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 t
