Recording of our November 9th, 2021 Fireside Conversation with Melina Wheelwright Brown about her book Eve and Adam: Discovering the Beautiful Balance.

Melinda Wheelwright Brown earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Brigham Young University and is a respected teacher and public speaker. She has a passion for solving problems, particularly those faced by women. This has led to her involvement in and support of several organizations, including Fight the New Drug, Days for Girls, Better Days 2020, Big Ocean Women, and the Elizabeth Smart Foundation, where she’s a current board member. Melinda and her husband, Doug, are the parents of four children and have recently entered the delightful world of grandparenthood.

A conversation with McArthur Krishna and Bethany Brady Spalding about their new book A Girl's Guide to Heavenly Mother. We discuss how the knowledge of Heavenly Mother impacts us and influences our behavior. And we talk about the pandemic and racism within this context. 

Robyn Burkinshaw is the secretary of her stake Relief Society, and a gay woman. She was raised in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and has always had a love of the Gospel. When she left the Church as a young adult and struggled deeply with depression, she felt a devastating distance between herself and God, believing herself to be unworthy of His blessings. Time, family, and tiny miracles led her back to the gospel and after a twenty-year hiatus, she returned to church. Robyn’s journey is her own. While her story may help LGBTQ people realize the love that God has for them, it is not a guide for their own lives or their relationship with the Church.

Robyn is the CEO of BlytzPay, a financial technology startup. As a woman executive in the financial technology industry, Robyn is used to standing out and raising her voice for positive change. This interview is part of our Tales of Return Series.

A condensed transcript of this interview, including photographs, can be found here.

Elizabeth Ostler interviews Amber Richardson, a storyteller with many credits in many mediums. Amber has produced a YouTube series, “Splitting the Sky,” and a podcast, “On Sovereign Wings.” She has performed in festivals and plays, such as “Mother Wove the Morning” by Carol Lynn Pearson. One of the common threads running through her creative work is the desire to expand the female experience within a spiritual context.

On April 6, 1994, the airplane carrying the Presidents of Rwanda and Burundi was shot down over Kigali. That moment was like “oil on fire,” setting off the devastating Rwandan Genocide. Yvonne Baraketse’s father, Chief of Staff of the Rwandan army, was also on the airplane and killed in the attack. Yvonne was 14 years old. Her immediate family lost many relatives and friends in the violent aftermath, managing themselves to escape to Belgium. Although prayer had sustained her through the terrors of war, now a refugee she ceased to pray, feeling God had abandoned her and her people. But while in Brussels, she found the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ, which enabled her to forgive and look forward. She subsequently was made a refugee a second time in Hurricane Katrina, and was inspired to seek an MPA after observing relief efforts there. Yvonne lives in gratitude for her life, and has dedicated it to building bridges and lifting others: through service, through education, through dance.

A condensed transcript of this interview, including photographs, can be found here.

Emily Bates suffered severe migraines from a young age, leading her to pursue a career in science in order to study the genetic causes of the condition. She now is an associate professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, and runs a lab studying the molecular mechanisms of birth defects. Emily has led groundbreaking discoveries in the field of genetics, overcoming dyslexia, cultural pressures, and self-doubt along the way. She feels that God has led her from the beginning down this path. Emily sees science and faith as compatible methods of seeking truth, and relies on both as she runs her lab, partners with her husband to raise their daughter, and works to understand the nature of God and of the human body.

A condensed transcript of this interview, including photographs, can be found here.

Kristin Hodson is the founder and executive director of The Healing Group. As a LCSW and Certified Sex Therapist, she specializes in maternal mental health and healthy sexuality. In this interview she discusses issues regarding sexuality that are unique to conservative religious cultures, developing the confidence and skills to talk with our kids about intimacy, how we can better identify and support mothers who might be struggling with postpartum depression, and the importance of seeking out Christlike love and understanding in our relationships with those in the LGBTQ community. 

This interview was conducted by Nollie Haws. An edited transcript, including photos of Kristin and her family, may be found at our website, here. 

Leslie Schwartz-Leeper’s parents divorced when she was very young. Her mother raised her six children by herself, and taught them that the bottom line of the gospel is love. Leslie always had a testimony, but drifted in and out of the Church through her teen and young adult years. In her early thirties, she married Ian, a non-believer of Jewish/Episcopalian heritage, at the same time as she returned to the Church. Leslie talks about her positive experience undergoing a Church disciplinary council, about the ways Ian supports her and their children in Church activity, about some of the challenges of a mixed-faith marriage, and about the peace she has in her partnership with a man she chose for his intelligence, kindness, and love.

This interview is part of our Mixed-Faith Marriage Series. A condensed transcription can be found here.

This interview is part of our Mixed-Faith Marriage series, including many stories on the blog that will be published through the first half of December. A full transcript of this interview, including photographs, can be found on our website.

Jennifer Kambourian is a lifelong member of the Church. At 42 years old she married John, a man of Catholic upbringing who had recently lost his first wife to cancer, leaving him to raise his three children. Coming from a part-member family herself, Jennifer had always been determined to marry a faithful Latter-day Saint man in the temple. But a revelatory process of prayer, fasting, temple attendance, and conversations with trusted friends led her to know she was meant to join this family and give her heart to raising the children and supporting them through their grief. Jennifer and her husband have been married twelve years, and she attributes their success to their mutual support of each other’s faith practices and respect for each other’s autonomy. She feels peace that the questions of eternity will be answered later, and that her current job is to love her family.