Episode 214: Changemakers | A Conversation with McArthur Krishna and Anne Pimentel
“Wouldn’t it be a good idea to have a book about girls who ask great questions?” This question from a 9-year-old inspired authors McArthur Krishna and Anne Pimentel to create their book Changemakers: Women Who Boldly Built Zion. By highlighting women’s stories, the book affirms our roles in building, growing, and sustaining the Church—influencing organization, policy, and culture. In Episode 214, Cynthia and Susan are joined by the authors for a conversation about specific ways women’s voices have mattered historically, and how we might continue to influence and effect change today and in the future.
Notes & Quotes:
Changemakers: Women Who Boldly Built Zion, by McArthur Krishna and Anne Pimentel, illustrated by Jessica Sarah Beach
ALSSI Ep. 192, Embracing Your Journey | A Conversation with Anne Pimentel
A Plea to My Sisters, by Pres. Russell M. Nelson, 10/2015
Connect with Anne on Instagram here (@the.vision.beautiful)
and here (@meetinghousemosaic)
Note: Art Stroll and book signing March 7, 2025, 6-9pm
Compass Gallery in Provo
“My dear sisters, whatever your calling, whatever your circumstances, we need your impressions, your insights, and your inspiration. We need you to speak up and speak out.” —Pres. Russell M. Nelson
“All I ever needed to know about changing the world, I learned from my Latter-day Saint sisters.” —Melissa Inouye
“I always have an eraser with me because the Spirit is always teaching me.” —Priscilla Sampson-Davis
5 Suggestions to Help Women Create Change:
1- connect to god
2- voice relentlessly
3- be ready to work
4- own this is our church
5- community (discussion group, online, restore conference, friend)
I really appreciate what these authors are trying to do, but you lost me with the boy-mom vs girl-mom comment - it sort of contradicted the whole message. It was just a small thing but girl-mom, boy-mom narrative is problematic in that it reinforces the very things the whole discussion is trying to improve or eliminate. At the very core of this comment is the idea and strong social narrative of what it means to be a boy or a girl, a parent of one gender or another. That for some reason you might think you are better suited to be a parent of boys over girls, or vice-versa, but what does that even mean? What is really being communicated in that comment? I'm athletic and love lifting weights and watching football... does that mean I am better suited to have sons? Hogwash. I'm not trying to be a nuisance here, but I just needed to say that comments like this only build on the problematic narrative we are working to improve. Let's all be more aware of our blind spots that show through when we make comments that capture our own social and gender biases.