Chuck was a spiritual journey for all of our family. Not one of us could have accepted the sadness of their lives had we not known there was a life beyond mortality where they would enjoy bodies free from pain. Because of Christine and Chuck, we learned about sensitivity and compassion. My heart still swells when I think about the kindness, service and love given to them by their siblings. My spirituality was also strengthened by seeing so much goodness in others. So many people lovingly embraced our children and generously supported the work of our foundation. For that we felt tremendously grateful. Gratitude, too, brings healing. Lynn Anderson and Her Family Would you describe how you started the EB Medical Research Foundation? In the late 1980’s Stanford recruited Dr. Eugene Bauer to head the department of dermatology. He was deeply committed to EB research. Because of his stature in the medical research community, he was able recruit other top dermatologists, and almost overnight,, Stanford’s dermatology program became one of the best in the country. In 1990, Dr. Bauer contacted Gary and me about starting a foundation. He believed his team was making progress that might lead to a genetic treatment for EB patients. Being an unknown person representing an unknown disease seemed an enormous challenge, but with the help of friends who provided time and professional skills, the foundation was started. Fortunately, Steve Young came on board early as our spokesperson. We began very slowly, though I remember feeling quite jubilant that first year when we raised a whopping $25,000! We have always been a “kitchen table” type of organization with no paid positions and have kept it volunteer so that nearly all contributions can go to research instead of overhead. Our first major breakthrough came with the support of Nu Skin Enterprises—truly a company with a heart! I went to the leaders of Nu Skin in part because I knew the leadership was LDS, and because I thought it would be great for a company called Nu Skin to provide “new skin” for children who desperately needed it. In 1996, Nu Skin committed a 10 million dollar grant to be distributed over a nine year period of time directly to the Stanford Department of Dermatology for EB research. In addition, they have given and continue to give generous gifts to our Foundation each year. Nu Skin has also helped develop public awareness of EB through their conventions and the development of a beautiful video through their media department. They have truly been our partners in the fight for a cure for EB. Without Nu Skin support, the research would not be where it is today. The foundation has become a huge presence in Hollywood, with Brad Pitt and Courtney Cox on your board and Oprah dedicating a feature spot on her show to EB children. How did you get this kind of exposure? A few years ago, Gary and I came to the conclusion that the Foundation would die with us if we didn’t find someone to help in its leadership. We were fortunate to find the Joseph family who had the needed skills and motivation. Andrea and Paul had an EB baby and were anxious to help move EB research forward. They opened a second office in Los Angeles. Fortunately, they have connections with the entertainment community which has been extremely helpful in spreading the message of EB and in raising research funds. We’ve gone to new heights with their help. How close is the research to finding a cure for EB? When we started the Foundation, I didn’t think we would live to see the day when a cure was possible. We had participated in so many experimental programs that came to nothing. I am thrilled to tell you about our great news! After 22 years of research, Stanford received FDA approval for a gene-therapy treatment for EB patients with the form of EB that took the lives of Christine and Chuck. Human trials should begin sometime during 2010. This has been the focus of our prayers, our time, and our efforts for so many years. Gary and I feel tremendous gratitude for the gifted scientists who have been so committed, dedicated and prayerful in their research of EB. We have gotten to know them well, and respect and love them dearly. Would you describe the treatment? It’s a complicated and it isn’t our ultimate hope, but essentially they take the EB child’s skin and they grow it in a lab dish. You can’t graft donor skin to people, it never works. So you have to start with the patient’s own skin. Then the doctors use a vector, which is a virus that has been cleaned out, to take the healthy cells throughout the body. The hard thing was getting the healthy tissue into the stem cells because skin sloughs off about every 3 months so the correction is lost, but the doctors now have the correction in the stem cells where it’s permanent. It’s not a cure-all, but if you take a new baby and graft all their pressure points, they’re going to have a relatively healthy life. This treatment would have saved my children’s lives and prevented them from having the pain and the side effects they had. Because of Stanford’s willingness to share their research every step of they way –instead of protect it like many universities do until they have the cure — their knowledge inspired research programs all over the world. It’s a day of gratitude and great blessings for me. Do you feel that being Chuck and Christine’s mom has been your calling in life? I don’t believe God foreordained me to be the mother of EB children, but it certainly became one of my callings. I also don’t believe God intended for Chuck and Christine to have EB. I think it was an accident of nature, the result of the genes that Gary and I carry—one of the risks that all of us face in mortality. Our growth comes from accepting and trying to overcome that which comes to us. I think that God (and possibly Chuck and Christine) knew that they were coming to bodies that were not perfect. Though He didn’t provide the miraculous instant cure for which I prayed, He was with our family. He was our loving partner, weeping when we wept and giving strength when we most needed it. The recent research success has been a tremendous blessing. It is a great comfort to know Chuck and Christine’s suffering came to something good. God was with me and with these children. He was my partner in this, weeping with me when I was weeping and buoyed me up when I needed it. With the miracle of this new treatment, I feel like my children’s suffering has come to useful end. That is a real comfort to me. At A Glance Name: Lynn Anderson Location: Piedmont, CA Age: 70 Marital status: Married 49 years Children: Five (45, 39, 37 and two deceased) Occupation: President, EB Medical Foundation Schools Attended: Brigham Young University, Boston University, San Francisco State University Languages Spoken at Home: English Favorite Hymn: “Because I Have Been Given Much” Current Church Calling: Ward Activities/Fellowship Committee On the Web: Learn about Lynn’s EB Medical Research Foundation at www.ebkids.org Interview by Neylan McBaine