Summer 2016 Vol. 36 No. 1

SUMMER 2016 VOL. 36 NO. 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE 06 20 11 COVER ART 05 LETTER FROM THE DECIDUOUS VENTRICLE 17 Natalie Stallings EDITOR 11 BOOK REVIEW MARGARET OLSEN MISSIONARY BARBIE FROM DIPLOMAT TO HEMMING Sydney Pritchett STRATEGIST: A REVIEW OF NAVIGATING MORMON FAITH CRISIS Eunice Yi McMurray 07 14 HEARTBREAK AND FOR ELSIE HOPE S.K. Julie Searcy 18 SISTERS SPEAK IDEAS FOR VISITING TEACHING

WHAT IS EXPONENT II? Exponent II provides a forum for Mormon women to share their life experiences in an atmosphere of trust and acceptance. This exchange allows us to better understand each other and shape the direction of our lives. Our common bond is our connection to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- day Saints and our commitment to women. We publish this paper as a living history in celebration of the strength and diversity of women. 27 24 36 23 FLANNEL BOARD 20 WOMEN IN THE LDS HOW (A TEENSY BIT CHURCH: A COURSE OF 31 30 OF) APOSTASY MADE ME A STUDY EXPONENT BETTER MORMON Kathryn Loosli Pritchett GENERATIONS Lauren Ard THE ROLES OF WOMEN 28 Lucy M. Hewlings WINDOWS AND WALLS Jan L. Tyler 26 Heather Moore-Farley 22 POETRY Rachel Rueckert POETRY MANDALA THE MIDDLE Mary Farnsworth Smith Stacy W. Dixon 34 HIDE AND SEEK

27 Brooke Parker BOOK REVIEW BAPTISM AND BOOMERANGS Lisa Hadley

COVER ARTIST STATEMENT I am a freelance illustrator and artist living in Provo, Utah. When not drawing about ladies, and other lovely things, I like to use my personal work as a space to analyze domestic 21st century living. By simultaneously using fictional narratives blended with humor and realism, I am able to use art as a means to more deeply explore and understand my own life as well as the broad subjects and modern issues (especially that of femininity) that naturally weave themselves throughout the lives of many. [email protected] | @natistalls | nataliestallings.com EDITORIAL STAFF EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Margaret Olsen Hemming

MANAGING EDITOR Pandora Brewer

ART EDITOR Page Turner SUBMIT TO EXPONENT II LAYOUT DESIGNER/ EDITOR We welcome personal essays, articles, poetry, fiction, and Rose Gochnour Serago book reviews for consideration. Please email submissions to [email protected] or mail them to Exponent II, EXPONENT GENERATIONS EDITOR 219 South Louis Street, Mount Prospect, IL 60056. Please Susan Christiansen include your name and contact information. Submissions BOOK REVIEW EDITOR received by mail will not be returned. Lisa Hadley We are always looking for artwork and photography SABBATH PASTORALS EDITOR to accompany our writing. Please send jpegs or gifs Fara Sneddon of art submissions to our email. If you are interested POETRY EDITOR in illustrating articles, please contact us for specific Melody Newey assignments. GLOBAL ZION EDITOR Liz Charles SPECIAL THANKS TO WOMEN’S THEOLOGY EDITOR Avril Caron, Janina Eppel, Heather Freitas, Katie Davis Emily Parker Updegraff Henderson, Dotty Ralphs, Elizabeth Sanchez, and Natalie Stallings for the use of their artwork in this issue. SUBSCRIPTION MANAGER Kirsten Campbell Exponent II (ISSN 1094-7760) is published quarterly by ADDITIONAL STAFF: Exponent II Incorporated, a non-profit corporation with Susannah Bingham Buck, Liesl Buskirk, Sasha Cahoon, no official connection with The Church of Jesus Christ Emily Clyde Curtis, Erica Cottam, Julie Crockett, of Latter-day Saints. Articles published represent the Heather Gunnell, Kristine Haglund, Karen Rosenbaum, opinions of authors only and not necessarily those of Heather Sundahl, and Molly Wunderli the editor or staff. Letters to Exponent II or its editors EXECUTIVE BOARD: and Sisters Speak articles are assumed intended for publication in whole or in part and may therefore be used PRESIDENT TREASURER SECRETARY for such purposes. Heather Sundahl Suzette Smith Brooke Williams

EMERITUS BOARD Emily Clyde Curtis, Nancy Dredge, Judy Dushku, Aimee Evans Hickman, Linda Hoffman Kimball, Deborah Farmer Kris, Caroline Kline, and Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

4 EXPONENT II LETTER FROM THE EDITOR WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO SEEK AFTER GOD?

MARGARET OLSEN HEMMING

I just finished reading J.D. Salinger’s Franny and Zooey last week. Franny is a young woman who is spiritually ungrounded and is searching for divine direction and meaning. She begins the practice of repeatedly saying the Jesus Prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me,” so that it becomes unconscious and automatic. Yet she ceremony. “Missionary Barbie,” by Sydney Pritchett, continues to feel lost and she resents the people around her wonders whether our preconceived ideas of revelation who increasingly grate on her as superficial and egotistical. limit our recognition of the spirituality we may carry with She doesn’t know where to find God, even though she is us. While some lean practical and some mystical, all these seeking. women are sharing ideas of how to seek after God.

There are times in my life when I feel like Franny. My husband, Patrick, has been musing lately over Alma’s Sometimes my prayers, scripture study, service, and description of the “mysteries of God,” described in chapter worship all feel rote and automatic. My lips are there, but 26. Alma states that some followers of God will receive the my heart is not. I begin to wonder what my purpose is, in gift of revealing “things which never have been revealed.” what direction I’m headed, and whether the effort is worth How will these revelations roll forth? What will be their it. I struggle to see God and I get distracted. I’m ashamed by content? Why are they shrouded in mystery in the first how easily it happens. I almost always cry during the hymn place? Patrick believes that it is for the purpose of building Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing when I hear the lines, the kingdom of God together: that by hearing others’ stories, “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it/ Prone to leave the God beliefs, and spiritual journeys, we lay open the possibility of I love,” because I see myself too clearly in them. I am too gaining greater revelation than we could alone. He sees the frequently careless in my spiritual journey toward bringing work of Exponent II as contributing to this work of revealing God into my life. Day to day Mormonism continues, but I the mysteries of God through the multitude of voices. I am forget to be a seeker. happy to agree with him.

As Pandora and I reviewed submissions a few months ago, Without spoiling the ending of Franny and Zooey, I will state a theme emerged , fully-formed, ready to knit together that Franny comes to a similar conclusion: that her efforts the entire issue. Authors seemed to be seeking, searching at prayer are meaningless if she doesn’t see divinity inside for new or renewed sources of spirituality in their lives. herself and in every person around her. The Kingdom of Authors ask questions about how to breathe new life into Heaven may be found in ways expected and unexpected, their callings, their church meetings, and their visiting but the critical requirement is that we must keep seeking for teaching. Rachel Rueckert in “Windows and Walls” and it. Brooke Parker in “Hide and Seek” earnestly pursue a relationship with their Heavenly Mother and explore “That their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in individual yearnings for divinity in a complex community. love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, “For Elsie” describes author S.K.’s efforts to make her to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God, and of the Father, temple worship an uplifting and spiritually rewarding and of Christ; in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and experience, despite her ambivalence about the endowment knowledge.” - 2 Colossians 2:2-3

SAMPLE COMPILATION 5 6 EXPONENT II SABBATH PASTORALS “Pilgrim” by Janina Eppel (opposite) 1

SPRING 2016 7

HOPE can make or unmake a life, questions that have patiently waited for you questions that have no right to go away. I love this poem and the line “questions that have no that make the questions These are right to go away.” and unmake our lives and that call us into being and of I believe we all have our own set ask us to grow. “questions that have patiently waited“ for us. Some of as I came to know and my abiding questions emerged Africa. love a new place — South Africa seemed to be full of tension and paradox, South kept plucking at my soul and something that really was a question about hope. How can hope and hope and pain, exist together? What is their struggle, Thank you for being with me today in this quiet Thank you for being with me today draw roof place — the big windows and the arching us. The my eyes to the Indiana woods that surround has shaped my experience this newness of spring green Williams Tempest weekend. I have long loved Terry place, Berry for the way they write about and Wendell place and how and I think often about the power of experience the it shapes what we know and how we world. in particular, I want to talk today about how one place in me long-lasting questions Africa, inspired South and hope — between struggle about the relationship writes, questions that, as poet David Whyte

JULIE SEARCY HEARTBREAK relationship? I kept feeling this paradox of hope was fueling grapple with. How can I learn to see and hear others when my further questions. we are from very different places and experiences? How do I live in community with people even when practices are There is something divine about hurtful and patriarchal? How do I continue to have hope when there is so much hurt? paradoxes. We know, from 2 Nephi 2, that there must be After my mission, I eventually found my way to graduate school at Indiana University, studying Anthropology, opposition in all things. This Communication, and Culture. As an academic, I was again drawn to the paradox of life and death: 30 percent of opposition can give birth to the pregnant women in South Africa are HIV positive, and I questions that don’t go away and wanted to study how women think about death while in the process of giving life. So my husband John and I gathered can offer us something powerful up our three kids and went to South Africa in March 2014. in our worship and our personal I want to give you just a snippet of South Africa through refinement. my eyes. There are many ways to see this country; what I am going to tell you now is a view through just one set of Sean Holder, in a blog on law and religion, captured some eyes. We stayed in a place called East London, which is in of this when he wrote, “Grappling with paradoxes may be the Eastern Cape right along the warm waters of the Indian a fundamental and instructive form of worship, that asks Ocean. There are beautiful mountains and rolling hills — us to understand and integrate religious principles more depending on the season it can be a palette of sun-seared deeply.”2 Pain, hope and struggle — my grappling questions browns or vibrant blue greens. East London is the poorest — came to me in South Africa. I had just returned from province in the country; it is mostly rural with a few larger spending a year there while I was doing my anthropology cities scattered throughout the province. dissertation research, but my love for South Africa started long before our trip. Race threads through every interaction in South Africa — 85 percent of the country is black, 4 percent is white and After a feminist awakening at BYU, I was called to serve a 9 percent is colored. In East London this meant that we mission in Johannesburg, South Africa, just a few years after heard Xhosa, English, and Afrikaans. Every morning we its first democratic elections. I had five months of waiting would see an exodus out of our upper class, mostly white before going to the MTC, so I devoured every book I could neighborhood as all its inhabitants would drive away in about South Africa, and the things I learned about the their expensive cars on their way to work. Simultaneously, complex, painful political and racial history of the country the black domestic workers and gardeners would come moved me deeply. walking into the neighborhood. Black people came to clean the homes and the gardens of the white people who left for South Africa seared something inside of me with its the day. However, while the blacks would enter the whites’ contradictions and paradoxes. It’s a gorgeous country. The space, the whites very rarely entered the blacks’ space; they stunning landscape is often filled with the powerful signs of rarely entered the townships. This imbalance of visibility poverty: sprawling townships with small uniform matchbox makes for a country where those with the wealth and the houses and the shacks that grow up around and in between power never really see the textured lives of the people who them. There are luxury suburbs surrounded by devastating enter their homes and clean their toilets. This imbalance fear in the guise of huge gates and security systems. People didn’t just exist in the work day lives of the South Africans; can be incredibly warm but conversation can be steeped in it existed in their Sunday worship as well. subtle and not so subtle racism. I saw abundance and lack. I saw life and death in the form of HIV/AIDS sweeping Our ward in East London challenged us, giving birth to through communities during my mission. more painful questions. Unlike larger metropolitan areas in South Africa, there aren’t a lot of Americans or other Exposure to both the things I saw and the stories of the foreigners in East London. We were the only American people I met brought me to some of the questions that began family in a stake that encompassed a four hour radius. The to make and unmake my life, questions that I continue to ward we attended was wealthy and mostly white. There

8 EXPONENT II SABBATH PASTORALS SAMPLE COMPILATION 9 SAMPLE COMPILATION John and I felt comfortable going into the places many white white places many into the going comfortable and I felt John some with friends we became didn’t, and Africans South and in the local townships members who lived of the ward church them up for began picking settlements. We informal are less Africa laws in South them home. Traffic and taking to get away able were and we than the ones here stringent four our family as well as another two to with packing both we must two-door vehicle; I’m sure people into our tiny of clown car piling in an unlikely number have looked like a an older couple Sunday, One particular adults and children. car and asked if we needed help pulled up to our packed That “Yes! John replied relieved A home. getting everybody Nombulelo Could you take Lindiwe and would be great! them off as be easy to drop it would home?” He figured way home. They looked at him they lived on the couples’ of “Oh no, we won’t bring any and said without hesitation, could take Julie and the kids, though.” John them home. We manage,” he told “We’ll with anger. was almost trembling them, turning away. and the same problems was not an outlier; Our ward had friends well. We tensions existed at the stake level as and they told who lived in the township, another ward from of the chapels there us that the air conditioning unit in one it to the stake, they were When they reported was broken. fix it — the ward or told that the stake would not replace had to do it themselves. in South area Because the Eastern Cape is the poorest extra Africa and has the worst education outcomes, been allocated to Perpetual Education funds (PEF) have our stake had one of the lowest those members. However, of the funding. We numbers of youth taking advantage stories about black youth in the stake asking for heard PEF funds and being told that they would not be given permission to access them because the stake presidency Only one member their course of study. didn’t approve had completed any higher of the white stake presidency seemed to be a general mistrust education at all, and there of higher education. In a country with astronomical how LDS young adults carried unemployment, I wondered struggle. institutionalized on in what seemed like church interactions that left John just a few of the church These are Let me be clear and me feeling exhausted, sad, and troubled. that, as a white person of privilege, most of these things not aimed at us: I was not being left out of visiting were I was not teaching because of my skin color or my poverty. Quite the member. being denied a ride with another ward opposite: Our white skin made us colluders, and we often people assumed found ourselves in conversations where “we all could see how difficult the blacks can be.” John and I immediately received “big” callings “big” callings I immediately received John and 3 While serving in the (all white) Relief Society Presidency, Society Presidency, While serving in the (all white) Relief I often felt baffled during our meetings. I noticed almost immediately that no black sisters had visiting teachers When I asked about this, unless they lived in white areas. “Oh, we could an older woman, replied, the president, I never go into the places they live. It is too dangerous. just copy the message and have the missionaries deliver carried on discussing things, it to them each month.” We At another presidency while I tried to make sense of this. trying to schedule some upcoming meeting, we were Relief suggested we hold a ward activities and the president Society activity on the same day as a stake Relief Society that the stake activity the president I reminded activity. will go none of us “Well, was happening, and she replied to that — it’s in Mdantsane [the local township], so we might as well do our own thing.” I felt such shock and again questioned how the black sisters found any hope when they came up against these sentiments. Siviwe and Estelle had been attending church together for church Siviwe and Estelle had been attending attending our seven years. The usual number of people ward was only fifty or sixty — it was such a small ward me to know the names that it was not difficult for John and I was shocked and attended. of everyone who regularly seem to recognize embarrassed for Estelle that she didn’t Siviwe kept attending or know Siviwe. I asked myself how to her fellow when she was nameless and unrecognizable sisters. How did she find hope? ward To illustrate our ward’s issues, let me tell you about a issues, let me tell you our ward’s illustrate To kids. and their three and Tuliana Xhosa family — Siviwe time together exploring dinner and spent often shared We After our first Sunday in the coast. the beautiful wild using her name. She was I called goodbye to Siviwe ward, later I few months A it! remembered visibly shocked I had center at a shopping when we were understood this shock our ward. an older white woman from together and ran into or me by name but didn’t seem to recognize She greeted “Hello Sister to her, acknowledge Siviwe until Siviwe said turned to her and said, “Do At that point, Estelle Estelle.” we go to said, “Yes, we know each other?” Siviwe patiently Estelle looked surprised and, turning back together.” church to me, carried on with conversation. and held them through the year we were there while other while there year we were the them through and held overlooked. were and permanent people capable more were three or four black families who came regularly and and regularly who came families four black or three were no black were There members. black of single a handful and the black presidencies, in any of the auxiliary members ways — large in all kinds of marginalized were members and small. I was witness to the real pain and struggle of black members less kindly by some white members. As they left, Thoba of the church, and in the witnessing I couldn’t help but complained bitterly. Julia listened calmly until Thoba had feel persistent questions of how they managed to remain vented her frustration. Then Julia said, “Oh Thoba, the participants in a community that seemed to deny them hope Church is like a big hospital and we are all sick in our own of full membership. This was very uncomfortable terrain, way.” especially in a church that espoused belief in the good news of the gospel, in Christ’s promise in 2 Nephi 26:33 that He From Julia’s perspective, the hurt she experienced at church “denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond from white members was not excused or dismissed but and free, male and female.” rather contextualized through her metaphor of a hospital tending to the sick. The hurt of racist aggression, large It was being caught in these and small, at church is real, just as the pain of patriarchal practices is real. Both can lead to heartbreak. moments that demanded I revisit some of my questions and think David Whyte, the same poet who wrote that our questions have no right to go away, also wrote about the importance, about the painfulness that is power, and beauty of heartbreak:

hope: What does it look like to Heartbreak is unpreventable, the natural outcome of hold on to hope when there is caring for people and things over which we have no control. Heartbreak begins the moment we are asked to hurt around me? let go but cannot — it colors and inhabits and magnifies each and every day. Heartbreak is not a visitation but a Often we cast hope as a warm fuzzy feeling, a kind of path that human beings follow through even the most anticipation, but South Africa asked me to see hope as average life. Heartbreak is an indication of our sincerity; something grittier and often full of paradox. Brown suggests in a love relationship, in a life’s work, in the attempt to that hope is a function of struggle.4 A function is the purpose shape a more generous self.”5 for which something is designed or exists. So hope and struggle have a very real and very powerful relationship. I believe David Whyte is describing here the path we walk From Brown’s perspective, “Hope is a cognitive, behavioral when we take Isaiah’s promise seriously. It is possible for process that we learn when we experience adversity.” When struggle to yield hope, for “beauty to become ashes, the oil I think about hope in this way, I think about Maxine Hank’s of joy mourning and the garment of praise for the spirit of talk about the goddess and her journey of descending and heaviness” (Isaiah 61:3). South Africa led me to questions ascending — in some versions, Inanna’s terrible descent and about heartbreak and about hope, and these questions her subsequent ascension bring adversity and hope together. continue to patiently wait for me as I make my life around them, working to become a more generous self. Paul describes the relationship between hope and struggle Julie loves being outside in the woods, the mountains or the desert in Romans 5:3–5 when he says, “Tribulation worketh alone or with her kids and husband depending on her mood. Dark patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope. chocolate and reading are also pretty great. And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is NOTES given unto us.” Julia Mavimbela was one of the first black 1 Whyte, David. Everything is Waiting for You. Langley WA: Many Rivers members of the church in South Africa and she understood Press. 2003. Print. 2 Holder, Sean. Where Law and Religion Meet. Associated with Emory this paradox about hope, and, as Paul illustrated, Julia’s University’s Center for the Study of Law and Religion. 2012. Web. 27 hope made her not ashamed. Elder Renlund, in fact, paid February 2012. 3 Happily in the time since we’ve left, a new bishop made one of the black tribute to Julia in his April 2015 Conference talk: sisters in the ward the Primary president. 4 Tippets, Krista. Interview with Brene Brown “The Courage to Be After the apartheid regime ended, black and white members Vulnerable” Transcript of Radio Broadcast from On Being. Web. 29 January 2015. of the Church were permitted to attend church together. 5 Whyte, David. Everything is Waiting for You. Langley WA: Many Rivers For many, the equality of interactions between the races Press. 2003. Print. was new and challenging. One time as Julia and Thoba [her daughter] attended church, they felt they were treated

10 EXPONENT II FLANNEL BOARD WOMEN IN THE LDS CHURCH: A COURSE OF STUDY KATHRYN LOOSLI PRITCHETT

COURSE OVERVIEW other and said, “Now what?” Class was starting in a week and we had 14 weeks beyond that to fill, but there was no When I tell people that my husband and I just taught a CES manual for a course on Women in the Church. So we Sunday School course on Women in the Church, they started by listing possible lesson topics based on with what usually look at me as though I’d said I’ve discovered the lost we knew or what we wanted to know more about. That 116 pages of the Book of Mormon. list included prominent women in LDS history, polygamy, Mother in Heaven, Eve, women’s auxiliaries, women and “How’d you do that!?” they ask. Often followed by, “Aren’t the priesthood and LDS women’s contributions outside the you going to get in trouble?” as though we’d somehow held home. We took our list to the first class and brainstormed our ward hostage for two months and forced them to talk with the Institute students to see what they were interested about Scary Girl Stuff. When I tell them that the course was in talking about — after all, they’d requested the course — requested by our bishop and ward council and was based and incorporated their suggestions into our course outline. on a course we taught at the local LDS Institute, they shrug their shoulders and say “Well, you live in the Bay Area. That could never happen here in Utah/Idaho/Texas/anywhere but California.” COURSE OUTLINE

1. Introduction/Brainstorming “What Should a Class on I tell them not to be so sure about that. I talk about how the Mormon Women Include?” course was very well-attended and had extremely positive 2. How Mormons View Eve and Mary reviews. That it engaged members of different genders, 3. Founding Women - Lucy Mack Smith and Emma Smith ages, and faith perspectives. That people came from outside 4. Women and Gifts of the Spirit the ward boundaries to attend. I share that both times we 5. Pioneer Women - Eliza R. Snow and Zina D.H. Young taught the course there was a demonstrable hunger to hear 6. The Suffrage Movement - Emmeline B. Wells more women’s stories, women’s histories, and women’s 7. Women’s Auxiliaries - Relief Society, Young Women, and Primary concerns. And if they’re interested in attending or teaching 8. Plural Marriage - Ellis Reynolds Shipp and Annie Clark something similar, I give them specifics about how the Tanner Sunday School class came to be, so that it might happen in 9. Mother in Heaven (with stake member Carol Lynn Pearson their wards as well. as guest speaker) 10. Women in Transition - Amy Brown Lyman and Belle A little history. My husband, M.J., has taught an evening Stafford class for graduate students and working singles at the U.C. 11. Mormon Women and Second Wave Feminism - Barbara B. Berkeley Institute of Religion for the past seven years. Just Smith and Lived Experience (Talk to your mothers or share your own experience about the ERA) before the winter 2016 semester began he was asked by the 12. Modern Models - Chieko Okazaki and Sheri Dew Institute director to teach a course on a topic that an LDSSA 13. Mormon Women at Work survey had determined was of most interest to its members: 14. Viral Voices - Mormon Women on the Web (a panel Women in the Church. discussion with women in our area who have a presence online and openly identify as Mormon Women — originally M.J. agreed, but only if I would teach with him. I said titled “From Zelophehad’s Daughters to Mormon Mommy I would and the Institute director approved our team- Bloggers”) teaching. Once we had official approval, we turned to each 15. Final Thoughts/Going Forward

SAMPLE COMPILATION 11 “First One to See the Light Wins” by Elizabeth Sanchez “First One to See the Light Wins” by

Each week we distributed (by email) readings from a variety We hope that the current church curriculum will soon be of sources. We tried to achieve a good balance of lecture and modified to include more women-centric topics, but in the discussion with both of us teaching each week, alternating meantime a course similar to ours could be taught using the the order in which we spoke so that it was clear that existing lesson schedule. This could be done over the course neither of us was the main teacher. As with most teaching of several years (!) during fifth Sunday combined third assignments we felt that we learned as much or more than hours or over a year on the first Sundays of each month those we taught. during the time designated for Relief Society and Priesthood presidency messages. Alternatively, the course could be One of the major lessons we learned is that very few held, as ours was, over 8-12 weeks as a Sunday School class members (even graduate students at Berkeley) are familiar (much like marriage or family history courses held in many with LDS women’s history or LDS teachings about Eve, wards). We think this is preferable since it provides better Mary, and Mother in Heaven. We think this is primarily continuity. because little attention is given to women in our current curriculum. Not that church-sanctioned materials about Another argument for holding this as a Sunday School women aren’t available or that faith-promoting lessons on class is that a mixed-gender perspective on these topics these topics couldn’t be taught, but teachers have to seek can be quite meaningful. In our class, men heard women out the information on their own and incorporate it into speak up much more than they usually do in Sunday existing lessons. Yet given the LDSSA members’ initial School. And women heard how men looked at women- request for a course on women and the high attendance at centric topics differently from them. For example, the week both our Institute class and subsequent Sunday School class, we talked about Relief Society in the Institute course, the we think that many church members would like to study young women expressed frustration about meeting with and discuss this material. the older women and pointed out that Priesthood meetings

12 EXPONENT II FLANNEL BOARD are separated into two age groups. Then a male student Briefly introduce Eliza R. Snow and Zina D.H. Young shared his positive feelings toward his home ward Relief as the 2nd and 3rd Relief Society presidents as well as Society because they’d helped his mother and family “the head and the heart” of the early female leadership. through a divorce. When we discussed Mother in Heaven Include the spiritual manifestations both women in our home ward, women talked about wanting a role had when they were converted and talk about how model and friend. The men were mostly silent, but then they practiced the gifts of the spirit (D&C 45:19-26) one offered how important the idea of a Heavenly Mother — particularly the gift of tongues and gift of healing had been to him when he joined the church because he (Daughters of Light). had been adopted as a baby. He shared that he’d always found the concept of a Heavenly Mother comforting Share descriptions of women practicing the gift of tongues when processing the loss of his birth mother. in the early church (4 Zinas).

We also found that it was helpful to have both a woman Teacher 2 and a man teach this course since we brought different Talk about the Gospel Topics Essay (lds.org) “Joseph perspectives to the subject matter and it encouraged class Smith’s Teachings About Priesthood, Temple and participation by both men and women. Frankly, it also Women.” Emphasize that through the priesthood Joseph: helped that we are long time, active members of our ward which gave us some credibility in discussing sometimes 1. Organized/elevated the Relief Society which “defined challenging topics with a diverse group of ward members. and authorized a major aspect of women’s ministry,” using words like ordain and keys. To help you who may be interested in developing and proposing a similar course in your own ward, we’ve 2. Set up the temple where both men and women could created a site where you can access our course outlines, receive and administer priesthood ordinances. lesson plans and suggested readings called Women in the LDS Church: A Course of Study (https://sites.google. 3. Endorsed women giving healing blessings. com/site/womenintheldschurch). Since you may also be limited in the number of weeks allotted for a Sunday Share quotes from Joseph Smith and Brigham Young School course (we had eight weeks and an evening encouraging women to give healing blessings. Explain fireside) you may choose to combine related topics such that this practice diminished over time as the church as Eve, Mary AND Mother in Heaven or Modern Models moved into the modern age and was effectively ended in AND Women at Work. 1946 when Joseph Fielding Smith strongly encouraged members to call on the Elders for healing blessings. Below you’ll find our lesson plan for “Gifts of the Spirit (“Female Ritual Healing in Mormonism,” Stapley/ AND Pioneer Women – Eliza R. Snow and Zina D. H. Wright) Young.” Note that these combined lessons are packed with information, so to leave time for discussion (which is Read an example of one of these healing blessings. essential), it helps to be well-versed in the material so you (“A Gift Given, A Gift Taken: Washing, Anointing and can summarize it effectively and work details not covered Blessing the Sick,” Newell.) in the lecture portion into short follow-up comments during the discussion. Discussion Questions 1. Are there women in your family history who were LESSON PLAN called as healers who might have given blessings?

Gifts of the Spirit + Pioneer Women - Eliza R. 2. If this practice was reinstated, would there be certain Snow and Zina D. H. Young women you would look to as healers? Or would every righteous woman be a healer? In other words, does Teacher 1 everyone receive every gift of the spirit? Intro: Women of the Early LDS Church sought out and were strengthened by “Gifts of the Spirit.” 3. For the women in the room, if you were asked to give a healing blessing, how would you feel? What would you say in a blessing? For the men, how would you feel MIRACLE OF THE GULLS

POEM BY LINDSEY WEBB

My parents explained to me the future darkening of the outside world in which God would appear as someone walking down from a mountain I remembered raising my head from the bath after testing my breath, the white tile looking purple and black, alternating red and blue or when I rubbed my eyes and saw a white door open from the back of my head the light comes from the top of the mountain and falls downward in a fast rain

***

I found a limping gull near the seasonal lake and, though my father told me no, laid my hands on it the lake, even, worn shallow in parts like a garment at sunset looking out, all of it came floating in my eyes from both directions, the lake suddenly salt white, a perpendicular glare the valley expanding even after we turned our heads away the gull wandered away too, even after I had fallen down

***

On a trip to the desert I try to scare my brother by telling him stories “I did not know you had a hand” clouds curl overhead like an ear and perceive us, sitting on a petrified dune: “she had a secret eye, right under her arm” a small but real memory what do I think is folded underneath us between solid strips what do I imagine when I hold my hand to the sandstone and picture vibrations extending away from me my agency?

“Snowbuntings”, “Segolily” (opposite) by Maddison Colvin by “Segolily” (opposite) “Snowbuntings”, Lindsey Webb is an MFA candidate in poetry at University of Massachusetts Amherst. She was raised 14 EXPONENT II I am Mormon, and a feminist, and identity interfere with or contradict an artist, and I don’t think of it as each other in my lived experience. They this messy, irreconcilable thing. work in harmony, as they do in the None of those aspects of my lives of many of my friends.

ARTIST FEATURE: SWARMS Interview by Page Turner MADDISON COLVIN

Tell me what it is like to be a female Mormon artist. purely because of my process. There’s no intuition, nothing that looks like “creativity” involved. I think for a It’s interesting that I am a “female Mormon” artist, because long time until I have an idea for a project. This thinking although it’s a very accurate thing to say, I don’t find my is challenging, exciting, and definitely where all the fun own identity manifesting itself very strongly in my work. happens. Then I think about how that project would be My personality, certainly, my hand, and elements of my best executed. What’s the way it needs to be made? Once background—but I don’t think of myself as someone whose that’s decided, all that’s left is making the thing. This is by gender, sexuality, or body-in-the-world is terribly important far the most time-consuming part, and the part in which to the work. I think of my work as the polar opposite of a coincidences can emerge and really make the piece, but in self-portrait: I, as the artist, am a gigantic eyeball consuming terms of my role I transition from artist to machine at this information and excreting it again in the form of art. So if point All that remains are many hundreds of hours spent that’s the case, the eyeball happens to be female and happens painting. I can work for 12-15 hours at a time, and working to be Mormon, but its eyeball-ness has much more to do this way feels mentally much like a commute. I’ve got to do with what it makes than either of those things. Therefore, it to get there, but it’s not at all glamorous. if you ask me “what it’s like” to be a female Mormon artist, I can only describe what it’s like to be a giant eyeball That being said, I do think there’s an overriding aesthetic (metaphors always get away from me a little). to my work. The common line between the drawings, paintings, photos, and video is denseness. I make work Your aesthetic is unique and structured, and seems to explore that has a lot of time, information, image, line, mark, etc. relationships and subtle confrontations. How do you describe your accumulated in it. This sometimes manifests in a translucent work? And, would you tell me about your process? mass of layers, I would tend to describe myself as a conceptual artist, SAMPLE COMPILATION 15 sometimes in a tight and rigorous fail. That’s very moving to me. These think there’s something to be said for drawing, sometimes in the sheer are gestures toward the sublime and the connection between swarms (in number of pieces made in a series. I inaccessible Truth. In the church, we which the individual organism acts like the idea of exhaustiveness being believe that grace does the rest. as a part of a group) and the way in what pulls everything together. which a church requires some sacrifice I am curious about the visual language of individuality. It’s both a scary you use in the Swarms series: You You mentioned being inspired by the and a beautiful thing, I think, to be a relationships between scientific and use insects, birds, snakes, plants, experiential learning and the different bats, crab, and fish, all organisms that part of something that necessitates a truths each method reveals. What role does exhibit collective consciousness— setting aside of the individual in order your faith play in your art? “incommunicable collective knowledge” to become a part of a greater whole. you call it. What sparked this fascination? Utopian communities live and die on ARTIST FEATURE ARTIST I think the most important role faith that principle. Very simply, observing the behaviors plays is that my art comes from a of swarms. How can we explain premise supposing the existence of a In what way(s) has the Mormon Feminist the way birds fly so successfully in movement benefited or harmed your unified truth. It’s a fundamental LDS flocks? Or the way in which turtles creative pursuits? teaching, and one that I find terribly return to the same beach to lay eggs exciting. Truth exists. Now, can it be generation after generation? I liked I was fortunate to have been raised by knowable? Can we, as living beings, how genuinely mysterious/mystical very frank, practical, scientist parents, even approach capital “T” Truth? these behaviors are on the surface, and and have never really felt oppressed No way! But to me, the attempt to wanted to learn more. by my gender. I never felt as if I was approach truth, whether it’s through valued or raised at all differently from research, prayer, or observation, is When I first saw your Swarms series, my brothers, or that expectations worth thinking about in and of itself. immediately the Mormon pioneer story of were particularly different for us. My My art is not so much about truth as the crickets and the gulls came to mind. mom was an extremely bright doctor the search for it; in other words, it’s Are there intentional religious or cultural undertones in this work? and former soldier, and her tough more concerned with the mechanics of no-nonsense approach to faith was how we seek out and store knowledge I actually did a sound piece about the a model to me in ways that I didn’t than in what that knowledge actually gulls and locusts (you can find it on realize at the time. I realize that I’m means. We use words, images, actions, my website). The biggest relationship very lucky for that example, and I etc. to try to record, communicate, the swarm pieces have with am also massively privileged by my and elaborate on what we know, but Mormonism is the aforementioned race, education, and socioeconomic all of those mechanisms ultimately mystery or mysticism in them. I do background. Left to right: “California Quail,” “Green Darner,” “Sea Nettle,” “Garter Snakes,” “Rabbits” by Maddison Colvin “Rabbits” by Snakes,” “Garter “Sea Nettle,” Darner,” “Green Quail,” to right: “California Left 16 EXPONENT II There are lots of people who have not watering down of either aspect of my had the same chance, and I’m glad identity, but an acknowledgment that that Mormon feminism has created I’m not interested in functioning as a opportunities for them to see models LOST subset. of women making faith work for them. I’m also glad when women of AND Although I am both Mormon and faith “out” themselves as feminists, a feminist, I take some issue with or feminists “out” themselves as FOUND aspects of the Mormon feminist women of faith. Belief and identity movement. I was once on temple are complicated and personal and square when Ordain Women was it’s nice to see that at work! I am POEM BY HEATHER standing in line to ask to get into a Mormon, and a feminist, and an HOLLAND the Priesthood session. I stood with artist, and I don’t think of it as this friends in the line for a minute but messy, irreconcilable thing. None of eventually left. The atmosphere was those aspects of my identity interfere Inspired by that of excitement and anger and I with or contradict each other in “Rescue of the Lost Lamb” felt like it contradicted any genuine by Minerva Teichert my lived experience. They work in prayerfulness that might have been harmony, as they do in the lives of there. To be excited and validated Lost many of my friends. when you’re turned away—how can in the press the spirit live there? I know many of bleating white, There’s a linguistic and political Mormon feminists who don’t have I ache in my black wool, tension between the ideas of this masochistic glee when they come search for the shepherd, “Mormon comma feminist” and up against challenges, but are instead as others graze, content “Mormon feminist.” When two truly humble, kind, brokenhearted, with their pasture. identifiers weld together like that, it strong, fierce, loving, challenging, creates a third and somewhat separate smart, doubting, patient— I was once one group. The language defines in order embodying the multiplicities that of the gentle sheep to set apart. can be contained in faith. I much who heard his call, prefer the approach of representing who followed him, I would much rather be a “feminist multiplicities rather than demanding felt his soft caress (who is Mormon)” and a “Mormon dualities. in the close comfort of friends (who is feminist).” This isn’t a who did not feel me quake when safety turned to sorrow, do not know how long I’ve stood crowded and hungry in their midst.

I fight my way to the fringes, gaze at the wide green beyond, the craggy hills, streams of clear water. I tremble as I step away but it is time to walk the path that is calling me, and trust that lambs who leave the fold are never lost to him.

Heather Holland lives in Provo, Utah. Her work has appeared in Found Poetry Review, Segullah,Touchstones, and in her chapbook, Mastering the Art of Joy.

SAMPLE COMPILATION 17 How do you make visiting teaching work IDEAS FOR for you? Do you visit the old-fashioned way, with a companion going to a sister’s home? VISITING Do you like receiving visits like that? Do TEACHING you meet in groups or send an email? Have SISTERS SPEAK there been any times when visiting teaching Visiting teaching has the potential for so has failed you or been truly inspirational? much goodness. Learning love for our church sisters, serving one another, and If you’re not currently active in the church, being physically present with others are do you still like playing a role in the visiting all beautiful possibilities of the program. However, too often visiting teaching feels teaching program? What messages would burdensome, fake, or superficial, all the while inducing feelings of guilt. you like to hear?

India • Minneapolis, Minnesota me to become emotionally involved in the people I visit and those who visit me. But with the ladies whom I actually get There was a point in my life when watch-care was pretty much to visit for longer than four months, I am slowly building real the only thing I had a testimony of. I wasn’t going to church relationships. Most of the time, the visits I make and receive are much but had apparently put in enough appearances to be superficial and routine at best. I understand the need to make assigned sisters to teach. Spending time with them helped sure that everyone is taken care of, but in these wards, visiting so much at a time when I felt isolated and was far from any teaching seems almost comical instead of beneficial. family, and it was far more helpful than my Sunday meetings. We mostly just socialized, went out to lunch. I got to know Jane Martinelli • Utah their families, too. The two sisters I taught had pretty different socioeconomic situations. I probably wouldn’t have met either Something I’ve done is write out a silly questionnaire for those I given my circle of acquaintances otherwise. Both were capable teach and ask what their dream VT visit looks like, asking them and lovely people, and I think they needed connection at what exactly they would like to get out of it. Do they like the church like I did. We’re still in touch. monthly sit down visit? Is quarterly better? Or is a more casual rendezvous preferable? Then at least I know I’m not forcing Lisa Henry • Vancouver, Washington anything on them. My problem is if I don’t feel sincere about visiting teaching, I don’t do it at all. If I have a partner who’s all I love visiting teaching. I don’t always like my companions or about the monthly sit downs with uncomfortable chats about click with the sisters I’m assigned, but with time, patience, and nothing, then it’s hard for me. an open heart I’ve developed lasting friendships. Right now I’m the visiting teacher of the oldest person in our ward, and I do, though, like talking about the gospel. I love it, in fact. And let me tell you, [she] is a kick in the pants. I’ve learned so much if we can all agree to have this gospel chat without it being from her about enduring well the challenges of being 98. I’ve so formulaic (“now, time for the message...”), then that can been served in extremely challenging times, such as when I lost be most enriching and is probably my favorite kind of visit. I my child, with genuine love. I guess it’s like anything, if I am also like being spiritually accountable to someone. Someone willing to open my heart and put others’ needs before my own, who might ask, “So, how’s your spiritual health these days?” I the Lord blesses me with gifts I didn’t realize I lacked. asked a woman that once, and she said she’d never been asked that before and seemed taken aback, though (hopefully) in a Chelsea • Provo, Utah pleasant way.

Being in young adult wards (single or married) has made Sydney Cobb • Turlock, California visiting teaching (and home teaching) very frustrating for me. The transient nature means companionships and routes As a lifelong, born-and-raised member of the LDS church, I are frequently changing. This makes it near impossible for have no qualms admitting that the visiting teaching program

18 EXPONENT II has never been a factor that keeps me coming to church. If I was As hurt as people can be about visiting teaching, I know when in need, I had an active family and a solid group of friends on it’s customized to the individual and done so with prayer and which I could rely. But I’ve come to appreciate the program as inspiration, we can serve our sisters the way Christ would have I’ve moved away from my network of support. About a year us serve them. ago, I got married and moved to a new city. I found myself in need of a friend, or at least in need of a distraction from my Staci • Boston, Massachusetts busy nights watching Grey’s Anatomy. The ways I have made Visiting Teaching work for me: be honest My new ward, located near Salt Lake, was testing a “pilot about needing visiting teachers I trust. I am not in a space in program” for visiting teaching. Only the inactive and less-active my life where I am open to “new friends” from the ward. I need sisters were given visiting teachers, and my sole duty was to someone assigned to me that I can be open with. Otherwise, I mail newsletters to them. I was very surprised to find that I am politely making time to let someone fulfill a calling but it’s missed the knocks on the door, the hurriedly-made cookies, the a strain on me. I need a friend I can call and who knows to not voicemails left at 7 p.m. on the 31st. Really, all I wanted was bring me an Ensign article. I also have requested to not be with somebody to sit by during church. I felt ignored, and the Relief a companion. I am a busy lady, as many of us are, and I feel if I Society felt palpably disconnected compared to the dozens of have to coordinate visits and calls with the person I am visiting others I’ve attended. as well as another sister, I will never get there. That kind of inability to spontaneously make things work feels like a barrier Visiting teaching often lacks sincerity and necessity. But in the to me I can’t overcome. off-chance that the woman to whom I am assigned is lonely or without a support system, I’ve decided to be there to help her. I always approach a new assignment with an email that asks, “What do you need?” And by that I mean, do you like visits Dovie Peterson • Provo, Utah and you want a monthly visit? Do you prefer a check-in with email or a treat dropped off to know you are in my thoughts I’ve really liked and struggled with visiting teaching. Even and prayers? Do you need a babysitter so you can go to a yoga when it’s awesome, it’s tough for me to make a visit. So I both class once a month? I want to be a friend, but knowing not appreciate the structure and formality that compels me to visit everyone wants to open up to me, is there any way I can be each month (though I’m abysmal at that) and resent it, but once of use to you?...I always try to make it organic, because when I get through that and go, 99.9 percent of the time it’s good. I it is forced then it becomes a burden, which undermines the also like formally having someone’s back. For example, you intention of the program. can ask me for favors or help that you wouldn’t necessarily ask an acquaintance. I’m down to bring a last minute meal Terina Holmes • Mililani, Hawaii when you’ve had a bad day, and you know it won’t be a fancy production but I’ve got that for you. Or if your kid is feverish, Being a military spouse, visiting teaching can be my only I can bring you my half-filled bottle of the children’s ibuprofen connection to the ward, my source of information and help. in the middle of the night and that’s not weird. We can lean on My experiences in each ward have been so different. I had a each other. companion that hated making the phone calls, but would go visit. Once one of the women I taught was arrested and my Rachel • Oxnard, California companion and I went to the preliminary hearing where they set bail or are released. I’ve gone to pick up Pepsi to help a We put a lot of pressure on the visiting teachers, but we need to migraine, made dinners, picked up and watched kids, etc. I remember that like any friendship, it’s a two way street. If we think at its heart, it’s a great program. Unfortunately, multiple feel as a teachee that our teachers don’t care enough, have we times and in different wards I’ve been given a visiting teaching given them enough to care about? Have we let them in? Had I route but not assigned visiting teachers, even though my not told those teachers what was really wrong, they could never husband was regularly absent for the military and I needed the have served me like they did. support and friendship.

For the teachers, I would suggest thinking outside the box. The military tries to do its own version of visiting teaching. I’ve had visiting teachers who brought me into their lives and There is something called Soldier and Family Readiness Group didn’t just see me as an assignment but as a friend. They saw and it’s for spouses to military members. It’s supposed to be a me as an important person every single day. And it was not support system, especially during deployments, but it doesn’t always grand gestures. Sometimes it was just a simple text on function as well as the Relief Society does, which is sad. So a Saturday night inviting me to watch a movie with a group of many of us military families are so far away from our actual friends. From there, I met more friends and they served me so families. I like to create my own family, and I’ve had it a few much. times. I’m grateful for visiting teaching prompting me to get to know many people who I would not have otherwise met. MEAN GIRLS AKA “THE 10 VIRGINS”

Talk given February 2015 in the Maryland Heights Ward, St. Louis Stake, St. Louis, Missouri KYRA KRAKOS SABBATH PASTORALS SABBATH

A long time ago in my very young Primary years, I first Elder Eyring has spoken of this tension between physical heard the New Testament story of the Ten Virgins. Our and spiritual preparedness: teacher walked us through the story: the five prepared virgins, the five foolish virgins, the arrival of the Most of us have thought about how to prepare for storms. Bridegroom, and the tragedy of those turned away. “Class, We have seen and felt the suffering of women, men, what do we learn from this scripture story?” My eager and children, and of the aged and the weak, caught in young hand shot up (I was very sure of all things in those hurricanes, tsunamis, wars, and droughts. One reaction is days). “Those five girls were mean, they did not share—and to ask, ‘How can I be prepared?’ And there is a rush to buy that is bad, because we are supposed to share and Jesus and put away whatever people think they might need for was not happy with those selfish virgins.” The teacher the day they might face such calamities. struggled with explaining to the class the principles of spiritual preparedness, but it didn’t stand a chance against But there is another even more important preparation we the practical playground interpretation we all knew in our must make for tests that are certain to come to each of us. young bones. The complexities of spiritual agency and That preparation must be started far in advance because preparedness eluded us, but mean girls? Not sharing? We it takes time. What we will need then can’t be bought. It understood that kind of right and wrong. can’t be borrowed. It doesn’t store well. And it has to have been used regularly and recently. I understand the attraction of the Ten Virgins’ kind of preparedness. It is temporal. It is concrete. Canned goods? What we will need in our day of testing is a spiritual Check. Wheat? Check. Water barrels? Gold star. Our external preparation. It is to have developed faith in Jesus Christ preparedness is so much easier to evaluate than our own so powerful that we can pass the test of life upon which spiritual storehouse. Charting the course of our spiritual everything for us in eternity depends. That test is part of growth is much more frightening than preparing our food the purpose God had for us in the Creation.1 storage; it is less measurable and lacks the comforting linearity of checklists. So today, without diminishing the What speaks to me in Elder Eyring’s words is the need for physical preparedness, I focus instead on spiritual emphasis on others; our spiritual preparedness grows from preparedness. emphasizing the needs of others: “We have seen and felt the suffering.” Our spiritual oil increases when we focus outside When the Savior asks about our of ourselves rather than focusing on the “rush to buy and put away” things for ourselves. preparedness and we are ready to answer proudly with our lists of years Spirituality means different things to each of us, and we develop and nurture it in different ways. However, at its of food storage, what will we do when basic idea, spiritual is defined as things concerned with or His question is instead “Are there affecting one’s soul. So what affects your soul? What will you allow to affect your soul? What do you want your soul children in your town who went to bed to be like? President Monson has taught, “In the search for hungry?” our best selves, several questions will guide our thinking: Am I what I want to be? Am I closer to the Savior today than I was yesterday? Will I be closer yet tomorrow? Do I have There are many outward displays of Christianity that would the courage to change for the better?”2 Our prophet makes it most likely be unrecognizable to Christ. My favorite silly clear that we need to be charting our own spiritual growth. example is the strange conversation I had with an un-named individual who was lamenting that all the good scriptures The lessons we learn from babyhood are of value in charting were taken, so now what should he put on the vanity plate this course: prayer, fasting, sacrament, etc.—all these for his new Mercedes? This is an easy hypocrisy to laugh Primary answers do lead to a spiritual life. In all these years at, but how many of us post a nice little Christian meme of laying down our spiritual structure, the most powerful on Facebook and then indulge in gossip, judgment, and tool is learning to serve others. Prayer, fasting, sacrament— mean-spirited living? It is a daily struggle to remember our but service. Service is the one that is most impactful for our covenants with our Savior and to love the unlovable. growth. Service is transformative to the human soul. Service means to truly see each other as brothers and sisters, to make Spiritual growth flows from staying focused on the heart sure that everyone we encounter feels loved and whole. If and soul of what Christ asked of us. In one of His last mortal they do not, service means we try to help and heal. Service is acts, Christ teaches Peter an important core truth. We find the center of my Christianity. this tender story in John, chapter 21, verses 15 through 17: “Floral Abstract #2” by Sabrina Jill Squires #2” by Abstract “Floral So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs.

He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest THAT that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep. PERFECT He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, SOLITUDE thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep. POEM BY JULIE NELSON Christ washes the feet of his disciples. He then asks Peter, “Lovest thou me?” In response to the fervent yes, Christ says to Peter, “Feed my sheep.” Three times he repeats this command in a powerful teaching moment directed not only to “...what I would so like to be...if there Peter but to us all. If we love Christ, we serve others. weren’t any other people living in the world. This is the core of all spirituality: Feed my sheep. All of our Yours, Anne” other daily and weekly habits, such as prayer, scripture study, —last words in Anne Frank’s diary family home evening, serving in our callings, taking the sacrament, etc., hopefully flow from this central idea: Feed my sheep. I do believe daily habits are important and make a difference collectively over time. These habits can sustain us when our growth stagnates or we encounter obstacles. I’d like to share with you how those small and daily habits, built upon the Savior’s admonition to “feed my sheep,” made a If Eve had been first, difference in my spiritual growth at a time when I did not confined to naked paradise believe they mattered at all. in quiet continence—

Spirituality can be hard to hang on to—it can go on hiatus— seafish and skybird and life can drown out the connection we crave to the her companions; the breeze spiritual aspect of our lives. The classic Sunday School-esque stroking her unspoiled cheek. reasoning is usually “Sin silences the Spirit!,” but I think Her voice the purest far more common than that usual guilt-inducing answer is strain remaining. that mortality and the struggles of our human lives make spirituality hard. Sometimes there are trials that just flat out As she hollows melon close the heavens for a while. to the rind and cups her hand to drink, could they rush I had a dark and real experience this last year, and I feel it is to fill her fruitless womb? important to share here because I know my experience is not unique; many women suffer this in silence. Lying on grass cool and cloistered, My husband and I have not had great success in our pursuit of on the eve of universes adding one more child to our family. In fact, the math is a little unnamed, grim. I have had seven pregnancies, and I have three children. she counts stars like children I am a biologist by profession, which means I was very aware yet to be. of the risks and statistics of pregnancy and could take a small rational comfort in knowing that the miscarriages that were in the first trimester were normal—heartbreaking, but Julie K. Nelson is a wife of one, mother of five, and author of normal. So when those first trimester losses happened, I could two parenting books. She currently teaches at Utah Valley grieve, and breathe, and heal. Then we had the devastation there, and we will always feel Him again. The heavens are SABBATH PASTORALS of a pregnancy failing much later, when I was well into the not closed; mortality is just hard. second trimester. That loss was not a common loss, and it occurred when we were rejoicing at being out of that first President Uchtdorf makes this same promise to all of us, uncertain trimester. This time I couldn’t get better. I was no matter where we are in life nor how alone we feel: “You patient, I knew grief takes time, but I didn’t get better. I got are loved. You are dear to your Heavenly Parents. The worse. And worse again. For the first time in my life I was infinite and eternal Creator of light and life knows you! He not in control. I couldn’t reason my way forward. I couldn’t is mindful of you. Yes, God loves you this very day and tough it out. Most terrifyingly, I couldn’t see what was always.”3 This is why we spiritually prepare and daily work happening to me, and the darkness of what was eventually to grow, so when life hits us around we can find our way diagnosed as back to Peace. postpartum I know the traditional reading of those Ten Virgins depression pulled conveys the message that light cannot be shared, I know the me right under. traditional reading Because I was that our spiritual preparedness must be our own. of those Ten and continue to Virgins conveys the be surrounded However, a large part of my spiritual survival during message that light by wise people those darkest moments in the years of unsuccessful cannot be shared, who love me, I that our spiritual eventually got the pregnancies was because of shared light. preparedness professional and must be our own. medical help I needed, and I began a long process of slow However, a large part of my spiritual survival during those healing and return to mental health. I could not have begun darkest moments in the years of unsuccessful pregnancies this journey if not for the service of those who loved me, was because of shared light. I leaned on the stories and those people who were willing to risk sharing their light testimonies and love of the women around me, and these in hopes it would help illuminate and heal my grief and shared human experiences got me through the times when darkness. the heavens felt shut.

It was a long year. Mortality is a beast. There are no short Metaphors of shared light aside, I think little girl me cuts in healing. For most of those first six months after our was right about those mean selfish virgins. They should second trimester miscarriage, I couldn’t feel anything. Not have shared. They should have better loved their foolish joy, not pain, not God, not love—nothing. My brain was in sisters. We are all in need of each other’s love and light. full protective lock down. As I slowly worked with medical The Bridegroom would recognize that kind of love as and mental health professionals through my depression, worthy. Even now, I still need your light, your stories, your I began recovering in many important ways, but my experiences. Sharing our light with one another helps us find spiritual life was still nothing. My daily prayers were just our way to our Savior. bouncing off the ceiling. There was no comfort or connection spiritually. I still went through the motions: I prayed with the When we are kind to one another and gentle with one children, read my scriptures, went to church, served—but it another, when we honestly care for and serve each other, was all sand in my mouth. then we are healing ourselves as much as healing one another. Our shared light makes us spiritually prepared for Then, months later, that quiet connection to God began to the grimy parts of mortality. grow. My spiritual life had little green shoots again. Much to my surprise, all those months of going through the motions May we all commit to being deeper and truer in our had not been for nothing. My spiritual growth had not been knowledge of who we are and who we can be. May we all stunted; I just had to pass through this harder and louder commit to having love in our relationship with Christ and part of mortality. Spiritual growth is not linear, and the in having His Love for each other. May we all commit to routine is important even when we don’t see it. Maintaining these things so we all may be spiritually prepared to travel my spiritual habits had mattered. I couldn’t see any growth, mortality. but it had happened, slowly nurtured by my daily habits and the shared light of others. We must remember to be patient In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. with ourselves. Our Savior is very patient with us. He is ANNUAL EXPONENT II ESSAY CONTEST

We live in a time where it is easy to share what you are thinking in the moment — you can instagram, snapchat, post, text, email. Facebook invites a status update with “what’s on your mind?” But what lasts beyond the fleeting burst of passion that is often how we communicate on social media? What do we dream about when gazing up a blue sky? What motivates us to action? What keeps us awake in the middle of the night? What are the deep, meaningful stories that resonate over and over beyond a sound byte. What do we believe?

Fifty years ago Edward R. Murrow and a few of his broadcasting peers developed a radio program call This I Believe. With original contributors such as Helen Keller and Eleanor Roosevelt, it became an immediate classic. Recently the program was revived as a non profit organization that encourages people to write and record short stories and statements. Executive producer Dan Gediman explained when beginning this new incarnation, “The goal is not to persuade Americans to agree on the same beliefs. Rather, the hope is to encourage people to begin the much more difficult task of developing respect for beliefs different from their own.”

We were inspired by this idea when thinking about the Exponent II Winter 2017 Essay Contest. During a time of divisiveness and faith crisis, what do we cling to? In our Mormon language, what do we testify as truth? Not in a grand ideological way, but in small ways, daily ways, times when we just know what is right. We invite you to tell us a story about what you believe and why.

FROM OUR READERS ESSAY GUIDELINES I have respected and admired the tremendous Shape your submission in narrative form. Tell a story about you and when efforts Exponent II has made in the past to keep an open forum that represents a broad spectrum you knew something to be true or real or different from what you expected. of voices; but I have never been so proud of Be specific and visual. It is always better to describe a small moment in great Exponent as I am with this newly arrived issue. detail than big earth shattering events in broad strokes. Consider stories of discovery, when you approached a situation assuming one thing and left with I especially appreciate that you have allowed the voices of those most heavily-impacted by the new or changed insight. Think of your own experience, work, and family, and gay-exclusion policy to speak with integrity and tell of the things you know that no one else does. dignity. They are witnesses in the household of faith. - Lavina Fielding Anderson • Your story should be between 600 and 1,300 words. • Focus on one story that illustrates your point instead of a list or abstract RENEW YOUR ideas. We will be looking for creativity and depth within this short format. Although the length is similar to a blog, we encourage to write with SUBSCRIPTION? permanence and perspective, a statement that will have meaning 50 years from now. YEARS • Write about what you do believe, not what you don’t believe. Avoid 2FOR statements of religious dogma, preaching, or editorializing. $ 5 • Speak in the first person. 6 • Send submissions to [email protected]. The deadline for ORDER AT: submissions is November 1, 2016. WWW.EXPONENTII.ORG We are so grateful to Sue Booth Forbes for generously offered to provide the If you have feedback or something you first place prize, a week-long stay at her writer’s retreat in Ireland. would like to submit, please send it to [email protected]. More information about the retreat center can be found at www.anamcararetreat.com.

For more information about This I Believe or to read examples of essays, go to www.thisibelieve.org.