LDS Living Podcasts

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SoM Bonus Episode: Temple Symbols and Their Meanings Oct 01, 2020

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Right about now, we're probably all missing the temple. Never before has the need for the instant peace that comes from stepping into these sacred spaces been more keenly felt by so many members. But we can do more during this time than eagerly await the day when we can finally return to full temple worship. In this week's bonus episode, we invite religious scholar Donald W. Parry to help us dig into the meaning behind temple symbols so that we can be ready to enter the Lord's house with a new perspective and greater understanding.

Inheritance Sep 28, 2020

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Stories in this episode: After her elderly father passes away, LuAnne finds herself in the thick of cleaning out his home as she struggles to know what to let go of and what to keep; Jessie receives her inheritance a little early only to lose it just when it was needed most; After a string of disappointments, Miya is surprised to discover the resilience she longs for in the form of two pieces of paper from a beloved ancestor. Show notes: To see pictures and links for this episode, go to 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. So help me out. I cannot be the only one who has a highly developed internal fantasy in the style of Great Expectations, where a previously unknown relative of unimaginable wealth shows up at my door with the life changing news that I am the heir to their vast fortune. And from that moment forward, I pay all my bills without juggling anything, and I add avocado to every salad and every sandwich — devil may care about the additional cost. Is it just me? Okay. All right. That's fine. Nothing to see here, folks. I think it might actually have been this fantasy that got me thinking about today's theme. When you push through all the worldly ideas about wills and rich uncles and millions of dollars, this idea of an inheritance is as deeply ingrained in the gospel of Jesus Christ as just about anything. Mentions of heirs and heritage and inheritance are everywhere in the scriptures. And in fact, one of my all-time favorite scriptures, Romans 8:17, has the Apostle Paul reminding us all that we are children of God, and if we're children of God, then we are also heirs to His throne, and joint heirs with Jesus Christ. I just love that idea. I come back to it again and again, when I'm worried that all that will ever get handed down to me are some genetically soft teeth — I'm serious, they're made of chalk — and a penchant for drama. Well, today, we've got three storytellers who are surprised by the things that are handed down to them. And the way that that inheritance changes their perspective on the things that matter most. Our first story of inheritance comes from LuAnne, who worked her way through a mountain of memories to find that what her parents actually left her belonged to her all along. Here's LuAnne. LuAnne 2:03 My three brothers and my sister and I are gathered around the kitchen table of our childhood. We've come in from three time zones, and we've gathered for the weekend. We haven't been together as siblings for — probably since our first brother left home for college. So this is unusual. The reason that we're gathered here today is that my dad has passed away eight weeks previously, and we're here to make a plan to sell his house and to distribute his belongings. And we lost our mom 12 years prior to this time. With my dad, though, 12 years later, we, we lost him and he'd been struggling with Parkinson's disease for three years. And even though five of us are gathered, it feels really empty. My siblings and I are sitting around the kitchen table. And actually, we kind of just fell into our spots that we had in our childhood of where we ate dinner. And it's daunting because we're going through the things of my dad's lifetime, and my mom's lifetime and we're deciding are we going to donate something? Are we going to hang on to it? If so, who gets it? You know, we've seen other families go through this process and have a lot of conflict and leave where they're not friends or close anymore. And that was something that we that we didn't want. And we decided we wanted to try to make a plan that would be impartial and non-emotional. We knew that we were all filled with emotions, we were all grieving still. We didn't really think it was possible to take out all our emotions from this process, but we did want to try to have a process that would try to minimize those misunderstandings that we thought would be happening because we all were coming with so many emotions. And we sat there and we started with a prayer. And the way we did our picks is we each choose a color and that color was equivalent to the first pick, the second pick, the third pick — on down. Like we have things sectioned out like quilts, family keepsake quilts, and we had figurines and we had furniture and so we each would choose something in the group of items. And then after we'd gone through our picks, then we would snake through. So number five would be number one. And then every so often, we would redo our drawing just so the same people weren't getting the first pick in every group of items. And so we did start going through things and we could tell as we went through things, what they cared about by how they kept it. For instance, my dad's Navy uniform is dry cleaned. All three dress and casual uniforms are dry cleaned and hanging in his closet in a bag. We also found things that weren't, weren't so cared for like his files, he may have a birth certificate and a file along with a grocery store receipt. And some other thing that we would have thrown away. Or, the drawer with the kitchen utensils had kind of odd things in the drawer, so that wasn't really something he cared about. The Navy uniform, carefully kept. One thing that my parents kept was Swiss bells that they hung on the wall. And part of our heritage is our grandparents came from Switzerland. And our parents had gone on a trip to Switzerland and then came home with these bells and hung them on the wall. That was by the backdoor. So we all remember as kids, you know, making the bells ring as we ran out the door — in or out the door, we often just kind of did that as habit. To see and discover the things that my dad cared about and my mom cared about too, um, was kind of like a treasure hunt. It was putting together memories, my own memories that I had, but also stories that I heard. And putting the pieces of our life story felt like a treasure hunt to me. I started to understand the role these belongings played. The first and most obvious one is probably the belonging or whatever item reminded me of my mom or my dad, either something they had made by my mom and made by hand or my dad carefully selected it at a furniture store, or maybe he had redone it, and it could take us to our mom and dad, but also, I realized that it was a memory, for me, of who I was as a little child. And how my mom and dad made me feel as a little child. How they made me feel safe, and secure and loved. And so – an object could mean a whole lot more than – as important as that was, it was the memory of my mom and my dad, but I found that it was a memory of who I was. And who I was as part of this family, and that I belonged. And that – even the feeling of being a little child where your parents take care of you and you're not the adult out fighting in the world and making decisions and making adult decisions for your dad's life or death decisions for, for his care. And so I found that the objects took me back to being a cared for, loved, little child. Sometimes we're in business mode of going through things. And other times just one – something would hit us. Like when my brothers were carrying buckets of wheat from the basement to take to the garage to get rid of, I walked into my parents bedroom. They have a big master closet, and this is the place where their personal items have always been. Their clothing – they've kept family heirlooms like quilts that both grandmas have made, they've kept the tape recording of my sister's funeral. They've kept things that are special to them. And it's been full of their memories and memories that we had of them. But when I walked into the room by myself into this empty closet, that, to me, was stunning. It was just the sight of this empty closet that had always been full. It took my breath away, and I had to just stand there a moment and feel the finality of this. This is it. You know, this is the last tie to my mom and dad, and it was like shutting the door and walking into my new role. Not as a caregiver, not as a daughter who has parents on the earth, not – but as the you know, the final buffer, the adult for the family – generation one. But that was the, the feeling of just the finality of seeing this empty closet. There was this one item that had emotions around it for more than one of us. This one piece that was the one thing – if I could only choose one thing that I wanted, was this wooden cabinet that I used to open the door and, and I loved the smell of it. The wood smell. So we kept piano music, we kept magazines in there and I used to, as a little kid, open the door and smell. And you know how smells can take you back to smells and music and sounds and sights? And that's something that took me back to the safety and security of my childhood. And so we weren't sure even with all of our planning and processing, we still had emotions, we still had feelings that – that caused some division between us, and we had to walk away. So we walked away. When I walked away, I felt frustrated. And I felt like I thought we had figured out, you know, the process for this and, and so I felt frustrated and, and helpless. And, um, I felt inner turmoil. And so I just had to walk away from the situation, as did everybody else. Monetary stuff is super easy. You divide it, you take the pie and divide it five ways, but things. . . So I was so frustrated that it was about a thing, an item, because we've been through so much, through our childhoods and through caring for our dad and that this, you know, that one thing, this one thing, could cause division. I was worried how our relationship would play out. If we had these emotions and this discord now, would it seep into the future? That was my worry. When you experience loss, or life transitions – this was both – oftentimes you feel isolated, at least I felt isolated. I felt like – I'm the only one. And sometimes when you're in transition, or you have a loss, you just want people to understand you're desperate to be understood, how this feels, and how, you know, it's like standing in the ocean and wave after wave, you're trying to get your footing and the next wave knocks you down. And I realized through this process that my parents have given me a gift that outlast them, and it's the gift of my siblings. I mean, there are times when I see my brother smile, or the way he walks or my sister, how she's sitting at the piano and playing the keys and it takes me to my mom or my dad. And so really, that's what lasts. The things that we've inherited are things and items that we can put in a trunk. But the – their mannerisms or their characteristics or the things they've given us live on in my siblings, and I get to see that. Even with our – the emotions that seemed to cause division, and frustration, we still needed each other and needed to be understood. And that's a gift that, that my parents gave us. It's the gift of my brothers and my sister who feel this loss just as intensely as I do. And just as deeply. And when it's all said and done, it's not a possession. It's not the thing. But it's the belonging and the safety and security and the love that I have for my brothers and for my sister that last. It's not the thing. Um, we – when we gathered back up, you know there were apologies and there was forgiveness and, and we were able to move forward from that. You know, I was lucky I had a mom and dad who loved me. And I never questioned that. I always knew they loved me. And I think because of that it made it easy for me to believe that my Heavenly Parents loved me. And that I have an eternal inheritance. I have a Father who offers me everything He has – not parts and pieces, not things. But He offers me everything He has, and that He's given me gifts to navigate my life right now. And when He offers everything He has, it's even to become like Him. Which I find the things that I was drawn to in my parents' house reminded me of that same belonging and feeling of safety and security and love. So, the inheritance from my Heavenly Parents is eternal and infinite. And it still helps me when I see the things that I brought home from my parents' house. See the things that I inherited from them, the objects that take me back to memories of them, but also the feeling of belonging that they created and love and safety and security. In fact, at the end of – at the end of the weekend, it was, of course, a rush. My, my one brother had waited till the last minute to leave for the airport and so we're all, you know, rushing to give him a hug and say goodbye and realize, time's over. And another brother just took a minute to try to process what had happened. And he said, "You know, we did a hard thing this weekend. We did lots of hard things." And he said, "We didn't do it perfectly. But we did it together." Which I thought was a great, a great summary of what happened. And I think our parents would have been happy with that. KaRyn 14:55 That was my friend LuAnne. I first saw snippets of this story on her social media feed when she was in the process of cleaning out her dad's house, and I immediately wanted to have her share it with us. But as with all stories, timing is just as important as the story itself. And this one – this one needed some time to settle. But when the time was right, we were honored to have the opportunity to help LuAnne tell it. We all hear those stories about families who allow the inheritance or the lack thereof to tear them apart at the seams. And even when everyone has the best intentions, as they did in LuAnne's case, loss and emotion can complicate things. I think that gentle spirit of reconciliation and understanding that settled upon her family is the truest representation of the Spirit of God and His gifts. And how cool to have that deep, new perspective, that in the end, it's those family relationships that are our true and eternal birthright. Our next story comes from Jessie who received her inheritance a little bit early, only to misplace it. Here's Jessie. Jessie 16:00 So about five years ago, I inherited my mom's wedding ring early. I was cleaning the church with my husband and my family. And I ended up looking down and realized that my diamond had somehow, in the cleaning of the church, been vacuumed up or disappeared. It just wasn't there. And so I was talking to my mom about it. And she said, "I happen to have my mom's wedding ring and if you want, you can have the one that your dad gave me." And so – graciously and excitedly, I took that ring and it became my own. Which was, timing wise, really sweet because later that year, my dad was diagnosed with vascular dementia, which quickly started spiraling to Alzheimer's. The ring was designed for my mom by my dad and so I loved it. It was beautiful and it was a piece of both of them with me all the time. And since I was across the country from them, I really appreciated having a little bit of my family with me all the time. I clean offices for a little extra money on the side and I often have a habit of tucking my ring inside my pocket when I clean, just to keep it protected, and also because sometimes the chemicals can irritate my hands. I misplaced the ring a few times, but I usually find it pretty quickly in a pocket or on the washing machine. However, there was one time about a year and a half ago that I could not find it. Off and on, I would pray…

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BONUS: Come As You Are Jun 17, 2020

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Stories in this Father's Day bonus episode: While John admits he's not very handy, his attempts to create the perfect swing set falls short when he allows comparison to take over; Donald isn't sure he's got what it takes for fatherhood to begin with but when infertility makes that even harder, he learns that "what it takes" might be different than he imagined. SHOW NOTES To see pictures and links for this episode, go to LDSLiving.com/thisisthegospel TRANSCRIPT KaRyn Lay 0:03 Welcome to "This is the Gospel" and 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. For this bonus episode, we have two stories from faithful men who are braving the wilderness of fatherhood. I think we can all agree that parenting, and its accompanying highs and lows is not for the faint of heart. It takes real courage to jump into the woods and even more humility and skill to navigate that path through the forest filled with unknowns, and so many detours. Can you tell that I'm planning a father's day camping trip this weekend? I'll cool it with the outdoor metaphors. But what I will not cool it with, is my admiration for the men in our lives who take that role of fatherhood seriously and with an eye toward the Savior, just like today's storytellers. Our first story comes from John whose attempt at an epic creation for his children is almost foiled by his own weakness. Here's John. John 1:02 A lot of dads are really good at fixing things. But I've got to be honest, I'm not very handy. I cannot fix things is almost literally impossible. If there's a screw, I can screw something in. If there's multiple levels, or if there's an instruction manual, especially, I'm just not very good at following those instructions. It just doesn't make sense to me. Like a few years ago, one of our toilets stopped working. So I tried a few different things. I used the plunger that didn't work, I grabbed a snake. This is the tool by the way, not the animal. That didn't work. And so I gave up I was like, "Well, I guess we'll never be able to use this toilet again." I came home from work a couple days later, and here's my wife, she's rocking the toilet back and forth. She picked it up, I didn't even know you could pick up a toilet. And she threw it on the ground and "click," out popped this little jewelry box that one of our kids had shoved into it. So the good news was the toilet was fixed. But the bad news was I didn't fix it. But you know, you can only call on your ministering brothers so many times to come fix stuff for you before you start to feel like, "I should be doing this for myself." So a couple years ago, I decided it was time for me to build a swing set for my children. So I went to a manly store, Toys R Us, and bought a swing set kit, brought it home and unwrapped it. And it turns out there were about 27 steps to building the swing set. And the first step took me eight hours. It was so painful. I talked with someone recently and they said that their family for fun over the weekend bought and built a swing set. They put the whole kit together in 48 hours. That was not my experience. It took us 12 weeks, tons of help from my brothers in law. But finally the magical day came when the swing set was completed. It was in May, weather was nice, we're eating pizza on the lawn. The only downside was that one of my daughters came up to me and she said, "Dad, I love the swing set. But there's one problem, it just has three monkey bars." And I said "Honey, you will love those three monkey bars cherish each one because I promise you I am never building another swing set." But other than that, it was great. So right now I'm a religion professor at BYU, but at the time when I was building the swing set I was a full time seminary teacher, which meant every day I would teach high school students lessons from the Bible or the Book of Mormon. And so the day before finishing the swing set on a Friday, we had this class focused on comparison and not comparing yourself to others. One of the things that I got really excited about, a little scripture connection I hadn't noticed before was that Moroni was talking with the Lord. And Moroni was really worried that people would make fun of the Book of Mormon and not like it. And he says, Look, I'm not as good of a writer as the brother of Jared was. And I'd never noticed that Moroni was comparing himself to the brother of Jared. And that was the context in which the Lord said to Moroni, "My grace is sufficient, I can make weak things become strong unto you." And I was surprised to see that even amazing heroes from the scriptures like Moroni compared themselves and so then I gave the students a challenge over the weekend. See if you compare yourself to people like Moroni did and how it makes you feel. So that was Friday, finished the swing set on Saturday. On Monday, I was back at seminary teaching and I handed them a little three by five card and I said write down your experience of what happened over the weekend with comparison. Collected all the three by five cards. That night, my family and I, we were driving over to our brother in law's house for a little get together. And as we're driving my wife and I are reading these three by five cards, and I could not believe how many of my students were struggling with comparison. Everyone seemed to say something like, I always compare myself to others, and it makes me feel so terrible. I felt sad. I thought, I love my students, that are high school students, are 15, 16, 17, I thought, Oh, how tender that they're going through this tough time of adolescence. And they're just struggling with comparison, I felt so bad. And I still remember, I got out of the car and I thought to myself, these people have a real problem with comparison. So we parked the car on the street and as we're walking into the backyard, I noticed I think for the first time, that my brother in law had a swing set. I don't remember ever seeing a swing set in his backyard before. I looked at it and it was obviously bigger than my swing set. And I just happened to notice the monkey bars. And I counted 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 monkey bars on that swing set. And I thought, my swing set is garbage. I think I was particularly sensitive to it because I wanted to build this awesome swing set for my kids. I never fixed anything. I never build anything. And although everyone had had a lot of fun on Saturday playing with the swing set, the one complaint that I'd received was that there were only three monkey bars. So kind of even imagining maybe my kids were looking at his swing set being like, "Oh, now this is a real swing set." Just a couple moments ago, I've been like, Oh, those teenagers have a problem with comparison. I feel so bad for them. But then I realized, I have a problem with comparison. This swing set that I cherished was my prime creation two days ago. Now I hated and the only difference was the comparison, comparing my swing set to somebody else's. I started to notice lots of different ways in my life where I compared myself to other people, it wasn't just the fact that I couldn't fix things. Here's another real example. That probably sounds silly. It does sound silly as I look back on it. But at the moment, it was so raw. I was speaking at a girls camp with Brad Wilcox. Many of you have probably heard of Brad Wilcox, who's this incredible youth speaker. And he was going to speak second. So I was speaking first getting my stuff set up and this little 12 year old girl came up towards me with her camera, and I thought, "Oh, that's so precious. She probably wants her picture taken with me." And she looks at me with these big guys and said, "Are you, Brad Wilcox?' And I said, "Oh, no, that's the next speaker." And she just said, "Oh," turned around and walked away. And I felt so small. I'm like, I am not Brad Wilcox. And, and, then it, but again, I realized I can't be Brad Wilcox. I'm not Brad Wilcox, and I can't compare myself to Brad Wilcox. The day after seeing my brother in law's swing set when I went back to my seminary class, and we talked a little bit more about comparison. It was more real for me. It wasn't a problem that they had or something that I had to help them fix. It was something that we all were struggling with, and something that we could all be working on, hopefully, finding ways to overcome the challenge. I love going back to this phrase from Jesus though, when he says to Moroni, "My grace is sufficient." Because Moroni, I mean, he was working on a really big, important project, and he felt like his efforts weren't enough. And I can relate to that sometimes. And who knows, maybe Moroni, maybe he really wasn't as great of a writer, as the brother of Jared. And maybe I'm not as good as that other person. But the Lord has put me in this place right now. Maybe I'm not the best father in the world, but I am the father of my children. And I don't need to compare myself to other fathers out there. For me, this idea of comparison is obviously a, an issue that I continue to struggle with. I'm struggling with as recently as today. Knowing that I was going to record this story I've been listening over and over again to some of the "This is the Gospel" podcast stories which I've heard before and I've loved but I was listening to them with a different ear today thinking about the story that I was going to be sharing. And I literally thought this morning, my story stinks. Compared to these other stories. These other stories are so inspirational, so powerful, I have nothing to share. And what's ironic is I did not even think for about until about three hours later, oh, I just compared myself again. The more I understand grace, it helps me in my fatherhood, because I realized I don't have to do it all. I want to be a super Dad, I want to be the dad that fixes the toilet. that builds the amazing swing set that does all these super cool things. But I fall short a lot. And understanding that the grace of Jesus Christ is there to strengthen me, to help me get through things that I couldn't do on my own also helps me feel a little bit more patient and understanding with myself when I don't meet my own high expectations. I'm a perfectionist and I want things to be perfect. But I realized I don't have to make things perfect. That's the job of Jesus. I do the best I can, and I don't have to worry about what others think. I don't have to look sideways; I can look up to heaven. He can take weak things and make them strong, His grace is enough. And the three monkey bars are enough. And that brings a lot of peace. KaRyn Lay 9:20 That was professor and author John Hilton. I love the connection that John noticed between his own peace and his efforts to stop comparing himself as a swing set builder and parent. The fact that Christ's grace is sufficient to cover everything from my deepest character flaw to my poor efforts to put together an Ikea bookshelf, that's a powerful truth that can change our lives and our relationships if we let it. And I'm so glad that John with his unique talents was able to illustrate that in his story. I think all of those years researching and writing about the ways we access peace through Jesus for his book, The Founder of Our Peace have already been a huge blessing to so many and to me personally. Thanks, John. Our next storyteller Donald is a good friend of LDS Living . We featured his story in our podcast episode 23, called "How We Move Forward," which I highly recommend, even if you've listened to it before, it's worth going back and re-listening. And today he shares a story about what it takes emotionally, spiritually and mentally to prepare yourself for first time fatherhood. Here's Donald. Donald 10:27 My relationship to fatherhood is, it's been an up and down journey. I didn't have my dad in my home for a long period of time as a kid, then a mom and dad that had separated. And then as I got older, my mom remarried when we came to the United States, and that was Jake. And Jake didn't have like a long tenure in my life. And then we, my sister's dad came into picture several years later. So, I had different individuals that were there, but over the long span of that time period my mom was a single mom, and to not have that steady father figure, it was a, it was an absence that was notable. Luckily, I was able to have the guidance from other people outside that helped me to realize what it is to be a father. And then that's where the church came in the village, so to speak, to help me to see that and now becoming a dad, it wasn't easy because of the challenges and complexities I didn't know about. When I first met my wife, the thing I loved the most about her was that she was the opposite of me. She was quiet and reserved, and I was the outgoing talkative type and I felt that was, there's something was mysterious, and she's cute. So it was that pulled me in. When we were dating and the desire, desire to you know, to eventually get married and courting and talked about the idea of family, we both knew that's something that we wanted, we both knew we wanted to have kids. We had, we had different spectrum though. My idea was not coming from a family of three of us, I was thinking, you know what, it'd be cool to have a big family because again, those families that have friends that I've had in the church, their families were big. And you saw how much fun they had as a bunch of kids. I'm like, yeah, we can, it'd be cool to make a soccer team. Right? Cool to have a bunch of kids that could play you know, play with, at least the basketball team. Christina's idea was, well, maybe one and if there's an opportunity for twin for two, then that'd be great. So you find yourself coming to some quick compromise, but we knew we wanted kids. We, the number was, I'm a salesperson. So, I figured you just you take what you get in and you just keep upselling. But it was 2015. We got married in September 2013. When I was called to be a bishop, a member a couple people saying "Don't you have to have a family to be a bishop to the kids to be a bishop?" Remember people making that, that, that joke, but you know, obviously there's a little bit of jab to that. And obviously, there's nowhere in the handbook where it says anything like that. We were definitely laggers according to societal norms and the ecosystem of the Church, because Christina and I got married when we were 27. So that's, you know, my friends which, seemed like they had grandkids by then. We knew we were gonna have kids but and we knew we wanted to have kids but we just we both felt that we were on the same plane with God, spiritual like, we prayed about it and we fasted, we talked to our Bishop and so forth and you know, the before then they're like, just whenever your take your time on that, and that gives us comfort to know, you just go into when you feel right for you. So not that we were postponing a family for any other reason to just go travel or you know, to get a nice little dog or anything like that. We, we just, it was scary. And we were worried and it, it didn't feel right. I think the biggest thing about becoming a father that made me the most nervous was, Do I have the right stuff?…

Full show notes at the publisher

SoM Bonus Episode: Q&A Women and Priesthood Jun 15, 2020

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Have you ever wondered how to call on priesthood power as a Latter-day Saint woman? Turns out you're not the only one. Join us for a super exciting bonus episode with Tammy and Barbara Morgan Gardner as they answer questions gathered from social media about women and the priesthood. We promise you are not going to want to miss this one.

BONUS: At The Feet of Extraordinary Women May 08, 2020

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Stories in this Episode: Sarah and KaRyn share lessons learned from their very first storytelling project over 15 years ago when they invited accomplished, faithful women (like Emma Lou Thayne, Ariel Bybee, Liz Lemon Swindle, Olene Walker) into their living rooms; Leslie, Claire, Cari, Tennisa, & Emily give us 2 minute stories of letting the Lord lead from the start of our THIS IS THE GOSPEL video series. SHOW NOTES To see pictures and links for this episode, go to LDSLiving.com/thisisthegospel TRANSCRIPT KaRyn Lay 0:00 Hello from my home office, which is really just my desk by a window in my stepkids' room that I have commandeered during the social distancing. They're thrilled, as you can imagine, to wake up at eight every day so that I can get to work. But I actually think that my daily occupation of their rooms speaks to the reality of parenting and family and relationships during these tricky times—flexibility, creativity, figuring out what works for your unique situation—well, that's the order of the day. And we hope that you are finding your groove and whatever way you can. We're certainly trying to do that with the podcast, and while we gear up for season three, over the next few months, we're still going to bring you a few bonus episodes that just can't wait until we get back into a recording studio. And so today, we've got a quarantine edition of the podcast with some stories that celebrate the ways that women rely on the Lord and the many roles, including motherhood, that they inhabit throughout their lives. 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. First step, a few stories within a story within a conversation. This Is The Gospel producer, Sarah Blake, and I recently recorded a conversation we had where we tried to remember all the details from the very first, but clearly not the last storytelling project that we embarked on together over 15 years ago. I don't exactly remember when we decided, A: to call them the gatherings, and then B:I how did it even happen? Sarah 1:43 I don't remember either because motherhood has erased so much of my memory, but I think it was 2004 or 2005. We were single in our single sport in Salt Lake. KaRyn Lay 1:56 Yes, everything starts with us being single. Sarah 1:58 I know. Side note about that though, the years that we were single that felt like a curse have become one of the greatest blessings and like, to me, it's a constant whenever something hard is going on. I'm like, well, that one big one turned out to be the greatest blessing. So I can trust this one will work out too. KaRyn Lay 2:17 Agreed. Sarah 2:18 Okay, so we were single in our singles ward, trying to find our way. Right? KaRyn Lay 2:23 I think at that point, I kind of was like, not that I was giving up. But I, I sort of had the sense that I was going to be single for a while. Like, I was always hopeful. I loved falling in love, but I, I leaned into it, I leaned into a little bit to like, Okay, if I'm going to be a cat lady, who's just sort of doing life on my own, then, like, we better figure out the best way to be single. That's kind of what I think I remember us talking about. Sarah 2:52 Yeah, but you never did get the cat. So that was that was a hopeful gesture to not... KaRyn Lay 2:57 That was. I babysat someone else's cat and lost it on the first night that I had it. But where it wasn't actually lost, it was actually just asleep in one of the drawers of my apartment, but I freaked out and called everybody and made them help me look for this kitten that I thought I had lost. So after that I realized being a cat lady was probably not in my future. Until now. Now I have a cat. Sarah 3:21 Now you have a cat. Go figure. KaRyn Lay 3:23 I actually think you were the one who had the idea. Sarah 3:26 I was, yeah. I had the idea first and, and we had a meeting at your apartment. KaRyn Lay 3:33 I don't even remember this. I don't remember that. Sarah 3:36 Yeah, we had a meeting in your apartment and you made us a really nice dessert. And we all sat and talked about it. The idea was I felt like I needed to hear from more women. I needed more examples of what it looks like to be a faithful woman. Especially because we were single. I, at least, didn't have any examples in my family of what it looks like to be single in your 20's. Everyone else had gotten married and had kids, and I was like, am I okay? And how do I do this? But also just about how to be a woman, and a faithful woman? And I wanted not just to read about it in a book, but I wanted to talk to someone and ask questions and stuff, right? So we made the list of women we admired that we wish we could talk to. KaRyn Lay 4:18 I feel like we had an Excel document or something that we packed in all of the names of people that we— this was before Google Docs, so we were we were old school— Sarah 4:27 Hard to believe. KaRyn Lay 4:28 I know—old school spreadsheeting it. And we had, like, a list of, we just kept adding to it like Latter-day Saint women that we admired and that we thought were really cool. And then we we decided to just ask them. Sarah 4:41 And then we started sending them letters—like old school, typed up letters, put in an envelope and mailed it off. Some of them we just found in the phonebook, I think and others we had a contact or someone who knew someone, and then people were so gracious and responded. And when we started having these awesome women come and speak to a gathering of some of our friends like 20 to 30 people just at our houses. KaRyn Lay 5:06 Who was the first person that came? Because I think after we had the first couple, that's when we were like, Oh, we can pretty much invite anyone we want. But why wouldn't we? We'll just play the sad, single, like late 20s cards. Sarah 5:21 Help us find our way. So, the first one was Carmen Pingree, who was an advocate for children with autism in Utah, and the first school for children with autism in Utah was named for her because of all her tireless efforts. KaRyn Lay 5:38 Were you the way invited her Sarah? Sarah 5:40 I invited her because she was my boss's mom. And I'd met her and I was less scared to do that. But she was wonderful. And then we had Emma Lou Thayne, the poet. KaRyn Lay 5:54 Yeah, Emma probably one of my favorites. Like, just that whole conversation with her. She was so gracious. I actually dug up my journal from that time because when we would sit there with them, Sarah 6:06 We didn't have a good way to record it. So we just did notes. KaRyn Lay 6:09 We did. Actually do you know who was before Emma Lou? Sally Mart, she was somebody that I knew from Pennsylvania, and I think you said that you weren't there, right Sarah? Sarah 6:19 I had strep throat. I didn't want to get her kids sick, so I couldn't go. KaRyn Lay 6:23 She was a nurse. She couldn't have children of her own. So she adopted all of these special needs kids from all over the world. And then she was diagnosed with either stage three or stage four cancer. And I remember her saying that when she got the diagnosis, somebody took her kids for the day, and she went into the bedroom and she got down on her knees, and she said, to Heavenly Father, "If we're going to do this, let's make it a doozy." I remember that she used the word doozy, and I was like, "What is she talking about?" She said, "Oh, I loved having breast cancer." She said, "I talked to the Lord and I said, 'I want to learn every possible thing that I can from this experience so don't hold back Heavenly Father, do not hold back on me. Give everything that you've got to me so that I can do whatever it is that you need me to do, to become the woman that you want me to become.'" And I have never heard anybody talk about a trial that way before in my life. And it felt so like, it was shocking and exciting, and it kind of blew my mind and and I, I just realized, Oh, I want to be like Sally, I want to be fearless how fearless of her right? Sarah 7:33 Yeah. KaRyn Lay 7:33 How trusting of God's infinite grace that even when she's got all these kids to take care of, she recognizes that this is going to only work if she learns what she needs to learn from it and I, I've never forgotten that. Sarah 7:47 It makes me sad. I missed that one. So then we had we had Olene Walker, the first female governor of Utah. KaRyn Lay 7:55 I wasn't there for Olene so you'll have to tell me what you learned from Olene. Sarah 7:58 I loved her. I like loved her sense of humor and her perspective that she had from her years of life. And one of the big things that stuck out to me, and I apologize, to Olene and her sentence if I mess up in your stories, but she talked about—she got married and her husband was in grad school, and they had seven kids in 11 years and moved 13 times, or something like that. And she survived all that, and she said it was just a blur. And then when that was over, and they were somewhere stable, she started a PhD when her youngest was two. She's always been a person who didn't need a ton of sleep. So she would help you know, be the mom all day, help her kids with their homework, get them in bed and then start her homework, and do her homework and studying until about two in the morning, and then sleep for four hours and then start the whole thing again. And she was like, "I don't—not that I recommend that to anyone else. But it worked okay for me." KaRyn Lay 8:53 What has that done for your life? Sarah 8:55 Well, that's my schedule now, I'm embarrassed to say. But mostly, you know, the thing that I think it was Olene who said this the most clearly, but all of the women said it in one way or another. And this was exactly the kind of guidance I was looking for was this: that in women's lives in particular, there are seasons in your life. And you have to embrace the seasons and accept that, and recognize you can't have it all at the same time. But over the course of your life, you can have it all if you accept the seasons as they come. So like the season of having small children is an intensive, demanding season, and you can't do all the other things at that time. This season of being single is a different kind of opportunity to grow and focus on your own relationship with the Lord. But I think they really showed us by the example of their own lives that if you make the most of whatever season you're in, that's the way to be your best self. KaRyn Lay 9:52 Yeah. Do you remember Ariel Bybee coming? Sarah 9:56 A famous opera singer? KaRyn Lay 9:57 Yes, Ariel Bybee was a famous Latter-day saint opera singer. This is something I won't ever forget. She went around the room after we heard her tell about her life and about all the things that she had learned spiritually. And she asked us, "What are you passionate about?" And she waited for every single woman in that room to answer and we all did, right? I can't remember what I said about what I was passionate about is probably creativity or something. Do you remember? Sarah 10:24 No, I don't remember what I said. It was probably humanitarian stuff. That's what I did then. KaRyn Lay 10:29 Yeah. And, and at the end of it, it came back to Ariel and she looked us all I felt likeshe looked every single one of us into our souls like bore into our souls and she said, "Whatever you do, do not, do not do it with mediocrity." She said, "If you are passionate about it, you put your whole soul into that. The world has enough mediocrity. It has enough mediocre art. It needs women who can create with excellence." And I was like, "Ahhhhh." And I don't know if I've lived up to Arial's— Sarah 11:08 I know, I'm like, "Oh sorry, I'm sorry, Ariel." KaRyn Lay 11:11 But also, I think there's something beautiful about that, right? Like Ariel's words and Sally's words and Olene's words combined, that there is a season for everything, that God is going to tutor us through them, and that when we're in that season to put our whole soul into it. Like what a cool life plan those women gave us. Sarah 11:34 Yes. The other thing I think they all spoke about how they were surprised with where they ended up. When you're young you think I'm going to go to medical school and be a doctor you think you have this plan and then this is it and life doesn't ever hardly ever work out that way. Right? We all end up on surprise paths and discover we had a talent we didn't realize or a passion we didn't understand, and, or we're just given an opportunity and sometimes the opportunity looks like a challenge, right? But then it becomes the center of your life's work. And the way to find your best path is by trusting that it's part of God's plan and that those surprises are meant to be. KaRyn Lay 12:13 What else without that experience do you think you'll take forever? Sarah 12:16 So I remember in particular, Emily saying, telling the story of when she wrote the lyrics to where can I turn for peace? KaRyn Lay 12:22 Yeah. Sarah 12:23 She was struggling with a challenge with one of her kids who was having a really hard time. And she was on the phone with a friend while she did laundry in her laundry basement, and this inspiration hit in the laundry room, like she grabbed a piece of paper, and they co-wrote it together. Inspired by the pain, she was feeling suffering for her daughter. So many of them gave really specific details of the mundane things of life, which are, I mean, there's mundane details for everyone but women's lives often are especially like that stuff is ever present with us the burden of the dishes. The laundry and where did people leave their shoes, and they all mentioned those things and, but with a kind of reverence sometimes that made me feel like the good stuff of life can happen any day, anywhere, in the in your laundry room when you're talking to your friend. KaRyn Lay 13:16 Here's what I have written in my journal about that. Sarah 13:18 Yeah. KaRyn Lay 13:19 It says, "Where can I turn for peace, personal anguish for this beautiful piece of art that has touched and healed so many broken hearts. We are all connected and our life's work is not ours alone." Sarah 13:31 Yeah. KaRyn Lay 13:31 I don't know if Emma Lou said that, but that's what I took. Sarah 13:34 That's what you took from it. It was just so many testaments that the worst times in your life can end up being the best, the greatest blessings that God can turn anything to our good to bless His children. And if we just try to be open to being instruments, then He will use us that way. KaRyn Lay 13:52 Yeah. Sarah 13:53 Maybe not today, maybe not this week, maybe not for 20 years, but like, it gave me a sense we can look back and be like, "What a cool life of goodness." KaRyn Lay 14:01 I was thinking to Sarah, I don't know if you remember this, but we were making those lists of all of those, quote unquote famous Latter-day Saint women. And after we'd done a couple, do you remember that we that we were like, "You know what? We need to talk to our moms. Sarah 14:17 Mmhmm. And then we had your mom come. KaRyn Lay 14:19 Yeah. My mom came. Sarah 14:21 I think she's the only mom that we ever managed to get it done with because then we all started moving away. KaRyn Lay 14:27 To hear my mom in that setting, talking about her life, like, she and I might have had some of those conversations, but…

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The Heavens Are Open Mar 23, 2020

Show notes

Stories in this episode: In the early days of his firefighting career, Steve enters a burning home to save a life and is forced to choose between protocol and following the Spirit; Heidi anguishes over her efforts to help create a documentary about Joseph Smith's life until she receives a special witness from God; Alone in the rainforests of Madagascar, Elizabeth finds herself in dire need of heavenly power to call down a miracle. SHOW NOTES To see pictures and links for this episode, go to LDSLiving.com/thisisthegospel TRANSCRIPT KaRyn 0:01 I have mixed feelings about what I'm about to tell you. I know that we need stories more now than ever, but the time has come for us to take a break here at This Is the Gospel so we can gather and prepare new episodes. We'll be back as soon as we can with season three, filled with totally new themes and new stories on those themes. And in the meantime, we'll still be over on Instagram @thisisthegospel_podcast and on Facebook at This is the Gospel, sharing all of our upcoming themes and pitch line requests, and maybe even a bonus episode or two. And so, while we won't have weekly episodes, we're not going to stop thinking of ways to help us all tell the stories that matter and lift up our week. Now on with the show. 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'm feeling pretty inadequate today. I'm sitting in my home office, the day after my very first earthquake, which also happens to be for me the seventh day of an unprecedented self-quarantine due to a global pandemic. And as I've attempted to write something to introduce today's theme, the only thought that keeps coming to me is, "I'm not sure I'm strong enough for these latter days, Heavenly Father. I'm just not sure I can do it." Well, maybe you've wondered the same thing about yourself, or maybe you've been through stranger moments than these and have a sure knowledge of your capacity to make good during hard times. Well, either way, I think it's still difficult to watch as things shut down all around us, left and right. Doors, literally closing, the doors of restaurants, libraries, businesses, and our homes as we step inside to protect our families, our neighbors, and our communities. And that's probably why today's episode took so long to come together. When we first launched Season Two in September, "The Heavens are Open" was one of the first episode themes we had slated to produce and air. And week after week, it got pushed back. First, we didn't quite have the right stories, and then we didn't quite have the time to make it what we wanted it to be, and so it kept moving further and further away from the beginning of the season and landed here instead, the very tail end of Season Two, in the middle of a time when I think maybe there's nothing that I need to know more than the fact that God really is present, that He's still here, and He's pouring His power and His glory and His goodness down on us in the midst of these latter days. He's coming to us in a still small voice, and He's coming to us in the thunder of a general conference broadcast, where despite the fact that we can't attend, we will hear Him in the prophetic council. He's here in the midst of us right now. He is here with us in the trenches of our humanity. The heavens are open if we choose to hear Him, as President Nelson has invited us to do. So today, finally, we have three stories from people who engaged with heaven here on Earth, in their own unique way. Our first storyteller is, a This is the Gospel favorite, my neighbor Steve, who shares a story from early in his days as a firefighter when a choice to follow the spirit over protocol just may have saved his life. Here's Steve. Steve 3:31 So we respond to an early morning fire, probably 5:30/6 o'clock in the morning, and we arrive and it's a call of just smoke. So we pull up on the fire apparatus and we get off and you can see that there's some smoke kind of coming out of the air conditioning unit on the top of the roof, but not nothing really crazy at this point. So we kind of look around, I'm with my captain because I'm a new guy, so I'm following him around, you know, and we kind of look up to the window and the inside of the window is pitch black, full of smoke, and there's always kind of streaks of water that runs down because all that water vaporizes and then kind of condenses on the window, and so you can tell -- so we know there's a fire inside, a pretty significant fire. Pop the door, breached the door, and huge smoke comes out, right? It's on fire. It's burning and it's hot. So I get the hose line and with my partner and we kind of start making our advance into this very dark structure. One of the first things I learned that becoming a new firefighter is not like TV. The real fires, structure fires, when the fire is contained inside of a box, a house, are black, heavy, oppressive smoke, you cannot see, and it's terribly hot. Some of those things that we can't simulate in training is the oppressive heat and just the the density of the smoke. I mean, you literally cannot see your hand in front your face. So I'm kind of bumping around in you know, inside dragging the hose on, and we're trying to find a fire. We can't find it. We can hear it cracking. The heat is oppressive. So we know we're getting close, and there's dense, heavy smoke. You know, we're yelling, "Is anyone in here? Is anyone here?" You know, "We're looking for people," and then somehow I kind of get a little bit separated from my partner and it's getting really hot now and I'm just pushing a little bit farther, a little bit farther, a little bit farther, right, the statement is, "We will risk our lives a lot in a calculated manner to save a savable life. We will not risk our lives at all, to save that which they're already lost or has no value." So I'm in that calculated manner "Save a saveable life." We think someone's inside here. I can notice very distinctly, I can feel through my gloves, the change in kind of carpet to linoleum, so I know I'm in a kitchen, and now it's really hot in the kitchen, so the fire is probably around here somewhere, and I'm only about half a meter inside. And it's one of those rare times in my life and that I hear in my mind, "Stephen, get off the floor." To my shame, I kind of ignore it the first time because I'm looking for someone, right? So I push a little bit, a little bit farther into the room. "Steven, get off the floor and move out of the kitchen." "Okay," so I started backing up. I'm kind of pulling the hose line back, and literally the second I move off that linoleum floor and back into the carpet, the entire floor caves in. Suddenly, you can see everything. There's fire to to the ceiling, fire to the wall. My partner, I hear him call a mayday and he bails out of the window. And now I am, I'm in here and I've lost the hose line. So I don't know where I am. So I'm trying to back up, it's hot. I see a bunch of orange in front of me. And I'm starting to back out and you can hear the radio traffic is escalating on the outside. And I don't know how long I was in there, but I'm trying to bump my way back to the front room through the smoke, and I think I'm just about to the door and this big hand comes in, grabs me by the scruff of the neck, my turnout gear, pulls me out of the front door and kind of stands me up and it's this big, classic, if you were to make a character of any firefighter, it would be this guy. Big mustache, like 6 foot 2,300 pounds, big dude stands me right up on my feet and says, "Hey, are you okay?" and my turnout gear is all smokey and burned and I "Yes, thank you," you know, that kind of thing. And I get out, and then we fight the fire from the exterior, we can't find anyone inside at the time. But it was one of those rare, rare occurrences in my life where somebody cared about me and told me to do something and move, and I moved. Given my experience, I'm pretty sure I would not have survived that, frankly. But I'm so grateful, right, for that experience, and for that loving Heavenly Father and that still small voice. It wasn't loud in the chaos or the fire, wearing my turnout gear, I'm all encapsulated, and it was that still small voice that called me by name and told me to move. Since that time, I have resolved to do the best I can to listen. Now clearly there have been times when I can't tell what it is, if it's just an impression, if it's... who knows? Who cares, right? Doesn't matter. And I've done what I felt like I should have done or what I felt like I was told to do and there was no miraculous, no seminal moment in my life, but there have been other times when I have listened and things have changed. I hope I'm always worthy enough to have that connection. KaRyn 8:48 That was Steve. If you haven't heard Steve's season one story from our "To the Rescue" episode, it's definitely worth revisiting. What I appreciate about the story and about Steve is that acknowledgement, that moments like these, moments of pure and clear revelation, are rare in his life. But when they do happen, if he chooses to listen, things change. And there's something really interesting about the practice of listening that Steve mentioned at the end of his story. You know, sometimes we may have an impression, a thought, or a feeling, and maybe we're unsure of its origin. "Was that the still small voice? Or was it last night's very bad decision to go to Taco Bell?" It's not always easy to discern. But if we practice moving forward with confidence, as long as the impression is moving us towards discipleship and Christ, we will make ourselves ready to receive and obey when the pure heavenly messages reveal themselves through revelation. Our next story comes from writer and historian Heidi who received a special witness from God through a story from the Prophet Joseph's life. Here's Heidi. Heidi 9:56 I was walking in the Salt Lake City Cemetery. I like to walk, and I love walking into the cemetery because there are all of these grave sites and you look at the names and the dates and you recognize that in each one of those graves is someone who has a host of stories you wish you knew. Now -- I'm a writer and a historian, and so that's very intriguing to me. So as I walk along, I'm often looking at that. Well this particular day, I was walking along in the cemetery, and I had just finished a very major project that had taken me almost two and a half, three years, and it was about the Prophet Joseph Smith. I was writing a documentary for PBS. It wasn't for the church. It was for people that didn't know Joseph. It was for people, it had to be what we called "bilingual." It had to speak to them and to members of the Church, but mostly to people who could be a little bit angry. Well, I'm walking along, and I realized that my hands no longer have an opportunity to do anything to that documentary. It's gone off to PBS to be signed off, and to be put up. And I was so sad. I was so sad that as I'm walking along, there are tears running down my face. And I could just imagine that the people who are mowing the grass were looking over at this lady who's walking and she's weeping, and that just doesn't seem to be right. But I was crying because I felt like I had failed. I wrote 47 versions of that documentary trying to get it right. What I wanted to have happen in people's lives because of the film, because of the book that would be out there as well, because of my understanding of Joseph Smith, I didn't want them to just place him in history. I didn't want them to just say, you know, "He did a lot of interesting things." I wanted them to have the experience of having the spirit say to them, "This is a prophet of God." I wanted them to be able to reach beyond everyday life, that linear plane we live on, that date, time, and place, I wanted them to reach beyond that, and have a spiritual experience that can only be administered from the heavens. I love Brigham Young's statement. I felt like shouting "hallelujah" to think I ever knew the Prophet Joseph Smith. I wanted people to feel that because I felt that. I felt like I knew him and I knew him before I came here. I felt like I had the responsibility to tell the story of the Prophet Joseph Smith in such a way that people would be drawn to him who otherwise had no interest or were even negative about his life in his teachings. That I had the opportunity to tell how great he was and how significant he was, not just in the history of the United States or religion as it was growing, but in the history of the world. And I had this grand view, and I didn't feel like I had gotten the documentary to that place. I didn't feel like I had just nailed it. You know how it is sometimes when you feel like, "Ah I got it!" and in this case, there were pieces that as hard as I had tried, I hadn't pulled it together. And so now here I am 47 versions later. I just felt this, "wait," that this is Joseph Smith we're talking about, and so I'm walking along, and I started talking right out loud to my Father in Heaven. I can remember saying to him, "I tried so hard. I can't remember anything being as difficult as this was." I'm telling the Lord about how I feel, and He knows because I was so prayerful while I did this. I was always talking to Him about, "I just don't know how to handle this, and I don't know how to handle that." And I would like to say that, you know, all of a sudden it would just appear on my screen, the Lord would say, "Oh, well, here's what you do with that," never happened. I just had to slog my way through it, and that's the way it is for almost everybody. These things don't just drop down from the sky, and so I'm telling him about how Heidi feels now. I'm putting Heidi back in the picture because Heidi's given two and a half years of her life, lost 28 pounds, worked herself to the bone, and but it didn't matter. None of that mattered. What mattered was that I did my part for Joseph Smith. So I'm walking along and the tears are running down my face and I'm just saying, you know, "I wanted this and I wanted that," kind of some of the things I've talked about. And then all of a sudden this sense of peace came over me, and I remember stopping. I didn't keep walking. I remember stopping and I know right where I was, I was on the hill right below where John Taylor is buried. And I stopped there, and the thought came into my mind, and I'm one of those people the Lord communicates to in words, I don't get those burnings and the tingling's and I don't get those. I'm a word person, so I think He knows that and He says, "Oh I'll just talk to her and she'll listen." But words came into my mind, and the words were, "Heidi, Joseph had to give the endowment in the red brick store. It wasn't the way he wanted it, but it worked." Now, let me flashback for a minute to the second story of the red brick store. Joseph Smith, i…

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Kindness Begins with Me Mar 16, 2020

Show notes

As we all adjust our routines in an effort to flatten the curve of the novel coronavirus there is still so much good we can see and do in the world. KaRyn shares a story of a time when her already terrible driving record hit an all-time low (pun intended) and the undeserved kindness of a stranger changed everything.

SHOW NOTES:

To view shownotes for this episode, go to LDSLiving.com/thisisthegospel

TRANSCRIPT:

KaRyn Lay 0:00 Hey friends, maybe you're like us. You're trying to socially distance right now so you can help keep the novel coronavirus at bay in your community. And if that's what's happening for you, Well done, well done. But we wanted to make sure you know that if you get lonely or you get bored, or you're just looking for something uplifting, we're still here. We're here with you virtually. And you can come find us on Instagram and Facebook @thisisthegospel_podcast. You'll find a community of story lovers there just like you. And we're always thinking about fun ways that we can stay connected during the week and especially during this interesting time. We want to help you use stories to keep your home-centered church-supported efforts engaged so come find us on Instagram and Facebook where we can uplift each other.

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.

Well, this has been a wild week in our little corner of the U.S. You're probably feeling it too, with temple closures, the suspension of church services for the next few weeks and other adjustments to our lives and routines in all of our efforts to practice social distancing. I know. I know. My friends in Asia and parts of Europe have been at this much longer than we have. And believe me, I've been watching and learning from you. All the events of the last few weeks have me thinking pretty acutely about the ways that we take care of one another in our moments of deep vulnerability. I mean, I'm not sick right now and, and I still stand six feet away from everyone and wash my hands like a maniac while I'm singing my ABCs because I know that I could inadvertently be the cause of someone else's suffering. And if I unknowingly pass something off to an elderly neighbor or a friend with a compromised immune system, it will make me feel terrible. And I'm also really aware of the privilege that I have that allows me to work from home and to have more time Toilet paper than I currently need. I promise, I promise I am not hoarding it. But I did go to Costco a week before things got nuts. So, I'm well stocked. Come on over if you need a roll, I'm serious.

After I got over the shock of going to the grocery store and finding nothing on my list, I started to wonder just how the best parts of us as a community, a global community are going to shine during these uncertain times. And I felt a deep twinge of hope run through me. I've been following the Instagram account tiny kindnesses for weeks now and every day I read the stories, small, little stories about the way that we show up for one another in those critical moments when isolation or desperation could make us feel separated. We know how to do this. We have been preparing for this moment spiritually, much longer than most of us have physically. Well, at least me and that's the conclusion I have to draw from the swarming on grocery stores over the last two days. So today in celebration of all that is good in us. I'm sharing a tiny story of my own when I experienced a kindness from an absolute stranger in an unexpected way.

Now, I don't want you to think terribly less of me, but I've never been a particularly awesome driver. I mean, I'm fine. It's fine. In fact, it's been almost 10 years with no incidents. But when I'm overly stressed about something or someone, I really should probably take an Uber. I once made a timeline of my many accidents for a friend who needed to know that she wasn't the only one with a marred driving record, and I was surprised at the amount of collisions that I remembered. There was the time I backed into a melon truck at the U-pick-it farm, or the time I forgot the car was behind me in the driveway, or that embarrassing time that I rear ended someone because of a spider on my dashboard. And then I had to go to court to tell a judge and an entire courtroom the story. They laughed, and I still had to pay the court fees. Luckily, most of the accidents I've been involved in have not hurt anyone. But that wasn't true the day that I turned a corner without really looking.

When I was 28, I did something totally terrifying. I fell in love and I flew to Australia to see if marriage was in the cards for me with my internet boyfriend. I came back to the United States three weeks later, knowing that it wasn't going to happen. The breakup was devastating. I struggled for weeks to get my head back in the game, I was having a really hard time at work. I was having a really hard time at Church. I was having just a really hard time period. And it was like everything in my life was underwater, and I could never come up for air. Nothing felt easy, or even doable, to be honest. So it really shouldn't have surprised me when about a week after I got home, I got a flat tire on my way to work. It was the last straw...I'm telling you. It was the final proof that I needed that life was going to be nothing but sorrow and difficulty from here on out. I was out of money because it turns out that flying to a foreign country to see your internet boyfriend is not cheap, and I was out of hope. And just to put salt in my wounds, when I got to the tire shop to get that tire replaced, they told me that I would have to have all four tires replaced, not just the one with the flat. I don't even remember how I made that work financially, but by the time I left, Les Schwab Tires with four gleaming new wheels..I, I was spent and I was worried and I didn't have any room in my brain for driving. And that's when everything got worse.

Just as I turned the right corner onto the main street from the tire shop, a kid on a bike flew into crosswalk from seemingly nowhere, and I hit him. With my car. I hit a child with my car. He fell off his bike and I screeched to a stop and immediately ran out to see if he was okay. And of course I apologized 400 times. It seemed like he was in his early teens, maybe he was like 12 or 13. And he said he was fine, and he could walk. His bike was clearly damaged, but I didn't know what to do. Honestly, I was so distraught, and I'm sure that I probably should have called the paramedics or the police or someone, but I didn't. I couldn't really think clearly in that moment. So, I just gave him my cell phone number on a crumpled piece of paper from my glove compartment and told him to call me when he got home, or have his mother call me when he got home. I very carefully drove back to my office. I mean, I was devastated. What a horrible thing to have happen.

Well, a little bit later, his mom called me and told me that he was totally okay physically, and they weren't taking him to the urgent care anything and they weren't even planning to make an insurance claim. But they did think that it was only fair that I pay for the damages to his bike - to get his bike fixed. So, I agreed that I would meet them at the bike shop so that I could pay the bill. And when I walked into that shop, I took one look at his mom, and it hit me. It hit me really hard. I could have killed her child. I could have killed him. And that's when I lost it. The tears started and they would not stop. I I think she probably thought I was a maniac - like what is wrong with this woman? - but I'd like to say that the tears were for the accident and all the trouble that I'd cause for her family. But in reality, my tears were for everything I'd lost for that hope that hope of a future that was never going to happen. And for the present that seemed so difficult, so painful, and unbearably hard. I was broken. And as much as I wanted to hide it, my heart was just bare,laid out bare and exploding right there, right there in front of these people in a stupid bike shop.

So I awkwardly paid for the fixes to his bike, it actually looked like it was brand new, which was really great. And I thought to myself, "I have bought a lot of tires today, like a lot of tires." And then I headed back to my office. About an hour after I got back, the front desk receptionist called my office and told me that I had a visitor. But you can only imagine my shock when I got downstairs to the front desk and I saw the boy that I'd hit with my car, standing in the lobby. He had his new fixed bike with him and a helmet, which was a new accessory that I suspect was the result of ... me. And he kind of looked at me weirdly and sheepishly held something out to me. And as I held my hand out to receive it, he said, "This is from my mom. She just wanted you to know that she doesn't hate you. And she thought you might like this." It was a $25 gift card to Subway, you know, to get a couple of footlong sandwiches. We still joke about that, that I might seriously be the only person to have ever been rewarded in sandwiches for nearly maiming a child with my car. But in all seriousness, the lesson of that subway gift card wasn't lost on me. And something in me shifted in that moment. I didn't deserve it. I didn't deserve that stranger's kindness. I was just some lady who could have ruined her life, like, in a really big way. I didn't deserve her mercy or her empathy, or her willingness to show forgiveness. But she gave me those gifts with a generous heart and a gift card. And because of that, I believe that I was healed a little bit more than I had been at the start of the day. There was a lot more to get whole again. And I would actually spend the next two years in Korea working on that. But that's simple kindness marked the twist in the dark tunnel. And I could finally see some light - just a little pinprick - just a little pinprick of light shining through. I don't remember that woman's name. That was literally the last time I ever saw her or her bike riding son. But her kindness at a time when I should have been the one giving, not receiving has stuck with me. It's made me a more aware driver. And it has continued to be an invitation throughout my life to see people instead of circumstances and to reach out even if it's awkward. And isn't that the blessing of ministering? That opportunity to show up for one another with the Subway gift card, or the phone call, or the text message, even when we don't know the right thing to say. To give compassion, even when we're not so sure that the person receiving it really fully deserves it.

You know, right now we're all watching as things fan out across the globe, wildfires, viruses, hateful rhetoric, divisiveness, fear. All of these things, whether natural or manmade, start small and work their way through our communities. glomming on to whatever is most vulnerable in their path. They grow and they grow and whatever is not fortified will fall. This feels devastating to our hearts sometimes, especially when we feel powerless to protect the weak and the weakest among us. If you watch the news at all lately, you can't avoid the word, "pandemic." It's defined as an outbreak of a disease that affects large geographic areas. But maybe you didn't know that the word "pandemic" comes from the Greek "pan-", meaning, "all" and, "-demos" meaning, "people." And that up until the 19th century, which is the 1800s. It wasn't really used as a noun by itself at all. It was used as an adjective to describe things that affect all people everywhere. And what that means to me is that there are other things that can be pandemic, like compassion, empathy, love, service, forgiveness, hope in Christ, and kindness. These things also start small and they also have exponential impact. And when we combine these acts of discipleship with the power of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, they can radiate beyond borders and generations and time, a pandemic goodness. So, over the next few weeks, as we all lean into our civic duty to protect our communities, I hope we'll also watch for opportunities to lean into our Christian duty to spread the Good News and the good works, to bring light where there's darkness - to minister. We can start small, tiny even. And I know that our efforts will be magnified.

That's it for this episode of THIS IS THE GOSPEL. Thank you for all the goodness that you're already bringing into the world and for sharing it far and wide. We'll have a transcript of this episode in our show notes at LDS living.com/this is the gospel. If you're sequestered and looking for a meaningful activity to pass the time... Well, I've got an idea for you. How about practicing your personal or family storytelling? Pick a theme and ask your friends or family members to take turns telling their own stories around that theme. You can even do this virtually back and forth on Google Hangouts or through text messages. You might be surprised at what you learn about one another and your faith.

We love to hear all the ways that this type of storytelling strengthens your faith in God and love for His children. If you have just a minute to leave us a review and a rating on iTunes, that's another way that you can share the good stuff. Every review that you leave helps us to show up in the search for more people who are looking for something to brighten their day.

If you have a story to share about living the Gospel of Jesus Christ, please call our pitch line. We find so many of our stories from this pitch line. And as we prepare for season three, we would love to hear how the gospel has blessed your life. Call 515-519-6179 and pitch your story in three minutes or less.

This episode was produced by me KaRyn Lay. 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 to keep you busy while you're at home, and other LDS living podcast at LDSliving.com/podcasts. Stay healthy, stay calm and wash your hands!

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Show Notes + Transcripts: http://ldsliving.com/thisisthegospel

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Weak Things Made Strong Mar 09, 2020

Show notes

Stories in this episode: Bullied most of her life, Julie discovers that the autism that made her different is actually the exact thing that makes her gifted at family history work; A comic book heroine helps Sarah find her own superpowers when it comes to connecting with others; Kurt struggles with the weight of his calling as a bishop until the memory of a red superhero cape reminds him of his true desire to help others. SHOWNOTES To see pictures of our storytellers and get a look at Sarah's DATING GIRL comic, go to ldsliving.com/thisisthegospel Follow us on instagram @thisisthegospel_podcast and facebook to find upcoming themes and to learn more about our team. 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 can't exactly remember when I first heard the phrase "double-edged sword." It was probably in Mrs. McAfee's eighth grade English class, or maybe Ms. Turse's ninth grade English class. Well, whichever well named English teacher at Rockland Junior High taught it to me, I have never forgotten it. Because a double-edged sword basically describes life. If your junior high teacher never taught you that phrase, let me explain. A double-edged sword is anything that has the potential to have both positive and negative consequences in our lives. It's that thing that is both a strength and a weakness all at the same time. Need a concrete example? Okay, let's talk about perfectionism. It's the standard answer to the question, "What's your greatest weakness?" in a job interview because it's a strength disguised as a weakness. Or is it a weakness disguised as a strength? Trick question. It's both. And I know this because a desire to get things right is my constant companion, and it spurs me forward in so many cool ways in my life. But it's also the thing that when left unchecked leads to anxiety and deep paralysis. See? A positive and a negative, all in one, a double-edged sword. I suspect that if we dig deep, it won't take long for each of us to recognize this pattern of strength and weakness coexisting in ourselves. It's what makes us both human and heroic. And today, we'll hear stories from three people who discovered exactly what kind of superpowers were waiting at the other end of their weakness. Our first storyteller is Julie who learned that her greatest challenge in life could be transformed when she focused her efforts in service. Here's Julie: Julie 1:54 When my daughter was four years old she was diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum, and when I was reading through the symptoms of it, I realized that most of the symptoms applied to me as well. I was very socially awkward as a kid, and I was often bullied for it. I didn't understand social cues or body language very well, and I would come off as rude because I would interrupt people and I would kind of be silly in a way that they just didn't understand. So it was hard to make friends. I was really fascinated with names and dates and I didn't understand why. I come from a very big family and I would make lists of everybody's full names and their birth dates and how old they would turn that year, and I didn't understand why I was driven to do this and I didn't want anybody else to see it because they wouldn't understand it either. It wasn't until many years later that I realized that it was because of family history research that I had that unique quality in my mind. In fact, when I was 16, I had my patriarchal blessing and I was told that I would recognize the choice quality of the mind that my Heavenly Father had given me. And I always thought that maybe I would just realize I was smart, but I think it was more to do with my autism, that my mind worked in a unique way from other people, that I would be able to look at different family records and decipher information that other people had overlooked. And because of that, I was able to break down a lot of walls that we had come to in our genealogy. I think I was given that because Heavenly Father knew that I would be the one to be able to find these people to have their temple work done for them. After my dad died in 2001, after a couple of years, I had a dream where I saw him in our backyard, and he was bathed in a white light and wearing the purest white clothing, and he was walking toward me and all of a sudden I could see the veil separating him from me, and it was of the finest material that I had ever seen. It was completely see-through. It was like a curtain hanging down. And he turned to his right and I could see couples standing just behind this veil. And he would point to them and name them off and I recognized the names in the dream of people that I had been researching, but I hadn't done their temple work for them yet. And they were looking at me with pleading in their eyes, smiles on their faces, but this pleading and they never spoke to me, but I felt that they were saying that they wish that their temple work could be done. And they were like, "Please, please, please get our work done for us." And that is something that I've kept with me for 20 years of just remembering that feeling and it's really spurred me on to be able to find these people. When my oldest was very young, I started doing family search indexing because I had watched my mom do it. And at that time, it wasn't done on computer, it was done where I would have paper copies of documents, and I would transcribe them over to index cards that I would send over to the temple or to the church office building. And I really enjoyed that aspect of it because I realized that I really enjoyed the data entry part of it. And it was after we started doing indexing on the computer, I realized that touching the keys gave me a lot of good sensory input that really helped calm my mind. Something about autism is people will really like to have sensory input where that sense of touch gives you comfort. And because of that gift, I was able to do about 90,000 names in indexing because I can type really fast and it feels really comforting to me, and I can do it with a very high rate of accuracy. And I believe that's a superpower that heavenly Father is giving me because now I can help other people find their family members. In 2002, I went to the Navoo Temple open house with my husband and our young son. And we were going to be staying in the same city that my relatives came from, and I was really excited about that because I could do research, and I dedicated an entire day to be able to go out and do research, but because of our schedule, I ended up with only an hour. And so we went to a cemetery and I prayed to Heavenly Father to help me to find my family. Even though I had hardly any time, and I went into the office and I found the information that I needed to go out and find their graves, and I found a branch of the family that I only had very minimal information on. And I was really excited that I found... their oldest daughter actually passed away as a child and I had never even seen her name, and I was excited because I was able to record her and submit her for her temple work to be done when I had never even seen her name before, and this was the only way that I would have found her until many years later when those records were available on the internet. And I really did feel like that was a miracle Heavenly Father had given me. It was at that point that I realized that family history research is really a treasure hunt, and I knew that my unique mind could help me with that. I have an urgent desire to help these ancestors of mine because I'm doing a work that they can't do for themselves. And I really believe that it is helping me build Heavenly friendships and relationships and deep bonds that I struggle to have here on this Earth. And I like the fact that I can be a savior on Mount Zion and be a hero for them. I like to tell my daughter who's 14 years old now that her autism can be a superpower for her as well. She has an immense love of animals and ecology, and she has an amazing talent with art. And I know that she can go out there and make a difference. And I tell her that. I tell her that she has a unique quality in her mind that she could get out there and maybe think of solutions other people haven't thought of, and that she can help save the world. And I'm just really glad that Heavenly Father gave me this ability because it helps me to help her to make a difference. KaRyn 9:19 That was Julie. From the first moment we heard this on our pitch line, one of my favorite things about Julie's story is that as she began to rely on the Lord to tell her who she was, through things like her patriarchal blessing and personal revelation, she could tune out those voices that were telling her that she was awkward and weird, and begin to see her autism as a gift, and a superpower, a superpower that literally helps her to save souls through genealogy, family history, and temple work. And that's not all. Her autism also helps her to be the coach and the mentor that her daughter needs. I think about that all the time. Wouldn't it be so great if we could all have someone sooner rather than later who tells us that the things that make us feel different might actually be the key to our greatest successes. And the good news for those of us who are still looking for that reassurance is that it is available to us right now from a loving Heavenly Father. Even if there's nobody here on Earth who wants to tell us that, he really does, and I believe that, and Julie's story helps me to realize that it's never too late to ask and to receive. Our next story comes from our friend and my fellow producer, Sarah Blake. Here's Sarah: Sarah 10:29 Growing up, I lacked confidence in social situations. Somewhere along the way, in my preteen years, I became convinced that I wasn't pretty or fun, no guys would ever like me. And although I was confident in school and the things that I felt like I was good at, I was very unconfident and uncomfortable in standard social situations like parties or dances. Teenage girls tell themselves a lot of mean things in their heads and I definitely fell into that, and believed in this narrative that I wasn't good at social things, and no boys would ever like me. And so this was how I went into my young adulthood. I served a mission and then I found myself living in Salt Lake City as a single member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, who still believed she was really not good at social stuff, but the greatest desire of my heart was to find love and get married and have a family. And I began to realize how ill-equipped I was to make that dream come true. One of my survival strategies, actually, pretty much my only trick for getting through social situations was to look around for people who looked more uncomfortable or lonely than me and go be friends with them. I definitely had an identity as a kind person, and so I had the confidence to do that and I still think that's a good thing. I'm glad I learned that skill and that habit, but it did become clear that it wasn't the way to find my people, my match necessarily. I was living at the time in the Avenues in Salt Lake with a wonderful roommate who was a really good friend who was really pretty, cute, and fun and was really gifted at all the social stuff that I felt kind of inept at. And it would happen all the time that she would get asked on dates and I would be overlooked. And the low point came when I was at a ward mix and mingle, and I look around for someone more lonely and uncomfortable than me, I see this really nerdy guy sitting alone at a table, I go over and sit down and start talking to him, and he barely looks at me, just stares at my roommate and then asks me if I know if she's dating anybody. It was a pretty low blow. And the next day, I came home from work, I was alone in the house, and I was just pretty bitter and grumpy, and I was saying to myself, like, "How do people even date? How is it even done? Do you have to be like a superhero to date? Because it seems impossible to me." And I had just read a book about the history of comic strips, and so inspired by that and fueled by my bitterness, I started drawing a comic strip called, "The Adventures of Dating Girl." The plotline was a mild, mannered legal secretary, Mary Shanahan, whose initials were a transposition of mine, was a nice girl, hard worker, smart, funny, spiritual, but just not a dater. And then on Valentine's Day Eve when she's walking home from work, she stops to smell some flowers in front of a florist shop and she is hit by magic cosmic lightning, and there's this huge explosion of roses and her glasses go flying off and when she finally stands up from the pile of sizzling roses, she's been transformed into this mega babe, and her outfit is different. She's wearing boots that say "Dating Girl." And there's a crowd of onlookers, some of them are holding up signs telling her how hot she is now. That was as far as I ever got with drawing the comic strip, and it was just kind of cathartic and fun that night. A funny thing I thought to do with my bitterness about dating. But I found I couldn't stop thinking about the story of Dating Girl, and I talked about it with my best friend Megan and it kind of became a hobby of ours to talk about the adventures of dating girl and imagine the continuing storyline. And a couple other friends got into it, and we spent a lot of those dateless nights talking about the mythology of Dating Girl, and the story evolved. So the rest of the story is Mary Shanahan goes home that night after being struck by lightning and she washes her face and goes straight to bed and she doesn't even look in the mirror or notice that she's become this super babe. And in the next morning, she wakes up and her roommates wake up and discover that they also are kind of magically transformed. And over the next few weeks, they're like, "Something's different. We're kind of looking better," but also they felt like they had some new wisdom or skill in social situations and dating, understanding that they hadn't had before. As they're trying to figure that out, they find themselves magically transported to this location where they meet a woman, Magda, who becomes their mentor. And Magda tells them that she used to be Dating Girl, but she has since retired and moved on. And there has always been a "dating girl" and there always has to be a "dating girl." And when Magda retired, the new "Dating Girl" had to be risen up and that's why the universe chose Mary Shanahan to be struck by lightning to become the new dating girl. And every dating girl has her sidekicks who are also dating girls, and they all have this power to bring balance to the force I guess or to improve healthiness and wisdom and goodness in dating. And dating girl also learns that she has power to look out over the Salt Lake Valley and little like heart flares go up and she can tell where she's needed and she can go there and also she can fly, but that's like nothing compared to the power of love that defines her now. So we came up with a bunch of plot lines for the dating girls. The most significant story arc of which was the rise of her arch nemesis, Matthew Nan, the natural man, who was a very cool, accomplished, smart guy who moved into her their ward who was a natural leader and who should have been an influence for good, but instead used his…

Full show notes at the publisher

Sacred Ground Mar 02, 2020

Show notes

Stories in this episode: As a missionary in Chile, Brad Wilcox struggles to find the answers to his gospel questions until a transfer leads him to the light and hope he is looking for; Cody finds the spark of her testimony in a barren patch of desert after she prays for the impossible; An empty Primary room becomes sacred ground for Dave as he seeks to come back to the gospel he once knew. SHOW NOTES This episode is sponsored by the Deseret Book FIRST LIGHT Concert Event. To see pictures and links to this week's episode, click here. EPISODE TRANSCRIPT KaRyn 0:04 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. Okay, pop quiz time. When you hear today's theme -- sacred ground -- what are the first words that pop into your head? I'll give you just a minute to think about it. And... now I'll tell you that I conducted a highly scientific study, highly scientific study, around the LDS Living offices, and here are just a few of the words and phrases that came to mind for some of my friends: "trees, light, field, holy place, sacred grove, Joseph Smith, and temple grounds." Maybe some of those were the same things that you thought of and maybe you thought of something totally different. I for one thought of the words "Native American" because of the beautiful spiritual tradition that culture has around burial spaces. But it was interesting to me that so many of the words that my friends thought of were related to the first vision, "grove, trees, light, Joseph Smith." It is true that our whole team has been knee deep in participating in President Nelson's invitation to really celebrate the 200th anniversary of that miraculous event. But I kind of think that even if that weren't the truth, we'd still make all of those associations. As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, we have this unique privilege of having a modern origin story that includes a seminal, transformative, divine event happening in a decidedly ordinary place. I've been to the grove, and I come from Pennsylvania, the land of groves, it's trees, and grass, a little clearing, and now there's even a well worn footpath in and out of the forest. What makes it special is not the location in and of itself, but what happened there has transformed those trees and that grass into something special and dedicated, set apart, holy. The appearance of the Father and the Son to the Prophet Joseph Smith turned an absolutely ordinary grove of trees into a sacred grove. And we who believe, get to celebrate that event and honor that place. It's so cool. Well, in today's episode, we have three stories of holy experiences that could have happened anywhere, but they didn't. And how those places became sacred ground for the people who tread there are stories we're excited to share. Our first story comes from Brad, whose "sacred ground" moment came during a particularly difficult time as a missionary in Chile. Now listen, I know we normally start with just first names, but the voice of Brad Wilcox is so recognizable that it wouldn't be fair to you not to just tell you it's Brad Wilcox. Otherwise you'd spend the whole time wondering, "Is that Brad Wilcox?" We're not monsters. So, here's Brad Wilcox. Brad 3:06 In Chile, there's a beautiful city that's on the coast and it's called La Serena, which means the "serene." For me, it will always be a sacred grove. It will be a place where I came to know God. When I was a young man and I received my call to Chile, I was excited to go and share my testimony of the gospel, and it's not that I didn't have a testimony. I mean, I wasn't going on a mission without a testimony, but really quickly, I realized that my testimony was not as personal and not as deep as it needed to be. Oh, I'd grown up in the church, had a wonderful family, and I had wonderful church experiences and wonderful church leaders, but when I confronted the difficulties of a mission, when I realized that learning Spanish was not going to be a piece of cake, and when I got to Chile, and I found out that the culture was so different, I just realized that this was hard. I was sent to a little town up in the north of Chile called via na, and my companion and I were the only missionaries there, and it was hard. It was hot. Oh my gosh, you're out there working in the hot sun. I mean, this is in the north of Chile, which is desert. And I just thought while I was out there one day, and somebody had rejected us, and I just thought, "Why am I doing this? Why am I doing this?" When you grow up in the church and you have seminary teachers that tell you, "You must go share the gospel because there are people out there wanting this message." Oh, I got out there and found out that nobody wanted my message. And that was kind of a, I guess you kind of think that somewhere out there, there's somebody who's just, you know, reading the Bible and just praying for missionaries to show up. And then you find out that they're all just busy getting along with their lives, and they didn't want to take time to talk to a couple of North Americans who couldn't even speak Spanish very well. And I think I just missed home. I was missing my family. I was missing my friends. I was missing the involvement that my life had had before. Suddenly, I was focused on one little thing and it was hard because nobody cared about it. And I think that's when I said, "Wait, why am I here? Why am I doing this? Why don't I just go home?" But I knew the answer. God needed me. God wanted me. God called me. And I was there. But then I thought, Well, where's God? It's not that I had all these overwhelming doubts, but it's just that my testimony had not deepened to a point where I knew for myself. So when I was there, and it got difficult, I really said, "Where's God?" And that thought shook me. It really shook me. And so I think my companion noticed because when we went back to the apartment for lunch, he said, "What's the matter with you?" And I said, "I think I lost my testimony today." And he started to laugh. He's like, "Hahaha. Wilcox, you're so funny. You always just crack me up. Now go wash so we can eat." So I'm in the bathroom, washing my hands, and I'm thinking, "Man, this is not good," you know, "This is not good. I need an angel. That's all there is to it. I need to see an angel. Joseph Smith saw one and he was younger than me. So I need an angel." And so I got through the rest of the day, and then that night I got up on the top bunk, I always chose the top bunk. One, because it was a little closer to heaven, and two, it was a little farther from the fleas. But there I was, and I knelt down in my top bunk and with all the faith that I could muster, I said, "God, are you there?" And suddenly, my room was filled with light, and then the car passed. Joseph Smith gets a vision, Brad gets headlights. That's what I got. A car passing, and then I was really disappointed because you know I'd finally prayed with faith, really prayed sincerely, and that was the answer that I got? And I felt kind of ripped off because, you know, we've been teaching people that if you read, if you study, if you pray, then you can know the truth. Well, here I was asking, and I felt like my prayer wasn't being answered. But that was a wake up call for me. Because as I laid there, I thought, "Have I really read as much as I should have? And have I really pondered as much as I should have? Have I prayed beyond the "Thank thee for everything, please bless everybody prayers," that I had given my whole life. And so that was a turning point for me. And the next morning I woke up with such a desire to read. I read the Book of Mormon, I read the Doctrine and Covenants, I read the pearl of great price, I read the miracle of forgiveness, I read a marvelous work and a wonder. I mean, I just read, and suddenly, I just could not get enough as I read and as I pondered. Now, we had a zone conference. And our mission president came and he did interviews and I was a young missionary in the mission. You know, I hadn't been there all that long. And so I was still, you know, really worried about making a good impression on my mission president. So he did the interview and he said, "How are you elder?" I said, "Fine. President." He said, "How's your companion?" I said, "Fine. President." "How's your area? How are your investigators?" "Fine, president." He says, you know about seven questions and seven "fine, presidents" later. I stood up to leave and then he said something that he'd never said before. He said, "Elder Wilcox, do you have any questions?" Woah, questions. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I just had a million questions. I mean, let's start with, "Is there a god? Does he even exist?" I just looked at him and I said, "Me, questions? Oh, no president. You know, I've never even had a cavity. I don't have any questions." A little while after that I got transferred to another area. And I packed my books, I packed my clothes, I packed you know, everything, but I didn't have room for doubts. But inside I packed those also. I just hadn't felt like I had an answer as clearly as I wanted the answer. I realized that I wasn't doing what I needed to do to be able to deserve an answer that I was asking for. I think sometimes until you have a doubt or a question, you don't feel a motivation to learn. I think the questions, the doubts, the unanswered prayer, motivated me to dig deeper. For me, it was like, "Okay, it's time to buckle down. It's time to take this seriously. It's time to do what you know you're supposed to do to get what you want to get." So I dove in. In the new area where I was transferred, my companion and I worked harder than ever. I mean, we just loved that little branch. This was in the town of La Serena, the one I mentioned at the beginning, and we loved our little branch, we loved the people in the branch, we loved the people we were teaching, we worked harder than I'd ever worked on my mission. We loved with a more genuine love than I'd ever loved before. We served with such a complete selflessness. And yet still, the answers, I mean, I felt good, I knew that I was happier. But the answers that I really wanted were eluding me. And then I got another interview. So there I was, in La Serena, and we met with a mission president. He said, "How are you Elder?" And I said, "Fine." And he said, "How's your companion? How's your area?" I said, "Fine, fine, fine, fine, fine." And then, as I was leaving the interview, again, he asked me, "Elder Wilcox, do you have any questions?" And I don't know, maybe I'd just been working hard enough and long enough that I didn't care anymore about the fact that he was the mission president. I needed answers. And I said, "President, is there a god?" And he said, "Yes." That was it. No quotes from the brethren, no scriptures, no judgmental looks. Just one word -- "Yes." And I said, "President, does he know me?" "With all of his numberless children, on all of his numberless worlds, does he know me?" And President Day said, "Brad Wilcox. He knows you by your first name." And then I said, "President, does he love me?" "Me even with all the stupid things I've done and all the dumb mistakes I've made." "Does he love me?" And he said, "Yes." And that was it. The spirit just washed over me confirming the truthfulness of my mission president's words. Suddenly, that answer was so clear and so personal. Suddenly, I knew for myself, the Spirit spoke to my spirit that became such an anchor for my soul, and such a foundation for my testimony. And I thought, "Why didn't you just answer me? Months earlier, why didn't he just answer me the first time I crawled up on my top bunk and prayed, "Are you there?" Why didn't he just answer me then?" But then I thought, "If he had answered me then, would I have studied as hard as I had studied? Would I have read with the ravenous desire that I read? Would I have pondered as deeply as I pondered? Would I have talked to mission companions about the gospel? Or would I have just kept shooting the breeze and wasting time?" I mean, "Would I have served as sincerely as I served?" And I realized that I wouldn't have. If God had still been holding me above the water, I never would have learned to swim. And it's when he finally let my head dip below the water, which scared me. That's what finally motivated me to search and to do what I've been instructed to do. And so even now sometimes when I might wonder, I go back to that moment. And that's why Chile is sacred ground for me. That's why that little town of La Serena is a sacred to me as the sacred grove is to Joseph Smith. That is the place where my testimony deepened to the point that I knew, and I knew that God knew and I could not deny it. KaRyn 17:15 That was author and teacher Brad Wilcox. I love that Chile became a sacred place for him because of both the depth of his struggle and the brilliance of light that he found there. It reminds me of Joseph Smith's description of that thick darkness that gathered around him in the grove that was trying to convince him that he was doomed to destruction. And then, of course, my favorite part to share when I was a missionary, that welcome moment of illumination when a pillar of light above the brightness of the Sun descended gradually upon him. It seems to me that often our sacred ground is defined by moments that are symbolic of the salvation that comes from Jesus Christ and His Atonement. Darkness turned to light, death turned to everlasting life, despair turned to hope. And it doesn't surprise me that my friend Brad is the teller of such a story. He has spent his entire writing career trying to help us understand the atonement, grace, and mercy of our Savior, that he so acutely felt on that sacred ground. And we're all just a little bit better because of it. Our next story comes from Cody, who allowed a wet, cold, barren patch of desert to be transformed into a place where the fire of her testimony could burn brightly. Here's Cody. Cody 18:34 I was 15 years old, this is in 1989, and I had a big tennis tournament that I was supposed to be competing in that day. And my family, extended family all showed up to come and cheer me on, but I didn't. I had gotten high with some friends earlier in the day and kind of lost track of time and just really was oblivious to any of my responsibilities. When evening came, I went home and I remember thinking it was very strange because I had extended family that was there and my mom had laid out dinner on the table. And we were all about ready to sit down for a family dinner, which didn't happen in the middle of the week very often for us. And when we sat down to eat, a knock came at the door. When it was open, two large men came in, and I was told that I was going to be just living in the wilderness for an untold number of days. And it was a wilderness survival program meant for troubled youth. At an early age, a…

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Glass Half Full Feb 24, 2020

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During a week-long break from running track at Utah State University, Brittany fell in love with climbing the red rocks of southern Utah. And a moonlight rappel from a 200-foot cliff with a friend was just the adventure Brittany was looking for. But that night, adventure quickly turned to tragedy, leaving Brittany with a life-changing diagnosis that ultimately led her to a new relationship with her self and her Savior. This episode of THIS IS THE GOSPEL is sponsored by the First Light Concert Celebration of the First Vision presented by Deseret Book. SHOW NOTES To find the pictures and videos of Brittany's story, head to our shownotes at LDSLIVING.com/thisisthegospel EPISODE TRANSCRIPT KaRyn Lay 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. We all know that person, you know, the one who takes all the hard things that life sends their way and eats them for breakfast. The one who somehow finds the way to remain fully cheerful regardless of their circumstances. And can I tell you a secret? I've always been a little bit suspicious of that person. As someone who generally seeks consistent happiness, but sometimes can't find it, I often wonder if it's all a show- a mask- because I felt the pressure to put on a happy face even when I wasn't feeling it, so why wouldn't someone else? And I guess you could say that I'm a little pessimistic about whether it's actually possible for someone to remain fully optimistic in the midst of really hard things. And then I was put into a church calling with someone that I would have described, once upon a time, as painfully cheerful. From the outside, her life seemed perfect. Her children were perfect. Her hair even seemed perfect. And if she was struggling with anything, it would be impossible to know. And I didn't trust it. I made it my mission to try to figure out what was really under all that optimism and hope. I brought all my suspicions to our joint service. And do you know what I discovered? To my chagrin, as I grew to know and love this woman, I learned that life her life was far from perfect, but her choice to see and speak the positive was as real as it gets. In those moments of conversation, when it would have been easy to head below the line, I could actually see the wheels turning in her heart and in her mind as she worked her way back up to the top, finally landing her words in a place of hope, and goodness, and possibility. Now listen, I'm a huge fan of honoring our vulnerability and allowing our vetted safe people to cradle us in our sorrow, but this wasn't about that. She had her people to mourn with her. But she also made a conscious effort to speak hope. To turn her words and her face to the Savior in all things. And frankly, that's something I'm still trying to learn how to learn. Well, today we have one story from Brittany who learned her lessons in optimism in a unique way that she believes was tailored specifically to her. Here's Brittany. Brittany 2:27 In 2012, I was a 21-year-old student athlete at Utah State and I ran cross country in the fall and track in the spring, and I was always on the go. I rarely sat still. And I just loved being in nature. I genuinely loved running. Running in nature is where I would pray and felt closest to God and just loved every moment of life. I had great friends. I was doing well in school. I was healthy, no stress fractures and I felt closest to the Lord than I ever had in my life. And so just every aspect of my life really seemed to be going my way. And it was just this beautiful, busy life that was spent outdoors as much as I possibly could. So, in March of 2012, our coaches gave us the weekend off before outdoor track season started. So, I took the opportunity to join some friends down in St. George for a little bit of a spring break climbing trip and it was there that I fell in love with the red rocks. I think I went on like six runs in one day. We started climbing at 7:30am - climbed all day- I fit in six runs in between and ended the night I think swimming. So when I got the invitation to go out for a moonlight rappel... If you haven't gotten the gist, I was always up for an adventure... And so when I got that invitation I, I accepted and, and was all for it. And it was there that we went to Cougar cliffs. Sitting at the top of the cliff, I was just looking up at the stars and had this peaceful feeling while the fellow I with was setting everything up. And once we started the descent of the rappel, I had no idea how big the cliff was. I hadn't seen over the edge. And so as we started rappelling, that rope was really heavy and I never done a repel like this before, of this size. The cliff was 250 feet. And so as the speed kind of picked up, I tried to slow myself down, and my hand was burning so badly that, just kind of like when you touch a hot stove, it was just instinct to let go. We later found out I had a third degree burn on my hands so I had held on for as long as I could to try and slow my slow my descent but... At that point, it was a free fall for the next 80 to 100 feet. If you've ever been cliff jumping into water, it's that same feeling in your stomach or a roller coaster. I couldn't scream. I couldn't make any noise because I was falling so fast. But I kept wondering, when's the ground going to come? When's the ground going to come? And all of a sudden, just bam, there was.I fell about 80 to 100 feet, I hit the ground. From that moment, things went a little blurry. After the initial shock of the fall, I kind of came to my senses again. I looked up at the sky and how peaceful it was. And the fellow I was with had gone to call for help so, I was all alone. And I knew something was wrong. I assumed there was some bone sticking out in my legs, so I didn't look down at the damage... But as I looked up at the night sky, I just had this peaceful feeling again, and I thought to pray. And I think it was just instinct. And so I tried to roll over for the first time since I had fallen. I tried to roll over to maybe kind of kneel and pray and I couldn't even roll over. I didn't think anything weird of it. I just decided to stay on my back and look up at the stars and pray and it was kind of one of those desperate. "Heavenly Father, you know, please help me. I know I'm in trouble. I don't know what kind of trouble, but, like, if you help me in this situation, I'll do anything you ask." and maybe kind of bargaining with the Lord. But I I just felt such peace as I laid there alone. Slowly, search and rescue came and found me and started boarding me up. Lifeflight had landed and they were getting ready to take me to the hospital. When search and rescue had been called, they typically get two types of calls: a rescue and recovery. Recovery, they're just going in to get a body and rescue, they're going in to get someone in danger, someone who's hurt in a tight place. And so when they heard my situation, they assumed they were coming in for recovery just to get a body. And so you can imagine their surprise when not only was I alive, but I was awake. And so from there they life flighted me to Las Vegas. I went through all the initial CAT scans and MRIs. And from there, they whisked me away into surgery, and I woke up 10 hours later, 12 hours later, I think, is how long the surgery took, with my mother by my bedside. She had had time to fly from Chicago- book a flight from Chicago and get to the hospital to be by my bedside. But I was still intubated and couldn't speak and my mom was able to just sit by my bedside and read scriptures to me to help me calm down because I'd woken up really anxious. I knew what had happened, but I didn't know why I couldn't talk or move. And so the scriptures were able to just bring peace and I was able to fall back asleep until they could take all the tubes out of my throat. And the first few days were just cycles of in and out of sleep and pain medicine. I ended up with lots of broken bones in my legs,a burnt right hand and multiple fractures in my spine, including my T 12 vertebrae, which burst instantly paralyzing me from the waist down. The official diagnosis was a spinal cord injury and paraplegic. And it wasn't until I had been moved out of ICU. I had been filled with a lot of optimism and hope in those moments that I was awake. And it wasn't until I had been moved upstairs and I looked down my legs for the first time. I'd been so afraid that there were bone sticking out. But I figured at this point, I've had surgery on my legs. I've had surgery on my back, like, it can't be that bad. And when I looked down, I wanted to see my strong running legs, my great calves and quad muscles that helped me run fast in college. But instead, what I saw were these swollen, lifeless, cut up and bruised legs. That ...was.... that was my first moment of kind of doubt and discouragement crept into my mind. And that was the first time that I questioned "Who am I anymore?" You know, before I was this student athlete, this rock climber and this runner, all these things that I identified with my legs, and that was no more. So I kind of went through this identity crisis, wondering Who am I? doubting myself for the first time. From Las Vegas, I was eventually transferred to another rehab hospital in Colorado, which was Craig Hospital. It was a hospital just for spinal cord injuries and traumatic brain injuries. And it was there at Craig hospital that I learned to live life again in a wheelchair. I learned how to dress myself; how to go the bathroom; how to drive a car; how to cook in the kitchen. The simplest tasks became such a struggle to learn again, and from there I went through months and months of intense rehabilitation and physical therapy. And even after I was discharged from the hospital, I continued to learn how to walk. Once my bones had healed in my legs. I'd regained some muscle function and sensation in my legs enough to walk with a walker. And then eventually I learned to walk with crutches. And I can take some independent steps on my own, but I fall pretty quickly. And so, it was just this juggling act of wheelchair, walker, and crutches. And it was an intense year of physical therapy and healing both spiritually and emotionally. I think one of the biggest struggles I had, on top of all the physical pain, there was neuropathic pain, which was unlike anything I'd experienced before. Then there was also just a spiritual stretching, which was painful, as I learned so many new lessons. And the hardest thing physically though, was not having running to cope with anymore which was also emotional because running was my therapy. Running was what I did when I was happy or when I was sad, when I was frustrated or when I was excited. And so finding something to fill that hole that running had left in my life.... It wasn't until about a year and a half into my recovery. I had graduated from Utah State. I had student- taught in my wheelchair. I had walked across the stage at graduation. And I had finally kind of slowed down and realized that this is permanent. That this diagnosis wasn't going anywhere. My paralysis wasn't going away. And that's when I kind of hit my spiritual and emotional low. And that's when I faced the depths of grief and depression. And those were the moments where I felt completely alone and wondered where that promise was that that God had given us saying, "I will not leave you comfortless." There I was, feeling pretty dang comfortless and questioning everything that I had... I knew about our loving Heavenly Father. But I came to learn with perspective in hindsight, during those those months of darkness and depression and grief, that Heavenly Father was aware of what I was going through. He was aware of my loss and my struggles and my sadness, but he had to allow me to feel that darkness... to feel that sadness, so I could understand what others have gone through and will go through and are going through. So I can empathize and have compassion towards them and minister to others. It was so meaningful to know that the Savior understood my struggles individually because I was facing some really unique circumstances, some pain, some neuropathic pain that literally caused me to cry out in the night. I couldn't even describe the pain to anyone. And learning to go to the bathroom again, the simplest little task that we learn at two years old, I was learning this again and the Savior knew I was struggling with once again. He knew the pain and the loss that I was experiencing. And that meant so much because even other spinal cord injuries didn't know exactly what I was experiencing or feeling. They may have a better understanding, but only the Savior truly knew and had felt that neuropathic pain - had felt that emotional pain and loss that I was experiencing. And, it just helped me feel like I wasn't alone at all. But during that season when I wasn't so optimistic when the grief and and loss and depression was so heavy, it was hard to find the light. And that's where I just practiced CPR: church, prayer, reading the scriptures. It was spiritual CPR and I wasn't feeling it for so many months... But as I continued to do those small and simple things, there was no one light bulb moment when everything came together and I was happy again. It was more of a gradual sunrise. It was more of a gradual coming back to myself... coming back to finding joy and and choosing joy. Because we're taught that it's our reaction to adversity, not adversity itself, that that really matters. And so, we don't always get to choose what happens to us, but we always get to choose how we react. And I don't think Heavenly Father's upset with us when we feel the sadness and the darkness, but just as long as we still choose him at the end of the day. I believe in a just and loving Heavenly Father, and I believe he doesn't cause bad things to happen, but he allows them to happen. And that night, he allowed that accident to happen. He allowed the effects of gravity to pull me down to the ground and to cause all these broken bones upon impact. I mean, that's the laws of gravity, like God is not only a just and loving God, but He's the God of order. And, and that's a part of it -- our free agency and those consequences. And so I've found a lot of peace and knowing that Heavenly Father didn't cause this to happen, but he allowed it to happen. But he also did so much more in preserving my life. First off, I mean, the fact that I even survived. I know that Heavenly Father was involved in the details. That he preserved my life and not only my life, but my ability to speak and think for myself, and have relationships... because I didn't have a helmet that night, and that there was no brain damage is such a tender mercy, a miracle in itself on top of the miracle of still being alive. So I know that Heavenly Father was involved in the details, but that he didn't cause it to happen, but he allowed it to happen. My life now is nothing like what I would have pictured myself. If you had asked 21 year old Brittany where she would be in seven years, I would not have painted this picture. But now that I'm living it, it's so beautiful, as I've become a wife and a mother and I have my boys- my husband and my son and my dog --and I still am able to be active and get outdoors. That looks different than what I would have imagined and what I would have preferred running on my own two feet, but I still able to get out t…

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