Episode 192 (Transcript): Embracing Your Journey | A Conversation with Anne Pimentel
Episode Transcript
Many thanks to listener, Emily Wadley, for her work in transcribing this episode!
This episode can be found on any podcast app, or can be listened to here on Substack.
CW: Hi, I'm Cynthia Winward.
SH: And I'm Susan Hinckley.
CW: And this is At Last She Said It. We are women of faith discussing complicated things, and the title of today's episode is “Embracing Your Journey: A conversation with Anne Pimentel”.
Welcome, Anne.
SH: Hi, Anne.
AP: Hi, thanks for having me.
CW: We're super glad to have you today for this Embracing Your Journey episode. They are, I know personally, some of my favorites and I think yours as well, Susan, because we just love to hear from women who are just like us, who have all the same things, not the same things necessarily, but we love so much about our church and it's also very complicated with the things that we struggle with.
So, before Susan jumps in and leads us through this conversation, Anne, can you go ahead and just give us a quick little snapshot of your life, anything that kind of would give us context for our conversation today?
AP: Yeah. I grew up in Utah, in Utah Valley. I've been a member my whole life. I am one of the founding members of Meeting House Mosaic. We're a nonprofit trying to diversify Christian art. We uplift or amplify artists of color and we educate on why diversity is important and encourage members to use diverse art in their homes or in lessons or wherever they can. I also run the account called The Vision Beautiful on Instagram.
I post three times a week; I do Heavenly Mother Monday, Empower Women Wednesday, and Fundamental Rights Friday. So, those are my passions and so I started an account about them. Why not?
SH: We're going to want links to those things so that we can put them in our show notes and our listeners will be able to find you.
AP: Awesome. I also just finished writing a book with McArthur Krishna. It will be coming out next March. And it's about women, LDS women through history that have been change makers and have left an impact or a lasting change on the church. And then I am married, and I live with my four boys, they're ages 15 down to six. So,it's a full life.
SH: You are doing the Lord's work raising boys. My daughter once said to me, she has boys and she said, “Oh no, I'm perpetuating the problem”. And I said, “you're raising the solution”. So that's what you're doing, Anne.
AP: That’s what I hope for.
SH: And thank you for that.
CW: Well, Susan, how about you take it away and ask all our famous questions that we love to ask women when we have these types of episodes.
SH: All right, let's do it. Anne, we kind of ask a ridiculous question at the beginning, which would be a 30,000 foot view, glimpse of your Mormon life. What can you tell us, maybe memorable experiences that you've had, things that have given shape to your life as a Latter-day Saint woman, just to situate you for our listeners and give some context to the conversation.
AP: Yeah. Like I said, I grew up in Utah Valley and I think I had a very typical Mormon girl childhood. I don't want to call myself a Molly Mormon, but I was a good Mormon girl. And I had great friends. We grew up in the same area from elementary on through high school and we still hang out today.
But I was very much drinking that water and it was thick. It was all around me, everything from school to church to, sports, whatever I was involved in, everyone was LDS. It was just very much where I was.
CW: Can I ask where you live now?
AP: Still in Utah. I moved away and when we got married, we said we would never raise our kids in Utah, but life brought us back. But now I'm in Salt Lake County, so it's a little better.
CW: A little different than the water I'm drinking in Utah Valley.
AP: Right.
5:16
SH: It occurs to me though, as you're telling this, this is why we ask this question. I'm never sure exactly what I would share it to encapsulate it, but it's like everything you just told me tells me a lot about your whole [00:05:00] church experience. And so, I think it's a really helpful place to start.
AP: I did have some great experiences in my twenties. In college I was able to do an internship in Romania where I worked in an orphanage and then with the orphaned kids in a hospital. And It was the first time I had lived on my own and I just realized how privileged my life had been up to that point. We would walk home from the hospital every day and just be sobbing because these kids had such hard lives and they didn't do anything to choose that.
And so we realized everything we had ever had been given on a silver platter, and our lives had just been so easy. It opened my heart and my eyes to people with needs, people that have been pushed to the margins, and just people that were very different than I am. And then right after that I served a mission in El Salvador.
And it's a very poor country and dangerous. There's a lot of gangs, it was a completely different situation than I was used to. And I really think that the proximity of living there and being with the people that I grew to love so much just opened my heart wide open. I had experiences and people that I met and situations that I witnessed that just changed who I was and how I thought fundamentally about life. I consider those two moments in my history to be a big gift for opening me and setting me up to be open to new ideas.
CW: Yeah. When you served in El Salvador, was there the political turmoil then going on or did that come later? How was your safety there?
AP: I mean, the political turmoil is ongoing there. And so we definitely had a lot of rules. We couldn't stay out after 8 PM, which is different than a lot of missionaries. And we had rules about what we could carry and how to carry it. We had to carry our bags just on one arm so we could easily slip it off if somebody was robbing us. And you couldn't do anything across the body. And so there was definitely upheaval. We weren't allowed to teach anybody with a tattoo because at that time, if you had a tattoo, it meant you were in a gang.
And so, if we found out they had a tattoo, we just had to drop them, which kills me now. That's such a hard thing because tattoos are so different, at least in our culture right now. So, yeah, it was definitely a dangerous place, which I didn't write home about.
CW: Yeah, just hearing you say that about the rules about carrying a bag, I think if I had known that as a mother, that my daughter was going through that, I don't know what I would do.
SH: Yeah, it would be hard.
CW: Yeah, really, really hard. So, I can see how that gave a lot of context to your life serving in El Salvador and volunteering in Romania. I really can't imagine.
SH: Yeah. Those things back-to-back, it seems like they'd be very different places, and yet you'd be learning some of the same lessons in different places and through different experiences and people. I can't even imagine how big a worldview shifter that must have been for a girl from Utah. I mean, I think if everyone went through those two experiences back-to-back, our church would be transformed.
AP: Yeah.
SH: You could not, not be changed by that.
AP: Like I said the proximity is so important because we don't get those opportunities in Utah always to be proximate right to difference. That was really big.
SH: Were your parents surprised that you pursued those opportunities? Or have you always been drawn to, I don't know even what how to say it, adventure maybe, or seeking out difference?
AP: I don't know that they were necessarily surprised. My major at the time before I went to Romania was marriage, family and human development. I had wanted to be a psychology major, but because of becoming a mother and thoughts of being a mother later, I realized that wouldn't be a great thing with raising kids. I wanted to focus on children's psychology and I didn't want to have to separate out what I was dealing with at work and raising my own children. I thought that would be too hard. So, I changed to what is commonly called the MRS. degree at BYU. And so, I think my parents thought it was a fairly safe thing. My parents to their credit are not sheltered; they are adventurous and they encouraged that sort of stuff.
10:56
SH: So, returned missionary, MRS. [00:10:00] Well, you said the words, Molly Mormon. I'd like it noted right here. I didn't say that, but you did put it in this conversation. So now my question is, how do we get from there to here, wherever here is, and that's what we're gonna take apart a little bit and explore right now. Did you start experiencing some kind of faith shift at some point or transformation or whatever however you would describe that?
11:11
AP: I got married right after I left BYU, the fall after we both graduated. So, I did make it out of BYU technically without being married. But I think for the first, probably eight or ten years of our married life, I was very much still that Molly Mormon. I had had these experiences and I definitely was open to new things, but I just lived a very typical life; started having babies, would go to play group in the park, like all of the things that young LDS moms do.
But I did have an experience about 10 years ago that was really, really transformational for me and started opening my eyes spiritually to something different. I was in the thick of raising little babies and I was just exhausted. And I remember sitting in a Relief Society lesson, and they were talking about scripture study and, what we should do and how we should live our lives to be good scripture studying members.
And I was heartbroken because every time I opened the scriptures, I would fall asleep. I was so tired and I couldn't ever read and get a good study in. I remember raising my hand and I was just in tears as I said, “I can't do this. I'm not good. I'm not good enough.”
I felt so much guilt and shame around not being able to live up to what was required of me as a member. And this sweet woman in my ward, she said, “For everything there is a time and a season, and this is not your time to be stressing about reading your scriptures. You are focusing on raising little kids and keeping them alive, and that is what is important right now. And you don't need to feel the stress about the scripture study aspect.” And it was the first time anybody had ever given me permission to do something differently in the gospel than just live the cookie cutter- here's your requirements, here's what you're supposed to do. And it was the first time somebody said- it's okay if you don't do that in this way or at this time or something. I just remember being in that Relief Society lesson thinking- Oh my gosh, I can actually do something different? I can choose for myself what this would look like? And it was huge. That was really big for me.
CW: I'm guessing that she was, I'm going to say older woman- could have been me! Maybe I'm an older woman now, but I'm guessing she wasn't another 28-year-old woman who said this to you.
AP: Yeah. She was an older woman and had lived through that, you know?
CW: Yep. So, she had the perspective.
SH: You know, what's so telling to me about that story though? We had a conversation with another woman recently, it wasn't an older woman, it was a friend actually, in this case, who said one small thing to her at the right time to sort of give her permission to be a church member in her own way. I mean, it was a very small thing. And this experience that you just shared was a pretty small thing too. It's a comment and relief society, right? But what this tells me is how easy it is, how easy it is, to give some breathing room and space to other people. And the fact that so many of us feel like we haven't had that, or haven't had it often, that something small like this lands in such a dramatic way, tells me that we're not that good at doing the easy things for each other sometimes.
AP: Yeah.
SH: We think it's more important to testify to someone or try to strengthen them when,
AP: Pull them back in.
SH: Yeah, when really the lift comes from the really easy thing, just seeing someone and saying- wow, I remember what it was like to be a young mother and you don't have to do that right now.
AP: Yeah. And I really think that I took that lift, like you say, to heart, to be able to do that for other people. And so, shortly after that experience, we moved back to Utah. And as we moved back, we decided, we want to show people that you can be different. You can not fit this cookie cutter mold, and you can still be a good member. You can still be a good person, and not do things exactly the same way. And so, that was a goal for my husband and I, was to [00:15:00] step out a little bit and show- just be more uplifting and be that bridge almost to connect with people and help them realize that we can be different. We can do things a little differently and still be okay.
16:04
CW: What a great goal as you were moving back to Mormon Mecca. Yeah.
SH: We just need about a million more like you.
AP: We're working on it, right? Little by little.
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16:20
AP: So, in early 2020, my sister told me about this 10-day compassion challenge. And it was put on by a woman who teaches meditation and mindfulness and things. So it was 10 days and every day there were different speakers and music and just different teachings about compassion. And this was before COVID, and so it was kind of a setup for what was about to happen. You know, I had no idea it was about to happen. But one of the presenters was Valerie Kaur, who has written the book, See No Stranger. And she is, as she says it, she's a Sikh activist. We know it as S[ee]kh, but she pronounces it Sikh. And she is an activist, she's a lawyer, she's an author, she's wonderful. And when her book came out, I devoured it. It changed my life, it was so good. She talks about one of the gurus from her religion who teaches this phrase, “You are a part of me I do not yet know”. And how we should see everybody as brother and sister, and wonder about them and how wonder helps us opens the door to learn about people instead of immediately judging them. If we wonder about them first, it can make things so much smoother. And I really appreciate, as I read through her book and learned about her religion and just the way that she is out in the world, there were so many little similarities with our religion. And I thought that was so powerful to realize how we are similar instead of all the different things. And I actually have a quote here that I would love to read from her book.
CW: Please.
AP: And it says,
“When we allow ourselves to be changed by the experiences of another's pain, we build bonds with people we once called strangers. Sharing in one another's grief can also lead to sharing in one another's joy. When people who have no obvious reason to love each other come together to grieve, they can give birth to new relationships, even revolutions.”
I love that quote. I think that the part about allowing ourselves to be changed by experiences of others or their pain- that is compassion, that is empathy. That's opening up to listening to others and to letting them have the space to tell their story, to be who they are, and to just learn from them in a way that leads to love. And I really appreciated learning that from Valerie.
SH: Beautiful.
CW: I love- if our audience hasn't read her book yet, See No Stranger, at the very least just google Valerie Kaur, K A U R, See No Stranger quotes; and just read all the quotes, because in Anne's document you have so many beautiful quotes from her book. When I read the book, I couldn't stop writing down everything she wrote, down as well. So, it was pretty influential for me as well. I feel bonded to you, Anne, knowing that you loved it that much as well. It was so good.
AP: Yeah. And she teaches about revolutionary love, which is, to me, in our LDS perspective, that's what Christ did. He was a revolutionary lover. Is that a good way to say it? He just was revolutionary in the things that he did. And she has such great teachings on how we can do that in our day.
CW: Yeah, for sure.
AP: So, reading that book set me up for the rest of 2020. And when George Floyd was murdered in May of that year; for the first time really in my life, I began to listen to people of color in a really meaningful way. But as the explosion of social justice and Black Lives Matter, all of that started happening in the summer of 2020, I feel like I was set down this path that I was already going down, but it solidified me in that path of working with marginalized people and caring about the issues that affect them and just how they are. And that naturally led to marginalization at church. And that includes women and LGBTQ and people of different disabilities [00:20:00] and all of that. It really opened a door to me that I'm so grateful that I've been on now for the past few years. I feel like it's given me purpose, and a really strong passion in my life to be able to work in these areas and educate myself and grow and develop as I think about social justice and marginalization. And because for so long I'd been trying to find my voice and find what I was passionate about. This all just happened at a perfect time for me. And I realized that I wanted to aspire to be an ally in all areas. I don't have the lived experiences of marginalized people other than being a woman, which is huge. And that is a really big part of what I advocate for. But I can aspire to be an ally in all those different areas. The way that I have started to do that shows up in a different couple of areas.
At church specifically, I started wearing pride pins. I started wearing pants to church. I dyed my hair pink, and you can't tell right now, but it's purple right now. And I wanted to just show people that you don't, like I said earlier, you don't have to fit the cookie cutter, and you can be a good member of the church. And then I also wanted to show if any random person showed up and they weren't in a skirt, or they had crazy hair or, whatever, that they were welcome and that I would be a safe space for them. That was really important for me to let people know that they were safe with me. I also started speaking up a lot more at church. And your podcast came in right at this right time too, for me.
CW: Right at 2020! Right!
AP: And I am an original listener. I've been around the whole time, and it just helped keep me moving down this path and opening my eyes to new things and new perspectives. And I'm so grateful for that.
SH: Oh, that’s amazing.
CW: I'm sitting here thinking about the woman who threw you a lifeline who said- this is a different time and season for you, and how much of a lifeline that probably was for you. And I'm thinking now as you wear your rainbow pin and colorful hair and pants to church, how that is a lifeline for others as well. And I know that because I do the same thing. I haven't dyed my hair different colors yet, but I do all those other things. And it's been really interesting, the conversations I've had with people, the kind of glances from others; like a fist bump kind of a glance. And actually, I think I looked at your notes yesterday before we recorded, in preparation for recording today, and I was talking to my husband about some of the things in your notes and just what I had said too, about changing the way I physically look when I show up at church. And I said something about that to my husband and I said- Yeah, like how you started wearing colored shirts 10 or 15 years ago to church and then recently stopped wearing a tie. I mean, we're just trying to broaden what, like you said, activity in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints can look like. It doesn't have to mean a white shirt and tie. It doesn't have to mean brown or blonde hair, all these different things. So that, that gives me just a little bit of happiness knowing that you're up the road in Salt Lake and you're doing similar things. So, thank you.
AP: Yeah. And we're a worldwide church and there is so much diversity and difference in the whole world, and so to have it be this western, Utah look, that has spread throughout everything, I think that does us such a disservice as we grow as a church. And I would love to see the acceptance of more cultural dress or style or, whatever it is. And there's hopefully change with that in the music that's coming. And that's definitely what we're trying to do with Meeting House Mosaic, of broadening the type of art that's acceptable at church because it's been I mean, I don't know about you guys, but the pictures on the walls in my church has been the same my whole life. It's been the same, 20 pictures basically. And it's time for a redo.
25:42
SH: I think we have a built-in challenge with this kind of thing though, because our ward communities are organized, around geographical boundaries, most often the people in your ward look very much like you. And so, I feel like, yes, it is a worldwide church, but it can be pretty hard to keep that in mind in an area where you can throw a rock and hit about every other house in your ward. There's just so much homogeneity that grows as a result of our organization and just the way it's put together. It can be pretty [00:25:00] hard to keep that wider view. My question for you as you're telling about this, and I would characterize it as a very specific decision to move into an ally space, even within your ward, the way that you changed the way you showed up in your ward, my question about that is, how has that gone for you? Do you feel like there was any kind of hesitation on the part of ward members to know quite what to do with you at that point?
CW: Good question.
SH: Or have you been well received? Has it impacted the callings that you have? Say a little bit more about your experience with this.
AP: It has been hard. It's been really hard.
CW: Darn it.
AP: Yeah, I feel that we have, well, I'll say for myself; I have been put in a corner a lot in my ward. I have lost a calling over standing up for people with COVID concerns. My dad had cancer during COVID, and so my family wore masks because if I wanted to see my dad–.
SW: Right.
AP: He had lung cancer. We couldn't risk him getting COVID. And so, we wore masks at church well into 2021. You know, we were the long-time mask people and the only ones. So I've lost a calling over that. I was told when I received my next calling, “so we know that you're a really opinionated person.” And I was like- thank you, I guess. And then I was given a calling in the activities for Relief Society- here's a place you can't have an opinion- sort of thing. And so, it has been really hard. I just recently was called into the bishop's office because of a testimony I gave where I said, “happy pride month”. And that wasn't necessarily the concern, but I also said, “this may make some of you uncomfortable”, and I paused and grinned and said, “but I'm okay with that”. And the bishop did not appreciate the way I delivered the message.
SW: Oh, fascinating, fascinating!
CW: Wow, Anne.
AP: And I mean, I've had little comments about wearing pants and- things. But at the same time, I will say there have been some experiences where I know that I've connected with people over some of the comments I made. I had an experience where I made a comment in Sunday School; one of my goals is just to provide a different perspective. Something that maybe we hadn't thought about, and just something to open people's eyes. And so, the typical answers were coming out about the scripture we were studying. And I just said- how about this?- and gave a different perspective. And this woman across the room immediately was like- Oh no, this is how it's supposed to be- and gave the typical response. But then I ran into her a week later at the grocery store and she grabbed me, and she said, “I have not been able to stop thinking about what you said, because you made me think.” That comment of- you made me think-, that's the best compliment I've ever received at church. And she said, “I may not agree or understand, but you made me think about what I've always accepted as to be the correct thing at church”. And that woman has become a dear friend in the ward. So, amid all of the hardship and being put in a corner or just feeling very alone sometimes, there have been little connections like that have been really important and meaningful to me.
SW: Mmmm. I can’t love that story enough.
30:18
AP: At the end of 2020, I was made aware of this anti-racism conference. It's put on by a group called, We Can Do the Hard Work. This woman that leads it is a professor in Austin, TX, and she's worked in social justice for decades. And so, she got a multi-racial board of women, and they started teaching this course. It was three Sundays in a row for maybe two hours each Sunday. And it was teaching about anti-racism with the specific focus of women of color in the church and how we as white women can help women of color feel welcome, feel safe, feel included at church. And that was really eye-opening for me. I actually took it like three times in a row because I loved hearing the stories and the experiences. There were a lot of personal experiences shared; there were good quotes and videos that they had pulled in, just a lot of really good education. And so, we were able to choose, at the end of the three-week time, we were able to choose these passion projects that they had set up. And one was about music and one was curriculum and just talking about what you can change to make it more inclusive and better for people of color. And I picked the art passion project, not because I'm an artist or had any knowledge, but I like art and it just seemed like a good place for me to start.
So, as we met, we [00:30:00] decided to create Meeting House Mosaic. It started just as an Instagram account and quickly snowballed into a 501C3. And we had a website, and we were planning a commission piece that we did, and had fundraisers and it's ballooned into this beautiful project. That has been really meaningful to be able to learn and educate myself, but also to help other people, and to hold their hand as they start on a journey and figuring out why Christ has always been depicted as white. I mean, that's something I never thought about as a child or growing up. It just was! And it was never hard for me because I was always represented in the art. I connected with Jesus because we looked the same and not everybody has that opportunity. And so, it's been good to work in that, and kind of bring to light the need for diverse art and how that benefits people, because representation matters. And, that's true with diversity of race. It's true with gender. We need more women in art. We had a request to commission pieces showing different abled bodies and not just being cured of their disability, but living in it and, being a person that is differently abled. Everybody wants to see themselves in divinity and to have that connection. And so, this has been a great project to be able to help bring that to light.
CW: Love, love, love.
SH: Beautiful. Well, let's move this conversation into the “both/and” section of discussion. And by that, I mean, here are the things I love about the church or some things I love, and here are some things that are really hard for me about it, because I think that it's really good to be able to model that for other members. It's not all one way or the other way. This is a pretty mixed bag of ideas and experiences that we're dealing with at church. So, what are some of the things that have been really good for you and some of the things that are maybe a little bit more challenging or frustrating?
AP: Yeah, one of my favorite doctrines as a woman in the church is Heavenly Mother. And I realize that there is a lot of confusion or controversy around her; whether she's female herself or something more non-binary. Or just how we connect with her. Also, the stigma around talking about her and connecting with her, praying to her; it's different for so many people. But for me personally, that doctrine has meant a lot to me because it has opened my eyes to more women's issues. And I think that more women that learn about Heavenly Mother, I think will stand up for themselves more because if we really, truly believe that Father and Mother in Heaven are equal and are side by side, then that means that they have the same power. They have the same authority, all of that could fall in line. And so, I think as I've connected with her, that has just become more, more important to me to stand up for women in the church. On the flip side, my biggest frustration is patriarchy. And I really struggle with the head-patting of- Oh no, no, don't worry about it. I'm just done with that sort of behavior. I feel like we are adults in the church, whether you're an adult or not, but we deserve to be treated with respect. We deserve to lead and guide and help our families and our wards in whatever ways that we can bring to the table. And because of your podcast, I learned the importance of when you get called into a bishop's office to say- can I ask what it's about? That is something that I recently had to do. And I pushed back a lot and was given little crumbs and finally was told- “no, it kind of defeats the purpose of the meeting to tell you what it's about”. I just feel like there wasn't respect there. There wasn't a mutual respect of- you should be able to prepare and know what's happening-, but it was more of just being called to the principal's office, and that's not a good feeling for anyone.
SW: Right.
36:40
AP: So I'm incredibly excited, and I love watching what is happening right now with the recent Relief Society post and how that blew up on the internet, and so many more women are standing up and starting to say things. Even if they're not brave enough to say things yet, to just think it and to try and figure it out for themselves. I know there's been movement on this for [00:35:00] decades. We aren't the first people to worry about women's issues in the church, but this seems to be a new shift. There's been a little change in the tide, I guess, of how things are going.
SH: I think so, too.
AP: That's really encouraging to me. I think we also need to recognize at that same time the intersectionality for women of color and how their voices aren't being heard in these discussions as often as they should be. Because it's very different for a white woman to ask for power or to ask for new authority or a different position in church. When a woman of color does that, she's almost immediately shut down.
SH: Right.
AP: I think that listening to women of color and what their experiences are and how their needs can be met; that's going to be really important moving forward.
CW: That reminds me- I've told this story before, but I got some pushback several months ago when I gave a talk and I read from the NRSV version [of the Bible] and I got push back because they think the King James version- anyway, it's all almost hilarious, but not quite hilarious because it's just ridiculous. But I specifically made a choice when I speak publicly in church to start reading from the NRSV, or a different version of the Bible, where the women in the Relief Society room for whom English was their second language, and there are several in my ward, I want them - And my daughter-in-law, English is her second language. She's the one who actually had said to me- I can't understand a dang thing from the scriptures in English at all. I mean, throw the book of Mormon into that too, which also has King James version English, ie: “Thee”, “thy”, “thou”, “beholdeth”. Give me a break! That’s something so small that hadn't really occurred to me until I had a daughter-in-law for whom Spanish was her first language. This is a small, teeny, tiny change I can make at this point of intersectionality like you're talking about. Considering the needs of the women in my Relief Society, considering the needs of women [who use] English as a second language. Anyway, it was just such a no-brainer to me that getting push-back; I was like really?! Really?! This is where you're going to push back on me?
AP: Yeah. I've started, as our family does come follow me sporadically, because we're not very good at it, but I read out of the NASB, which is one of the most simple language translations, I think. So, my boys will read a verse. They've got the gospel library app on their phone or whatever, and so they'll read the KJV, and then I'll read it in the NASB so that they can understand what they just read. Because it's the same thing, they don't get it sometimes, and there's so many words we have to go through and translate for them. That's actually something McArthur [Krishna] and I did with our book, is whenever we quoted scripture, we did it from a different translation if we could. So many of the other translations are not gendered either. It will say humankind instead of mankind or something like that. It was really important to us to make scripture be clear for people because it is so confusing sometimes to read those words in the KJV.
CW: Love it! Love that you guys did that.
SH: Things like that seem like small things when you tell it that way, Cynthia, it sounds like a small thing. But I feel like we're up against some really hard “cultural concrete”, I'm going to call it. Because people assume that we do things the way we do because that's the God ordained way to do it, right? There are all of these feelings around things like the KJV- that that's the only true translation. Except it gets a little truer when Joseph Smith translates himself. But you get a double bang for your buck when you do something like that, because you're able to not only open some space for the people in the room who will really appreciate that, like your daughter-in-law or kids maybe who don't understand the King James version; people whose first language is not English. You're able to do that service, and also- just nudge a little bit against that concrete.
CW: Yeah. It feels like concrete, Susan.
SH: Yeah, it does. So many things. I mean, that's one, but there are a lot.
AP: I have a neighbor that moved in that is not LDS, she's a non-denominational Christian and she hosts a Bible study in her home, and she also hosts a podcast with a friend where they're describing different ways to approach and study the Bible and it's fascinating. I love going to Bible study at her house because everybody is reading from a different translation. They have study guides and commentaries and different things that we learn from. And it has been so enriching to just hear [00:40:00] different translations or different uses of a word. It's been really eye-opening to realize- Oh, Wait, that's what that first meant? Or that's how the word is actually supposed to be used? Or even just different interpretations of what I've been so used to growing up. I use an app where you can have two translations side by side, of the Bible. For a long time, I had the KJV on one side and then a different translation on the other so that I could read what I was familiar with, and used to, and then see what it was translated into in a different version. But now I've switched so there's two different ones. And because I'm more comfortable reading the scriptures in a non-KJV way now. So, it just has been really eye opening to push back a little on that a little bit. And I'll read them in Sunday school; not right now, cause we're doing the book of Mormon, but I would always say a scripture when we were doing the New Testament last year, I would bring it up and just read my version of it cause that's what I was using to study. I would get different insights and things.
43:42
CW: Anne, maybe you can put the name of that app in our notes. Cause now I want the name of the app, so I'm sure some of our listeners might want this app as well. So, check our website, friends.
SH: Well, and I have to be honest, I might be the dumbest person in the room, but until I really got interested in diving into the Bible in a new way for myself; I didn't really realize that all the different translations made a difference. I didn't realize all of that was going on in the world of larger Christianity. There was like this whole untapped world. A lot of members probably don't venture outside the KJV or have any real inkling at all that there's a whole world of meaning out there that we're not thinking or talking about.
AP: Yeah. Cause we don't know that we have permission to do that. Right?
SH: Right. Exactly.
AP: So, here's the permission. If anybody needs it, go find a different translation.
SH: It almost had to become like a hobby for me. I'm just interested in this and I'm just doing it sort of a part from my life as a Latter-day Saint. And then that kind of really started to change and open my eyes, and once you start seeing wider meaning in things like the Bible, then it starts spilling on everything else about your faith life. So, it's messy. It's beautifully messy, but it's the best mess that I’ve waded into anyway, personally.
CW: I love that that's been meaningful to all three of us, actually, to study the Bible in different translations and how it's spilled over into other areas, like you just said, Susan.
SH: Oh, kind of life changing for my husband too, so this makes me think that it could be for a lot of people. This could be a huge growth area for us as a church. Good luck moving that concrete. Wishful thinking, friends, wishful thinking.
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45:45
SH: Oh well, Anne, we always love to ask women about their voice. And as I've been listening to you talk, I've thought- interesting, here's a woman whose voice is really her life. Your life speaks. You've been very intentional about creating a life that speaks for you in really beautiful and useful ways. Some ways that some of the rest of us maybe have not felt empowered to do. I want to talk about your word-voice for a minute, because you mentioned that you do make comments and things like that. And I just want to know, is that something that's come easily for you? How does that work? Is it easier for you to show up in a pride pin than to say something about ;happy pride month’ in the middle of testimony meeting, because both of those things are big. How do all the components of your voice work together?
AP: Yeah. For me speaking up is terrifying. I feel like I have a whole physical reaction where I start shaking, my heart is pounding, I am almost convulsing, and I don't know if anybody can see it. That's when I'm like- I really need to say this. And I'm waiting for the right moment to say it. It is scary. I mentioned a little earlier that I recently bore my testimony and said, “happy pride month”. And the way that kind of went down was I was sitting in sacrament. I was reading the Book of Mormon: For the Least of These, because that is often how I spend my Sundays; my Sacrament Meetings. And I had the thought jump into my mind that said-, you should go up and say, happy pride month. I know there are a few queer people in our ward, and whether they were there or not, it needed to be said.
SH: Right.
AP: And immediately the person that was speaking, he said, “if you ever have anything jump into your mind to testify about, you should just come up and say it, cause you never know [00:45:00] who needs to hear it.” And I thought-, Oh no, now I have to do this. And then I sat there, heart beating for the next probably four or five speakers, people bearing their testimony. And I thought-, Oh, should I do it? Should I not? I had this huge internal battle. Then this woman got up and she was talking about the two great commandments of love God and love your neighbor. She said, “that's all we have to do is love our neighbor”. And I thought-, okay, I have to do this because saying happy pride month is a way that I'm going to love my neighbors. I want my neighbors to know that they also can love their neighbors who are in the LGBTQ community. I got up and I happened to be the last speaker and I told that story of why I had been prompted to get up there and I said, so- “happy pride month”. And this young woman who's on the front row; she's queer. She put her hand on her chest, and she just gasped and she had this huge smile on her face. I thought-, I know this was inspired to say, because she needed to hear it. It was terrifying to get up and say that in front of the whole congregation. But it needed to be said, and I felt that I could be the one to do it. And that inspiration came to me; it was important for me to follow that.
SH: That's amazing. Your bishop did not share your inspiration on that, it sounds like.
AP: No.
SH: If you don't mind sharing, how did that conversation go with him? Were you able to stand your ground on that?
AP: I had my husband come with me because I was not going to go to that meeting by myself. And when the bishop voiced his concern, my husband immediately said, “Bishop, you don't know how many people stopped her and said, thank you for saying that.” And he said, “Oh, really? Were there? Were there a lot?” I counted and there were around 15 or 20 people. Walking home from church, people would pull over and yell out their window, “Thanks for your testimony!” And so, it was important. And I had people who I had never spoken to really, come up and say, “Oh, I was just at a pride parade yesterday with my trans friend, thank you for saying this. It means so much”. I never knew that person had a trans friend or was open in that way. The bishop's main concern was the delivery of the message. I told him about listening to one of your podcasts that my husband and I listened to together, where you quoted Simone Campbell; the nun on the bus lady. And she said, “In the body of Christ, I am the stomach acid”. And as soon as you guys said that on the podcast, my husband leaned over and was like, “that's you!”. And I was like - that totally is! I will be the stomach acid, happily. I will be the one that comes in and kind of mixes it up, breaks things up, whatever it needs to be. I am more than willing to live up to that part of the body of Christ. And so, I told the bishop that. I said- you know what, I will make people uncomfortable and that's okay because- there's a quote that I love from Elder Holland that I told my bishop. It says, “Christianity is comforting, but it's often not comfortable.” It's important that we realize that [dis]comfort at church is not bad. It could be the spirit pricking you and saying-, Hey, listen up, you need to learn something here, or this is something you need to change in your life. I'm not wanting to make people uncomfortable all of the time. That's not my purpose. But it is important to me that people have their eyes opened a little bit and that we stop living such rigid cookie cutter lives in the church. We don't have to live that way. We don't have to constantly be in this-, well, it's always been done this way and so that's how we're going to do it. We don't have to do that. We can reimagine new things. We can follow our personal revelation. We can try things out and if they fail, then we can figure that out and work out something new. We can be different and we can bring up new perspectives and new ideas. At the same time of being the stomach acid, I recently learned that I can also be something different.
We were in a Relief Society lesson and it was horrible. It was a really rough lesson. It was about the three degrees of glory. It was really, it was just uncomfortable in the room. And so, as the lesson was ending, the Relief Society counselor got up to finish out; get the closing prayer person up there. I raised my hand and I just knew the spirit needs to come back in here. There is something that needs to bring some comfort back into this room. I raised my hand and I said, can I share a quote? And she was like, [00:50:00] “okay”. I read a quote from Elder Kearon's talk about the infinite atonement and how God wants all of us back, and it was just a 20 second quote. It was short. The prayer was said and the meeting was over. People said, “thank you for saying that”, “Oh, that lesson was rough, thank you for bringing in that reminder of God's love.” When I got home, I was talking to my husband and I said, “as often as I enjoy and can be the stomach acid, today I needed to be the antacid. I needed to be the Tums and bring some calm and comfort back into the room. It's important to be both. I know that there is a fine line of pushing it too far when you're the stomach acid, but I can also bring comfort. I think being in tune with the spirit, being in tune with the people in the room and being able to read reactions and that sort of thing is really important. I felt that at that moment it was important to remind people of God's love because often three degrees of glory is a hard topic to remember God's love. That was a good reminder to be both the antacid and the stomach acid.
SH: I can't love that enough. I sort of just want a pin that's a roll of Tums, actually. So good! I want to be that, I want to be both.
CW: That's a great metaphor. We're gonna steal that from you, Anne.
SH: I'm afraid we might.
CW: It's okay, I got the stomach acid from you guys and from Simone [Campbell].
SH: Well, we got it from Simone Campbell.
AP: Right, well, I heard it first from you, so this is my offering back to you.
CW: Beautiful, beautiful.
SH: Thank you.
55:05
AP: So, this is one of the reasons that I started my Vision Beautiful account is- You know, these were my three passions, Heavenly Mother, women's issues, and anti-racism education, fundamental rights. I wanted people to know that they weren't alone in, in church as we talk about these things, and as we try and figure out our place in church. A lot of my posts are about how we deal with these topics, or how we deal as women in the gospel, what we do, how we process things. I want people to know that even though it's scary to speak up, that you can be brave and you're not the only one. Like Cynthia said, knowing that I'm up the street a bit wearing pants and pride pins up here is comforting to her down in Utah County. Just knowing there are other people out there that are like minded or doing similar things, even if you're not in the same room, gives you this little bolster. Last Sunday- I'm in this chat group of amazing women and we all bought this pride dress from Target. And there were I think seven of us and we, none of us are in the same ward, but we all wore this pride dress to church on Sunday and it's just this bright, flaggy, striped, colorful dress. It was just so fun knowing that they were all out there in their own wards, showing up for people. One thing that I've learned from my anti-racism training is if you can't be the first person to speak up, be the second. There's power in numbers. That's the power of the #MeToo movement. When somebody can say-, I agree with that, or that has also been hard for me- that really is impactful.
I had this experience a couple years ago right after the “Think Celestial” talk came out from conference. That talk was hard for me to hear, and once I heard friends’ stories of how it impacted them and their lives in a mixed faith marriage or with children that have died, or whatever it is, I realized even more how difficult that talk was. And so, we were sitting in Relief Society, and that was the focus of our lesson. And I spoke up very first, and I said, “I'm not going to lie, this talk was hard, and these are the reasons why. I think we need to make space for the fact that this didn't land the same for everybody”. And I was nervous, but I said my part and then I was done. And this older woman in front of me raised her hand and she said, “Do you know what? It was actually really hard for me too. And this is why”. And then a woman across the room also in her probably seventies or eighties raised her hand and said, “I actually really struggled with this talk too.” And the fact that there were multiple people that were then able to voice their discomfort or their concern with what was said changed me so much. [I know] that I'm not alone. I never would have expected these women to speak up [00:55:00] or to even be bothered by something that came across the pulpit, but I'm not alone in what I was thinking.
I think that more often than not, that is the case, that people are thinking similar things. But we're just scared to say them, or we're afraid of any repercussions or whatever it is. So, if you can't speak up first, be the second.
CW: Cause then there may be a third, or a fourth. That's amazing.
SH: Well, Anne, this has been such a good conversation. I would like to keep learning from you all day, actually, because I feel like you are walking the walk here in a way that very few people that I know or that I interact with on a regular basis, certainly not a lot I can think of in my own ward experience are doing. And so, thank you for all of the inspiration that you have given me today. What I'm wondering now, as we come to the end of this conversation, is if you have some advice that you might share with another woman who is maybe at the beginning of her own journey of this kind.
AP: Yeah. I think the most important thing is to listen to your personal revelation. It is so important to be in tune with what your heavenly parents are saying to you. I think that the style and the culture of the church is very broad. There are so many different ways. You have your really strict bishop and your goofy, fun-loving bishop. We have mission presidents that are night and day difference. Everybody is just different. I would love to broaden that even more and to show the very many different ways that we can be members of the church, and that it's all okay. We don't, like I've said before, we don't have to fit into this mold. And I would love for people to just be more authentic and true to that personal revelation that they receive.
In the book Planted, by Patrick Mason, he has this beautiful quote that says, “The world is a symphony of diversity. The variety of plant and animal life alone is staggering. Add the infinite range of human personality, talent, and experience, and we begin to appreciate the boundlessly creative mind of God, who is both the organizer of all of that diversity and the chief delighter in it. I love that “chief delighter in our diversity”. Our heavenly parents created us individually and we are all so different. So, as you jump into your own individual journey, just trust in that personal revelation and it's going to look different for everyone.
SH: Gorgeous. Thank you.
AP: You bet.
CW: And can we close with a quick lightning round of fun questions for you? What's a favorite book of yours?
AP: It is a toss-up for me between See No Stranger, Valerie Kaur, and The Book of Longings, Sue Monk Kid. I love that book.
CW: The Book of Longings. Best novel I've probably read in the last five, ten years. So, I'm with you on that. Who is a woman you look up to?
AP: Growing up, it was my grandma Armstrong. She was my piano teacher. We played card games together. She was amazing. And I miss her so much. Right now, McArthur Krishna is one of my dearest friends and I just love her spunk and her attitude on life and she's amazing.
CW: A favorite quote?
AP: My favorite quote is by Maya Angelou; “Do the best you can until you know better, then when you know better, do better”.
SH: Such a good one.
AP: It might be a tattoo on my body at some point.
CW: Nice! And lastly, our famous question, what do you know? What's one thing you know today?
AP: Ever since you started doing this, I have been thinking to myself, what would I say? What do I know? And the thing that has come back over and over and over is grace. Grace is the most important thing. I just love it because it rings so true to me that grace is what our heavenly parents will give us. I've learned so much from you two about grace. And I hope that I can be an honorary grace peddler with you.
SH: That makes me so happy.
CW: You don't need to be an honorary grace peddler.
SH: That's what I was just going to say. You're a full-on grace peddler.
CW: Full on grace peddler.
SH: Thank you. Thank you so much, Anne. This has been a pleasure.
AP: I'm so grateful that I've been able to be here. Thank you.
1:03:05
AP: Here’s a little PS to our conversation. The Fast Sunday after I bore my testimony and wished everyone a happy pride month, and then had the conversation with my Bishop, he bore his testimony. He said that he recently had a conversation with a ward member where it was pointed out to him that not everyone feels comfortable at church. There are things said, or struggles that people are facing that can possibly make church uncomfortable. He acknowledged that comfort levels can be different and he encouraged us to make our ward more inclusive and loving. I felt like I had been listened to. It will not happen every time, but I believe that as we speak up and share our thoughts, sometimes we are listened to.
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VOICEMAIL CALLER 1: Hi, Cynthia and Susan. I just finished reading the newsletter where Susan talks about her mother's Beehive manual, and it was so fascinating. But what really [01:00:00] struck me was this sentence; it says, “This organization has been planned to help you find the many, many happy hours which belong to girlhood”. And that really struck me because my experience in Young Women's, which was in the 90’s, very much was not that.
I feel like Young Women's was pointed directly to preparing for your adulthood; preparing for being a wife, being a mother, and not focusing on your own girlhood, your own childhood. So, it's very sad to me that that was lost somewhere in between there. And I think it still is, unfortunately.
VOICEMAIL CALLER 2: Hi, Susan and Cynthia. I love your podcast and look forward to it every week. I blog at Exponent II under the alias Bailey for personal and professional reasons. And as I was working this week on a post about my experience wearing running shorts and a tank top to drop off my daughter with track and some looks, or I should say avoidance from members of my stake presidency. I realized that there are ways that the church primes [what is] acceptable. Can't stop thinking about Kevin Hamilton and his weird yoga pants comment. If I knew in a professional setting that a colleague or a boss was looking for lines to show what I was wearing underneath my clothing, I would report that person to HR. Yes, I understand garments are sacred. They are still also underwear and it's just so weird. Can't stop thinking about that. It's also got to be weird for the men in those recommend interviews who are trained to look at women that way. So, yeah, can't stop thinking about that. I know my daughters are not going to accept that.
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