In this final episode of This Is the Gospel, KaRyn, Katie, and Erika sit down and listen to their favorite untold stories from the pitch line—submissions from you that didn't make it into an episode for one reason or another, but that we love all the same. These three-minute stories range from wild, epic bear chases to small, quiet moments of revelation. While the voices and narratives may vary, each illustrates how even in a matter of minutes, individual’s stories have the power to bind us all together. See show notes and full episode transcript at LDSLiving.com/thisisthegospel or find us on Instagram and Facebook @thisisthegospel_podcastShow Notes + Transcripts: http://ldsliving.com/thisisthegospelSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Stories in this episode: Sarah and her brother decide to turn their father in to the police hoping he will find the help he needs to make necessary changes in his life; Chrislyn is deep in grief after learning about decisions her mother made and watching her be sentenced to life in prison. The Atonement of Jesus Christ and the power of forgiveness take on new meaning for both our storytellers, even if their lives haven’t yet reached a happy ending. See show notes and full episode transcript at LDSLiving.com/thisisthegospel or find us on Instagram and Facebook @thisisthegospel_podcastShow Notes + Transcripts: http://ldsliving.com/thisisthegospelSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In honor of Women’s History month, we wanted to do something new and share one of our favorite podcasts with you. It's called Latter-day Saint Women, and in this episode, the Relief Society General Presidency has an important conversation with a few of their friends: a foster mom who's worried about a little boy she's come to love; a 22-year-old who's angry and confused when she can't serve a mission; and a recent convert whose parents are Mexican immigrants, so she wonders whether she will fit in. Through their discussion we come to see one of the most beautiful parts of Relief Society—we all belong.  Show Notes + Transcripts: http://ldsliving.com/thisisthegospelSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Stories in this episode: Even though she's up against a language barrier, Bonnie takes matters into her own hands after noticing the refugee women she lives among on a military base don't have what they need; All of Ben's resources are expended when he's put in charge of providing meals for thousands of refugees, and he hits a breaking point. So he makes one phone call that teaches him just what—and who—it takes to be Christ’s hands while serving His children. See show notes and full episode transcript at LDSLiving.com/thisisthegospel or find us on Instagram and Facebook @thisisthegospel_podcastShow Notes + Transcripts: http://ldsliving.com/thisisthegospelSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Stories in this episode: Frances struggles in her role as a mom of three kids but is offered a helping hand right when she both needs it most and it's the most difficult to accept; Phyllis has always been eager to accept callings, but in her grief and loneliness after her husband passes away she feels like letting someone else step up to the plate—that is, until she’s reminded of how service can deeply affect the lives of those who give. See show notes and full episode transcript at LDSLiving.com/thisisthegospel or find us on Instagram and Facebook @thisisthegospel_podcastShow Notes + Transcripts: http://ldsliving.com/thisisthegospelSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Stories in this episode: While Rachel’s diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder helps her better understand herself, it doesn’t ease the lifelong fears she’s had of being unable to truly connect with other people. That is, until two sisters in her ward reach out and show Rachel just how much she truly belongs; Medlir grew up seeing Rembrandt Christian paintings during his childhood in communist Albania, and that artwork planted seeds of faith that eventually led him to the restored gospel. When he is later called as president of the first Albanian stake, he strives to understand how to define and create a Zion community. See show notes and full episode transcript at LDSLiving.com/thisisthegospel or find us on Instagram and Facebook @thisisthegospel_podcastShow Notes + Transcripts: http://ldsliving.com/thisisthegospelSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Stories in this episode: A bucket list adventure through the Uinta Mountains in Utah turns into a night through a dreaded fire swamp as unexpected challenges plague Heather and her friend; Aliah experiences a dream pregnancy until she is rushed to the hospital and doctors scramble to save her and her baby.Show Notes + Transcripts: http://ldsliving.com/thisisthegospelSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When Alexis, a teenager battling cancer, learns that a new boy named Ricky is in the same unit of the hospital as her, she expects him to be a sweet child like the other patients she’s befriended. To her surprise, however, Ricky is a tall, handsome teen. A friendship develops between the two amidst their chemo treatments and years of relapses and recoveries. Their bond eventually leads to marriage and a life of supporting and loving each other even with the myriad of unknowns they face with their health, each learning all the forms true Christlike love can take. See show notes and full episode transcript at LDSLiving.com/thisisthegospel or find us on Instagram and Facebook @thisisthegospel_podcastShow Notes + Transcripts: http://ldsliving.com/thisisthegospelSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Claudia faces one of the darkest nights of her life—both literally and figuratively—when she is taken hostage and held for ransom. Her only comfort comes in the form of a radiant sign from God that He loves her and is aware of her situation. When she is finally let go, she embarks on a journey to seek for more light and develops a relationship with God that she never would have imagined was possible. See show notes and full episode transcript at LDSLiving.com/thisisthegospel or find us on Instagram and Facebook @thisisthegospel_podcastShow Notes + Transcripts: http://ldsliving.com/thisisthegospelSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Stories in this episode: Adam's mission is more overwhelming than he expected, leading him to doubt whether he’s in the right place when suddenly a companion's photo puts everything into focus; LeAnn finds a perfectly placed dad joke in her scriptures at just the right moment; Becky’s hopes to adopt are finally fulfilled, but she faces heartache in her relationship with her child until an unexpected dinner guest gives her just the answer she needs. See show notes and full episode transcript at LDSLiving.com/thisisthegospel or find us on Instagram and Facebook @thisisthegospel_podcastShow Notes + Transcripts: http://ldsliving.com/thisisthegospelSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Stories in this episode: Jolene fully expects a lecture from her father when he invites her to lunch, but is surprised when the conversation takes an unlikely turn; Steven's hopes for a bright future are thrown for a loop when his college football career comes to a sudden stop, causing him to spiral into his addictions until he finds God where he least expects it—an isolated jail cell. See show notes and full episode transcript at LDSLiving.com/thisisthegospel or find us on Instagram and Facebook @thisisthegospel_podcastShow Notes + Transcripts: http://ldsliving.com/thisisthegospelSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

With family traditions, festivities, and gifts galore, the holidays can be a really exciting, happy time. But not everyone always feels that way. For Amber, the first Christmas after her divorce wasn't coming together for her as she'd hoped. As a mom of young two boys, Amber felt alone with the weight of the world on her shoulders as the early Christmas hours began to tick by. That is, until she did something she'd never done before and offered up a desperate prayer for peace.Show Notes + Transcripts: http://ldsliving.com/thisisthegospelSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Stories in this episode: KaRyn sits down with co-producers Erika and Katie as they each tell a story of their own. Erika struggles to find the confidence and the right words to share her beliefs with a chatty stranger on a flight; Katie decides to train for a marathon to prove that her diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis won’t limit her life; KaRyn’s plans to show a family from Uganda all about Pioneer Day goes awry in every possible way, until a surprise encounter reminds KaRyn of who's really making the plans. Click here to take our survey! Show Notes + Transcripts: http://ldsliving.com/thisisthegospelSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Stories in this episode: Julie, Whitney, & Brooke each have a story to tell about the struggle and surprises of a life lived in pursuit of discipleship, but they can't tell their story without one another and they can't tell their story without the extraordinary life of Jonah, the little boy who brought them all together.  Get more info and shownotes at LDSLiving.com/thisisthegospel or find us on Instagram and Facebook @thisisthegospel_podcast TRANSCRIPT KaRyn  0:03  Welcome to "This Is the Gospel," an LDS Living podcast where we feature real stories from real people who are practicing and living their faith every day. I'm your host, KaRyn Lay.  I kind of feel like today's theme doesn't need much of an introduction at all. So I'm going to keep this short and sweet. Because if there is one principle of the gospel that we all understand just a little bit better after a full year of social and physical distance, it's the power and purpose of human connection and just how inextricable that connection is, to our spiritual practice. And have we got a story about connection for you.  Actually, it's one big story with two little stories in the middle. And it's kind of hard to explain, but I think it's going to become clear soon enough. First, we'll start with our storyteller Julie, then you're going to hear from Whitney, and then Julie again, and then Brooke, and then back to Julie, and then Brooke and then Julie.  And just a quick note for sensitive listeners that this story does involve some trauma related to loss. Here's Julie: Julie  1:07  Our first son Jonah came into the world 10 days late. It was my first baby and I had all these ideals about what his birth would be like, and my whole pregnancy had been so good, and I had felt so healthy and strong. And all of our ultrasounds that we had were fine. We never had any indication that there would be any problem or any challenges for our baby.  It was just this beautiful experience to be pregnant and to feel him move inside me. I was sure that I was just gonna let him come on his own terms. And 10 days after his due date, my doctor said, "No, we need to induce you."  That day was so exciting. The birth was good, but when he was finally born, the doctor put him up on my belly. And when I first looked at him, I could tell right away that something wasn't quite right. And I didn't get very much time with them because they whisked him off my belly. And all of a sudden there was this flurry of activity around us and the respiratory therapists came in and they took Jonah and kind of moved him away from me. And I remember my mom coming over and comforting me and I just didn't even know what was happening.  I just said remembered seeing his little ears. They looked almost like little flower petals that hadn't quite opened all the way. My husband Jordan was over by the nurses and he was kind of watching what was going on, and he came over to me and I remember him saying, "Julie, he has the most beautiful lips." And I think he was in this moment of trying to process, you know, what we were experiencing. But it turned out that he had a lot of problems with his facial structures. He had a cleft palate, his jaw was underdeveloped, his cheekbones were underdeveloped, and his ears were not fully open, like they had just started to develop and stopped midway through that development.  We didn't know what caused it or whether he'd be able to see or whether he'd be able to hear. We didn't know if he would have any kind of mental delays, but we loved him so instantly. And it wasn't until the next morning after a night of changing diapers and trying to figure out how to feed him that our doctor came in and told us what his diagnosis was. He told us about Treacher Collins syndrome, which is a syndrome that affects the facial structures and development of the face. And the other thing the doctor told me is, "I'm almost 100% sure that you are the carrier of this genetic disorder."  It was good to know what he had because we knew that he would be able to see and he wouldn't be able to hear with the help of a hearing aid, we knew that he wouldn't have any kind of developmental challenges. But I had this place in my heart that just hurt so bad because I knew that I had carried this, you know, thing that was inside me that had . . . that wasn't my fault. But I felt the strange responsibility for being the carrier of that gene. And almost the immediate realization too, that any children that we tried to have in the future would have a 50% chance of having the same experience that our sweet Jonah was having.  We knew that he was going to face a lifetime of surgeries to correct some of those things that he had to deal with, and it was all so overwhelming. And I tried to put on a brave face and I tried to be really present and to be optimistic. But as soon as I could get up and I got into the shower–that's where I just fell apart. I just prayed that Heavenly Father would help me to know how to move forward. And the distinct impression that I received was that Jonah deserved to have a joyful mom. And that there was a lot that we didn't know, and there was a lot that I couldn't control. But I could control how I approach the experience of being this mom. And so that's what I tried to do. After a while, we just didn't think about his syndrome very much. We were just normal parents, and just raising this little boy and that was beautiful. People just were attracted to him and they wanted to know about him. And my husband and I are, well, especially my husband, we're kind of private, you know, we're not the kind that really reach out, but with Jonah, people just came to us. And it was a heart opening experience to watch how people just loved him right away.  But there was also a realization that people could be cruel. As he got older, we had more experiences of people stopping and staring or children saying things that were hard, and he was young enough, that didn't really affect him, but you know, we wondered how that would affect him as he got older. That was a challenge.  When Jonah was 14 months old, my friend had invited us over, she wanted to can spaghetti sauce, and our kids would play together while we made the spaghetti sauce. That morning, I had felt this hesitation that I couldn't put my finger on, but for some reason, I just didn't really want to go. And she was my dear friend and I love spending time with her and I couldn't understand why I wouldn't want to get out of the house and go there.  But we went, and Jonah played with her kids and we made our spaghetti sauce. After a couple hours, she needed to go and pick up her oldest daughter. And I said, "Okay, that's fine. I'll watch the kids." And we were in the backyard playing. And almost immediately after she walked out the door, the kids had been eating snacks and Jonah ate a fruit snack.  I could tell right away that something was wrong. I could see it in his eyes that he couldn't get any air. And I knew that he was choking. And I was holding my friend's new baby and I have these children around me and I looked around and there was a blanket on the ground. So I put the baby down and I scooped Jonah up and I tried to do the Heimlich maneuver and tried to you know, pound this fruit snack out. It wasn't working and I could feel his body just go limp in my arms.  You know, I started to panic. And I grabbed my phone and I grabbed him and I knew I just went to the front of the house because I thought if I can get out there someone can help me. And I left all these kids in this baby in the backyard and ran to the front of the house and laid him out on the driveway and called 911.  They did their best to help me and I was doing everything I knew how to do to help him. You know, I don't think it was very long before the ambulance got there. But just as I looked at him, I had the strongest confirmation I think I've ever had in my life, and the confirmation was that he was not he was not going to make it.  My friend came around, you know, the corner to see these ambulances and fire truck at her house and she ran out and she didn't know who was in trouble, you know. And when she saw that it was Jonah. She said, you know, "This is the time to have faith and this is the time to be strong." And I said, "He's not going to make it."  Within a matter of 30 minutes I'd gone from being the mom of this vibrant, lovely boy to holding him in my arms and his spirit was so clearly gone. That was the most devastating moment of my life.  And I'll never forget leaving the hospital that day with my husband, Jordan. And we got into his truck and we didn't have children with us, you know. And it was so surreal and strange. And we just drove home together. And then just crawled into bed and just cried all night. We just cried all night.  And then the next day people started showing up at our door. They came until . . . you know we went to bed that night, they just kept showing up. We just all grieved together as a community and as a family and this just tragic loss that we had all experienced.  The weeks and months that followed Jonah's death were just surreal. And at night, when I would try and fall asleep, I would see in my mind the experience of losing Jonah, over and over again. And I prayed for Heavenly Father to help me to be able to . . . to let that go and to be able to sleep. And I had a strong impression that I needed to write it down. And so I started by writing everything I could think of in my journal, and I wrote it down. And that night, I slept. And then I had the impression that I needed to write it in a more public way. And that felt really scary, but I decided, since I had this time, that I would begin sharing my experience and start a blog. I remember pressing, publish, and just feeling sick inside, like just feeling like I put my whole heart and soul out into the world, and not knowing how people would receive it. But that blog, and that ability to write became so therapeutic to me.  Another thing that was therapeutic for me, at that time was gardening. And I decided that I needed to put a garden in a new place in our yard, and I went out one day, and I just started tearing out the grass. It was this hard, physical work. That was just like, I was channeling all my anger and my rage into pulling out this grass. I was so angry and so upset. And I wasn't angry at God, but I just had this anger in me from this experience. And so I just began to pull out this grass. And I was just out there by myself and I was quiet.  I just remember having this feeling settle on me. It wasn't a vision, it wasn't a dream, it was just this quiet impression of two little souls that were going to come to our family. Part of me thought, oh, I'm just, you know, dreaming about what I want, then wondered if it was a real feeling. But it was the kind of feeling that just stays with you. And it just kind of sunk into my heart.  When Jonah died, Jordan and I had this immediate realization that if we wanted to have more kids, we had to decide how we were going to move forward and that felt so overwhelming, because we had just experienced this incredible loss that was tied to Jonah's genetic condition. He had a small airway, and that's one of the contributing factors to why he choked on that fruit snack. And so the idea of just having another baby was terrifying.  So we started talking about it and trying to figure out how we could possibly move forward. We knew that there was a possibility that we could do genetic testing, to help us to make sure that we had healthy embryos, and that we wouldn't pass on this genetic disorder. And I felt this real hesitation in that space when thinking about that possibility.  Because part of me wondered if I was somehow rejecting Jonah and the beauty and light that he brought into our home if I chose not to have another baby like him. And if I chose to use science to select out the healthiest embryos, if I'd somehow be denying myself the experience that I just had, that was so powerful–being his mother. And that was really hard for me to wrestle with.  I have always been the kind of person–I want to do what's right, and I want to do what God wants me to do. And I want to be in tune with the Spirit. And I just wondered if somehow I was leaving God out of the equation. There was part of me that felt like if I had real faith, then I would just roll the dice and let God decide, right? That somehow if I were truly faithful, that we would just move forward without a question.  And luckily, my husband didn't feel that way. He felt that it was okay to move forward with genetic testing. That would still require a lot of our faith. And so we moved forward with that. It took a full year for an embryo transfer and we had one healthy embryo that we could work with.  And so all of our hopes were wrapped up in this one moment. And when it came time to do the transfer, my doctors cancelled it. They discovered that I had scar tissue from my first pregnancy, and that it probably wouldn't work. And so after this full year of waiting and hoping we were faced with this new challenge. During this time, I decided that I needed to get a job to fill my time. And I was lucky enough to get a job at the Springville Museum of Art, which was great. And I had a colleague there who was working at the BYU Museum of Art. And they were getting ready for the Carl Bloch exhibit that was coming up.  Carl Bloch is really well known artist in LDS culture, maybe not by his name, but almost everyone would recognize his paintings. They are beautiful paintings of the Savior and His life. And the BYU Museum of Art was in the process of putting together this incredible exhibit of his works. But they wanted to have a spiritual component that connected to real people in their lives.  And my friend Ashley, who was working there asked me to share my experience of losing Jonah, in relation to one of Carl Bloch's, beautiful paintings, "Christ the Consolator," and I was really hesitant to do it, because I don't like being on video. And I knew it would be seen by a lot of people, but I knew from my experience, writing, that the experience I had of losing Jonah was really a powerful story for other people. that I got so much feedback from people about how it changed their hearts, or changed the way that they mothered their children or brought them closer to the Savior, that I moved past my hesitations and decided to go for it. Whitney  17:07  My husband and I were encouraged by lots of family and friends to go to the BYU art museum to see the Carl Bloch exhibit. So on a Saturday, we went for a little day date. And I was told by my mom, "Make sure you get the iPad version of the tour." So I got the iPad and started to walk around the gallery. And I wasn't as familiar with Carl Bloch before going to the museum.  So I walked in, and I just was like, "Oh my goodness, I know that painting, I know that painting." I didn't realize the Carl Bloch had done so many paintings of Christ. I just was blown away how much beautiful artwork Carl Bloch had done. And then as I kept going around the museum, I turned the corner and walked over to a big painting, a very large size painting of Christ teaching.  And I can't remember the details of it, but I very specifically remember there was an image of a little boy in the painting. And this little boy in the painting, was very intently listening to Jesus. There were other people in the painting, who would turn their heads, were scoffing, not paying attention, but this little boy was so significant to me because he was peacefully listening and looking at Jesus Christ.  So as I'm looking at this painting, I looked on the iPad, and noticed there's a button that you can push to have somebody tell you a story about this painting. So then I clicked on that button to hear a testimony of a woman. And she immediately started to tell some things that were happened in her life. She talked about a baby that was born to her and her husband, that didn't look like every other baby you see.  And as she started to describe this baby, my heart just stopped. I didn't have to see a picture of him, but I knew the second she described it. The way she described his eyes slanting downward, and his little chin and his tiny ears, and his missing of cheekbones, and the jaw, I immediately knew she was describing my son, who was born a month earlier.  There's only one out of every 50,000 births that these babies come into this form. And I knew immediately she was describing Treacher Collins syndrome that her little boy had. And so I kept listening and I actually listened to it twice because my heart was just so moved as I heard her journey of not only having a baby who wasn't a baby you anticipate, but then her experience of losing this baby and my heart just broke for her. And my heart was just in pain and suffering as she described this experience, but then listening to her to she described how much she was able to do it because of Jesus Christ.  And it was a very weird, surreal moment to be in so much pain for somebody, but also feel so much joy. Such anguish and peace at the same time. In that moment, in this large gallery, I completely felt and knew that I wasn't alone, and that God knew me. He knew my son. He knew this woman and He knew her son. And people will say, "Wow, what a coincidence." But to me, it was a knowledge that God knew of my situation. And he had a one of his children–one of my sisters–say, "I know what you're feeling. I know what you're experiencing."  I had this eternal connection with this woman. For the first time since my son was born, I felt like somebody understood. After leaving the museum, I became obsessed. And I know that sounds scary, but I became obsessed with trying to find this woman. So I got on the internet, like all stalkers do, and I started Google searching everything I could find. And I searched and searched, I looked, I knew I knew her picture. I didn't know her full name, I just knew her picture.  So I would Google, "Little boy dies choking on fruit snack," I googled, "Treacher Collins syndrome boy." I googled as many things I could find. And then I clicked on images one day, and I saw her picture and I knew that was her. So I clicked on that link, and it took me to her blog. And then I spent the next three days just reading every word of that blog.  And I just . . . my heart became even more endeared to her. Reading the way she beautifully was explaining her circumstances and situation life. It was like I was reading scripture, it was so holy to me to hear how she explained her trials and her good times, and her hard times.  I knew I needed to make contact with her. I knew I needed to connect with her in person. So I did what the best thing I feel like I could do, and I started to write a letter to her. I wrote a letter just thanking her for the peace she brought into my life, the answers that she brought to my life, the realization that God was aware of me. I remember thinking, she's gonna think I'm crazy. This random person, bearing her testimony, having a very spiritual experience, because of her situation, that was a hard situation, she's gonna be like, "This woman is crazy."  Even my husband was like, "Mmm... Whitney this might be a little bit out there for you." But I felt so prompted to write the letter. So that's why I had to do it. I needed to connect with her and let her know that her story changed my life.  But then I didn't know where she lived! So I started to stalk her again, and I googled, as much as I could to find out, and I found an address. I was a little nervous to send it, but then I kind of in the back of my mind said, "But, you know what? She probably might not even get it." So I sent a letter. And to be honest, after sending it, I kind of forgot about her. Like, it kind of left my mind and left my heart. And I kind of stopped being so obsessed.  And so I thought, "Okay, that's what I needed to do. I just needed to send that letter and I would move on." Even if I never heard back from her. That experience in the museum was a pivotal point for the rest of the journey of my life on this earth. Because it was such a defining moment where I knew without a shadow of a doubt that God knew me. He was aware of me. That He knew the prayers I've been praying the last month. He knew the heartache I was . . . the fears I was having about the future of my son. And in that moment, I can still see where I'm standing when I was looking at that exhibit and feeling as if in a huge museum–I was the only one in the room. And God was personally saying, "Whitney, I hear you. I'm aware of you. And I see you." As a mom, I'm constantly telling my children, "Go help your brother and sister do this." "Go help your brother do that." And I truly believe that Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother are doing that constantly. That they are reaching out to us as their children and saying, "Go help your brother, go help your sister." Because we are all connected. We are all an eternal family and we are all God's children, and our purpose on this earth is to get everyone to come back to Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother.  So let's say you get a prompting to send a text message or to go visit somebody or to be even maybe write a letter to somebody like I did, my advice would be just do it. Act on that prompting. Write that letter. Send that text message. Go visit somebody. Because Heavenly Father is inspiring you for a reason. Julie  25:11  We were finally ready to do our first embryo transfer. Everything seemed like it was going to work. And the problems that I had had seem to be fixed. They transferred one healthy embryo that we had, and I miscarried almost immediately. It was so devastating. We decided that we couldn't do the genetic testing again. It was just too many variables, too many questions about why I had miscarried.  And so we decided to try an egg donor. And once again, all of the ethical and moral questions and religious questions came up with this choice and not knowing if we were doing the right thing, or if we should do something different. But we felt okay moving forward. And we chose an egg donor.  Around this time, my sister, Brooke, offered to be an egg donor for us. I didn't even know that that was the possibility. I didn't know how that would be. But I did know what it was like to go through an in vitro cycle, and all of the shots and all the hormones, the doctor's appointments that were associated with it, I just felt like it was too much to ask my sister, so we decided to move forward in a different direction.  We were able to get 12 healthy embryos. And when you're doing fertility stuff, they give you constant updates. So they'll call you after three days and say "This many have developed." And then they'll call you in two more days and they'll say, you know, "Five more are looking good." And so you're just waiting for these phone calls and hoping that things go well. The first call we got was good. They said, "We have 12 and they're developing." And the next call we got was not as good. And they said, "Well, now we only have six, but they're still developing." And then the final call, we got said that none of them, they all just stopped developing.  Our fertility clinic said they had never had that happen before. After the anonymous egg donor embryos didn't work out for us, I felt really strongly that we could move forward with Brooke, my sister, and the offer that she had made to let us use her eggs. My sister is so generous, she always has been and she's so willing to guide me and direct me and help me in every way that she can. And it just felt like, "Of course. This is what we're gonna do." And I don't know why it had been so hard before them because at that moment, it seemed to make the most sense of anything in the world, that these embryos would still be connected to my family through her, you know. And they would still have a connection to my parents and to my grandparents. And that just felt like such a gift that I hadn't even realized that I wanted. Brooke  28:26  Julie and I were just typical siblings. As we grew older–we were three years apart–as we grew older, I think our connection just grew apart as well. We were in different places of our life in different stages. I got married really early, I had my first baby really young. So by the time Julie got married, I had five kids.  My youngest was really close with Jonah, when he was about a year old, I had decided to go back to school and I was working a couple days a week and I was going to school a few times a week. And so Julie and Jonah would go pick up Lindsay from school every day. She just have the sweetest little relationship with him, she just loved him so much.  The day he died I was at the preschool that my family owned, and I got a phone call from Julie's friend saying that I needed to call my mom and have her go to the hospital. And I thought well, you know, I had taken kids to the hospital for stitches and stuff like that. and I think in my deep in my heart, that's what I wanted it to be. But I knew from her voice that that's not what it was. And I said "Okay, I'll call her. Is he going to be okay?" And she said, "No, I don't think so." And I remember the world just going fuzzy. I sat there for a long time trying to think about what to do. I didn't want to be at work. I needed to be there. So as I was driving to the hospital, I called my husband and asked him if he would go pick up the kids from school. So I got to the hospital and I was sitting in the parking lot, and I got a phone call from my mom saying that Jonah had died. And I really don't remember how I got to the doors of the hospital. I didn't do it well, because at some point, a nurse came out of the hospital and walked me in. I just remember her arms around me. And she asked me if I was his aunt, and I told her I was. And she walked me in.  I walked in there and I saw Julie holding Jonah, Jordan sitting next to her. And my heart just shattered. It wasn't very long after that, well, maybe about an hour after that. The same nurse came back in and told me that my kids were at the hospital. I walked into this little side room that they had outside the emergency room and I just collapsed. All five kids came running to me and put my arms around them and told them what had happened. And we just grieved. We just wept.  I did not think that I could inflict another heartache on my kids. Two weeks before, I had asked my husband to move out, my kids were really suffering. And I was already foggy, I was already so confused about what was right and what was wrong. But I also knew that I needed to know what the right thing was to do for my children, for my family, how we were going to move through this grief and this heartache.  So I said goodbye to my kids, they went back with their dad. And I walked out to my car and I sat down in my car. My prayers to God at that point were like David in Psalms. You know, like, angry and sad and hopeful . . . and all of those things at the same time. And I sat in the car and I just cried to the heavens, "You have to tell me what to do today. Because I cannot break the hearts of my children anymore that they're broken."  And I started driving, the same prayer just going over and over and over in my head. And by that night, I knew that my marriage was over. It was a really, really, really dark and sorrowful night. And that night, my kids, all five of them climbed into bed with me and I remember us falling asleep to me singing or humming "Abide with me tis eventide." Cause my whole family, my children, myself, my sister, her husband, my parents, we were all slipping into the darkest dark. We spend a lot of time crying.  Julie took care of me. I remember just being awed by her. And how she just in her profound grief took care of me, took care of my children. And sometimes I felt guilty about it because I just I didn't know if I even had the emotional capacity to be able to do for her what she was doing for me.  My darkest dark lasted about two years and it was really, you know, we sometimes it felt black. But I met a man at the end, as I was nearing the end of that and coming through and healing, I met a man that I really loved and who really loved to me and we decided to start our lives together and bring our families together.  At the same time, Julie was still wandering through that dark, dark. And as I healed, I was even more aware I think of the pain and grief she was experiencing.  I started to have dreams that I had something of my sisters that I . . . but I didn't ever know what it was or how to give it to her. I just knew that I had something that I needed to give to her. I would have them pretty regularly. And I'm not a dreamer. Like I don't, I don't get answers to prayer and dreams. I don't . . . my dreams are usually just super weird. But these felt these felt like there was something there that I was supposed to be paying attention to. And I remember I would wake up and I would just lay in bed and think like, what, what is it? What is it? For a long time, I thought it was just grief, I thought that it was . . . I was supposed to be attending to her grief.  At this point, Julie had gone through a miscarriage and a failed IVF. And my mom came to visit and she was out for a couple of weeks and we were driving her back to the airport. And she said, "Julie and Jordan are thinking about using donated eggs." And it was like just this complete knowing. It was a knowing. That's the only way I can describe it. All of a sudden, I knew exactly what those dreams had meant. I knew exactly what I was meant to do.  And I just said, "Well why . . . why not mine?" Like why . . . why are we not doing this? And from there on it was that was just what was meant to happen. I offered Julie, I told her that I would do this for her. And I remember she she was very thoughtful about it. And she said, she said no. I didn't really feel discouraged. I remember thinking that it was a big thing. And that it was something that doesn't happen very often, at least in our experience and known world.  And so I just told her, it's an open offer, if you change your mind, I will do this for you. I don't remember ever thinking it wasn't going to happen. I just knew that she needed time to really think about it and decide if that was okay. And then she came to me and said, "I'm ready. Let's do this." I remember feeling really excited.  I don't know anybody that is supposed to be a mother more than Julie. And watching her go through all those years of sorrow and heartache and loss . . . I was just so happy to be able to help her be a mother. So I was older, I was 35, had to go through a bunch of tests to make sure that I was, it was even a viable option. I was. So we went through the process. And one of the things that we had to do is speak with a psychologist. And I had to be there, my husband had to be there, Julie had to be there and her husband had to be there.  And the feminist in me it really like pushed against that. I was so like . . . why? Why? Why does my husband have to be there? Why did he have to give me permission to do this? I think part of it too, was pushing back against a former life I had had and I wanted to make these decisions.  In the end, I was so glad that he was there because I was able to see just how much healing had happened in my life. The psychologist wanted to know how I would feel about to raising these babies, if I would be okay with that. And I was stunned because they were never mine. They were always meant to be Julie's. Like my dreams had told me from the very beginning, I had something that was hers. And I was just holding on to them until they were ready, until everybody was ready.  My husband was asked how he felt about it. And I remember him saying that he was going to completely support whatever I needed to do and however I needed to do it. And that was such a departure from my former life. Which is why I was so glad he was there because it was just another reminder of the grace of God, another reminder of healing.  There is a quote by Neal A. Maxwell and I'm just going to paraphrase it because I don't remember it completely, but since the moment I heard it, it has always stuck with me. And he talks about how the Star of Bethlehem was placed in orbit millennia before Christ was born, but it was there so that it could shine on that night, it could lead people to Christ.  And I've thought about that a lot, and how that light, that star shone on that night in the darkest dark. And I think about how there are moments in time that are placed in the orbit of our life, that will shine on our darkest darks. We don't know when and we don't even know what they are, but they're there. And they will come. And we will encounter God in those moments. Julie  40:46  We moved forward with Brooke going through an in vitro cycle, and she was able to get four healthy eggs for us. So we scheduled a time that we could implant two of those eggs. And we felt this renewed energy and excitement about it, that this time, it would work. The process is fairly simple. When they put the embryos in and then you just wait until you have a blood draw. And they can check to see if you're pregnant, and then you wait for another blood draw and see how your progesterone levels and all sorts of other levels to see if it's moving forward.  Initially, we got that first blood draw that said, "Yes, we were pregnant." And we were just so thrilled and ecstatic and hopeful. That part of our hearts was always reserved, because we'd experienced so much lost. And we didn't want to get our hopes up. Then we had our second blood draw, and the news was not good. They told me that my progesterone levels were dropping, and that I would probably miscarry.  We were just devastated and heartbroken and I felt lower than I had in any of the previous losses. Not Jonah's loss, but in the previous miscarriages and setbacks that we'd experienced, because I just felt so hopeful about this time. We got the phone call on a Saturday, and the next day was church. My husband was in a bishopric and he would go over early to have meetings and things and I would meet him later. I wasn't even sure I wanted to go to church. I didn't think that I could, because I was so heartbroken and devastated and sad. And I felt like I could have stayed home, and that would have been okay, but I got myself ready and I started driving and I was just crying in the car.  And on my way, I just felt like I needed to go to Jonah's grave. So I turned and I took a detour and I went to the cemetery and I went to his grave and I just knelt down right next to his headstone. I just felt so alone. And I wondered if God cared about what I cared about, if God wanted the same things that I wanted. If he knew me, if he was aware of me and my struggles, and I just didn't know if I could keep going. You know, it was so emotionally draining to go through this process over and over again.  I just prayed and I asked Heavenly Father to show me, to tell me, to let me know somehow that I was loved, that I was known, that there was a greater plan, and to give me the strength to keep going. I stayed there for a while just being alone there in the cemetery. And I got myself up and I went to church. And I don't remember anything about being at church. I just remember sitting around the hall. I'm feeling so sad. The next day, I went to work and I was gone most of the day, just tried to get through it. And when I got home, I checked the mail and there was a letter. It was a letter from someone that I didn't recognize the return address and I went inside and opened it.  Her name was Whitney, and I'm just going to read what she said. "I hope that this note is something that can strengthen your testimony and reminds you The Lord has a divine purpose and plan for all of us. I hope this note reassures you that prayers are truly answered, because you were an answer to ours. When I read what you wrote, it felt like a direct answer to my prayer the day before." I knew that she had written that note days before, weeks before I don't know when, you know, when she wrote it, but it had come to my doorstep the very day after I had said this really heartfelt prayer.  And it had answered all the questions that I had had about whether God was involved in the little day to day parts of my life. And all of the questions that I had heard about whether He cared about me and loved me and what role He played in our choices, and whether I could ask for the things that I really wanted and needed. This little letter just after that for me and confirmed to me that God loved me. And it felt like the most miraculous and beautiful gift from my Heavenly Father. At the time, we only had two embryos left from my sister. And it had been so devastating to miscarry that I wondered if I would be able to do it again and go through the process and the shots and the appointments, and the phone calls, all of it. But this letter just gave me this hope and energy and this belief that God was with us.  And I remembered that feeling I had in the garden as I was pulling up the grass, and that feeling of these two souls and two spirits. And I just felt like we had to keep moving forward, that we were moving towards a greater plan for our family.  During this time, I had many random experiences in which people told me about a different doctor that we should go to. Everyone from my visiting teacher to my phlebotomist that took my blood seemed to be telling me to go to this new doctor. And we had these two embryos, and we decided that what we had been doing wasn't working, and we need to try something else. So we decided that we would go to a new doctor.  The funny thing was that my husband, Jordan had to go get these embryos, from the fertility clinic, he had to pick them up in this little nitroglycerin case, and drive them on the freeway to the other clinic. And he was terrified. He was so worried that they would fall over and they'd get ruined and they're these tiny little cells that he had to move across Utah Valley to this new place. It was so absurd and strange to think of our . . . these two embryos moving before they were even little people down the freeway. But he was brave, and he did it, and he took those embryos to a new doctor.  And our new doctor immediately identified that I had a blood clotting issue and I had an immune reaction that we didn't know about, and he was able to pinpoint these things that had been ending my pregnancies and causing me to miscarry. That was so

Stories in this episode: The sudden loss of his corporate job throws Dave into a new and sometimes confusing role at home; Jenny's once-thriving life is upended by an unwelcome diagnosis that offers her a powerful connection to some of her Church History idols. Get more info and shownotes at LDSLiving.com/thisisthegospel or find us on instagram and facebook @thisisthegospel_podcast TRANSCRIPT KaRyn  0:03  Welcome to "This Is the Gospel," a LDS Living podcast where we feature real stories from real people who are practicing and living their faith everyday. I'm your host, KaRyn Lay.  When my town experienced a hurricane-level windstorm this past fall, it uprooted century-old trees and it knocked down power lines. And I learned two things very quickly: First, that I take my easy, daily, access to electricity totally for granted. And second, that I am only partially prepared for the loss of that daily access.  We were without power at our house for over five days. And honestly, if it wasn't for our camping gear and a very long extension cord that our neighbor Steve generously draped over the back fence that allowed us to share his generator, I mean, we totally would have survived, but the contents of our freezer wouldn't have and we wouldn't have had access to our cell phones.  Now listen, I know there are many people in other parts of the country and the world who have faced even more perilous natural events than our tiny little windstorm. And I don't want my experience to diminish those struggles. Those are really hard things. But for me, this was a particularly important reminder to think about preparation with just a little more urgency.  The word preparation comes from the Latin root for "Prae," which means before and "Parare" I don't think I'm saying that right, "to make ready." And I love that idea of "to make ready" because isn't that exactly what this earth life is all about? It's getting our hearts and our minds and our bodies ready for whatever comes next.  But President Nelson reminded us in his general conference talk, "Embrace the Future with Faith" that it's not just about making ready for the life after this. If we want to be of good courage and find peace right here, right now, during this most remarkable dispensation, being temporally, emotionally, and spiritually prepared is the key.  We have to make ready before the windstorms and the tumults and the ocean waves come for us. And what that looks like in practice, to make ourselves ready as disciples in our world of disruption, probably doesn't include my most recent plan to hoard Slim Jims and get a longer extension cord. So today, we're gonna explore the many sides of preparation with two very different stories from people who learned how preparation opens the door to opportunity and growth. Our first story comes from Dave. Dave  2:28  I was working at my day job for a luxury hotel and it was 9:15 on an idle Tuesday and I was called into the general manager's office. And they said that across several of their hotels, they were dissolving my position. Effective immediately, I would be released, and "Here's a severance," and "We're so sorry, and it's not your performance. It's not anything you, it's just we dissolved the position. Let us know if there's anything we could do."  My mind is spinning. Well, what's next? You know, will we stay in the valley? Will we need to sell our house and move? Like, you can imagine the tornado of thoughts and ideas. But as that kind of settled in, I was also quickly reminded, wait a second, like my wife, she's an entrepreneur and her business is really picking up right now. And wait a minute, this coaching program that I'm in has really become my passion project. And I realized that, you know . . . and other people's stories of getting laid off or losing their jobs like that is really stressful, and that they might not have backup options. But in this case, it was so clear that Heavenly Father had prepared us with these other business endeavors to allow us to take that initial hit, and run with it.  And now we had the time and the space to dedicate to these other causes that really fulfilled us and really excited us to share more of who we are and to build other people and in lines of work that are sharing light, and love and strength.  My wife and I are both entrepreneurs and her business was growing and is growing and so she had great momentum as Rio's business was in a great place to then take off even more and she now had time. Now I'm an at-home-dad trying to grow his business. I had this lull. I had random coaching calls here and there so it was this almost awkward time of being being dad while still coaching.  I think the hardest part for me in this new role as a stay-at-home dad at first was, that was a role I never thought I'd be in. Like all growing up I thought I'd be the breadwinner, I'd be the one going to work from you know eight to five and that was what I always thought so then boom, here I am with the kids. Here I am changing diapers and making macaroni and it's like wow!  There was like weird feelings of like guilt or like embarrassment, or, you know, in those social gatherings, people would ask, "Oh, how's the coaching going?" and it was going, it was growing, but most of my day was spent stay-at-home dad. And so it was . . . you're just in between worlds, I feel like. Where in social gatherings you're different, and in business gatherings, you're different, as I'm like, at the park with other moms, and like, I'm the only dad there. So it was, at times, I'd say, just funky feelings.  All the while being encouraging and supportive of my wife who I was very proud of. And the work she's doing and like, "Heck yes!" like, "Go for it, ride this momentum that you have." And so that was just an interesting psyche feeling that, and . . . even last night, right? Like Tuesday's aren't my professional work days, and so I had a full day with the kids. And it was beautiful, and I loved it.  But I found myself at the end of the day, like having feelings of, "Well, Dave, you didn't grow your business," and "You didn't talk to this person and you didn't–" and it was like, wow, just beating myself up about what I didn't do. And like society, I feel like puts that pressure on business and growth.  And I was so quickly then–it was just a beautiful feeling, where my heart was just immediately filled with gratitude. And the specific faces of my kids at lunchtime when their faces are messy, but we're all sitting around the table just having lunch together. And it was like, wow, like what a gift. What a gift. What a special sacred time. And I don't ever want to bemoan my kids for keeping me from my professional development. And that's what it's like, what do you really want here? Like, if you had to give up anything for something, what would it be? And it's like, hands down, I'd give it all up for my kids. There's nothing that's more important than family. When I think about it and I dial in, I know God has been preparing and helping me to learn things that he needed me to learn. And experiences I needed to have to be here now as a stay-at-home dad several days a week, to trust that a bummer today is still an opportunity to learn and to grow and to become stronger and wiser because of it. And in those moments of when it's awkward, or when it's you know, I'm not relating to all the other dads in the same way.  It's, it's again, a peace of mind because I've received my answer that is unique to me, that this is where I need to be. This is what I'm to be doing. And in moving forward, that that peace of mind can put me in any awkward situation and I know who I am, I know where I stand.  I feel like God is preparing me now, in this experience we're talking about to really dial in and help me learn personal revelation. I think I've . . . it's safe to say I have sought more personal revelation in the past year and a half than I have in my entire life combined, with leading my business, with leading my family, with being a partner with my wife, and in so many ways, and the more I can understand how the Spirit communicates to me, the more I can navigate future challenges and future opportunities, and that seems to be maybe the biggest takeaway for me. KaRyn  8:39  That was Dave.  Dave and his wife, Rio, are both engaged in work that is all about preparation. In addition to his personal coaching business, they are the founders of Work + Wonder, which is a design company that makes these beautiful guided workbooks that help you get prepared so that you can get more from general conference.  We just knew that they would have something cool to share with us about this principle that they have dedicated so much of their life to. And I think it's really interesting that Dave pointed to their temporal preparation is the thing that saved them at first. But it became really clear throughout his story that without the spiritual preparation of honing his ability to receive revelation, the peace about his current situation would have been far more elusive than it is.  In that same general conference talk that I mentioned in the intro, "Embrace the Future with Faith," President Nelson invites us to learn and apply three principles of preparation from the life of Captain Moroni. He said quote, "First he helped them create areas where they would be safe. "Places of security" he called them. Second, he prepared the minds of the people to be faithful unto the Lord. And third, he never stopped preparing his people physically or spiritually," end quote.  I can see all three of these preparation principles in Dave's story as he leans into this unique opportunity to actively create emotional and physical security for his children. And as he practices receiving revelation that will anchor him in his faith, and give him continual courage to show up boldly, as himself, wherever he goes.  Our next story comes from Jenny, who was prepared by God for a unique work in a way that no one would have expected. Here's Jenny. Jenny  10:22  I still remember my first symptoms, I was running out of breath, especially when walking or going up the stairs, and I couldn't talk on my phone and walk at the same time, which was ridiculous, because I had a busy life. And I needed that time to do that.  I chalked it up to just being overwhelmed. I had just been called as Relief Society President and I was writing my dissertation, and I was a TA for a history class on campus. But one day, I was talking to my dissertation advisor, and she recommended that I go get my blood drawn and see what was going on in my blood.  So I went to the student health center, they drew my blood, the next day, I was on my way to campus and I got a call from the nurse at the student health center. And she said, "I need you to go to the emergency room." And I said, "Well, actually, I'm on my way to class, I need to lead a study group for an exam." And she said, "Well, if you're driving into campus, why don't you come to the health center? There's a problem with your blood test."  So I got to campus, I went straight to the student health center, and the nurse was a little frantic. And I was only frantic because I still had to get to that classroom. And I was late. But she sat me down, and she said, "Let's call your doctor." So we called and the doctor was out of the office for two weeks. And so she said, "I need to send your test results to the ER, which hospital would you like to go to?"  I didn't know which hospital was there, I'd never been to the hospital in Virginia. So I quickly thought of one that I knew the name of. And she said, "Do you have someone that can go with you to the hospital?" And I immediately thought of my stake Relief Society president who I'd been with the night before. And she said she would always be willing to help me in whatever way possible. So she came to my house and picked me up and we spent the next 10 hours in the ER.  Meanwhile, my Bishop came to visit, brought lunch, came back later to give me a blessing. Doctors were in and out, and finally they decided that they were going to admit me and give me some blood because my platelets were really low. So I spent the night in the hospital getting a blood infusion. And the next morning, the hematologist came in and said, "We need to do a bone marrow biopsy." I started to panic. And the bishop said, "Is it okay if I stay in the room while this happens?" And the doctor said, "No, you need to go out of the room."  So, they prepared me for the biopsy. And my Bishop stood outside my door and talked to me through the door. And it was very painful. The bone marrow biopsy was very painful. So my doctor told me, "We'll,"–it was a Saturday, he said–"We'll discharge you in just a little while and have you come into my office on Monday for the results." And I was like, "Okay." So I was just waiting for the discharge, and the doctor came back and said, "I need to speak to you alone."  And he sent everyone out of the room. And he sat down next to my bed and told me that I had acute lymphoblastic leukemia. And I looked at him and said, "What? Can you write that down? I have no idea what you're talking about." And so he wrote that down and he said, "We need to get you started immediately on chemotherapy." And I was in such a buzz. I didn't even know how to process it.  It just seemed ridiculous to me. I was a marathon runner and I went to body pump class every week, twice a week. And I was busy. I had lots of stuff to do, and this is a ridiculous waste of time. But I knew it was serious just by the way that he talked to me. When my Bishop came back in the room, I asked him if he could call my mom because I couldn't bear the thought of calling my mom to tell her and he said he would take care of that. My brother in law sent my mom on the first plane to D.C. When she walked into the room, it was 11:30 at night. And she walked into the room and we both just started crying and she just climbed into bed with me and held me and told me how much she loved me.  The next day was Sunday and another doctor came in and sat down to talk to me and she said "Now, I want to know what some of your concerns are. Are you afraid of dying?" And I'm like, "What!? No, I am in the middle of so many good things. And I have a mission in life." I had felt compelled to do Latter-day Saint women's history, and I said, "No, I'm not gonna die, and my mission life isn't done. And plus, I've got to have kids. I mean, my patriarchal blessing says that I'll have children." I don't think I used that word because she wouldn't have known what that was. But she said, "Oh, honey, we need to talk." And she explained the gravity of the situation. And I still, I don't think it's really sunk in.  I had felt so strongly about doing Latter-day Saint women's history. It was a circuitous route for me to figure out what my mission in life was. As a research assistant working for two women historians, I was reading the Nauvoo Relief Society minutes. And it was like their words, were speaking to me, I could hear them whispering, telling me that they existed, that they were important people, that they had done a great work. And I wanted to learn more. And I wanted to tell everyone about these women, about Emma Smith, and Eliza R. Snow, and Elizabeth Ann Whitney, and the extraordinary things that they were doing, and I saw how progressive and incredible these women were, the work that they did, and going to medical school, and in storing grain, and I loved them, and I wanted to learn more about them. And I wanted to share their voices with other people.  I did feel like Heavenly Father was communicating to me that this was my life mission, and that he and others would be with me. That is what sent me to graduate school, and that's what sent me to Fairfax, Virginia, to get a PhD in American history at George Mason University. But suddenly, here I was in a hospital in Arlington, Virginia, realizing that my life was coming to a screeching halt.  I was actually grateful that my Bishop decided to keep me in as Relief Society president. It really kept my mind off of the craziness of chemo and going bald, and I was surrounded by love. And it wasn't just the friends or my mom that were there, it was my ladies. It was Emma and Eliza and Emmeline and Zina, and I knew they were there to bolster me up and to help me.  I made it through two years of chemo. And after my chemo, I was in remission. My body still wasn't quite the same. I knew I was never going to run another marathon, but I was able to press forward and finished my dissertation. So I graduated, I landed my dream job working at the Church history department in Salt Lake City. I moved to Utah, I bought the house, I started my first project. And I went in to establish continuing care with a blood cancer clinic at LDS hospital.  And they took my blood and suddenly wanted to do another bone marrow biopsy. And I knew I was in trouble. So I called my mom and she came up to Salt Lake, and I called a neighbor from my ward who came and gave me a priesthood blessing. He told me that this will just be a small blip in your life, you have a lot of things to do. But sure enough, they could quickly tell that my leukemia had returned and that my blood was 98% leukemic. Again, I had been tired, but I just, I just wrapped it up to having moved and trying to settle in and getting started on a really exciting project at work. But this took me out of work for another year. And this time with this second diagnosis of recurrence. I was mad. I had lined up everything. Everything was ready, everything was in place. I was mad that God would allow this to happen. That he had preserved me through that first bout of cancer, and that I knew this was going to be a long road. I was mad at my body for not holding up like I wanted it to. And I was mad that I was going to have to tell my new job that I was going to need to take some time off. And I was mad that the project I was working on wasn't going to get done. I was mad.  And I . . . really, it was really hard for me to pray. I wasn't in a good place with God. I couldn't open my heart to Him because I had closed it up because I was scared and I was mad.  So at this point I needed to have a bone marrow transplant. Now, in preparation for a bone marrow transplant, they have to obliterate your bone marrow, so that when they give you these new stem cells, they'll know to create new bone marrow. Before my bone marrow transplant, I had another priesthood blessing from a man who was a friend of mine in my stake presidency.  And he told me that the Lord had a plan for me, and that my life would be preserved. That nothing would prevent me from filling my mission. He promised me that my health would ebb and flow, but that I would live and that I would be a witness to his mighty hand.  So I did it. I went in for the bone marrow transplant. My brother, Ben, was a perfect match, and bless his hearth, he was such a trooper. It was an awful experience. I had to do full body radiation, I had to do some brain radiation, I was scared to death that I was gonna lose some of my ability to think and write and do research. And I really struggled with that. But I did it. And almost immediately after the transplant, I started experiencing some of those side effects.  My esophagus was inflamed, I couldn't drink or eat anything I was on fluids and nutrients . . . and I was so miserable, I was on a pain pump. And I don't remember hardly anything for probably two weeks. And I remember one doctor coming in and saying, "Jenny, we have to bring you to the brink of death, so that we can bring you back to life." It was a long, hard, seven or eight weeks in the hospital, and then a long hard recovery period. After about a year, I started feeling better. I went back to work, we were doing a collection of women's discourses, a book. And I loved it. Finding these women brought me so much energy and hope and joy. And as my body was recovering, I could feel them pulsating through my blood. The book was coming out, I was so excited. I knew that these women were proud that their words were being made accessible, and that I knew that other women would find such joy and hope and faith in their words. And I was so excited and invigorated and I was ready for my next projects.  When I came to understand at a follow-up at my clinic, that my leukemia had come back. This time it had not entered my bones. My brothers marrow had made my marrow strong enough to stop it from entering the marrow, but my DNA was still wanting to form lymphoblastic leukemia. And so it went to the next blood barrier, which was my bone. And I had leukemic lesions on my spine and sternum and ribs.  I remember I was at the conference, the Western History Association Conference in St. Paul, Minnesota. And I got a call from my doctor. And she said, "Jenny, I'm sorry, Your cancer is back, and you're going to have to do another bone marrow transplant." I was done. I was like, "I'm not going through that again. I will not do that again." There's there's such a low chance of success with a second bone marrow transplant. Every time the cancer recurs, you have less and less of a chance of overcoming it and of being cured. I was at my wit's end.  I remember meeting one day with my pulmonologist who told me that his son had died a year previous of a drug overdose. And he said, "Jenny, you're not 80 years old. My son has 0% chance of living, but you, even if you have 10% chance of living, you have to try." And I thought all of a sudden of that priesthood blessing that I'd had before my transplant, where I had been told that I had a mighty work to perform and that my life would not end until that mission had been filled. And I realized that I needed to do everything that I could to keep my body alive. And so I agreed. Just before the second transplant from my other brother. We discovered that I had pneumonia. And we had to get that cleared up before we could move forward with the transplant. But, it was elusive, we couldn't figure out what was causing the pneumonia. So for three months, I was on oxygen, and I have never felt so close to death in my life. All I wanted to do was curl up in a ball and sleep.  I remembered the account of Jane Snyder Richards. She was a woman from upstate New York, who had married and come to Nauvoo, and had a baby. A beautiful daughter named, she named her 'Wealthy." I love that name. And her husband, as soon as the Saints were leaving Nauvoo, her husband was called to go on a mission to England, and she was pregnant with a second baby. And he left, and that baby was born and lived about an hour and died. And her daughter Wealthy, the toddler, was getting very sick, and there was no food to give to her. And Jane also was very sick. And soon, Wealthy died. And Jane had no strength. She had no ability to carry on–she was all alone. And she remembered she said, "I only lived because I could not die."  I thought a lot about that. And I thought about how death wouldn't be so bad. It would be great to be released from this physical body. But I knew that I had to live. I knew that I had to fulfill my mission. I didn't even have the energy to pray or to seek for revelation, I was giving everything I could to surviving. One day two friends came to visit and had lunch. And it was so good to see friends. And I had this little spark of revelation. And it was that little spark that made me realize, "Oh, I have a work to do. We've got to figure this out." And so I realized that I had to do everything that I could to figure out what the pneumonia was so that I could then have the bone marrow transplant so that I could then preserve my body.  So I called my Bishop. And this is a different Bishop in Salt Lake City. And he came over and we decided to have a ward fast. And a lot of my friends joined in and it was a really tender thing. And they prayed that the doctors would discover what was happening, and how we could fix the pneumonia and move on to the transplant. We weren't praying for mighty miracles that I would all of a sudden be healed and be able to run another marathon. We were just praying for information. And it came.  They realized that I had inflammation in my lungs from the targeted radiation to those leukemic lesions on my ribs and spine and sternum. And so they put me on steroids. And almost immediately the pneumonia was gone. And I was able to have that second bone marrow transplant. It just so happened to be on Good Friday, where I received the blood of my brother. And he gave me new life, and I'm so grateful for that. The process wasn't as bad the second time. I was able to stay at home and able to heal quite quickly and I was able to get back into work as soon as possible. At the same time, I received an assignment to write a book about Emma Smith. And I was really excited. It was a slow process. As I learned to listen to my body and give myself naps, and go on walks and build up the energy and the lung capacity.  As I finished the book, I started to feel Emma with me. And I began to understand what she had felt when time after time, something had come up and prevented her from doing what she wanted to do. I knew that feeling, and I knew that she knew that I knew. She received a revelation in 1830 instructing her to select hymns. That didn't happen for six years. She was also taught to expound scripture and exhort the Church, that she was an elect lady. That didn't happen for 12 years, when the Relief Society began 1842.  I felt suddenly, like I was . . . my life experience was really preparing me to understand this length of time and this need to be patient in the Lord. And to–as Emma was told–to take the time to study and learn. I still don't believe that God planned for me to suffer in such a physical way. But I do believe that he intended for me to have an earthly mortal experience. And that he would never leave me alone, that I would have him and my Heavenly Mother, that I would have Jesus Christ, and I would have my host of women with me, and that with them, I can do it.  I loved learning that Emma was the first woman to receive the temple ordinances. And I've often reflected on that as I've healed. Oh, how I loved learning about the promises to our physical body, and realizing that even though my body is imperfect, and a little bit broken, and a little bit scarred, and I even have tattoos from radiation, that my body one day will rise again. And that this life is a preparation for that, in the same way that it was a preparation for me to better understand Emma.  My relationship with God has certainly improved. I've realized how much I need my Heavenly Parents. I need their love, and I need their light. And I yearn for that. And there are days where I'm tired, and where I struggle with energy, but I know that I can draw upon them. I have a great earthly host and a great heavenly host. And I know that just as I was told my health would ebb and flow, that my life will be preserved. And that all of this experience is for my good. KaRyn  32:28  That was Jenny Reeder. I've been privileged to know Jenny since our days in Washington D.C. together, but because I skipped town just before she got her diagnosis, I was stuck witnessing that heroic battle with leukemia from faraway.  I love learning from the story that she always felt her Heavenly host and her earthly army surrounding her. And all of those details of just how this experience prepared her for her mission here on Earth. In fact, you might recognize Jenny's name from her work on several historical books about the women in the early church, including her newest book "First," which is that book about the life of Emma Smith that she mentioned.  It's finally finished, and it is so, so, so good. And in part, I think that's because of what Jenny shared with us here. She was made ready to know Emma in a way that qualified her to do that work. To empathize and to love her because of her humanity, not in spite of it. I also really appreciate Jenny's understanding that God didn't want her to suffer, but he did lovingly allow her to have what she called an earthly mortal experience. And I really believe that it was her spiritual preparation before her experience that helped her to find the truth in the middle of it all, that God would not leave her alone, and that all these things will work together for her good. Now, if you're anything like me, you're wondering how much preparation is enough preparation ahead of the hard things that are coming? How can I know that I've dug enough trenches like Captain Moroni or read enough scriptures to fortify my faith against a layoff or a medical crisis? Or that I've shoved enough cans of dry beans under my bed?  I can be so concrete in my thinking about heavenly things that sometimes, I admit, I get caught up in the worries about enoughness. Well, I had a really cool experience as I was thinking about all of this that I want to share with you.  I'm not a nighttime study-er of the scriptures. But I felt compelled the other night to open my scriptures before bed, even though I literally thought I would pass out of tiredness before I got one verse in, but I followed that prompting, and I just opened to the place where my scriptures naturally fall open. And of course, it was Ether, chapters two through six and the story of the brother of Jared.  I honestly thought there was nothing else for me to see in the scriptures because I have read them so many times and highlighted basically every word in them. But that night, as I was thinking about this theme, I saw something I had never seen before, or at least never noticed before. And I felt like I'd unlocked some secret room in a house that I was so familiar with.  The word "Prepare" is everywhere. In chapter two, verse 25, the Lord tells them that he will prepare them against these things, the mountain, waves, and the winds. That he has to prepare them, because otherwise they can't survive. And then he asks them, "What should I prepare for you so that you can have light?" The brother of Jared shows up with his offering in chapter three, verses four and five, they have prepared the vessels and the stones, and he asked the Lord to prepare them to shine.  Later, in chapter six, it talks about how the Jaredites prepared all manner of food to sustain them on the ocean, and then commended themselves to the Lord their God. And this is what I realized while I was reading this. Preparation is a conversation. It is not a one sided endeavor. The Lord promises that He'll prepare us, because He has to prepare us. We can't meet the winds and the waves by ourself. And then he asks us what we can do so that he can prepare us.  We offer our best ideas, our best efforts, whatever we have to give, even if it's only a long extension cord, or five minutes of sincere prayer and scripture study, at the end of an exhausted day. We prepare the stones, then He prepares the stones. We gather all the honeybees we can find and we put them in the boat, and then he brings the boat back up like a whale in the ocean. You see? It's a conversation. We prepare, and he prepares us. There is no such thing as "enough" in this beautiful back and forth. We just have to keep the conversation going on our end.  We just have to show up for our kids, despite the pressures of society to focus elsewhere, as we teach them that our love is their refuge. And then God gives us revelation that strengthens our heart in our moments of self doubt. We ask our friends to pray and fast with us to find a solution, and then he prepares us to receive that solution.  There was one more use of the word "Prepare" in that section of Ether that I have never noticed before. In chapter three, after the brother of Jared offers the stones to the Lord, he sees the Savior's finger as he lights the stones. And then the brother of Jared is swept up into the presence of the Lord because of his faith. In that sacred place, after all this talk of preparation and preparing, the Lord says this to the brother of Jared in verse 14, "Behold, I am He who was prepared from the foundation of the world to redeem my people. Behold, I am Jesus Christ, I am the father and the son, in me shall all mankind have life."  We cannot have any conversation on preparation without acknowledging that from the foundation of the world, before you or I even existed on this earth, Christ was made ready to redeem us. That Atonement covers all of the dot dot dots in the middle of our conversations with God. And while those 16 stones held steady against the darkness, I imagine that it was this understanding of our Savior's sacrifice that was the real true light in that boat with the brother of Jared. When the winds raged and the waves sucked them below the waters. And as we cultivate our own knowledge of his divine mission, as we continue to converse with the Lord, light and hope will be with us as we face our own dark corners, all because of the salvation proffered us in that ultimate act of preparation. That's it for this episode of "This Is the Gospel." Thank you to our storytellers, Dave and Jenny. You can find out more about our storytellers and the beautiful work that each of them is doing to help us get prepared. Dave and his wife Rio through their Work + Wonder project to get us ready for conference, and Jenny's new book first all about Emma Smith. These will be in our show notes at LDS Living.com/thisisthegospel. And you can also find us and more information on our Facebook page or our Instagram @thisisthegospel_podcast. We'd love to see you there.  All of the stories in this episode are true and accurate as affirmed by our storytellers. Thank you to everyone who has bravely shared your story with us on the pitch line. We find a lot of stories that way. And we will be relying on it heavily as we prepare to gather our themes and stories for next season. If you've got a story to share about a time when the gospel of Jesus Christ changed you, we want to hear from you. The best pitches will be short, sweet, and they'll have a clear sense of the focus of your story. You'll have three minutes to pitch your story when you call 515-519-6179.  Do you have a favorite episode of this podcast? Please, please, please tell us about it. You can leave a review on Apple, Stitcher, or whatever platform you listen on. We read every single one and really appreciate your help in knowing what's valuable to you as our friends. This episode was produced by me KaRyn Lay with story production and editing by Erika Free. It was scored, mixed and mastered by Mix at Six studios and our executive producer is Erin Hallstrom. You can find past episodes of this podcast and other LDS Living podcasts at LDS Living comm slash podcasts.  Show Notes + Transcripts: http://ldsliving.com/thisisthegospelSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

During a grueling, marathon recording of the concert film Lamb of God, cellist Nicole does what no musician working long hours ever wants to do. She asks composer and conductor Rob Gardner if they can record her difficult solo—again. In this song, called “Gethsemane," Nicole's cello represents the Savior. Rerecording pushes Nicole to her physical and emotional limits, but it is there that she not only finds the ability to depict Christ through the cello, but also learns about the Savior's ability to heal the darkness in her life. View show notes at LDSLiving.com/thisisthegospel Follow us on instagram and facebook @thisisthegospel_podcast Transcript:  KaRyn  0:03  Welcome to "This Is the Gospel," an LDS Living podcast where we feature real stories from real people who are practicing and living their faith every day. I'm your host, KaRyn Lay.  I remember the first time I learned that there was even a thing called symbolism. It was in my ninth grade English class and we were reading "Silas Marner," the 1861 classic by George Eliot.  I thought George Eliot was so cool because she was a woman writing with a man's name. But what I didn't think was cool was the way Miss Terse, my English teacher whose name aptly described her personality, mind you, how Miss Terse kept pointing out the number three throughout the book. "Oh, look, the chair has three legs. Oh, look, there are three stars in the sky." I couldn't for the life of me figure out why the number three even mattered.  I distinctly remember using this as a jumping off point for some truly terrible junior high awfulness toward Miss Terse. I don't know if she's still teaching at a junior high somewhere in Pennsylvania and even if she is, I really doubt she's a podcast listener. But if by some small chance you're listening, Miss Terse, I was wrong. Please forgive me for being 14 because symbolism is now one of my favorite things in the whole wide world.  The fact that we can find connection and meaning by seeing ourselves in our emotions reflected in the world around us. To me, that is one of the deepest beauties of being alive on this earth.  Now, I still have no idea what the number three symbolizes. But the symbol of light is actually pretty easy. It's goodness, it's hope reflected in the life of Jesus Christ. In fact, we learn about the symbol in John chapter eight, verse 12, when Christ teaches, "I am the light of the world, he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life."  And today, we have one beautiful story from Nicole all about light and pain and music and symbolism. But more importantly, it's about Christ and His ability to show us what light can really do for those of us who long to be made whole. Here's Nicole. Nicole  2:20  I have this sign that hangs in my office and it says, "A positive thinker sees opportunity in every difficulty. A negative thinker sees difficulty in every opportunity."  Recently, I had the opportunity to learn more about forgiveness. I had a really painful experience and to get to the other side of that experience, I had to forgive someone. And it was an act, I considered unforgivable. That wasn't the kind of thing that was just going to go away. It was going to have really lasting consequences not just for a long time, but to a real depth in my life.  I just got really down. I'm usually really positive person and so I went through the motions of life and just tried to keep my spirits up and push it out of my mind. But the more I tried to push it out of my mind, the more power it seemed to have over me, especially late at night. I stopped sleeping, really started worrying a lot and that's really not very good for anyone.  In the meantime, I was having all these cool things happen in my career. What I do for a living is play the cello. And really what that means to be a professional cellist, at least for me, is I get to do three different things. I get to teach children, which I absolutely love. I get to record really cool music. And then I also perform.I used to perform a lot but, of course, performing lately doesn't really happen.  During this difficult time, I was given the opportunity to do something really amazing, which was to record a concert film of the oratorio the "Lamb of God" by Rob Gardner. An oratorio is when someone tells a story, but they tell that story through singing. Unlike a musical or opera, it's not really acted out. Singers just stand in front of an orchestra and choir that's, you know, the most common way in oratory is sung.  The most common oratory most people would have heard of is "The Messiah." Now, "The Messiah" is about Jesus Christ. This oratorio [the "Lamb of God"] is also about Jesus Christ. In this oratorio, the cello, that instrument I play, represents the voice of Christ. So I have to admit, I was super intimidated because that is a role I never expected to play in my life—and I'm a very human person.  At the same time, it made sense because like all the human characters in the life of Christ are represented through people on stage. So it was really a brilliant way of communicating the divine. The cello represents Jesus. The violin also represents a divine person, he represents Heavenly Father. And by the way, if you end up listening to this piece, the cello doesn't always represent Christ. There's a theme that represents Christ. And it's like this. There are different ways that theme appears, and the marker really is a step down and then a leap up. That's when you know that Jesus is speaking.  Recording is always hard. It's never easy. But this was a particularly difficult recording. We did not record to the click. What recording to click means is that there's like a metronome and everyone's earpiece so that the timing of the piece is exactly the same every time you play it. This is how almost everything is recorded, all the time, everywhere. Because what happens is, we're all human beings, even skilled musicians. If we play a song three times in a row, we might play one section best the third time, another section best the first time and another section best the second time. Or we might play a whole song fabulously, but five seconds is not good.  Well, when you record the click, you can take a few seconds from one take, and just snippet into another take and it works. But if you record without click, then you really must play the whole piece not just perfectly, because that's the wrong word for music, you must play the piece with spectacular precision and exquisite emotion over and over. That is what we were trying to do.  We were doing this recording during COVID, which means that we basically had to record the project as fast as we could before anybody got sick and as safely as we could. What should have been like maybe eight hours a day recording for five days in a row, we instead recorded for almost 12 hours two days in a row.  The reason it's so unusual for music to be recorded this way is tiny muscles don't take the abuse that big muscles and the mind do. The voice gets tired, the fingers get tired, lips get tired. So it's really unusual to ever be asked to record more than eight hours in a day. In fact, a recording day is more like five hours, which makes people think we don't work very hard for what we do. But let me tell you, musicians work so hard singers work so hard. So that was one of the things that made this challenging the compressed schedule.  Then there's the weirdness that goes on. Right now, we're all in masks, we're trying not to talk to each other. There was a lot that was really challenging, but there were really many cool parts of this process. And playing the music was definitely the best part.  I've been able to play a lot of concerts since COVID, which is really unusual. But they've all been really small intimate projects. This one involved a lot of people. Even though we weren't talking to each other and socializing, we were making a lot of music together. So here we are in the middle of this process, trying to tell this really grand, magnificent story. I have the responsibility of expressing the voice of God and we come to this song that's called "Gethsemane." "Gethsemane" is about what happens in the garden, which is the Atonement. The Atonement is such a difficult thing for a human being to wrap their head around, obviously, we're not capable. At the same time, it's important that we make that effort to understand what it is.  So here comes the melody of Jesus, the one I told you about where it goes back and forth down and then rises up. There's some narration at the beginning of "Gethsemane," and then you come to the voice of Christ. It's so beautifully written. It's really hard for a composer to write for a string player, most composers use the piano to write, and pianos have five fingers. The string players only can use four fingers at a time. Many brilliant composers don't understand this. Rob totally does. He writes melodies that work for string players, they fit under the hand, they fit across the strings. It's like he plays the cello. Except at the end of "Gethsemane," the cello has to make these really awkward leaps. I didn't know how I was going to execute them gracefully. This is the most magnificent moment in history. This is why I believe in the Savior. So how am I going to pull this off?  Rob starts conducting and I'm thinking to myself, "Okay, I've got one shot to portray it well, beautifully. I think I can do that, which is a lot of confidence there. But this thing coming up farther on, oh my gosh, how am I going to make that sound good? Let alone be in tune, let alone be connected. So I prayed for help.  I was blessed with a calm feeling and the presence of a word—Abba. It's my understanding that Abba is a really unique and remarkable name for father because it doesn't really mean father, it means daddy. At the same time, it indicates a real depth of respect for a father while having this really sweet connection as daddy. So with that feeling, I was able to play through "Gethsemane" and Rob was happy with it. So we went on.  But even though I recognize the beauty of that gift, of that experience, the truth is that I didn't think I had done it good enough. It just kind of kept nagging at me and I was trying to decide, "Okay, am I being too hard on myself? Do I really need to play it again? Am I being inspired somehow?" I actually ruminated about this overnight, and came back to recording the next day. As I had more clarity, this phrase kept coming to mind. The phrase is, "The Lord appreciates effort." That quote comes from President Nelson. Every time I would think of that, I kept thinking of him smiling when he said it. So I thought, you know, "I think I need to play this again."  I got the guts up to ask Rob. I was kind of worried about what he'd say beause it's really expensive to ask an orchestra, a choir, the camera, the lights, the team, the facility, say "Oh, Rob, I know you consider that song done and who knows how much money it's gonna cost but can we play it again?" So anyway, I got the guts up and he was so nice about he said, "Hey, sure, that'd be great. We can rerecord 'Gethsemane' when the whole rest of the oratory is finished." I must admit, I thought to myself, "Yay!" I think because I was pretty wiped out already by then, but it made sense. We had to finish so if we had time to go back, we would.  We finished the oratorio and only the replay of "Gethsemane" was left. I was excited. I was scared. My arms were on fire. My neck was on fire. My back was on fire. I guess it's kind of like an athlete at the end of a marathon. I've never run a marathon but at that point, I was in the marathon of cello playing. My mind was tired, my muscles were tired. I didn't really think that I could actually play this any better at this moment because I wasn't fresh. I wasn't at my best. And, you know, I'm trying to act like none of that's happening because this is my job. I am a professional, at least I try to be. But I had asked for it. So what am I supposed to say? My thoughts were kind of racing, but I took some deep breaths. I thought, "This is gonna be just fine. It's gonna be okay." And then right at that moment, I noticed some drops of blood on the floor. I was like, "Oh my gosh, I'm bleeding." It sounds worse than it really was because for string players and pianists, honestly, our calluses split open in the winter all the time. There's not a lot of feeling to the calluses. So for me, the way I deal with it, some people super glue it shut, but I just stick a bandage on it and some ointment. Luckily, a violist had some handy so I got rescued, put the bandage on my thumb, and he [Rob] started conducting.  Well, as soon as I put my bow on the string and started playing, I realized that it wasn't just that my callus had split but the thumb, the nail was separating from the skin of my thumb. So even though I was holding my bow really lightly, just that little bit of pressure, and every time I moved, I was pulling the skin away from the nail. This had never happened to me before. It was so painful. I really didn't know how I was going to keep playing. But I knew I shouldn't stop. The musician never stops. So I prayed again. This time, I really cried out in my mind, like, "Help." And right away, it felt as if there were hands on my head. I recognize the feeling. That's that's what it feels like when you receive a priesthood blessing. And even though the pain was excruciating, it didn't change the pain, I knew that there was an angel there. I didn't really have a sense of who it was, but I knew I was being blessed and it comforted me.  We went through the piece. To be honest, because it hurts so much I didn't have a lot of awareness of how it was sounding. I was really connecting with that warmth of that feeling. So when it was all done, you know, Rob gives the conductor cue. He looked over at me and smiled warmly and said, "That was absolutely beautiful. Thank you, Nicole, would you like to do that again?" I didn't want to tell him and what bad shape I was in and what had happened to my thumb. But I looked up and I looked at everyone's faces around me and I could tell everybody was just as tired as I was. I'm usually pretty professional at sessions. I tried to behave professionally, but I looked around and I opened my mouth and I said, "I can't. That's too much pressure." Everybody just cracked up because, you know, they're not used to anyone talking like that. So we all just cracked up. And Rob just said, "Well, hey, listen, we're here. So let's do it again." And I thought to myself, "Oh my gosh, typical musician, typical conductor. Of course, you gave him the choice, he's gonna say, "Let's do it again." It's the musicians only lie: one more time.  So we started again. This time, the pain was just as bad as before and I cried out in my mind for a third time. This time I expected a miracle, right? This time, nothing happened. I didn't feel hands. I didn't feel an angel. I didn't hear voice. I felt so alone. I felt so abandoned. So what I did to deal with it, is I just like crawled inside my head. I crawled inside my body.  What was really amazing about what happened then is I found an awareness of my fingers that I'd never had before. My fingers like had a mind of their own. They started just flying through those notes like they had lived their whole life for this moment. Me, the person, I had just been along for the ride this whole time.  So we got to the end, Rob gave the cut off. I just listened to the silence. I looked up, and all of a sudden, everyone started cheering. That was the first time I realized that I had played it well. Rob said, "Well, man, that is how we end." I was so happy to be done like everyone else. That wasn't just happy to be done. We were proud because a collective effort felt like it was worthy of the work. Everyone always gives their whole heart to what they do as an artist. But when you are deprived of the opportunities to communicate your music because of COVID and that is your chosen passion, your chosen vocation, what you've spent your life doing, that gratitude for the experience of performing was so powerful. We really celebrated. We were happy.  But this is the thing. That was an amazing experience, and surely it helped. But I didn't really snap out of it. Even though I wanted to leave my heart behind and genuinely feel happy, smile from inside when I saw people instead of pretending. As hard as I tried that real heaviness that darkness returned. A couple weeks later, I finally hit bottom. It was in the middle of the night. I actually wasn't making any noise. I wasn't tossing and turning. But my husband spoke out loud. And he said, "Nicole, are you okay?" And I said, "No, I am not okay. I'm so not okay." I have spent so many nights of my adult life sad and alone. I am so blessed that right now, I'm married to the most amazing man. He just held me in his arms, and I just cried.  As I cried in his arms, I realized something. I thought, "You have all these tools at your disposal and you're not really using them. You could be praying more, you could be reading your scriptures more, you could ask your husband for a blessing."  And as all these thoughts quickly went through my mind, I blurted out, "Bryce, would you give me a blessing?" And he said, "I would love to, Nicole. I was hoping you would ask me." He just jumped right up. It was like 3:34 in the morning. And I was like, "Oh, you don't have to now. You can go to sleep. He's like, "Let me help you." So there in our PJs, in the middle of the night, a husband and wife got to connect in a really beautiful way.  Then one day, I thought to myself that I should talk to my bishop about this. I made an appointment with him and I went into his office. I told him this whole awful ordeal and it was the first time I had said it out loud. All of it.  I think for many of us, when we bring things to our bishop, we're embarrassed. We don't want to bring these burdens to their life. I definitely felt that way. He just listened carefully and after I had finished, he explained that it was a bishop's job not to take a burden and keep it. But it was a bishops job to take a burden and to give it to the Savior. And ultimately, my job was to take this burden and to give it to the Savior myself. But in the meantime, he could give this much away for me.  We talked about forgiveness. We talked about what it is and what it isn't. And it's interesting growing in the lessons of forgiveness because they're very simple. I think we all know them. It's so like music, you can know something is supposed to be a certain way as a cellist just because you know, it doesn't mean you can play it that way. It really must be practiced. So I think it's the same with forgiveness.  With forgiveness, we know it's not saying that something's okay. It's not saying something was supposed to happen or should have happened. We can completely reject the event. It's even appropiate to completely set up a boundary with that person. What forgiveness really is, is choosing to leave the hurt, choosing to leave that place of negativity, choosing to see opportunity in this difficulty.  At the end of our meeting, I asked my bishop for a blessing. It wasn't till then, when he stood behind me and placed his hands on my head, that I somehow put everything together that final few seconds of the cello passage and "Gethsemane." The ones that I struggled with in that recording, that few seconds that made me ask to do that piece over again. That difficulty was intentional. It was but a shadow of what the Atonement was for the Savior. The Atonement for the Savior is not something I can understand. But I can understand how hard it is to do that. The bleeding, the nails splitting, I was meant to play that at the end of my limits in pain and feeling totally alone.  There's a painting I love by the artist James Christensen. It shows a woman with her hand outstretched with this little tiny coin in her hand. The widow's mite represents this sweet old woman who has almost nothing to give. But the little that she has to give, she presents to the Savior.  In my mind's eye, as I was receiving this blessing from the bishop, I realized that I was that woman and now it was time to give up and submit. Just surrender not just my own widow's mite that I had to give, but the hurt that was locked inside of me. I saw the Savior reaching out to me, and he was smiling.  In that moment, I understood that he had already paid the price. That when I would give Him this burden, it wouldn't make Him hurt. That part was over. The path that lay ahead was one of light of love, and joy.  When we leave our pain and our hurt to the Savior behind, a new path opens before us a path of love, a path of service, a path of bringing light to other people's lives. And being the light that we didn't get to have. We get to be that light for someone else.  The blessing ended. I actually didn't tell my bishop what had just transpired in my mind. We parted with friendly, warm words. Then I left the church building out into this cold, sunny winter day. I could feel the warmth of the sun on my skin, on my hair, even my mind.  I knew it would be different for me now because I was walking in the light. The light and love that really comes from our Savior–here's nothing quite like it. I took a deep breath and almost felt like I was taking the first deep breath of my life. I smiled a smile that came from the inside, all the way from my heart. And I put one foot in front of the other and walked into the light. KaRyn  28:00  That was Nicole, the principal cellist in the film recording of the oratorio the "Lamb of God."  I'm going to tell you so much more about this film because, as you could tell from that little bit that you heard in the story, it is a powerful testimony of the life of our Savior. But before we can even get to that, we have to talk about the light. Couldn't you feel it in Nicole's story?  I love that shift, that symbol of reaching from the bottom of the string to the top in the midst of her suffering so that she could represent the Savior well with the voice of her cello. That moment when she felt the heavenly hands on her head, only to be asked to enter the pain one more time and this time to be left alone in her suffering, but with a supernatural ability to transform that pain and isolation into beautiful music.  And finally, the realization with her Bishop's support that all of those moments were an echo, however faint, of the very experience of our Lord and Savior when he drank the bitter cup, and as it tells us in Alma, chapter 7, verse 13 when he took upon Him the sins of His people, that He might blot out their transgressions according to the power of His deliverance.  All of these symbols, layered upon symbols of representation were exactly what Nicole needed to understand a simple truth. The truth that when we offer our sorrow and our pain and our infirmities to the Lord, especially the ones we don't know how to handle, the ones that cloud our heads and leave us sleepless with worry, we can trust that He can handle it, that He alone has already handled it.  We can trust that He knows the unique shape and heft of our burdens intimately, because He's already held them as He paid the price of our possible transformation. We accept the gift that he gave us in Gethsemane when we lift our hands up in a full surrender of the things that we cling to, just as Nicole did.  In that moment, the real work of His Atonement can begin in each of us. The real work of changing us from the natural man or the natural woman into a true disciple, a child of light.  And now I'm really excited to tell you that we have the incredible opportunity, for the first time ever to experience this oratorio, "The Lamb of God" this stunning work of sacred music in theaters–as they reopen safely in some areas. And I cannot think of a better way to spend an afternoon–oh, I cry every time I say this, I cannot think of a better way to spend an afternoon or an evening as we ride out the tail end of this pandemic, and celebrate the coming of Easter.  We'll have links in our show notes so that you can find it if it's near you. And I know that theatres aren't an option for everyone, especially our friends who are listening across oceans. So we'll have other links to some of the music, including that overwhelming piece "Gethsemane" in our show notes at LDSLiving.com/Thisisthegospel.  I honestly can't wait to hear how this music transforms your worship this year. I know that for me, it's been an important new expression of my faith ever since I discovered it and I am so happy to be able to share it with you. I hope it brings light, more light, into your life. That's it for this episode of this is the gospel thank you to our storyteller Nicole for sharing her story and her gifts with us. I played the cello for a hot five minutes in that same ninth grade where Miss Terse was, and it didn't take me long to realize that I wasn't very good at it. So I really and truly appreciate all of Nicole's talents and the years and years she has spent honing that gift to testify of her love of Christ.  You can read more about Nicole and the "Lamb of God" oratorio in our show notes at LDS living.com/Thisisthegospel. You can also find us on Facebook or Instagram @thisisthegospel_podcast. All of the stories in this episode are true and accurate as affirmed by our storytellers.  And we find a lot of our stories through the pitch line. We'll be gathering stories and ideas for our next season soon. So get ready, get on there, share your stories. The best pitches will be short and sweet. And they'll have a clear sense of the focus. You'll have three minutes to pitch your story when you call 515-519-6179. And if you're still listening this far into the outro of the podcast, you are a true friend. I tried to make them interesting, but I don't always succeed, so it is no small feat that you got this far. And if you've made it this far, maybe you wouldn't mind taking it one step further and leaving us a review. We'd love to hear how this podcast is adding to your practice of the gospel.  You can find us on social media @thisisthegospel_podcast or leave us a review on Apple, Stitcher, or whatever platform you listen on. And from one friend to another, thank you for spending time with us. We truly are grateful for you.  This episode was produced by me KaRyn Lay with special help from Arthur Van Wagenen. It was edited by Kelly Campbell and scored mixed and mastered by Mix at Six studios. Our executive producer is Erin Hallstrom. You can find past episodes of this podcast and other LDS Living podcasts at LDSLiving.com/podcasts.  Show Notes + Transcripts: http://ldsliving.com/thisisthegospelSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

12-year-old Houston and 10-year-old Hadley find themselves stranded offshore after the weather takes a turn for the worse on a paddle boarding excursion. The dropping temperatures and strong currents make their way home feel almost impossible, until the discovery of the family phone gives them a way to communicate with their mom, MeiLani, on shore, becoming a lifeline for them on their journey home. View shownotes at LDSLiving.com/thisisthegospel Follow us on instagram and facebook @thisisthegospel_podcast Transcript:  Erika  0:03  Welcome to "This Is the Gospel" an LDS Living podcast where we feature real stories from real people who are practicing and living their faith every day. I'm Erika Free, one of the story producers, and I'm filling in for KaRyn today.  I'm a huge homebody. I really like seeing new places, but my favorite moment is when I walk through the door and take my coat off after a long day or long vacation away from home.  I feel like I have an unconscious meter in me that's always telling me how far I am and how long it will take me to get home. And I honestly think it started when I was a missionary in Japan. There was this rule in the missionary handbook that said we should always have enough cash on hand to get back to the mission home at anytime from anywhere in the mission. My mission was decently big, so it created this extra awareness in me of always tracking home base.  I wish I could say that I always track my progress to my Heavenly Father and my heavenly home as much as I do the place where I actually live. I don't do that. But the story that I have for you today really got me thinking that maybe that's something I should do. It's told by some of our youngest storytellers yet. Houston—who's only 12—and Hadley—who's only 10—show their experience out at sea far from home. Whil MeiLani, their mom, tells us about her experience from the shore. We start with MeiLani, Houston and Hadley will join in later. Here's MeiLani MeiLani  1:22  So I was born in Hawaii, then I was actually raised in California. So I'm used to seeing the typical beach scene: the palm trees and the sand, like every picture you usually see of beaches is that type of beach.  But 10 years ago, we moved to the East Coast. We live about three hours away from the beach. And these coast beaches are very different. There are these beautiful, I think they're called like fox tails and reeds that come up really—and these dunes that you go over and you take a long boardwalk out to the water, whether you're on ocean side or the sound side.  The sound side doesn't have all the crashing waves. It's usually a little more peaceful, it's better for fishing, better, sometimes, for paddleboarding easy, that kind of things. Sometimes you'll see like oyster patches that they have a bunch of reeds. So very, very different than the West Coast beaches that I was raised on.  We were headed to a friend's beach house to visit their property because we run Airbnb vacation rentals and so kind of to collaborate on that, but also to hang out with friends. We ended up bringing a couple of our family members. So it ended up turning from 14 people into about 30 people at this big house and we were going to be here for seven days. All seven days had pretty much rain and a little snow. So anytime we would see the sun, we'd be like, "Okay, let's go. Let's go it take advantage of the sun."  So my sweet niece, her name is Dixie. Dixie went and took out two of my kids. Houston just turned 12 last week, and then also Hadley, who is almost about to turn 10, and then went out with one of our friends kids named Owen. Dixie is in her early 20s, so I felt like, "Okay, Dixie can handle this. Dixie can take those guys and all will be well. She's an adventurer. She's lived years in Alaska, like she can handle any sort of adventure." I totally trust her, 100 percent, that I was like, "Oh, okay, I'm down two kids, then I can totally go and hang out and just maybe I might actually read a book." So as I went down, and I was getting my book, and I was so excited because it's so fresh. It's never been opened, but it's sat on my book stand for many months.  I started to open my book and thought, "You know what, you got to take your book to go be out by the kids." I looked out and I was starting to sprinkle a little and so I was like, "Uh, no. It's gonna get my nice, clean book all wet." So I was like, "No, I'm fine." Then once again, I had the thought of, "You need to go out and be by the kids." When this prompting came to me the third time, and probably because we had just been studying Martin Harris a couple of weeks earlier, I really felt strongly of, "Okay, how many more times? Youu can't, I'm not going to give it to you again." So I went straight and got my jacket on, left the book behind and headed out to see the kids. So I started down this long boardwalk and I can see them as I'm walking out. Each of them had their own paddleboard or kayak. So we had Dixie, we had Owen, who is 14 years old, and then we had Hadley and Houston. Just in the period of me starting this walk of what 60 yards, the rain started getting harder and harder and I swear it dropped degrees every second I walked and it was getting colder and colder with this rain.  As they were out there, I saw three of them together and I saw Owen actually had kind of left them. So it kind of seemed as if Owen was like, "Peace out, I'm going back in. It's cold. This is no longer fun." And it's his house, so he's familiar with the terrain.  I can see the other three. I'm terrible with distances, but maybe 50 yards away, we'll say. Okay, maybe maybe a little bit less, maybe like 40. But it was far enough that they couldn't hear me, especially with the pounding rain, and it was really, really windy. So if I yelled, they really couldn't hear me very well at all, if at all, and I was about to yell, "Are you guys okay?" Right at that moment, and by this time, Owen, I see, is right along the reeds on my side. So there's no sand, okay, this isn't a sand beach because we're on the sound side. So they're, he's paddling along the reeds because along the reeds, there's not very much current. So he, you could tell, was seasoned enough to know, ride it down the current, and then paddle back along the reeds.  But that's when I looked out. And I saw, as I was, like, saying, "Hey! Hey!" and they weren't responding, couldn't hear me, I saw them getting out onto one of those big reed patches. I saw them put their arms around each other. I saw him put their arms around each other, and I could tell that they were starting to get scared. They were trying to starting to get nervous.  I thought at that point, "Okay, well, hopefully, I've done something right because they're turning to prayer pretty early. So hopefully, hopefully, that will work, hopefully that we're the right direction. As they finish their prayer, I could see them hug and then release.  During that time, I realized, "Okay, I've got to get, I've got to give them support. I've got to tell them, I've got to figure out a way to get the word out of just do what Owen did, just do it." And I'm trying to yell and they can't hear me. I'm trying to call Dixie's cell phone, and it's not working. By this time, some of my other family members are coming out because it is getting serious enough. I have my other niece there and she was so sweet, another Alaskan just that thinks that she can brave everything. She's like, "I'll go out there and I'll go rescue." Her dad came out and said, "No, I don't want you to go out there right now. Like, let's just focus on getting these ones back instead of losing another one."  But that's when my brother-in-law, all of a sudden, his phone rings. He said, "I can't answer this right now. I don't recognize this phone number." I look over, and I see that that's our family phone number. That's our family phone number. And I said, "No, wait! You answer that. That's them! That's them!"  The side note on this is I had very mixed emotions at this point because I was so so glad that they had a way to communicate. I was so excited as my mama bear instincts were coming out of I just want to, I just want to talk to you, I just want to be able to communicate to you, that I was so glad that I could finally get my message through. But then I was also a little bit ticked because just two days earlier, I had had a very good heart to heart with my 12-year-old son of, "This is our family phone. This is not your thinking-that-you're-already-a-teenager phone. This is not for you to text friends all the time. This is not for you to just use whenever you want. This is the family phone and you need to ask for permission before you use this." So I definitely had this, this the polar opposites of, "Yes, you did it!" But then at the same time, "Oh my gosh, he's not supposed to do that, but I'm so glad he did it."  So I thought I had this lifeline. I thought I was gonna be able to talk to him. So I grabbed the phone, I started to talk to him. It didn't take long to realize that they couldn't hear us very well. We couldn't hear them very well. The rain was so hard. The wind was so hard when i when i was listening in the phone, all you could hear was whooshing with a little here and there. You could hear like one word of every three words.  So we tried to tell him just to ride to the current just ride the current because if you rode the current down the sound so away from the ocean side, right? But it's going to go back out. This is an island. So there's another side to the ocean, right? But to go so that you don't go too far out we could see probably just over a mile down the water down the sound that there was a marina and at this marina where there's going to be boats to dock and stuff but there's also big tall logs like buoys but long logs that maybe you could go and catch on to one of those or something, okay.  So we saw just get down there and we were trying to communicate this but this was really not getting through and we're like, "Even if you get to the marina, that's okay, we'll come pick you up." But then we were like trying to point and so we finally just said, "Just go to the dock," which was about 10 docks down there. Had a green roof. So as we were trying to kind of say this is the plan, this is what you should do.  So they all get back in their boats and Dixie, poor Dixie, is walking back and forth on this reed patch that is full of those oysters. She's just walking back and forth like nothing and trying to move the boats in a different way. But also trying to decide at this point. I can see that she's questioning if all of them are functioning, you could tell that Hadley wasn't functioning so great. And she was stashing it so that, because Hadley couldn't function, she couldn't paddle on her own. So she was putting her Hadley into a boat that Dixie would be in charge of paddling. So Dixie could paddle Hadley's boat for her because she wasn't able to do it on her own. They just had to abandon it. That was actually still while we were on the phone. We could see Dixie tried to do that. To the point that Wayne and some of the other adults were like, "No, don't leave that over there. Like, this isn't our house. We don't want to pay for paddleboard, we don't want to lose it. So this is crazy weather. No, you have to take it."  And bless Dixie's heart. I think that's when she on purpose hung up on us. As if to say, "You do not understand what I'm going through. I'm just trying to get me and these kids back safe, like that paddle board does not matter anymore." Hadley  11:20  l started getting scared when it started, actually like pouring. And we went into the like weeds. Houston  11:31  Dixie was like, "Okay, see that marsh area over there?" There's a, there's these two that are like 10 yards apart. And then there's this other huge one. And we're like, since that huge one's over there, Dixie is like, "The current is going to be a lot softer and easier to paddle." So we tried to trust her. And then we get pushed in. We were so slow because of the choppiness. We just couldn't get there in time, and then we were just stuck there and couldn't really do anything going upwards. We had to go down. Hadley  11:59  That's when I started panicking, when like we just got pushed towards the marsh. I just started panicking. But I was like, "Stay calm, Hadley." Then I couldn't stay calm because then I started really panicking, and I was crying and I was sobbing and I was horrified on what next is going to happen.  And I was scared that we weren't going to be able to get back to the dock, even though it was only like 20 yards away. But like we couldn't like just go. And I was also scared that if we weren't trying to go, I would tip over because I it was really cold water. Houston  12:42  I agree. My two problems were we don't have a way to contact the—my three problems, I guess—we don't have a way to contact people. It's very cold. I'm not wearing shoes. I feel very cold, and it's hard for my muscles just to move because I'm so cold. Then if we tip over, that could make it a lot worse and a lot harder. So that's when we got out of our boats and we're kind of like just standing there thinking of a new plan. MeiLani  13:15  I almost had this self-evaluation of is this, "Should I be getting nervous?" And having this little silent prayer with Heavenly Father in this silent conversation of, "Should I be like calling authorities at this point?" Like is this, but I don't want to overreact. But I also wanted to give it the proper respect of however serious it was. So I had this conversation or the silent conversation of, "Okay, this is starting to get scary. I just wish I could talk to my kids." I just wish that they could hear me because if I was right there, I could, I could touch them. And I could look in their eyes and I could hold their little cute faces in my hands and be able to explain to them that it's going to be okay.  But at this point, I couldn't do that. But I still have this peace of everything's gonna be okay. Which was great for me, but I could tell that they were not okay. I couldn't comfort them, which was really hard. It's really hard as a parent to be so close, but still not be able to do anything to help and to see them struggle and just to have to sit and watch them struggle.  But then it was a few minutes later, I would say you know, as we were waiting and worrying and trying to decide what to do, that we did get another phone call from them. This time it was Dixie. At that point, they were starting to push off and starting to look like they were going in the right way. Dixie said, "Lani, I just don't know what to do. They're just not listening to me anymore. Hadley is not functioning, she's not going to be able to paddle. I'm having a hard time even pushing off because she's so nervous and scared." And I thought, "How can I help? I'm not there. I'm not going to be able to hold their face in my hands. I'm not going to be able to hug them and say you got this."  So I thought, "What could they do? And I said, "Dixie," and, mind you, it's still super windy, super rainy. We can barely hear any words. And I said, "Dixie, I just need you to say to her 'Hocks do.'" Our last name is Hock, and I said, "Just say 'Hocks do.'" And I said it over and over again, "Just say 'Hocks do.'"  And she said, "Wait, what? Just say, 'Hocks do what? Hocks do what?'" I said, "No, just say 'Hocks do.'" And Dixie said to her in the rain, in the rain, and the wind. 'Hocks do, Hadley. I'm supposed to say Hocks do." I could hear my sweet little 10-year-old voice in the background, who was so nervous, and couldn't even function at this point. I could hear her yell back, "Hard things! Hocks do hard things!"  We had taken on this model of Hocks do hard things seven years ago, when my other son, AJ, was diagnosed with brain cancer. He was actually diagnosed on his second birthday, he was actually the day before his second birthday. Then he was rushed into brain surgery on his second birthday. It just happened to be when my fourth child was six weeks old.  As we were rushed into brain surgery, and we were doing radiation treatments, and we were separated for months while we were doing treatments and going through a bunch of different things, we came up with this model that "Hocks do hard things." Because I think if that's, I hope, that that's one of the greatest lessons that my my kids will always take with them. That this it's not about if hard things come. It's about when they come. So I wanted them to understand that it's not that they will come and to know that they can do this. Houston  16:59  It was very muffled. So it's kinda like, we really want to hear what you're saying. We're having a hard time like, over listening. We don't know if you're really there. Like we just didn't know fully like, "Is she there? Is she talking to us?" We kind of were just like, more stuck. I can't hear her. I'm getting one out of three or four words. And then we were able to make out, "Hocks do," and then that changed our whole perspective. Hadley  17:34  We've been through like, more hard challenges, like when AJ had brain cancer. That was probably a ton harder than being stuck on, like weeds. I knew that my mom said it because I knew my dad wasn't there. I didn't think anyone else there on the dock knew. But I knew my mom said it and I was like, "Mom, you totally knew what like what totally change my feelings." So like when she said it, I was totally like, "How did mom come up with that? To like, make me completely change my feelings?" Houston  18:17  We knew that we had two people supporting us, the people on the dock–or two groups of people–the two people on the dock, and then Heavenly Father and Dixie.  I was like, "Dixie, my feet are getting cold and I can feel the cuts in my feet and it's not feeling great." So she's like, "Okay, when you're ready, you just go. So I went." And then . . .  Hadley  18:42  We just kept rowing. And I was like, "We're going so fast!" And I was still crying. Houston was . . . were you still crying? Houston  18:50  No. Hadley  18:51  Houston wasn't crying, but I was still crying. But cause. . . but then I kept saying "Hocks do hard things! Hocks do hard things!" And we heard my mom, she was like on a dock close to us. And I heard her say once, "Hocks do hard things." But it was still super hard to hear her because of all the wind and stuff. Houston  19:13  And Dixie is like, "Alright, you're our leader." So I was the one . . . I  felt more pressure, and I was like, "Okay, so I'm here, I'm the leader now! I'm the line leader. I got to do this." So I passed by three or four docks, and I'm like, no, that's not the one that they want us to go to.  Even though those ones would have been easier for them and easier for us, I kept thinking, no, those aren't the ones they want–they want us to go to. So then once Dixie caught up to me, she's like, "We're going to go to that green dock." They had said that, we hadn't heard that. Because like I said, we were only picking up 25% of the words they were saying so we didn't hear that. And I just felt a prompting like, we need to get to that dock and once Dixie said it was like, alright, I'm not the only one thinking this. Let's get to that dock. MeiLani  20:09  So as soon as I heard Dixie say "Hocks do" and Hadley shout back, "Hard things!" I was like, okay, please, please let this family motto actually mean something and have an effect in this moment. And Dixie, I couldn't hear her very well, there was static, there was wind, and she said, "Oh, okay . . I . I think we're good now."  We hung up the phone and they got in the boat. It took them quite a few tries, and off they went. And they started going. So, so they're heading out and they seem like "We've got this" and I start cheering and cheering an they are just–a Houston is just "Whoo," he's a machine. And, and so I was like, "Just down to the green one! Just down to the green one. Or if you get somewhere sooner than great." And Dixie is having a little bit harder time, a little bit harder time because she's also pushing Hadley and Hadley's not paddling.  But she's paddling, paddling, she's left the other boat, the other paddleboard behind, and Houston is so aggressive that I was like, okay, somebody needs to be there, somebody needs to . . . in that moment, I just wanted to be there to welcome him as soon as he got there. So I wanted to be there, I wanted to be there, wherever he landed, I wanted to be there. So I could hug him.  I start huffing it, and I'm wearing my flip flops and just huffing it. And I run up five houses and I'm running out the dock, the boardwalk area, and but again, at the beginning of the boardwalk, because you have to kind of go up and over the dunes just a little bit you can't see it from the house. So I have to go halfway out the boardwalk before I see, oh, nope, they've already passed me, okay. So I run back boardwalk and go down and by the way, I'm totally just trespassing into these people's backyards at this moment.  And so I get out and I go to the, I see, okay, this is the one with the green hut, with the green roof, that's, that's us! Here I come. And I get out there about halfway out and I can see that they've made it. And at this point, sweet Dixie comes into me, and she is just struggling to walk. And I feel terrible. I don't even know if I gave her a hug and I feel really guilty about that. But I said, "Are you okay?" And she said "Yes." And she lifts up her feet and there's blood just running down her feet from all the cuts from walking back and forth in that oyster patch.  And I said, "Are you okay? I'm gonna go check on the kids." And she's smiling. And she said, "Are you okay?" I was like, "I'm good." You know, at this point, to be honest, I hadn't even cried. But all of a sudden then, I passed Dixie. And I see my two kids that are just barely getting out of their kayak and their paddleboard. And they look at me with these eyes of, "We made it! We made it!" And they both came running. And they both started crying and I started crying and I just held them. And enjoy that moment of, "You did it. I'm so proud of you. I'm so proud of you."  At that point, it didn't matter. It didn't matter that my son had taken the phone when he was not supposed to. It didn't matter. What mattered is that he endured to the end, and then he got there. And that even when it was hard, he knew that "Hocks do hard things." And both of them, just holding them, there was such an overwhelming joy that my heart felt like it was gonna explode. Then we just held each other for maybe the longest hug we've ever had in our life. Houston  23:44  We're like taking off our life jackets, and then our cousin Denim and my mom are both running towards us. And I had–we had both stopped crying I feel like, but as soon as we just had like, as soon as we touched her, we both just broke into tears. And we were like, "We're gonna be okay. Mom's here, we're fine." Hadley  24:12  It made me think of the story of Mary Magdalene and her like, sister or friend and then there's this Bible video of them crying with like, they were crying, I think like their brother, Lazarus, like died or something and then they went crying to Jesus. And then He started crying with them, it just made me totally think of that Bible video and I was like, everything's going to be fine, cause it was like, mommy was Jesus and me and Houston were Mary Magdalene and the other girl. Houston  24:54  What I was feeling was I could see her, I knew that she was watching us, she was there by far the longest, watching us, looking out for us, but once I got to touch her again, it was like, she really is there. It's not just, it's not something I can see, it's something I can feel and I can know. And that was when I felt probably the Spirit the most, because I knew two things. One, we were okay, which was kind of my priority at the time, and then two, or B my mom was there. So we're gonna be fine. I mean, mom is here, what else could go wrong? MeiLani  25:41  I just can't help but relate, as a parent that feels like, I just wanted to make sure that they knew that they were loved. And even though they couldn't hear me as clearly as I wanted them to, I just wanted them to know that they were going to be okay if they just held with it, if they just held in there, if they just endured to the end, they just did the path that we had told them to follow, that it was gonna be okay.  And when I held them in that moment, when we were hugging, I think that's why I finally just broke down crying, because I felt as if there was, there was another hugger in there. And we could feel that spirit, so close.  And I could feel my Heavenly Father saying, "This is how I feel about you.  Is that I want you to know that even if sometimes our lines of communication aren't perfectly clear, that I'm here, and I'm proud of you. And if you just stay on the path that I've told you to, if you just endure more than you think you can, then you will have this joyous reward just like this minute right here, but it's gonna be even more glorious than you can imagine." Houston  26:58  I knew that she was really proud of us cause she–and also, I was really proud of her because she would have much rather–and I know she would have–I knew if she could have she would have, she would have just grabbed a paddleboard and just paddled on out in her sweatshirt and her pants and just not even cared.  She was probably wearing sandals, and she would have just come out and tried to save us. But she just left us there. And I was kind of like, "Is she coming there help us? . . ." But she never did and I'm really glad she didn't. Because I feel like we wouldn't have learned nearly as much if we didn't do it by ourselves, because I feel like after that happened, I was like, okay, I can do things by myself. I don't need my mom holding my hand all the way. She's there to help when we need her help, but she still knows when to realize "They have to do this on their own." And I feel like if she just helped us every step of the way, I feel like I wouldn't be as independent as I am. And I really appreciate that she does that. Hadley  28:07  And like, when we were like 1/4 of the way, the waves just stopped and it stopped raining. And I was like, and then I was like, and then I said a prayer of thanks. I was like, "Thank you, Heavenly Father, so much. Thank you for helping us." And it was just, I was like, so happy and I knew that Heavenly Father will answer my prayers.  I learned that I need to believe in myself, and I need to learn to like, I need to have more faith in times like that, because I didn't completely realize that I still had Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. And I need to have faith that they're there, because our faith totally grew when that happened. Houston  28:57  The thing that I learned was that Heavenly Father–I not only have faith in Him, but He has faith in me. And that we can both rely on each other to be able to do hard things and that we'll be able to be a great team. MeiLani  29:18  He sees me, even when I don't recognize He's there. In those moments when I was yelling, and I was screaming, and my kids couldn't hear me . . . How many times has my Heavenly Father been screaming to say "You, you've got this! You've got this! Even though you can't hear me, you've got this." And that was a new level for me. That was a new level of parenting as my own, but also seeing the way my Heavenly Father parents of–that desperation. Not just, "I love you because I'm your parent, I love you because you're my child," but this desperation . . . to feel that desperatation of how much He loves me and how much He's rooting for me, even if I can't hear it, and how excited He is to have me back in His arms. I'm ashamed to admit that we did get back to the house, and then I did tell them how much I love them, and I did tell Houston, "You're not supposed to take the phone, but it's okay that you took it this one moment." And he slightly said, "Does this mean I should have a phone always?" And I said, "No, no, it doesn't." Houston  30:34  I looked at her and I was like, I can't tell if he's glad I have it, or disappointed because I'm gonna quote Mufasa, "I deliberately disobeyed her."  [Laughter] Erika  30:52  That was MeiLani, Houston, and Hadley. There are so many different things to take from this story, but one thing I kept thinking of was a talk Elder Uchtdorf gave in 2017, called "A Yearning for Home." In the talk, he mentions all these different animals and their instinct to find their way home.  He said, quote, "I can't help but wonder, is it possible that human beings have a similar yearning–an inner guidance system, if you will–that draws them to their heavenly home? I believe that every man, woman and child has felt the call of heaven at some point in his or her life. Deep within us as a longing to somehow reach past the veil and embrace Heavenly Parents we once knew and cherished," end quote.  He describes that yearning for home so perfectly, and it made me think about Hadley's despair when she was stuck in the reeds. Her mom was on the shore, calling to her to come home, but the winds and storm were too loud. Just like Hadley, there may be times where we don't hear Him, where we don't hear our Heavenly Father. But that does not mean that He's not there calling out to us. I  wonder if in those moments, He feels some of those same feelings that MeiLani had, that desperate love for us, and a longing for us to find the inner strength to make it home.  The second thing I learned is that it's hard. This journey back home to our Heavenly Parents is hard. It's rarely smooth sailing. I love that what helped Hadley and Houston when they felt they couldn't move ahead was that reminder from their mom, that "Hocks do hard things." Just the suggestion of that phrase, that their family had rallied around for years was enough to show them that she was there rooting for them, and they could do it. I think we all have those "Hocks do" moments from heaven too, like when we take the sacrament, or listen to a story like this one. These are little points along the road that remind us that God is present even if we can't hear His voice directly.  And yet, even with all those little touch points, there will still be times when we feel stuck in the reeds, or like we're walking barefoot on a bed of oysters. Elder Holland reminded us that, quote, "If for a while the harder you try, the harder it gets, take heart. So it has been with the best people who ever lived," end quote. In those moments we can trust in our Savior and His ability to comfort and strengthen us until we have the strength ourselves to paddle home. That's it for this episode of "This Is the Gospel." Thank you to our storytellers, Meilani Houston and Hadley for sharing their story with us. I loved working with and hearing from our youngest–but possibly wise-est–storytellers yet. We will have pictures of Houston and Hadley and their kayaking excursion in our show notes at LDS living.com/Thisisthegospel. You can also find us on Instagram or Facebook @thisisthegospel_podcast.  We love reading reviews. We send all this stuff we care about out there into the world and reviews are one way that we can see what's actually happening with the stuff that we make. So thank you for sharing your thoughts with us. You can leave a review of the podcast on Apple, Stitcher, or whatever platform you listen on. Reviews help other people find us.  All the stories in this episode are true and accurate as affirmed by our storytellers and we find lots of our stories through our pitch line. We're wrapping up season three soon and we will start gathering stories for season four, call and leave us a pitch about your experience of living the gospel of Jesus Christ. The best pitches will be short and sweet and have a clear sense of the focus of your story. You'll have three minutes to pitch your story when you call 515-519-6179 This episode was produced and edited by me Erika Free, it was scored, mixed and mastered by Mix that Six studios. Our executive producer is Erin Hallstrom. You can find past episodes of this podcast and other LDS Living podcasts, LDS living.com/podcasts.  Show Notes + Transcripts: http://ldsliving.com/thisisthegospelSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Stories in this episode: Steve gets to choose the song at his mission farewell and discovers pirates in the hymnal; Lillie finds herself leading a choir of cloistered nuns in singing her least favorite hymn; The last few lines of a treasured song turn out to be Holly’s only solace as she faces heart wrenching disappointment in her journey to adopt. View shownotes at LDSLiving.com/thisisthegospel Follow us on instagram and facebook @thisisthegospel_podcast Transcript:  KaRyn  0:03  Welcome to "This Is the Gospel," an LDS Living podcast where we feature real stories from real people who are practicing and living their faith every day. I'm your host, KaRyn Lay.  I am really excited because we have something so fun to introduce our theme today. I was scrolling through my social media feed–as one does–and this comedy bit from Steve Soelberg popped up. And as I was watching it, I was like, "Oh, my gosh, he's read my diary about some of the hymns that we sing on Sundays." So I thought there was no better way to get us talking about music and our gospel practice than to start by having a good laugh together. Here's Steve. Steve  0:40  You know, I do have this theory, though. I think it is good to be embarrassed and do things that make yourself feel awkward and kind of out of place and stupid sometimes. And I think that's healthy. I think it's good to do that. That's why I went on a, I went on a two year mission for my Church. Because it made me feel embarrassed and awkward. I had a lot of doors slammed in my face, and I think that's healthy.  One of my favorite parts of it was even before I left. Before I left, they said, "Steve, you get to pick the hymns that the congregation is going to sing before you leave." It was like a little farewell thing. And I thought that's cool. That's a big responsibility and I didn't want to mess it up. So I asked my dad, I was like, "What hymn should we sing?" And my dad goes, "I don't care, just don't sing the pirate hymn." And I was like, "Wait, what? There's a pirate hymn? What are you talking about? We have a pirate hymn?" And I've done some research on the pirate hymn. The pirate hymn–the lyrics are used across many Christian churches. And as far as I know, my Church is the only one that uses this particular tune. The tune is also used by 1950's Disney movie that was about pirates and the ocean. And so I go, "Dad, please explain to me, what is the pirate hymn?" And he goes, "Well, it goes, it goes yeah, da da da da," and I was like, "Okay, that does sound kind of piratey, but keep going." And he goes, "Yeah, da da da da da" And that felt so piratey I was like, "Oohh... and I started the swashbuckle a little bit"–I don't know why my pirates are Irish, but they are. It just feels . . . I don't know why that's how that goes, but I don't know how to do a pirate accent. It's all Irish. Sorry, if you're in Ireland, and you're watching this.  I didn't recognize the song yet. Right? "Ya da da da da da," I  was like, "I don't recognize it yet." And I was like, "Dad, please sing it." And he's like, "Ugh." He didn't want to, but he did. And he goes, "Well, I'm gonna sing it the right way. With the pirate accent." My dad sings, he goes, "Okay, this is the song. 'Who's on the Lord's say who? Now is the time you show.'"  I was like "Oh! That is a pirate hymn." "We ask it fearlessly!" Fearlessly? What is that! Like, running the Jolly Roger up like, "Are you on the Lord's side? Fly the flag then, we ask it fearlessly. Who's on the Lord's side?" And then it doubles down on the pirate theme, it goes yeah, "Ya da da da da da da, ya da da da da da" at that point seaspray is hitting you in the face. My favorite part, "Who's on the large side who," And the whole congregation sings that line, everybody goes "Whoooooo," You have grandma's next year going "Whooo." Is that how we sing that? Then you look up at the top for direction and it goes "Sing pirately." You go, "Oh there we go. That makes sense."  Sing it pirately.  You go, "Are you on the Lard's side?" "The Lord?" "The LORD?" "The Lord?" "The Lord's side! He's on the starboard side." Of course we sang that when I left. I was like, "Dad, I'm shoving off! We gotta sing the pirate hymn." So excited. KaRyn  4:55  That was Steve Soelberg at Dry Bar Comedy. We love Dry Bar and Steve Soelberg for lots of reasons, but the fact that they specifically offer stand up that doesn't make us bleep anything, that's kind of a big deal. In fact, Steve has a whole special that you can watch on the Dry Bar app that doesn't require any bleeping.  So maybe you're a better person than me, but I really resonated with this whole thing. I'm admitting here and now that I have giggled through more than a few hymns in my day, "Scatter sunshine," "Put your shoulder to the wheel," those have always made me feel just a little like we're all "Yo, ho ho ho-ing" through the rest hymn. And I just realized that I miss the rest hymn! I miss it. And if that's not a pandemic miracle, I honestly don't know what is.  Music is such a funny thing in our gospel worship. There are a lot of different camps of opinion about our hymns. Maybe sometimes we wish they were a little more lively or a little bit more modern. Or in the case of the pirate hymns, maybe we wish they were a little less lively? A little more reverent? I think the reason we have so many different feelings and opinions about the music in our church is because sacred music is one of the ways that so many of us connect to heaven. It's the workhorse of our spiritual communion. It can be a conduit of praise and revelation, a way to express our gratitude and keep a prayer in our hearts.  We use it to spiritually prepare ourselves for participating in holy ordinances. And for me, it's often the tool that God uses to soften my heart so that he can correct me and invite me to come closer. Maybe I forgot to list the way that sacred music wends its way into your gospel practice. But if you think about it, I'm sure something came to your mind.  Today we've got two stories about the way our sacred music tutors and blesses us as disciples. Our first story comes from Lillie, whose love for music and languages gave her the unique opportunity to start a choir, quite different from any that she'd been a part of before. Here's Lillie. Lillie  6:50  The year my husband and I got married, I was teaching high school Spanish so I had summers off, and he was still in school so he had time in the summers as well. So we decided to volunteer. I needed more experience with Latin American countries so that I could feel like I was a better teacher. So I decided to–we signed up for this nonprofit to go and do nonprofit work in Ecuador, with a man named Washington Zambrano, he was actually a bishop at the time too, but he was a dentist. We signed up to be there for almost four months.  And when we got there, there were a bunch of nurses there that were volunteering with him, actual dentists, dental hygienists, so we basically did whatever he asked us to do. One particular service we were asked to do was go and help a bunch of nuns that lived in a monastery there in the historical district of Ecuador and Quito. Cloistered nuns take vows to never leave the convent. And they vow to just basically study and pray and be close to God. So it's pretty amazing that these women chose these things.  Some of the women that we met while we were in there doing their dental work, had actual jobs before they had taken their vows. And so some of them hadn't entered the convent until they were in like their 50's. And others were young, there were a couple of nuns that hadn't taken the vow to be a cloistered nun yet, so those were the nuns that would go out and get food or take some of the prepared food that the nuns made, and give it to the homeless population there in Quito.  So when we went to do dental work for the nuns who obviously hadn't had dental work in a long time, we felt really lucky to have been invited. And we kept hearing from the director, "We are so lucky to be here. They don't let people come in." And so we did feel that and we were really expressing how happy we were to be there, and we knew that it was probably the only time we'd be let in there.  They were super excited when we came because they didn't see people very often. They were talking our ears off. It was super fun. And so while one nun was getting her teeth cleaned, we'd be chatting with the other nuns and getting to know them. I do remember two nuns, they were actually radio personalities in their previous life. They were hilarious, and I think that they missed the attention. Oh my goodness, they were wonderful.  So somehow music came up with the nuns while we were there, and they had missed music in their lives and didn't have anyone to lead a choir. And my husband is a musician and he plays the guitar really well and oftentimes when we would go to do the dental work at the schools or in little villages I would play the violin and he would play the guitar and we'd just play music for them. They said, "Well, we would love a choir, can you teach us music? Can we form a choir? Would you come and do that?" And it was like our dream come true, "Yes!" You know, because I mean, dental work is one thing, but doing music is is exciting and super fun. So yes, we said we'd love to.  And so myself, my husband, and so we got it all set up, and I got these folders, I thought they would feel really important having you know, their folders. I wanted them to know that I was taking it seriously. So I gave them their folders, they had a pencil, you know, to mark anything. The real problem was I didn't have music. And the only music I had access to was the church hymns. So I found a hymnal. It was in Spanish, of course. And I chose some songs that I thought were simple. And I was really drawn to, "As Sisters in Zion" And then the other song was, "As I Have Loved You", and "Keep the Commandments." [Nuns singing "Love One Another" in Spanish"  So the "Sisters in Zion" song, it was an interesting one, because I'm going to be honest, I haven't always loved that song. I haven't always enjoyed singing it. Maybe because I grew up listening to Relief Society sisters sing it, and maybe, you know, there were older voices in there that weren't always the most lovely to listen to–I don't know, it just wasn't a song that I always loved. But as I read the words in Spanish, the translation, it's called, "We Serve United." And what I think is neat about that is they are, they were cloistered nuns serving together.  The first line, the first part of the song, "We serve together because we're sisters." And then it's saying that they hope God blesses us in our work, and we will edify his kingdom on the earth, bringing service in love. It's very simple, and there's nothing that says even Zion in it. And I felt like it translated perfectly for their situation, I thought that they would relate to it, and that it would help them feel strength in their purpose.  So when I brought this song in their little folders with their little pencils–which, they were just giddy when we arrived, I still remember their faces. And remember, they're wearing habits, just like on "The Sound of Music," and they were so excited to see us that of course, we were just thrilled. And I remember singing the song with them, they really caught on pretty quickly. And after they sang it, they looked at me and they said, "Wow, did you write this for us?" Like, "No, actually Janice Kapp Perry wrote this, but it does relate," like, they loved it. They just loved it, it almost became their anthem.  And what I love about it is it completely changed my perspective on this song. I cannot sing this song. Without thinking about these sisters. I really, I saw them as my sisters. I–when we sang that together, I just felt so much love that Heavenly Father had for them.  They let us come several more times during that time we spent in Ecuador, and they weren't really preparing for anything, they didn't have a choir concert, I think it was for their own edification. I think they just really wanted to sing.  So I've always loved music, and I feel like music is what helped me build my testimony throughout my younger years and even now, if I have questions, they're often answered while I'm singing hymns. And I feel like this experience solidified that for me, because, as we sang, the Spirit was there. Music invites the Spirit. And it doesn't matter what religion we are, we are all children of God, and singing a song or singing a hymn that speaks words of truth invites the Spirit. And I felt that so strongly and I looked around at these faces of these beautiful nuns singing "As Sisters in Zion," and I could see the love that they had for the same Heavenly Father, and I feel like it really did unite us in a cause for good. And I'll never sing that song again without that feeling. KaRyn  15:34  That was Lillie. We first heard her story on our pitch line and were mesmerized by her description of acquire of cloistered nuns in Ecuador singing "As Sisters in Zion." My favorite spark of gospel from Lillie's story is that when we sing songs that speak truth, the spirits present, regardless of our faith tradition. And that's only amplified when we sing those songs together.  All my fellow choir nerds out there know that something really cool happens when we join our shaky, imperfect voices in praise of Jesus. And I think that something is a taste of Zion. The things that make us different or disconnected seem to fall away as we exert the same kind of effort to take individual notes and individual voices, and meld them into one. I think it's a really transcendent experience, and it can change the way that we see one another.  Maybe it's the erstwhile fiction writer in me speaking here, but I have this vision that someday anthropologists in the year 3000, will find this recording of a Spanish translation of Janice Kapp Perry's, "As Sisters in Zion" in an abandoned nunnery in Ecuador, and it'll spark a historical mystery for our posterity that will end with them coming to the conclusion that we were a unified and connected people across cultures and continents.  I know, it's a little far fetched, but a girl can dream, right? And maybe, just maybe, when we get back from this quarantine, we'll all decide to take another look at joining the ward choir. Just a thought. Our next story about the power of music comes from Holly who needed additional strength to move forward after a devastating setback. Here's Holly. Holly  17:16  My husband and I were married in 1986, it seems like a really long time ago. And in 1991, we did our first adoptions. We had three biological children and in 91, we went to Romania, to adopt and adopted two little girls from orphanages there and decided that we would really want to welcome kids into our home who had been abandoned, neglected, in some way–hard to place, because we also had a biological daughter with disabilities, and so it really opened up a world of possibility for us to add to our family.  When we decided to adopt, when we felt inspired to adopt another child, or add another child, we always took it to the Lord. We always prayed, we always got confirmation, we both had to be on the same page. I think my husband would tell you that, if we had adopted every child that I had felt would be a good fit, we'd probably have 50. And we don't have quite that many, but we always got confirmation. And that was one of the things that I relied on, right? Is feeling confirmation from the spirit that these were the children that I needed to add to my home.  So in 2007–actually beginning in 2006–we started to pursue an adoption from a country in Africa, it's no longer open, but at the time it was open, and we had that same familiar feeling, it's time to go add to our family. We did all of the paperwork, and I traveled to that country prepared to adopt. My husband was going to stay home, I was going to go and I took one of my teenage daughters with me to do this adoption. And we actually spent months there.  We lived there to complete these adoptions, and we found three little girls. One was in an orphanage, and two were actually abandoned in the hospital, and they were legally adopted to us. We got birth certificates, and passports in the Richardson name, the courts released them into my custody and I started taking care of them, while we were still undergoing the rest of the legal process and the court process.  Absolutely bonded, I fall in love with my kids very quickly. The last step is to go to the American Embassy and get visas to bring them home to the United States. We went to the American Embassy and they . . . they said "No." They turned us down. First they said "Well, we need to go verify where these girls actually came from." So we tracked down all the information we had, we tracked down the police report where the kids were abandoned, I mean, we tracked all of this information down, provided all of the paperwork, and then there was another reason. And we just couldn't figure it out. And it started to get concerning.  One day with my teenage daughter who had come with me, we got a knock on our apartment door where we were staying and it was Child Services from this country, and they were coming to take the kids back into their custody. Two of them were newborns, one of them was only three months old, so they were really close in age. And I had been their full time caregiver around the clock for a couple of months at least. And here, these people show up and they're like, "We're here to take your babies." And I'm like, "What? What . . . like, How can that be possible?"  And they just said, "Well, we know you're having trouble with the American Embassy, so you go work it out in America, and we're going to take care of the girls here," and told us to go home and work on the problem at home. And we were just like, I was just stunned. I . . .I couldn't believe it, right. It was really traumatic and very sad.  And here I had been, trying to be faithful, following the spirit, and it had not worked out and I was in shock and grief. I did not feel the Comforter, I did not feel supported, I actually felt betrayed. I felt betrayed by God, that He had led me so far, and then taken away the ability for me to get these little girls home.  I had this realization that I was at a moment of choosing. And I did debate a little bit on on whether this was going to be the last straw for me, because we'd gone through some really rough stuff. I could have said, "Okay, I'm done. I'm out." I had, at the time, this was 2007, so I had a laptop, it  used to have a CD player and I had CD's with me from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. And as I played, "How Firm a Foundation," I was stuck on the last verse. And the last verse says, "The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose, I will not, I cannot, desert to His foes. That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake, I'll never, no never, I'll never no never, I'll never, no never, no never forsake."  And I literally put that on repeat. This music helped calm my soul, it was so soothing, and I just sat there and listened and cried and listened and cried and cried. And made that commitment that I'll never forsake. I'll never forsake, no matter how hard it is, I'll never forsake and that was, that was really my moment of choosing. That music really helped me choose faith.  I heard later, one of the people that was helping us said that they had just participated in a meeting where the woman who had come and taken my children from me, stood up and said that Mormons were not Christian, and that she had saved these children from a fate worse than death by preventing them from coming to an LDS home. I don't know exactly what her difficulties were with my religion, but it was very clear that that was the reason that they decided that they were going to prevent these kids from coming home.  Now what happened is, I went home and I spent, we spent many, many hours with attorneys and working the legal process, and the reality was–it never happened. And they didn't come home.  I entered a period of really dark depression, because I couldn't bring them home. And it just felt so awful that I knew where they were, and I couldn't do anything about it. People would ask me, "How are you doing?" and I would literally burst into tears. I look at pictures from that year, I never did my hair, I never wore makeup, I put on sweats, like I could barely get myself out of bed. But because I chose to stay in the gospel and to do the things that I needed to do to feel the light again, because I didn't for a long time.  One morning, in December of that year, I woke up and I could tell that things were a little bit better. That was the day that I started to really feel like I was healing from that. And now it's been, what, 14 years. And every time I still hear that song, I remember that commitment that I made, both to myself, but to God as well to say, I'm going to stay, and I choose faith.  And I think sometimes. . . II think sometimes people think that, that people stay in the church out of maybe naivete, but, but I choose to stay in spite of the difficulties, and I choose to stay in spite of not knowing. And I chose to stay even when things were really hard and I felt like they were really not fair–and they weren't fair. But I knew that I would have dark times but I also knew that I could rely on Heavenly Father and my Savior, I knew that they would be there, and I knew that I would get through it. And I did it.  And I think part of it for me is knowing that if I hold on during those dark times that the light will come again. I've gone to the temple where I felt not one thing. I've prayed where I felt like not one thing, nobody was listening, nobody cared. But I just did the things I knew I was supposed to do, and the light came back. KaRyn  25:37  That was Holly. Holly and her husband, are parents to 25 children who've come into their family in various ways. And if that doesn't tell you what you need to know about her willingness to commit when the Spirit directs her, I don't know what does.  I appreciate what she learned about the beauty of our hymns as spiritual teachers, that when we listen to and surround ourselves with sacred music as part of our discipleship, we're creating a little well of inspiration that we can dip from when we need to learn something or decide something in a moment, even if that moment is characterized by pain or grief. Those songs will float upward and act as a catalyst for the Spirit. But even better, after we've had that experience with the Spirit, the moment is gonna fade, but that song will still remain.  And just like Holly said, every time we hear it, it becomes this tangible touchstone of a time when we were inextricably connected to heaven, a solid reminder to recommit or to stay strong or to have additional peace.  I suspect that most of us could point to a pivotal moment when a song, a sacred song, offered an answer or comfort to us. I know I can. For me, it always seems to come from the song, "I'll Go Where You Want Me to Go." In fact, that song has become kind of an inside joke between me and the Lord. Every single time I don't want to do something scary, or I'm on the fence about following inspiration or revelation. Invariably, I go to church, I sit in the back pew, I argue with the Spirit about it, and then we sing this song for the closing hymn.  This conversation with music and the Spirit happened when I was trying to decide whether to serve a full time mission. And it happened when I was feeling nervous about my decision to leave my job and move to South Korea. And it happened again when I didn't get into a graduate program that I desperately, desperately, wanted to be a part of. And when the answer was to stay right where I was for the time being. It's this line that gets me every time, "But if by a still small voice He calls to paths that I do not know, I'll answer Dear Lord with my hand in thine, I'll go where you want me to go."  I admit that it has some of the lilting of a pirate hymn, but it's my pirate hymn. And every time I hear it, I am reminded that sacred music is a powerful and personal tool of communion between me and my Heavenly Parents. There's one other piece of this that I think is worth mentioning. In a Church Educational System talk the President Nelson gave in 2008 he spoke about the power and the protection of worthy music.  And at the outset, it might seem like our stories today were all about the power of music, the power to unify, to transcend differences, to anchor us to the gospel and soothe our troubled hearts. But when I look a little bit deeper, I can see what President Nelson was talking about when he said, quote, "Music is not only a source of power, but also of protection," end quote.  Surrounding ourselves with sacred music–and that could be lots of different kinds of music, I'm not just talking about hymns, but surrounding ourselves with sacred music offers a shield against the darts of the adversary. It covers our efforts to share eternal truths when disagreements, misunderstandings, or cultural differences could easily drive a wedge between an ad hoc choir director and her newly formed corral of nuns. Sacred music can hold us still, while our hearts break in a hotel room far from home. And it can fill us with a hope that is strong enough to cast out the doubt and the dissonance that threatens to send us far from God's goodness.  In my own life, I've seen sacred music fill the space between the angry words in my head and my sometimes too sharp tongue. It stopped me from saying things that I couldn't take back. And I have experienced the presence of angels after a light filled song open the gates of heaven against a darkness that felt like it could own me.  Worthy music is a power and a protection. Is it any wonder then, that President Nelson warned us in that talk to use that power and care for that protection intentionally, when he said, quote, "Do not degrade yourself with the numbing shabbiness and irreverence of music that is not worthy of you. It is not harmless. It can weaken your defenses. Fill your minds with worthy sights and sounds. Cultivate your precious gift of the Holy Ghost. Protect it. Carefully listen for its quiet communication, you will be spiritually stronger if you do," end quote.  And to that, my friends, all I can say is amen. And in the spirit of our theme today, I want to leave you with one more thing, a hymn that my Pappy used to sing with all of his heart and soul in our sacrament meeting, arranged and sung by some of my favorite musicians. I hope it gives you an added measure of power and protection today. This is "II Stand All Amazed" by the Bonner family. Bonner Family  31:33  "I stand all amazed at the love Jesus offers me. Confused at the grace that so fully he proffers me. Oh, it is wonderful that he should care for me enough to die for me. Oh it is wonderful, wonderful to me."  "Wonderful to me. I marvel that he would descend from His throne divine. To rescure a soul so rebellious and proud as mine. Oh, it is wonderful that he should care for me enough to die for me. Oh it is wonderful, wonderful to me."  "I stand all amazed at the love, I stand all amazed. Wonderful to me. Wonderful to me."  KaRyn  34:33  That's it for this episode of "This Is the Gospel." Thank you to our storytellers, Lillie and Holly, and comedian Steve Solberg and Dry Bar Comedy for sharing their stories and their love for all worthy music, including the piratey ones.  We'll have a link to Steve's full length comedy special–that again requires no bleeping–and more info about each of our storytellers in our show notes. We'll also have a way for you to find more of that gorgeous music from the Bonners. Seriously, they're bringing a whole new energy to our hymns, and I am here for it. You can find our show notes at LDSliving.com/thisisthegospel.  One of my favorite things besides the Bonner family and cake is hearing from you. We love to hear how this podcast is adding to your practice of the gospel. You can find us on social media at @thisisthegospel_podcast, or leave us a review on Apple, Stitcher, or whatever platform you listen on. Reviews are super helpful in pushing us up in the recommended section of a lot of platforms, so more people can find us easily.  All of the stories in this episode are true and accurate as affirmed by our storytellers. We find so many stories through the pitch line and we'll be gathering those stories and ideas for season four soon so get ready to share them. You'll have three minutes to pitch your story when you call 515-519-6179. This episode was produced by me KaRyn Lay, with story production and editing from Erika Free. It was scored, mixed and mastered by Mix at Six studios and our executive producer is Erin Hallstrom. You can find past episodes of this podcast and other LDS Living podcasts at LDSliving.com/podcasts.  Show Notes + Transcripts: http://ldsliving.com/thisisthegospelSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Stories in this episode: Brett’s charge to defend a man who has committed heinous crimes is almost too much to bear until a desperate plea to God in the middle of the courtroom restores his hope; As a new judge, Carey faces a crisis of conscience when a temple recommend interview offers new insight; When Jennifer is unfairly judged by her colleagues, the consequences send her into a bitter tailspin that only a vivid dream from heaven can stop. View shownotes at LDSLiving.com/thisisthegospel Follow us on instagram and facebook @thisisthegospel_podcast Transcript:  KaRyn  0:03  Welcome to "This Is the Gospel," an LDS Living podcast where we feature real stories from real people who are practicing and living their faith every day. I'm your host KaRyn Lay.  And I am proud to say that I have only been in front of a judge in a courtroom once in my life. Apparently, if you're trying to kill a spider that drops from the rearview mirror while driving, and you rear end a brand new Jeep in the state of Virginia, you have to show up in court to explain that to a judge, the police, and a courtroom full of only semi-amused onlookers.  And I'm the kind of person that already thinks I'm guilty of things that I haven't done, but this time I actually had done it so I was doubly intimidated to stand in that courtroom and explain myself. I didn't really know what to expect. I was all alone, I was really nervous and feeling really stupid. So when the judge called me to the front of the courtroom to plead my case, I was shaky.  I stood there, I offered my tail of spiders, and woe, and after a surprising amount of good natured laughter from the people in the courtroom, the judge said that she, for one, could totally understand how a spider might distract someone from being fully focused on the road, and that this could have happened to anyone. So she ordered me to pay the court fees, but otherwise, I was free and clear of any charges or additional penalties imposed by the court.  That's not to say that I didn't have any consequences, because I felt those the minute that I saw my car insurance premium spike. Her mercy didn't supplant justice, but I was really grateful that in her determination of the best interest of the law, she was willing to listen to the context of the situation. And I left that courtroom feeling surprisingly better than when I entered, which is saying a whole lot.  Well, whether or not you've had to stand before a judge in Virginia and tell your spider story, this idea of judgment and what constitutes good judgment is something that as a disciple of Christ might be on your mind anyway. We're all facing a really complex world with sometimes seemingly impossible decisions to make. And if it isn't on your mind, then maybe today's theme will give you some space to think about how judgment is connected to our desire to be a better follower of Christ.  We've got three stories from three people who really needed some help honing their understanding of what constitutes good judgment, in the eyes of God. Our first story comes from Brett, a lawyer tasked with defending the indefensible. Here's Brett, Brett  2:33  The hard part about being a prosecutor is that there are some times when the things the person accused of are so harsh, that it's really hard to see the humanity behind the allegations. I am an attorney and I have both prosecuted and defended people who were accused of some very bad things.  On the prosecution side, I get to work closely with victims of crimes, I get to see the pain they are going through, and I get to try to help them make sense of it and hopefully get some kind of resolution. I see the horrific nature of the things that the accused has done, and you want to really make sure that things like that get punished in that, people in society have an idea that laws will be followed and that there are consequences.  More often than not, though, in that situation, you do not get to know the alleged offender. Usually they have an attorney and you aren't allowed to talk to them and see the things that led them to where they were. You don't get to see the small acts of kindness or joy or love that they have both received and given to others. You really don't get to see what makes them human. And sometimes that's kind of hard to do, especially when the things they've been accused of are pretty horrific.  There was a time when I was on the defense side, and it started like many cases with the judge reading the things that he was accused of. And even just the nature of the things was pretty lengthy. It was something like 13 pages long, the indictment, and my client had chosen to plead guilty to just about everything.  But in this forum, before that court, the people accused of crimes, my client, was not allowed to simply say, "Yes, I'm guilty to charges 1 through 13 and I accept whatever punishment you deem appropriate, Judge." But rather, the judge needs to go through the conduct in what we call "Providence Inquiry," where the judge needs to make sure that my client understood what the law was, understood all of the definitions, and then agreed to his actions and agree that his actions actually violated the law.  Now, as both a prosecutor and a defense attorney, you get used to being around some of the most disturbing and criminal conduct that people can do. And you have to look at it and make sure yourself what the law says about those things. So you can either prosecute or defend. And so we were going through this, and usually that doesn't take too long. You can always do that in waves. You can do it for 20 minutes, 30 minutes at a time, take a break, and come back to it when you're feeling up to it.  But in this case, because it was so long, we had just pressed through, and for about two hours, we had been listening and seeing some of the most disturbing things that you can be subjected to.  And as we're going through this, I started to feel literally sick to my stomach. I was getting to a point of almost panic, because it was incredibly unprofessional to throw up in the middle of a courtroom. But what I was more concerned about was my client, because one of the great things that I do love about being a defense attorney is that you get to help some people go through some very difficult things.  In many instances it is the most difficult, embarrassing, humiliating experience of their lives. And this was that for my client, and for him to see how much it affected me, I thought could undermine his confidence in me and my belief in him. And he had already lost so much. He lost his family, he lost his job, he was losing his freedom. He had some elderly parents, and it was unlikely that he would see them again before his prison term ended. And I wanted to be there for him. And so when this was happening, I knew that I had to get up in just a few minutes after that was done, and argue for him, both to argue for leniency–to paint a picture of humanity for him–and also to argue about different things that he was alleged of, that he had not done, and defend him in those.  And so not knowing what to do, I thought, well, maybe I just need to ask the judge for a recess, or, you know, maybe the feeling will just go away. Then I realized that it wasn't. It was getting worse. And so I did the only thing that I can think of, I decided to say a prayer. And in that prayer, I just prayed for Heavenly Father to be with me to help me to know what to do in that situation. I looked over at my client, and I felt the spirit enter my mind and body with, like, great waves. It was amazing. It kind of lit up my whole soul. And I could see the love that my Heavenly Father had for this young man. It was regardless of the things that he had done, it was regardless of the harm and pain he had caused so many. It was a pure and powerful love. And when I felt that the nausea, the sickness, it just evaporated, like instantaneously.  I was calm, I knew what I had to do, and I was able to get up and argue for him, for mercy, and to paint a picture for the judge to see who he was, not just the things that he had done.  No matter what kind of trial, the situation has stayed with me. I always try to understand and see these people as my Heavenly Father sees them. It's no justification or excuse for whatever they've done, but it helps me to always go back to this to understand that even those who have done some of the most horrific things, that we are very much more similar than we are different. We are all much, much better than the worst things that we've done. And it changed me in a lot of ways. And I'm very grateful for that. KaRyn  8:54  That was Brett. I can only imagine what kind of spiritual gifts it takes to sit in a courtroom and listen day after day to all the ways that people have hurt one another without losing your hope in humanity.  Brett's willingness to ask for help from heaven, so that he could perceive what seemed absolutely imperceptible in his client, especially as that list of offenses was read, that's a real example to me of truly offering your will to God. And in this particular case, "Good judgment" didn't mean ignoring what was broken in the person sitting next to him. It actually meant that Brett could experience firsthand the dichotomy that comes with being human, which is that we can be capable of doing terrible things, and somehow also be worthy of divine love.  It reminded me of the prophet Jacob, who is given the gift to perceive the evil that lurks in the hearts of his people, while also recognizing the love that God had for them in his desire for them to repent. It was this ability to feel both things at the same time that I think allowed Jacob to speak those hard things, to call those people to repentance, and to do it with a power that could actually change hearts. I personally believe that this capacity to hold space for that dichotomy is exactly why Jesus Christ will be the best "good judge" for you and for me when the time comes to stand before him, and receive our justice, and hopefully our mercy.  And I really hope that Brett's client felt it in some small part through Brett that day. And that we can feel it today in the words of the prophet Jacob, when he says, "Arouse the faculties of our soul, shake ourselves that we may awake from the slumber of death."  Our next story comes from Carey, a new judge who found himself stuck between a rock and a hard place with his first case assignment. Here's Cary. Carey  10:41  I started law school a little bit later, when I was married and had three small children. And during law school, I learned–I realized, that it was important for me to be a judge, I could be an attorney, but I wanted to be a judge. And I wanted to be a judge because I wanted to make the right decisions. I wasn't as concerned–and still not as concerned about finding out who's right, as I'm finding about what's right.  As a judge, you get to determine what's right, based upon what's in front of you, and then make the right call. A year after law school, I got the chance to become a judge. And I was hired by the state of Oregon to serve as a judge in its administrative law program, dealing with agencies and various government entities.  Just a few months after I became a judge, they started a brand new hearing program involving psychiatric patients at State Hospital. These are patients who have been diagnosed with mental illness and either committed on their own, they voluntarily committed, or usually, it's a court that has said, "You need to be taken care of until you're better."  And in order to meet the patient's needs, they developed a program for patients who wanted to object to the medications that doctors wanted them to take. And so it was called "Informed consent hearings" at the state hospital. The agency asked me to do the first hearing involving the first patient to request a hearing under these circumstances.  I was surprised, and then as we approached the hearing, I was very concerned. I had a bit of a crisis of conscience. What it comes down to is, the patient, who may or may not be experiencing significant psychiatric symptoms is told by the doctor, "You must take these psychotropic medications." And the patient doesn't want to. They don't want to for a very specific reason, it makes them feel horrible. These medications are not lightweight, and they do not feel good.  Having known people who have dealt with these medications, how could I, in my mind, make the decision to force someone to take them? In my mind the picture came of someone being held down and being forced with a needle to take these meds, and it would leave them feeling awful. How could I do that? I was all about justice. I was all about honoring people, I was all about making sure it was the right call. And I was very focused on the end result of "Could I be the one to make the decision that would end up with someone feeling very, very horrible, especially against what they would they would hope for?" It felt like I would be making a decision one way or the other that was bad. There were no good outcomes.  And it did not feel good to me. I wrestled. My heart hurt about the possibility that I would either A, caused this suffering on the person because they'd have to take the medication, or B, cause more suffering on the person because they didn't have to take the medication. It did not feel like I had a good result.  I didn't sleep well for the days leading up to it. I couldn't think about much else, other than what was coming up on my calendar and this decision that had to be made. And I could not think my way through to some answer that would give me peace.  I was very fortunate because our temple recommends we're going to expire that month. And so we scheduled unexpectedly to have our temple recommends renewed with a member of the stake presidency the night before the hearing. That was the stake president who happened to be a career counselor and leader of LDS Family Services. I didn't know about his background before I went to the interview. I only knew that I needed help, and I knew he was one of my priesthood leaders.  And I sat down with him and I did my interview and then I said, "President, I need help." And I shared with him my concerns and I told him all about what was going on, and he shared with me, "Brother Meerdink, that sounds like a very challenging decision to make. So let me ask you some questions." He said, "Why would you require this patient to take the medications? Is it out of spite?" I said, "Absolutely not. I don't hate anybody. I'm not got angry with this person." He asked, "Would you want this person to suffer or to be in pain?" I said no, I don't feel anything about this person. No, none of those feelings. And he said, "Well, why would you make this person take the medications?"  "Well, if that's what the law requires, I'd have to do it." And then the light went on for me. He said, "The requirement of the law is what it is, and somebody has to serve as Judge. And if you are the person who serves as Judge, you must do what the law requires." And then he opened up the gospel light for me, emphasizing that the Savior is the judge for all of us, and that He is perfectly just. He's as just as He has to be, but He's also perfectly merciful, He's as merciful as He can be. And oftentimes, that mercy is how we are treated by the Savior or by the judge. And he said, "The only thing you can do is to treat the patient, like a child of God, just like everyone else in the room. You are not there to judge any person based on their value, you are there to decide whether or not the law has been met. And that's what the Savior does."  It was amazing, the peace I had, being able to sleep the night before the hearing. The tension, it relieved immediately, the confusion, the uncertainty, the fogginess was gone. It helped me to know the result is what it is, based upon the process. And it helped me to understand the importance of my role in the process, in this circumstance, and in my role as a disciple of the Savior throughout my life.  After a long hearing, we adjourned for the day, and I ended the hearing. And so I went back to my office, I considered all of the evidence, I looked through the whole thing and I made my decision.  This experience was a real door opener for me, that . . . that even though I'm imperfect and that I have made mistakes in my life, that that's okay. That the mercy is still there. I think the Savior is much less focused on justice than He is on extending the mercy. I think His interest and the reason He spread His arms wide, was to try to bring us in.  Justice will only keep you away from His mercy if you allow it. There's nothing keeping you from Him. KaRyn  18:21  That was Carey, I love that line from his stake president, I kind of wish I had it on some sort of T-shirt or mug, "That Christ is as just as He has to be, and as merciful as He can be."  Isn't that so heartening? The judge of all of us, who is perfectly equipped to mete out the correct amount of justice will also offer us as much mercy as He can. And we know from scripture, and especially the Book of Mormon, that Christ's bowels, which represent the very center of His eternal and infinite being, are filled with mercy and compassion toward us. That's a lot of mercy to give. You and I aren't yet eternal or infinite, but I think it's a really good rule of thumb that if we want to become more like our Savior, one way to do that is to ramp up our compassion. To offer just a little more mercy when it's ours to give.  And it's not going to be easy. Frankly, seeking justice comes way more easily to me. Because there are really clear rules in society about what's fair and what's not fair and what should happen to make something right when injustice has occurred. That's comforting and safe. But mercy . . . mercy is real spiritual work. It's nebulous. It requires more of me and more reliance on the spirit to trust that God has got it all taken care of in the end. It's going to take some real effort to lean into mercy. But honestly, if it's good enough for Jesus, then it's got to be good enough for me.  Our final story on good judgment comes from Jennifer. Jennifer  19:51  When I think about my life, and my career, I think I've faced my fair share of rejections. In fact, sometimes it feels like more than my fair share. And part of that may be that I've chosen kind of a niche job, and so it's tricky to get hired in the fields that I've, I've opted to pursue.  But there was one–there was one rejection that really turned me on my head. It crushed me. And . . . I had been working at this place for a little while. I was temporarily working for this company and hoping for a more permanent position. And an opportunity presented itself that I was so excited to apply for. And I felt like that I'd put forward maybe the best foot that I'd ever put forward, and was really quickly rejected. And it boggled me. I felt like things were going well, I felt like I was well received.  The process of assessing or choosing a candidate for even interviewing is a committee process. And so a group of men evaluate the applicants and then review and make decisions based off of probably a lot of criteria that I didn't understand and thought, frankly, that I was the right person for it, but I was rejected.  And so I wanted some feedback. I took a little bit of time, a couple of weeks to try and process it and then asked my supervisor, if he could provide some kind of feedback. I, by nature, want to please people. So to have felt this rejection, felt like maybe I was not good enough. It was a question of my skills, of my capacity, of things that I felt like I'd spent decades trying to harness. So going into the meeting was incredibly vulnerable for me.  I, I was nervous, I was sweaty, I was a mess. And I remember trying to talk and articulate the clarity that I was seeking. And my words didn't feel clear, like I felt so jumbled, and awkward. And in part, I think I've, I've always kind of struggled being a voice for myself, and to say, "I really want to do this. And this matters." And frankly, our family needed it, so it was pretty intense for me to sit across a desk and to say, "Why?" "Why was I not chosen even to have an interview? What is it about me?" Gratefully my supervisor was very kind. It's his nature.  Still, I struggled through most of the conversation, and when he offered the feedback I was really grateful for it, but I was also very confused, because it felt like . . . it felt like a character attack. And that maybe there was a question about the kind of person that I was. And, again, I think that's an important part of the story is that sometimes, when it matters so much, it becomes more personal. And that, that was hard for me to filter because it felt like a dream. It felt like something I was passionate about, or even a life mission, that I felt called to it. And so there's a lot more at stake.  As I go back and read my journal about that day, I think it took everything I had to not just scream that "You've got to be kidding me. This is, this is what they said about me? And is that who you think I am?" And I think I even said that, "Is that who you think I am?" And he's like, "No, Jenn,. No, that's not who I think you are, Just be patient. And will you give them a chance to get to know you." And I didn't get that.  I just–I wanted I wanted the job then, I didn't want to have to wait another season. There had been years of waiting and years of feeling this same sort of rejection. And and so you make up stories and narratives that start to really weigh on you. And so I started to really question, is this me? Is it them? Who am I really? And I was devastated and defeated. The field that I've chosen has few women in it. That's shifting, but it doesn't have as many women working in this field. So the committee that was evaluating my application was made up of men. So that became personal. I got mad. I spent a lot of time being really angry, but still working there. And so I was still going to be interacting with these people. And suddenly, I'm needing to go into meetings, and walk in and go, which one of you said that about me? And which one of you hates me the most? And well, that maybe wasn't accurate, that maybe they didn't hate me, but the harshness of the feedback was such that I'm like, Hmm, I wonder who it is.  It was, it was hard. And, and there was a lot of times that even just going to work was hard. I'd anything I could to not have to interact with anyone. I would find ways to enter the building differently, or could I get there really early, or really kind of late? Is there any way to just get my job done without being seen? Yet, at the same time, I felt like they need to see me, to know what they're thinking of me isn't true. And so it was this really complicated process of feeling shame, I felt a lot of shame, actually.  And I remember one day driving, knowing I was going to be in a meeting with several of the people that are on the committee that assesses hiring, or applicants. And I was just in that state. I was mad, I was frustrated, and I just said this prayer of "I'm so tired of feeling silenced and oppressed." And whether that was true or not, it's what I felt. And when I stopped screaming, I, I just held still for a minute. And the Spirit said, "You're not being silenced. I just need you to listen right now." And that, to me, was such a game changer to shift in going–maybe this is a chance to observe, or to understand human nature.  I was so self-absorbed in my pain, that I think it was too hard to look beyond myself, at least in this situation. Again, I'm not trying to negate what I felt or what happened, but I needed to shift. And so that day, it helped to listen. And I left less frustrated, but not healed. But it was . . . it was the beginning.  And there were months like that, where I would know, okay, today's a day that there's going to be high interaction. And I'd have to really gear myself up for it. It was a lot of prep work on those days to just go to work.  Maybe two months after the feedback, I started to keep a gratitude journal. I wasn't to the place yet that I was giving thanks about the people that had offered the feedback. But, I was grateful that I had employment. And that it was, that it was perhaps moving me in the direction of what I was hoping for.  The other thing that I started doing in this process was practicing some self care. And as I started to reflect on some of the feedback, I realized, there's so many things that are just so out of our control in our lives, but that I could take care of myself. And that was an interesting thing. The initial prompts were physical care, sleep and wellness. But it was interesting that those things started to soothe my mind, and I was able to start to surrender–trusting, hoping, that God had a plan in it all.  But it didn't stop that anxiety. I was getting ready for a meeting one night and just–I was so worked up. I just was so tired of feeling so inadequate, feeling like I have to prove myself. And I was ranting about it to my husband and just said my prayers and went to bed. And I'm a dreamer, I've always been a dreamer. I've wondered if maybe that's God's way of saying, look, I can't get through to you unless you're asleep. And on this particular night, I had a dream and it was really a disjointed dream. But at the beginning of it, I was in a meeting. I was really vocal, which was not typical of me in this context–I can definitely be vocal. And I just kept saying, "I don't see Jesus in this." Everything they were presenting, everything they were talking about, I just kept saying, "I don't see Jesus in this." And then the dream sort of shifted. Suddenly, I was in this crowd of people, and they were pressing and moving. And I'm like, "What's going on?" And they're like, "He's, He's here." And I'm like, "Jesus? I want to see Him." "Show me Jesus." And it was so cool because I looked and He locked eyes with me. And I woke up, darn it, I woke up. And I fell to my knees and just said, "What do you want me to know? What are you trying to tell me?" And I just kept saying, "Give me Jesus." And suddenly, I had this new mantra, "Show me Jesus." And I knew that if I could walk into that meeting, and if I could find Him in the meeting, that it was gonna be okay.  And I walked into the meeting. And before I walked in the door, I just kind of touched the doorframe. I remember touching the doorframe, and just whispering, "Show me Jesus." And I just started looking around the room, I had this total shift. And He was there. In the eyes and the faces of each of those people sitting around this table. I still was in a hurry to leave afterward, maybe because I had felt this change, and it started to get easier.  Where every time I started to feel inadequate, or every time I was making this false judgment about myself, or about someone else, and you know what, it's not even just about people at work anymore. It's everybody, that I hear just this simple, "Show me Jesus."  Once I saw Jesus, He became part of everything. And I thought I knew that. And I thought that He had always been in my walk–which He was, he was always in my walk–but that simple "Show me Jesus" shifted everything for me.  A new position came open about six weeks after that, and I wasn't going to apply. I was too afraid. And I actually had someone encourage me and say, "Well, do you want it?" "Yeah." And the advice was, "Well then be patiently persistent, and show them you want it." And so I applied again. And I did my best. I brought this broken offering. And I just laid it out. And I wanted to show them Jesus.  It was interesting to actually sit with this committee at a luncheon while I was interviewing, and to look around and know exactly who had assessed me previously,  And to think that maybe it wasn't so much about them changing, but that there had been such a transformation in me. And that I felt like I was sitting with my brothers, and I loved them. I mean, these are the people that I would call on, if I were in an emergency, I would trust them. And so maybe there was something about their feedback, whether it was accurate or not, that created a context for me to be shown Jesus. And I will love them for that. For the rest of my life. I got the job. And I wonder sometimes what would have happened had I gotten it in the first place. How different life would have been. Would I have brought Jesus to work with me in the same way that it took something so hard for me to shift, to shift with every person I interact with at work, at home, at play.  I've given a lot of thought to this phrase, "Show me Jesus," and wondered why? Why then, and why that? I think about President Nelson talking about being myopic, and that it's easy to have a really limited perception. It's part of being in a fallen world, that we don't see things fully. And I've often thought–I wonder if maybe what he was trying to teach me then and now, every day, that He sees me, and then I think, is polishing me to be more just or merciful, in other people's wrestle to see the divine in them.  Because I think that's what it all kind of boils down to, is this constant struggle to honor the divine, and to see it in ourselves, but to see in each other. We're all in a wrestle, and if I could just find Him in them, or in anyone, for that matter, that I could see His power to compensate. And that I could change and not worry so much about any judgment, except for His. And that he would take care of that. KaRyn  36:51  That was Jennifer. "Show me Jesus," what a powerful reminder to seek Him in every single person and every single situation, including the ones where we've been falsely represented or perceived.  I love that she didn't say that our feelings of hurt and betrayal weren't valid or worthy of being acknowledged. When we've been misjudged or our hearts have not been understood, it is healthy and appropriate, to mourn that experience. And I speak from experience, it's really hard, and it takes time to be ready to learn what we need to learn from it.  But I love seeing the progression in Jenn's story from hurt to self care, to reflection, to revelation, to reconciliation. The fact that the colleagues she once hid from, both figuratively and literally, could eventually become like brothers–that's a result of the transformational power of handing our fallen perceptions over to Christ. Handing over both how we're perceived, as well as how we find Jesus in each person that we meet.  I remember the first time I learned that among the more well known conditions of the fall of Adam and Eve, like spiritual separation from God and physical death, we also inherited another condition–a fallen intellect. I was reading Stephen Robinson's follow up to the book, "Believing Christ," which I think I've mentioned is one of my all time favorites.  The book was called "Following Christ," and I stumbled upon this, quote: "We humans trust reason and logic. Some of us trust reason more than we trust God. We have a tendency to think that if we start with what we know to be true and proceed with correct logic, we'll always arrive at correct conclusions. But that is wrong, for human reason is flawed. It is fallen" end quote.  He goes on to share some compelling reasons to understand and believe that our intellect has fallen, along with all the other parts of the fall. And he says, quote, "If we don't maintain a certain humility, and therefore a certain caution about our ability to reason correctly, and thereby to control our own fate, life will wound us dearly. And we are most at risk when we are most sure of ourselves" end quote.  I was only in my early 20's, but I had just finished a mission and graduated from college and I was pretty sure of myself and my ability to reason through most things. Reading that section of the book offered me a paradigm shift that I've never forgotten. Relying on my intellect in matters of judgment would never be enough. And as Brother Robinson says, quote, "Fallen intellect can never arrive at the whole truth on its own. Absent the influence of the Holy Ghost on some level, whether as revelation, inspiration, intuition, or whatever, our reason will eventually lead us to error" end quote.  Our reason, our ability to perceive things without distortion is hopelessly flawed by design. A loving Heavenly Father created a condition in which good judgment is not a function of our earthly reason. It's a function of our relationship to Him and His Son, Jesus Christ. And the only way to access that good judgment here in this fallen world, is to link ourselves inextricably to the spirit, so that when we must, we can discern truth from error with divine perception.  One other thing that's been sparked by these stories for me today is the realization that good judgment is a gift that we can seek after. While only Jesus Christ is qualified to pass final judgment with all his infinite mercy and justice, we can seek to do better in the small courts of our daily lives. We can ask for the ability to feel and to understand the incomprehensible love that Christ has for someone whose actions might otherwise preclude fond feeling. We can ask for the wisdom to fulfill earthly law with as much justice as is required, and more mercy than we thought possible, while also trusting that God's going to take care of filling in the gaps of all of our fallen capacities.  We can ask to find Jesus around the conference room table. And we can ask for clarity against the distortions that plague our self-judgment and our perception of others. And I think that as we practice humble, merciful, judgment now, we'll be way more ready to stand in front of our maker at that final day, at the judgment bar of God, to tell our story without fear, because we'll know some small part of His compassion towards us, because we have felt it towards others. That's it for this episode of "This Is the Gospel," thank you to our storytellers, Brett, Carey and Jennifer for sharing their stories and their good judgment. We'll have more info about each of these storytellers including a link to Stephen Robinson's books, "Believing Christ" and "Following Christ" in our show notes at LDS living.com/thisisthegospel. You can also find us on Instagram or Facebook at @thisisthegospel_podcast.  A huge thank you to everyone who shared the reviews of this podcast and told us about your favorite stories and episodes this past week. And always, we love to hear from you. You can leave a review of the podcast on Apple, Stitcher, or whatever platform you listen on. Reviews are super helpful in pushing us up in the recommended section of a lot of platforms so more people can find us.  All of the stories in this episode are true and accurate as affirmed by our storytellers, and we find a lot of our stories through our pitch line. As we're wrapping up production for season three, we don't have any specific themes to share with you. But if you have a story to share about a time in your life, when you learn something new by practicing the gospel of Jesus Christ, we absolutely want to hear from you. We'll be gathering stories and ideas for our next season soon. And the best pitches will be short, they'll be sweet, they'll have a clear sense of the focus of your story and you'll have three minutes to pitch it when you call 515-519-6179.  This episode was produced by me KaRyn Lay with story production editing from Erika Free, Kelly Campbell and Sarah Blake our crack team of awesome. It was scored, mixed and mastered by Mix at Six studios, our executive producer is Erin Hallstrom. You can find past episodes of this podcast and other LDS Living podcasts at LDS living.com/podcasts.  Show Notes + Transcripts: http://ldsliving.com/thisisthegospelSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode, we explore one of the ways that we can become better storytellers and better listeners through cultivating our holy curiosity. In honor of Black History Month, we revisit the faithful story of Isaac Thomas, a black Latter-day Saint who converted to the gospel in the 1970's despite the fact that he would be unable to hold the priesthood or participate fully in the restored gospel he loved. We'll also hear from Tamu Smith and Zandra Vranes, (aka the Sistas in Zion) who give us their tips for better ways to interact with one another across cultural divides.  SHOW NOTES:  If you're looking for ways to get curious about the lived experiences of our brothers and sisters of color in the gospel, you can find a list of resources (as promised!) at LDSLiving.com/thisisthegospel TRANSCRIPT  KaRyn  0:03  Welcome to "This Is the Gospel," an LDS Living podcast where we feature real stories from real people who are practicing and living their faith every day. I'm your host KaRyn Lay. If you've ever spent any time with a three year old, then you might not agree with the central tenet of our theme today, that curiosity is a gift. But listen, if we can get past the exhaustion that comes from answering those rapid fire questions of our tiny humans, we'll eventually come to that magical place where we admit that the ability to look into the wide world and ask a million times, "How does this work?" That's pretty awe inspiring. It's interesting, when we talk about the commandment to become as a little child, I think our minds often go straight to humility. But is there anything more humble than acknowledging that there's so much we don't know and so much that we want to know? Curiosity is a function of true discipleship. And when we tap into it, we open the door to so much beauty and possibility in our efforts to become a true child of Christ. Now, listen, I'm pretty sure that I am preaching to the choir when I say this, but I can't think of a business that is more suited to a cultivation of curiosity than the work of storytelling, and it's necessary companion act of listening. When we dive into a story and allow ourselves to feel something from someone else's experience, that's evidence of a curious heart. And that translates when we tell our own stories. Having the spiritual gift of curiosity about others will make us more introspective about ourselves, our motives, our fears, so that when we bear our own stories of faith, we'll convey the heart of the story instead of just the details. If curiosity can really do that, then I think it's something lovely, of good report and worth seeking after. I've also been thinking about how curiosity, storytelling, and listening can be tools for us as we try to accomplish what President Nelson has charged us with, when he said in the October 2020 General Conference, that Latter-day Saints and followers of Christ must, quote, "Lead out in abandoning attitudes and actions of prejudice." I firmly believe that offering a curious heart to one another and listening from the starting place of, "I don't understand and I want to understand," is the key to beginning that work. So as we celebrate Black History Month here in the U.S. in February, I figured maybe we could start there today. Start by practicing a holy curiosity about a part of our church history, that sometimes hard to hear. Today, we've got a story about faith, pain and hope from Isaac Thomas, an African American Latter-day Saint who converted to the gospel in the 1970's, despite the ban that precluded Black men like him from holding the priesthood. We first shared Isaac's story in season one of the podcast. So you may have heard it before. But even if that's the case, I'm a huge believer that with a little bit of a prayer in our heart, the spirit will show us new insights. Here's Isaac. ISAAC: I was born in Kansas City, Missouri. I've been a member of The Church for 46 years. I was part of the Civil Rights movement, I was involved in the marching and the sit-ins and those types of things, and campaigning and being a non-violent protester for rights not only for blacks but for everyone. That was what I was doing at the time when I first started college. It was 1967 to 1971. It taught me patience, if nothing else, and long-suffering because during the Civil Rights movement to sit in at a cafe, and to be hosed in those things, there's a lot of patience involved in that, and a lot of long-suffering.  I first came in contact with the church through a young man that was in my basic training unit when I was in the Air Force, and he gave me a Joseph Smith pamphlet for me to read. That was my initial contact with The Church. I actually didn't get a chance to read it all. I just got to the first paragraph, explaining who Joseph Smith was. And then my drill instructor took it out of my hand and told me that Mormons were racist and bigots. Oh, okay well, forget that. I don't need racists and bigots in my life. I almost ended it. After that, I went to my next duty station and again, there was another Mormon on base that asked me for, you know, said he’d give me a ride at the chow hall and he asked me to go to his church with him that night. I forgot to ask him what church I was even going to. It didn't occur to me that everybody in the jeep that I was in, leaving base, was white but me. And the church was on the road in Southwest Texas alone by itself, I’m squinting, going where’s the church, and I realize it's a Mormon church. Ahh, it's a Mormon church! It's a Klu Klux Klan meeting and I'm going to be the burnt offering. I was, I couldn't believe it. I said I'll get out of the Jeep. I'll stand here, They'll go in and I'll walk back to base. Nobody moved until I did. I'm walking into this church, I'm going, "Please let there be another person of color in here." There was not. They had a mahogany foyer and I was going, if I stand close enough I can blend in and they won't notice I'm here. I expected for the chapel doors will open I would enter and see the grand dragon with hood in sheet. I could not believe I had gotten myself into such a terrible, terrible situation. KARYN: What Isaac found that day was actually far from what he feared. The rumors were untrue. There was no grand wizard lurking in the chapel, and instead, he felt something sweet and meaningful. He agreed to take the missionary discussions that soon came across some difficult information that was hard to process. ISAAC: The first time I learned that I couldn't hold the Priesthood was when they gave me the last lesson which was added to the series of lessons that they were giving me and they explained it to me. They told me all the reasons, all the reasons that the time that they were told. And I listened. And then I said, "You'll have to tell me that again". And they repeated everything. And then something just said, "It's okay." And I said, "Fine. Fine, I'm okay." The thing that kept me anchored was I knew Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. I knew that, got that witness,  can't deny that. I knew the Book of Mormon had been restored by the prophet of God, can't get rid of that one either. If those two are true, then The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the Church of God. There was some dissonance because I didn't know what other blacks would think of me, how they would accept me. I wasn't sure how the rest of my family members would accept me which troubled me because we were very close family. And so I was wandering in this mist of darkness really, just feeling my way, but I could not deny what I know to be true. I actually joined the church December 15 in 1972 in an old chapel in San Angelo, Texas. I remember just fighting with myself in the restroom, going, "Should I leave? Should I stay? No, Get out of here, this is bad. No, you need to stay this is going to be good for you." But I indeed stayed and I was baptized  and it was glorious for me. Really, I’d never felt so good and all my days. I remember the feeling of being light and forgiven. My parents' reaction when I joined the Mormon Church, my father was not there when my mother asked me, "What church did you join?" And I said, "The Mormon Church," and she dropped the skillet. My cousin left cussing. My brother said, "You did what?" And I just kind of sat there silently. And then my grandparents, when they heard about it, they said, "Just leave him alone, it’s one of his passing things. It'll be okay." But after a while, when I stopped drinking, smoking, carousing, doping and all those things, my grandmother finally said, "I don't care what church it is, hallelujah to it." It got me to be the person that they wanted me to be. Because my grandmother, when I was younger, I was ill and she promised the Lord that if I was saved, or live, that I would dedicate my life to the Lord. And I have to admit, I found that out and I purposely tried not to be that person, but here I am. Well, I decided once I got out of the military that I wanted to go on a mission. That was 1976 or 77. And I knew I couldn't, so I wrote President Kimball a letter and said, "Dear President, I'd like to go on a mission. I don't care if I can't baptize people, somebody else can do all that. All I want to do is be able to get in there and to teach people, just to teach them the Gospel." I got a letter back and it said, "Dear Brother Thomas, we're sorry, you can't go on a mission because you don't have the priesthood." Then, I went, "Women go on missions!" So I wrote him another letter, "Women go on missions!" I got another letter back saying, but they had to go to the temple and take out their endowment. And for you to go on a mission, you'd have to take out your endowment. So you can't go." And I said, I'm going to mission one way or the other, okay? And then my mindset, there's more than one way to skin a cat. Okay, I'm going to go, I'll figure it out, then I'll let them know. That was my mindset. I had not given up, but I accepted what he said, I understood what he was saying and why it was being said. But I figured there was some other way for me to accomplish the thing that I wanted to do. Because after all, the Lord gives no commandment unto the children of men unless He provides a way to accomplish the things that he has commanded.  Well, I realize how to serve that mission. When the kids came home from school and they told me about this song and dance group at BYU that did missionary work, and all they did was sing and dance. And they said it’s Young Ambassadors. And I went, "I can do that!" So me and my friends jumped in his MG, drove up here inAugust of 1977 for me to audition for the Young Ambassadors for my mission. But I got there and I was intimidated by all the talent that was there. I mean, I hadn't had music lessons or dancing lessons so I didn't audition. But then I was getting ready to go do baptisms for the dead and the phone rang and it was the director of the Young Ambassador's asking me to come up and audition. The director of the Young Ambassadors was told to call me because when I was in Thailand, a group from BYU came over to entertain the troops. And I worked the lights for them and Randy Booth was playing the piano and I met him and I was doing USO shows. Apparently, somebody told him that I was there. And a dancer had dropped out of the Young Ambassadors so they had called me to see if I wanted to come up and audition. And so I went up, after I'd gone to the temple, sang and danced, sand and danced, and they said, "Yes, we want you to be part of our group.” We want you to know that you're going to be in a fishbowl, that everybody will be watching you that this won't be easy. There will be a lot of questions, a lot of pressure that you will be under. It was going to be pressure because I was a black member of The Church. And at that time, there were not a whole lot of us around, particularly in a performing group at BYU. And because we were going to be traveling all over, that there will be non-members and other people that would take me to task and take The Church to task on their stand about why blacks could not have the priesthood. And I said, "Well, that's their problem. This is my mission for two years. I don't have time for that." Done. That was one of the greatest learning experiences of my time being a member of the Young Ambassadors. I learned more about performing, I learned a whole, whole lot about brotherhood. When I say brotherhood, I include sisterhood as well. The love and care that they had for me was genuine and real. There would be some that would leave and go on missions and they would tell me, "Isaac, I'm gonna baptize this many people in your name." I was promised that I would have special friends and associates that would be for my good. And that was indeed quite true with that group. When something untoward happened, like a member or somebody would not let me stay in their home because I was black, some of the girls— they got very, very upset—and I didn't like that kind of thing. So I would have to stay in a hotel or something with the director. But they were always there. I never had to worry about my back. Ever. There were some challenges while I was on my mission with the Young Ambassadors, and there was a time where we were doing a number in Georgetown, Pennsylvania and a girl jumped about two inches off the floor, ripped her knee out, hobbled off stage. I was the only one off stage because I had a solo number after that one. And I carried her off and the director came back and said, "Isaac, go get someone that has the priesthood." And he might as well hit me upside the head with a wrecking ball, or taken a machete and just gutted me. I was devastated. He wasn't being mean, it was just a fact. And really, I think for the first time, I really did feel inferior in some way because of that. Like Man's Search for happiness, I just didn't know what was happening in my life because I had no question about the priesthood for six years. I'd been a member for six years, what's going on? And I was talking to Brad Smith, he was my roommate, and I just told him I felt like I was holding on to my testimony by the skin of my teeth at that point. But then, I realized, we have to trust in God because man will disappoint us every time, but God will not. He may not come when you want Him all the time, but He's always on time. So about June, end of May of 1978, we were in Toronto, Canada. And the missionaries brought this young lady to the show for me to talk to, she was black. And the director kept bugging me to talk to her. And I said, "Okay, fine." But when I jumped off the stage, there was a bunch of anti-Mormon people that came to the show. I was surrounded by all these people that are calling me a traitor to my race. That I was an Oreo, an Uncle Tom, and I just didn't need that my life. I finally talked to this young lady and I told her she’d do more for a family in the church and she ever could outside of it. And I left. We jumped on our bus, traveled to Kansas City, June 8, and we had lunch with my mom and we sang songs, we got back on the bus and we start going through Kansas. I went to sleep. Cause Kansa, it’s flat, there's nothing there and I'd seen it before. I went to sleep. They woke me up when we got to Salina, Kansas and told me to get off the bus. I got up, I got off the bus, didn't know what was going on. When I got back to our equipment van that had our costumes and instruments in it, Gary, our piano player was driving that when he said, "Isaac, we heard something on the radio. We don't know if it's true." I said, "Well, Gary, what did you hear?" He said, "Well, we want you to hear, we just don't know what to think." He kept going on and on and on. I recognized the station, it was WHB in Kansas City. I thought they had heard that my mom had been an accident. I said, "Gary, if you don't tell me what you've heard, I'm going to be all of you like stink on a monkey." He said, "They gave the blacks the Priesthood!" I said, "Don't, don't believe that, please. We're in the heartland of the reorganized church, the heartland of the reorganized church. They could be giving the cows the Priesthood for all we know out here. And don't tell anybody on that bus because I can't handle if it's not true. I can’t handle all that disappointment. No, don't want to deal with it. I got in the van, we drove to a mall, the director gets out runs in the mall. I figure we're going to go in, pass out some pamphlets about The Church get some contacts for the missionaries and sing some songs. Done it before, no big deal. Gets back on the bus. The bus pulls in front of the van and I see every, all 40 something people on one side of the bus hands and faces waving. At that point, I knew that they had told them about this fictitious rumor about this Priesthood thing. I went, "How could they do that to me?" and then on the CB radio, I hear, "Elder Thomas, it is true." My entire life passed before my eyes. And I went, wait a minute did I sleep through the Millennium? I was always told what happened in the Millennium. And then I went wait, well who's coming in these clouds? And I didn't know if I should look or not. It was like being in a dream. I get on the bus and they say "Bare your testimony!" I couldn't think of my name. I don't know what I said, I said something and I sat down by the director. At that point, people start singing songs, "The Spirit of God like a Fire is Burning," and then someone would bear their testimony. "I am a child of God." "I know that my Redeemer lives," all of those harmonies from all those talented talented people floated across Kansas. But everybody that I'd ever know from the Laotian border from Karamursel, Turkey, San Angelo, Texas, the family that got me in the church was trying to find me that day. For they had been there supporting me all this time. Praying along with me for this day to come, like many, many, many of the silent majority of the members of The Church, praying for this very, very special thing. It wasn't my letter, either one of them, it was a collective effort for those that wanted this to be done and for the Lord to hear the prayers of His children that were given in righteousness and in devotion unto Him.  After the revelation, our last show was in Loveland, Colorado. The bus pulled up and there was like, hordes of people there to welcome us and at that show that night, the audience was great. Several encores, several testimonies, but when we got back to BYU, it was a little different because there were people that would speak to me and thought I could walk on water because I didn't have the priesthood. Now that I could, they would not speak to me. There were also advertisements taken out the newspaper denying the priesthood revelation that made me feel bad. And it took me a while to understand that that was their choice if they were cheating themselves out of their own exaltation. That was hard, but for the more part, it was grand. I wanted to write someone black, the only black person I had, which was this young lady I met in Toronto, Canada. Well, she came down for General Conference because they were going to be you know, ratifying and talking about the Restoration of the Priesthood for conference. So she came down, stayed with her missionary's that converted her. I met her and we, you know, went to a couple of sessions together and then Sunday night, we were walking on Temple Square, and we were just talking and I asked her what she was going to be doing and told her what my plans were and we got up by the Christus, and all of a sudden I heard these words come out of my mouth, "Will you marry me?" And I was so startled by what came out of my mouth. I couldn't believe it. Because I promised I would never have a Mormon romance, you know what I mean? And she said, "I'll have to think about it." I'm going, it's a good thing somebody's thinking because  obviously I am not. She came back a couple days later and said, "Yes." And we talked about will we get married civilly first? Will we wait and get sealed? And we decided to wait to get sealed. And we got married June 15, 1979. We were the first black couple to be sealed in the Salt Lake Temple. There were so many people at my sealing. I can't tell you who was there. All I know is there was standing room, people everywhere, halfway out the door. And when we walked out of the temple, there were all kinds of people taking pictures, it was in the Deseret News and I'm going, okay. But we were, we were so dizzy just from being nervous about being married. But really, it was another surreal experience in my life, but a great one. My testimony helps me when things aren't connected as far as race and understanding in the church. People can say and do anything, there will always be bigots, some knowingly being bigots, some unknowingly being bigots in every religion, they're there. No matter what the trial is, or what the circumstance is or what's been said to me or thrown at me, literally. The Lord is there. We sing a song in my grandmother's church, it went, "I trust in God, I know he cares for me. On the mountain tops, on the stormy sea. Though the billows may roll, he thrills my soul. My Heavenly Father watches over me." KaRyn  23:12   That was Isaac Thomas. I produced the video for LDS Living that first told this story in 2018. And it's amazing to me that I've heard Isaac's story literally dozens of times. And I still heard something new as I listened.  Maybe you found yourself like I did filled with gratitude and wonder at Isaac's faithfulness and his determination, that part about choosing to serve a mission even when he couldn't formally serve, I mean, that just gets me every single time. And maybe you, like me, heard those stories of pain and wounding from Isaac and wondered if maybe you'd inadvertently allowed a bias or lack of understanding to get in the way of another child of God feeling the full stature of their divinity.  If that's the case, well, then good. Good, good, good. That is the gift of curiosity, doing its beautiful job, reminding us that we're still alive here on this earth and that our time is not over yet, we still have some spiritual growth left in us. It can be painful, a real gut punch to be curious about ourselves in that way, to search out the moat in our own eye.  But our love for Isaac and all of our brothers and sisters of color demand that we do it. Our desire to be more like the Savior demands it as well. And I firmly believe that he will help us to push past the shame and the fear that that self examination can bring up if we let him.  In the spirit of practicing curiosity, I want to share one more quick little thing with you today. It's audio from a video series that LDS Living did a while ago called, "What and what not to say at church." We did the series to help us all navigate potentially awkward situations at church with a little bit more love and a little more self awareness.  And one of the topics that we tackled was talking to our Black brothers and sisters. I don't know about you, but I grew up in a predominantly white neighborhood and my interactions with Black culture were really limited until I was in college in Philadelphia. And I made a lot of mistakes. And I acted on a lot of assumptions. And I know I hurt people.  I really love that saying that is making the rounds lately, "When you know better, you do better." Admitting fault and vowing to do better is the very heart of our gospel practice. And that's true of navigating cultural differences. It's a holy work that requires God to help us complete. But bridging the gap is possible, and listening to others with a different life experience, really listening to them without defensiveness, that's the first step.  So here are Tamu Smith and Zandra Vranes, also known as the Sistas in Zion, with their tips for doing better at interacting with each other at church. And here's a funny thing. This video was done long before President Nelson asked us to stop calling ourselves "Mormons," so you're going to hear that in this audio, but just know that we know that we don't use that anymore. Here you go.   Tamu   Sometimes people will come up to you and grab you hair.   Zandra   If this has ever happened to you at church, you might be a Black Mormon.   Tamu   On a serious tip, at church, sometimes we say things like, "I don't see color," which is not true, but it is awkward. And we understand that. We're going to have some awkward moments, but we're just going to ride it through. And we're going to get through this because we are all brothers and sisters, and we're in this together.    Zandra   Absolutely, so we're going to give some tips.   Tamu   So what do you say to people who just come up to you and touch your hair?   Zandra   So we know you're curious, and that's okay. But we really shouldn't touch people without permission. So if you're interested in my hair, get to know me. Know my name, what are my interests, and once we're friends, maybe we'll get to hair.    When we serve admissions around people of color, we often like to share with them that we've connected culturally with an experience that might resonate with us.   Tamu   Basically, what you want us to know is that you love Black people, and we want you to know we love you back.   Zandra   But while we're seeking connections, there are some assumptions that can actually disconnect us.   Tamu   For example, I'm from California, not from Ghana, where you served your mission.    Zandra   And that sister from Ghana is not from the hood, where you served yours.    Tamu   People think I can sing because I'm Black, so they want me to be in the choir. I'm not a good singer. Also, I'm a convert to the church to the LDS faith. She is not.   Zandra   I am a convert, actually, everybody's a convert to the LDS faith, but I don't have a gangster to gospel story that you're looking for.    All Black people don't know each other. I cannot get Alex Boye to speak at your farewell.    Tamu   So sometimes people will come up to me and they'll say, you know, "Oh, my gosh, I served my mission in Chicago, Illinois. Do you know champagne?" And I'm like, "Yeah!". . . I don't.   Zandra   But the truth is, all Black Mormons kind of really do know each other.   Tamu   Don't speak slang to me if that's not your native language.    It's okay to ask me, "Are you Black? Or are you African American?" I'm both. And I'm also Tamu.   Zandra   When it comes to asking questions, motive matters. If your motive is the loving one, it'll shine through.   Tamu   Sometimes we have these conversations in the church, and sometimes race is a part of it. Don't skip over the race part. We want to be a part of that conversation.   Zandra   Tamu and I don't speak for all Black people, so the best rule of thumb is treat everybody like individuals, get to know them. And then you'll find out what they like, what they don't like. All are like unto God. But that doesn't mean that we are all alike. It means that we're striving to love each other, like God loves each of us.   Tamu   I'm excited to see you on Sunday.   Zandra   Catch me in the pew, how about that?   Tamu   How about that.   Zandra   And when we wear our wraps and hats to church, don't ask us to move to the back row because you can't see over them. Come on up and join us. The more the merrier on the pew.   KaRyn  29:20   That was Zandra Vranes and Tamu Smith. We'll have a link to that video in our show notes so you can see what you can't when you're just listening to the audio. Tamu and Zandra have never been shy about sharing what it feels like to be a woman of color in a church that sometimes doesn't reflect their experience.  And I for one, am grateful for their willingness to speak up with plainness and love and self respect. They brought up an interesting point in the video that I had honestly never thought of until just now. It's the difference between a holy curiosity and a nosy curiosity. And here's what I mean.  Holy curiosity respects people's boundaries. It's motivated by love and acknowledges the godliness and the divinity in every person, while also asking, "What's it like for you to be here?" But nosy curiosity is just the opposite. It's actually all about you, and meeting your needs to know, at the expense of another person's dignity.  It's doing what I know I have done before, touching someone's hair because you want to know what it feels like regardless of how that might make them feel. Or asking someone if you've hurt them, only to try to defend yourself.  I love what Zandra said, that our motives matter. And it's going to shine through as we press forward through awkward moments in our attempts to form genuine familial connection. I don't know what it's like for you, but my church life sometimes seems like it's all awkward moments. Ministering, teaching over zoom, accepting ministering, all of these great things require me to be slightly uncomfortable all the time.  So after listening to these tips again, I'm going to try to put this into practice. To ask myself if my curiosity is holy or nosy, to pause before talking and check myself to see if my curiosity is motivated by a desire to really know someone and understand their life on their terms, or if it serves only me.  I'm hopeful that as I do that, that my comfort and ease will grow as I do the work of discipleship. We can't leave this theme of curiosity without recognizing that ultimately, we seek this gift so that we can become more like our Savior, Jesus Christ. Talk about a holy curiosity.  Despite the fact that he knew all and could perceive every single thing, Christ asked hundreds of questions during his ministry. And those are only the things that we have recorded in canonized scripture. I'm sure there was more. Christ loved curiosity. And in Matthew chapter seven, verse seven, he promised us that our sacred curiosity would be rewarded, he said, "Ask and it shall be given you, seek and you shall find, knock, and it shall be opened unto you."  So back to that charge from President Nelson to lead out in abandoning attitudes and actions of prejudice, I think it all starts with engaging with the gift of curiosity, asking Heavenly Father to show us what we don't know. And listening to stories from people who've lived it, like Isaac, and Tamu and Zandra, and others. Asking questions with a motivation of love and a commitment to do better, when we know better.  If you're feeling that desire right now, we will have a list of really great resources to feed your curiosity in our show notes, including some links that offer opportunities to hear directly from our brothers and sisters of color who go to church with us. I don't think we have to wait to be perfect to lead out. We just have to be like a little child willing to let people see us and our growth and our curiosity. And then we can truly call ourselves, all of us, the children of Christ. That's it for this episode of "This Is the Gospel." Thank you to our storyteller, Isaac Thomas, and our wonderful Sistas in Zion, Zandra and Tamu. We'll have more info from all of these storytellers in our show notes at LDS living.com/Thisisthegospel. That's also where you can find a transcript of each episode.  If you haven't already started to follow us on social media, go find us on Instagram or Facebook at @thisisthegospel_podcast, we work hard to make sure that it will add to your scrolling instead of taking away.  The stories in this episode are true and accurate as affirmed by our storytellers, we find lots of our stories through the pitch line. So if you have a story to share about a time in your life when you learn something new by practicing the gospel of Jesus Christ, we want to hear from you. The best pitches will be short and sweet and have a clear sense of the focus of your story. You'll have three minutes to pitch when you call, 515-519-6179.  If you want to help spread the word about "This Is the Gospel," we'd love for you to give personal recommendations to your friend. Find an episode you love, send it in a text message personal recommendations are the way to go. And you can also leave a review of the podcast on Apple, stitcher, or whatever platform you listen on. Reviews help this podcast to show up for more people in their search functions.  This episode was produced by me KaRyn Lay with additional story production from Davey Johnson and the producer director of that "What not to say" video, Skylar Brunner. It was scored, mixed and mastered by Mix at Six studios, our executive producer is ErinHallstrom. You can find past episodes of this podcast and other LDS Living podcasts at LDS living.com slash podcasts.Show Notes + Transcripts: http://ldsliving.com/thisisthegospelSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.