Laurel Day became the president of Deseret Book in 2021 after 23 years with the publishing company.
On this episode of the Church News podcast, Church News reporter Mary Richards interviews Day on her unexpected journey to Deseret Book, her writing, and insights shared on the “Magnify” podcast about creating faith-based resources and supporting female voices.
While Day’s life has not gone as she had originally planned, she shares how the power and personalized process of revelation and the gift of agency have blessed her life in unexpected ways.
Listen to this episode of the Church News podcast on Apple Podcasts, Amazon, Spotify, bookshelf PLUS, YouTube or wherever you get podcasts.
Transcript:
Laurel Day: I think I didn’t understand the connection between revelation and the Atonement of Jesus Christ. And so now I see that as one of the grandest revelations I’ve ever been given — not how to get married, not how to become a mom, not any of the things I thought I was waiting to receive, quote, “revelation” for. And what I’ve come to understand is that revelation is actually, for me, the ways He fills the gaps in my life, the way He fills the gap of what I thought my life would be and what it is. But revelation came to my heart to settle and to help me realize, “Yeah, this is the enabling power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. This is what it feels like. This is what it can do for you.” And revelation is the distilling of a testimony of the Savior, Jesus Christ.
1:10
Jon Ryan Jensen: This is Jon Ryan Jensen, editor of the Church News. Welcome to the Church News podcast. Today, we are taking you on a journey of connection as we discuss news and events of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
1:25
Mary Richards: Laurel Day began working at Deseret Book as a part-time event specialist 26 years ago and is now the president of the company. She has a master’s degree in communications management and is the author of several books. Early on, she thought there was a certain plan for her life but has since learned more about being guided by revelation and the gift of agency.
I’m Mary Richards, a reporter for the Church News and guest host of this week’s episode of the Church News podcast. I’m delighted to welcome Laurel Day to talk about her unexpected journey while seeking personal revelation.
Welcome, Laurel, to the Church News podcast.
Laurel Day: Thank you so much. I’m so glad to be here.
2:04
Mary Richards: Well, I want to know how you got to this point. How did you get to where you are today?
Laurel Day: Oh, that’s an interesting story. I’ll just share this part of it: I graduated from BYU and was not married, and I moved back east to live with my sister and brother-in-law for a little bit and just thought, “You know what? I’m just going to make a life out here.” But I had this weird feeling about working at Deseret Book, and I kind of pushed it off. And I remember one night I had a dream, and in the dream I was climbing a mountain of some kind, probably a hill, because I’m not a mountain climber, but I was climbing up, and there were — this path diverged, but I noticed that the path led to the exact same point. The two paths went to the same point. And on one side of the path were people from my past that I had known, and on the other path were people that I had never seen. And I had this overwhelming impression that I needed to choose, that both paths were going to lead me to the same place, but I needed to choose.
And I woke up after that dream in the morning, and I told my sister, “I’m moving back to Utah,” which was really interesting, because she knew I wasn’t from Utah, I’d come here to go to BYU, and it just wasn’t home for me. And I was single and left BYU and thought, “I’m not going to be one of those girls that just stays in Utah forever trying to get married.” And I had this really sweet, peaceful feeling of coming back. And so I started looking for jobs at Deseret Book, and I applied for everything, things that I was completely unqualified for, and actually ended up getting a job I was unqualified for because it was a marketing position, entry level, for sure, but I had a speech pathology degree, like a useless speech pathology degree.
So, I share that story to say that I am where I am because of a series of choices. And that’s not to say that God did not open doors for me or open opportunities. But I think about that dream a lot because I grew up thinking that my job was to figure out some mystery of a plan God had already outlined for me, and I felt a lot of stress about making choices and decisions, because, “If I don’t choose right and He has something planned for me, I’m going to miss out.” And I feel like He wanted to teach me early on that He has a “big-P master Plan,” and my job is to make choices in the “little-P plan” to fulfill a bigger master plan.
And that’s, maybe, the spiritual side of how I ended up where I am today. This isn’t anything I sought. I was going to be a mom. That’s what I was raised to understand was my role. And I wanted to have six kids, and I wanted a very traditional life, and my path has been very untraditional in that regard.
5:01
Mary Richards: This dream and the choices, immediately I thought of Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and his teaching about how we live in revelation. Sometimes doesn’t it feel like we sit and wait, “Tell me what to do, then I’ll move, then I’ll act”? But as we act, as we move forward in faith, we are promised we’ll have the Holy Ghost with us.
5:22
Laurel Day: Yeah. So, let me share another example of that, because I have such a witness and testimony of that. So fast forward, I was single until I was 40. Well, actually I met my husband when I was 40 and then got married when I was 41. But I remember, for me, it was one of the best dating experiences and relationships. But I was a little afraid to pray about it, frankly, because I thought, “This is everything I think I’ve wanted, and I don’t want to know that it’s not right.”
Anyway, I remember the night that he proposed. I had hoped it was coming, but I didn’t know for sure it was coming, and I certainly wasn’t expecting it the night it happened. But I remember he asked me if I would marry him. And my first thought was, “Oh my gosh, I have not fasted and prayed about this; I don’t have a witness of this.” And this all happened, I’m sure, within this space of seconds, but in my mind, it took so long. And I sat there and just closed my eyes, and I heard two words as clear as day. I’ve never — I am not someone who hears the voice of the Lord audibly in words like that, but it was so clear and unmistakable. And the two words were: “You choose.”
And I remember thinking, “Are you kidding me? This is the most important decision of my life, and You’re asking me to choose?” But I realized He had done that again and again with the decision to serve a mission, what I chose to major in in college, which has nothing to do with what I’m doing now. And I felt this overwhelming peace of God was going to support my decision. And that was so revelatory to me that, again, it wasn’t me trying to figure out what He wanted me to do. It was truly me understanding who I am and what God’s hope was for my life, and this was an opportunity.
I believe agency rules all, and we underestimate the value of agency, that God cares about our agency more than He cares about our happiness. Because if happiness was the goal, He would force a bunch of things to just make sure we were always happy. But we fought a war for our agency. And in that moment, I really did have this feeling of, “OK, Laurel, what do you want? Do you want to marry someone who’s been previously married and experience that life with maybe some complications you weren’t expecting in your — as you’ve thought about marriage? Or do you want to continue on this path, this beautiful life you have built of being single and serving and doing things in a different way? You choose.”
So I amen to that concept that Elder Bednar and others have taught, because I really, truly believe God lets us make choices, and if we’re going to choose something that’s going to dramatically impact the course of our lives in a way that is not good for us, and we’re living by the Spirit, I believe He will say, “Oh, no, you think you want that, but you don’t want that.” Or He’ll put something in the path to stop it. But if it’s in accordance with His “big-P Plan” and it’s something we desire, I do believe He lets us make choices all the time, that there’s not a right or wrong.
And that, for me, is kind of mind blowing, given the paradigm that I grew up thinking was the way for us to receive revelation, where it really was more of a guessing game, “Am I going to get this right or not?” and instead of, “We are agents here to act and not be acted upon.” We are trusted by a loving Heavenly Father who wants to help us live this life as beautifully and as awesomely as we can, and He’s going to support us in our choices, which is kind of mind blowing to me.
9:19
Mary Richards: And we move forward in that faith, making our choices, hearing the Spirit, perhaps maybe line upon line or learning and growing precept for precept, those kinds of things.
Laurel Day: Yes. And that is not to say that there — I absolutely believe there are times when we will get a strong impression to do something or to make a decision that we wouldn’t have made otherwise. But I don’t think we’re meant to be paralyzed when we don’t get that strong impression. I really, truly think it’s ours to say, “Please make Your will known in my life, and I’m going to operate in this space until You do. If there’s something about this that I need to change, I’m going to be going to the temple, and I’m going to be praying and searching the scriptures and doing all those things and trusting that You will speak to me if there’s something different I should be doing.”
And I want to be careful, because I don’t want to sound cavalier about this. I spent two decades struggling to figure out what the Lord’s will was for me in my life, and wanting some things that He wasn’t granting me. And some of those nights and times were I wrestled a lot in the temple, and I wrestled a lot in prayer. So I don’t want to make it sound like I had this figured out; I certainly didn’t. But that revelatory moment in the temple when the Lord said, “You choose” has been a shifter for me, and it’s something that I wish I had understood years before. I think it would have made a lot of the path of my life easier if I understood He really wanted me to choose. He wasn’t waiting for me to take a test and figure out, “Is it A or B? Is it true or false?” He really wanted me to choose.
10:59
Mary Richards: Isn’t mortality so interesting? This idea that we’re here and that we have choices and that we have a path laid out and a Savior to help us. It’s mind blowing when you just really think about it and try to understand it better. And I also thought, too, how interesting that that was the first time you had really heard those words, because we each might feel or hear or experience the Spirit in different ways.
11:26
Laurel Day: Yes. And I think prior to that, I was living my life making choices, but I wasn’t — there was always a part of me, even deciding to serve a mission, there was a part of me deep down inside that thought, “What if I’m not supposed to? But what if I am supposed to?” It felt like such an eternal-consequence decision, instead of just making a good decision and letting the Lord ratify that along the way, realizing, “Oh, I’ve lived my whole life this way. But I’ve made it so much harder than it needed to be, thinking God had a right answer, I had a wrong answer, and my job was to figure out God’s right answer, instead of realizing, “No, we’re here to choose,” and we get to make a lot of choices about a lot of good things, and maybe not everything has to be “this is right, this is wrong.” It’s, “These are both good. I can use you in both these places.”
You know, it’s that dream of the mountain. I think I could have stayed in Connecticut, and I think the Lord would have helped me build a beautiful life there — very different than the one I have now, which I’m so grateful I have the one I have now — but I really do think that dream was helping me see, “You’re going to get to the same place, and you’re going to have different experiences over here than you have over here, but you get to choose: Where do you want to go? What do you want to do?” And there’s something just so sweet about that, because it shows a confidence.
Elder Richard G. Scott was — he gave several talks, but he gave a talk called “Trust in the Lord” that had a huge impact on my life. And one of the things that I learned from that talk — and yet clearly didn’t learn for 20 years later — but one of the things that was so impactful in that message to me was that when you aren’t getting that clear answer, trust that the Lord has confidence in you. Make the decision.
Anyway, that’s a very long answer to a very short question. But I do; I feel it so deeply, and I think too many of us, we miss out on some of the learning of life because we don’t actually want to choose, and we want to just know that we’re following this prescripted, approved path for our lives, and that’s just not the way it works for most of us, you know?
13:38
Mary Richards: Not really meet that we should be guided in all things, but we should learn and grow as we experience, and keep our covenants. Do you frame that, also, your life decisions and making choices around your covenants?
13:50
Laurel Day: Amen. And I’m glad you brought that up, because I spent — I received my endowment when I was 20, which was unusual then. I wasn’t going on a mission, I wasn’t getting married, but I felt so compelled. And the mission age then was 21. I felt so compelled to receive my temple endowment. And what I couldn’t have imagined is because I was single for those next two decades, I could not have imagined how important the temple would be in my life.
So yes, this idea of choosing and trusting is absolutely framed by having a covenantal connection, covenantal relationship, with Deity, and I think that’s critical. I shudder to think what my life, how it would have played out if I hadn’t had the temple, if I hadn’t had those covenants to guide my life, because I was making choices in a framework that ultimately was going to help me become who I wanted to become. Without that framework, I think I’m the kind of personality that would have been paralyzed by some of those choices, and certainly I would never want to make those choices outside of the gifts of the Holy Spirit in my life, the gifts of the power of the priesthood in my life, the gifts of temple covenants.
15:10
Mary Richards: How does your covenant of using your time and talents to lift and bless and build a kingdom pair with your work at Deseret Book?
Laurel Day: Oh, that’s a great question. I think one of my challenges has been, honestly, Mary, that once I landed at Deseret Book and I saw the good that I had the opportunity to do as a profession, there were times in my life — there are still times in my life, if I’m being honest — where it’s hard to separate work and mission, like life’s purpose. I think you’re really fortunate if you get to work in a space that feels like it’s also part of your life’s work and life’s mission. Not everybody gets to do that. I feel very privileged that I get to do that. And it can be harder because sometimes you can’t just leave work behind, because it feels so critical, or it feels so important, or it feels like you have a chance to impact some lives. And so I would say literally colors the decisions I make and the choices I make; it colors the way I interact with others.
I also take a great responsibility knowing that I’m making decisions sometimes that are also impacting other people; content creators or others who have felt called to do something. And sometimes we are a vehicle for them to have greater influence and to share their message, and sometimes we’re not. We can’t possibly be the vehicle for every single person who feels inspired to write a book. I’ve spent my career hearing from, I’m not kidding, thousands of people over 26 years who have felt spiritually compelled to do something, and it’s not logistically possible for us to be the vehicle to get all of that out.
And so I tell people often when I talk to them, “I have no doubt you were impressed to do this. Were you impressed to do it for your family, for your congregation? Were you impressed to do it for your community? Were you impressed to do it for a larger —” That’s not mine to decide, but I’ve got to make business decisions that fall in line with a mission-driven work that we do. But we certainly just can’t do that for everybody.
So it’s hard, because you feel this constant pull of business and being a good financial steward and making good decisions and realizing that at the end of the day, none of this work matters if it’s not actually helping to build the kingdom and amplify the words of prophets, seers and revelators and help people come closer to Jesus Christ in their lives and in their families and in their homes. And I’m grateful for that connection, and I also feel the tension of that connection.
17:48
Mary Richards: Yeah, because Deseret Book isn’t just Deseret Book; it’s grown to have so many different products and platforms and events and podcasts. And in this world where we do consume information in many different ways, has it been hard to keep up with that, or do you feel like you’re ahead of it?
18:04
Laurel Day: I wouldn’t ever be so presumptuous as to say we’re ahead of it. I think that we have a pretty good grasp of it, and we know where we’re falling short and where we’re doing well. You know, it’s interesting: George Q. Cannon is our founder, his picture is in our building, and he’s fascinating to me. And one of the things he saw as the train was coming into Salt Lake City in this area, he just saw a need to protect our youth and children from maybe some of the influences of, quote, “the world.” And it’s not that different for us now. I think instead of trying to protect, though, what we’re trying to do is meet members of the Church where they are with resources that will help them where they are, all guiding back to eventually stronger covenantal relationships.
But every member of the Church is on a different path of their faith, a different part of their journey. And so we try really hard to help people see, “There is a place for you in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” And whether you’re a young mom, whether you are in the prime of your life, whether you’re a missionary, whether you’re preparing for a missionary, whether you’re a Church — you’re serving in a position of leadership, wherever you are, we want to help provide additional resources that will help you. Let’s be honest; we can get everything we actually need from the Church, right? And the Church is great at giving guidance of the ways we should spend our time and the things we should be doing. And we live in a temporal world where we make financial decisions every day about what we think has value and what we don’t think has value.
And so our philosophy is if you’re looking for additional resources to help you in some problem you’re having in your life as a Latter-day Saint, we want to be the place that can help you with that. If you’re looking for an event, if you’re looking for another podcast, if you’re looking for scripture study resources, if you’re looking for art to hang on your wall, if you’re looking for a meaningful Christmas gift to give your neighbor that’s Jesus-focused, Target’s probably not going to have that, but we will. And so we want to help members live their fullest lives in their journey of faith as they do things as simple as decorating their home or as giving gifts or teaching or whatever the case might be.
20:35
Mary Richards: You know, and I think I’ve also seen Deseret Book’s customer base — or clientele, should I say — expand to those not of our faith as well, because they see the value in these Christian-based, Christian-related. For example, I think of the — I’m a big fan — of the historical fiction, the clean romance sections that I can find at Deseret Book. Do you see people coming to these products thinking, “Ah, this, I can trust this,” or, “Oh, I love this. I’ve been looking for this.”
21:03
Laurel Day: Yeah. I mean, we have a national imprint, Shadow Mountain, that wins a lot of awards with schools and librarians, and one of the things that they’re so grateful for is that it’s safe. They know it’s going to be safe. And we don’t take that lightly. We take that very seriously. And we also have in our brick-and-mortar stores, largely on the west of Denver, they’re in a variety of locations.
And there’s one store in particular, it’s our Bellevue store in Washington, and it’s interesting because it’s near a car dealership and a place where people bring their car for service, and the number of people that will just — there’s not a lot of things in that strip mall; there’s like a donut shop, and there might be an IHOP or something — but the number of people that will just walk in. And we’re unabashedly trying to serve Latter-day Saints. We don’t hide that. But certainly you’re going to find a number of things that apply to simply people who care about being disciples of Jesus Christ.
And so our product line often will bump up against those things. And if we can be one more voice for people and one more resource for people, we love that. And we do have elements of our business that are intended to reach out to a wider audience. And it’s interesting to me to see the ways that the Lord helps people bump in, sometimes through the Church, and sometimes that is through product that they wouldn’t have known about otherwise.
22:29
Mary Richards: Well, and we would love everybody to then pick up the Church content, read that biography of President Russell M. Nelson, learn more about him. But then also, while you’re here, of course, see these.
Is there a challenge, then, in working in retail and that, like you’ve talked about, that tension with making good financial decisions, working in retail, but providing the support role for providing Church content?
22:50
Laurel Day: Yeah, I’ll tell you: I mean, it’s tough business because — and everybody feels this in their lives — but I don’t know if you’ve noticed the last time book prices, just as one example, they don’t really increase, but the cost of getting that book is so dramatically different now than what it was even in like 2019. But we’re very conscious about our pricing decisions, because we understand people’s lives, and we understand members of the Church are already very generous with what they have, and so we’re very careful about that. And I have a responsibility to ensure that we’re running a business that is self-sustaining.
And so what I will tell you is that we look, consciously look, for ways to make sure that we are providing resources or options for people at every part of a family budget. Nativities is a great example. You can get a $10 nativity, or you can get $100 nativity, but there’s going to be a wide range. But we’re always looking to say, “Really, truly, what do we need to make? And what price could this be to make as many people as possible be able to get it?” But there is that tension, and it’s the one piece of it that is hard in terms of being able to meet all the needs that maybe if we were a nonprofit organization, or we had a secret investor behind us, maybe we would be able to do things differently
But it is true to say that we are constantly looking at what we can afford to do something at, instead of how much money can we make off of something. That’s just a general part of our business.
24:26
Mary Richards: In a time when so much is said about identities and our diverse labels and things like that, what have you learned about the importance of unity and of our most important identities and being one?
24:38
Laurel Day: I will say I’ve studied President Russell M. Nelson’s message, I believe it was to young adults; he gave it in May of 2022. I’ve studied that message a lot because it came at a time when Deseret Book had been really earnestly ramping up our efforts to share a wider variety of voices, in a lot of realms. And when that message was given, the thing I kept hearing from people is our three most important identifiers, and I believe he identified them as that we are a child of God, first; child of the covenant, second; and then disciple of Jesus Christ.
And so for some people, they heard that and said, “Nothing else matters. No other identity, no other label matters.” But that’s not actually what he said. He said that those are the three most important priorities and that all other labels should fall under them. But he also did say, he said, in fact, he said: “Please do not misunderstand me. I am not saying that other designations and identifiers are not significant.” So certainly there are other identifiers — whether it’s race or gender, I think he even refers to sexual orientation, religion — all those other identifiers are parts of who we are, and I think it’s really important to highlight and help people understand lived experiences of other children of God, other children of the covenant, other disciples of Jesus Christ, that are maybe different from their own. Because I think it helps us see each other in those top three all-important identifiers.
So for us, I see diversity as a way to actually help unify all of us, because if I can feel a deeper connection to you because I understand better what makes you you because of your lived experience, that sometimes is deeply impacted by race or gender or socioeconomic background, sometimes it is deeply affected by those things. And so if I can understand that better, I can maybe understand better why you see the world differently than I do.
You know, we’ve been in a very political climate. It’s fascinating to me that people who, regardless of where you live, there’s politics everywhere. Here in the United States, it’s fascinating that people who go to church together on Sunday read the same scriptures, hear the same general conference talks, can feel so polar opposite on something like politics. But here’s what I love about those three identifiers: American is not in there. Republican, Democrat isn’t in there. We’ve got to see ourselves first in those three ways, and then those other things, he’s not saying they don’t matter, but they can’t matter more than this. But at the same time, I believe we can understand each other better if we understand, “How did you develop the beliefs outside of faith that you developed?” And surely gender and race and some of those other identifiers have impacted that for all of us.
And so if we can amplify and give space for voices for members of the Church who aren’t often heard from, or perhaps you’re in a minority group that isn’t the predominant narrative that’s always said. And whether that’s women, whether that’s our Black brothers and sisters, whether that’s our Latino brothers and sisters, like a wide variety, I just think it helps us all unify around the message of, “Wow, we are all children of God, and look at how He works with all of us in our lives to try to get us to the same spot. He intentionally set the world up the way He did. And what can we learn from that?”
And to me, I find a lot of peace and unity in realizing we are all so different and we have these three common identifiers that President Nelson outlined for us. I love that. It doesn’t create conflict for me; it actually creates, “OK, we’re all in this together, and you with your lived experience and me with my lived experience, we’re actually better off if we are doing it together.”
29:02
Mary Richards: I keep thinking of the phrase — it keeps going through my mind — “one in the body of Christ.”
Laurel Day: Yes. Yes. And I also think part of being “one” is living our baptismal covenants like really mourning with each other and bearing one another’s burdens. And we can’t do that if we don’t understand what’s happening in each other’s lives and recognizing that people are having different lived experiences based on some of these other, quote, “labels” that exist in this temporal realm. And I think that it allows us to live our covenants better when we can see that.
29:38
Mary Richards: Talking about women’s voices, in particular, I’ve been thinking about this. Especially, we just had “Saints, Volume 4″ released, and I think about the stories of women in the history of our Church, and women’s voices throughout that, and women’s voices today.
So, what is the importance of sharing those stories and voices and lifting everyone’s faith?
30:00
Laurel Day: You know, we’re in an interesting space, I think, because there seems to be a feeling a little bit of tension in our ability to amplify women’s voices. Look, the reality is the way the Church is structured, there are fewer women in prominent leadership positions. There just are. It’s just a fact. Doesn’t need to be anything more than a fact. And so I think we have an opportunity to tell these stories that maybe haven’t been as well known, and to find quotes from women that we can share when we’re giving a talk or a lesson, because otherwise we’re missing a part of, again, going back to this lived experience, we’re missing a part of the perspective.
As I have studied the lives of women, whether it’s Eliza R. Snow or Emma Smith, or even Ardeth Kapp, who we recently lost. As I’ve studied those lives, I’ve realized, “Oh, OK, there’s so much that the Lord has already shared and taught to His daughters, and I’m not actually having that much different of an experience than my counterpart did 200 years ago. And what can I learn?” And so I think we have an obligation, honestly, to learn these stories and share teachings from women. And I also think it’s a beautiful opportunity to help make sure that this next generation of women grow up knowing these stories and having these role models in ways that maybe some of us who are a little older didn’t always have.
But I applaud so much of what’s happening, particularly right now, in the Church History Department, that has always been happening, but it just does feel like, especially with the “Saints” volumes, there really is a concerted effort to make sure that these stories are no longer just in the annals of some history shelves somewhere but that they can be a part of just the narrative of the stories that we tell, which I just think is exciting.
31:58
Mary Richards: Is there a particular story or example that has touched you and been an example to you that you would like to share?
Laurel Day: I will say — and I have talked about this a little bit already, but I don’t think it can be shared enough — I have been so deeply impacted by the life of Ardeth G. Kapp. And for those of you who don’t know who Ardeth G. Kapp is, she was the ninth Young Women general president of the Church. She served from 1984 to 1992. So she served for eight years, and frankly, it was the entire time I was in Young Women’s. And when you think of the millions of women that have now been impacted by what her presidency did, particularly with the theme, I’m not sure how many other women have had the kind of influence on women of this Church as Sister Kapp, and I’m just so grateful for her.
And I used her because she’s a modern person, but she’s also not currently living, and so I think she’s very easy to talk about. But I was 13 in November of 1985, when the Young Women’s theme was introduced, and I watched that broadcast in the stake center in Louisville, Kentucky. And I will never, for as long as I live, I will never forget what I felt as I was given this gift of understanding that would become repetition, that would enter into every fiber of my soul. And as I was privileged to get to know Ardeth probably 15 years later, as I started working at Deseret Book if you were a young woman at that time, you knew you were one of her girls, and she referred to that. But I’ll tell you what was interesting to me.
I grew up thinking, “If I could just meet Ardeth Kapp, if I could just be around a woman like that.” I grew up thinking about her in this spiritual space. What I was not prepared for is Ardeth Kapp the leader. Ardeth Kapp the woman who navigated tricky things during an interesting time and felt really strongly about what the young women of the Church needed in her time, and she made it happen. The Lord used Ardeth because He trusted her. And she shared with me just little stories here and there, all of which you could read in her biography; none of this is a secret. But she was prepared to work within the confines that maybe she had in her responsibility.
And, man, when the Lord opened a door, Ardeth walked through it confidently with, she had already done the work and had already received the revelation and had already asked the Lord what He wanted, and she was ready. And I just think more of us would benefit from realizing you’re not starting from ground zero; you’re starting from a level of women who have gone before us and paved away and set an example and have already started to plow some of the ground that needs to be plowed. And if we can start from what they gifted us, instead of starting from where we think is ground level, I just think there’s so many more opportunities to help build the kingdom as women.
So many prophets have said that the Church will not ever fully realize its potential until women step into those spaces that we have been invited to step into and, frankly, have every right and responsibility to step into. And when we do that, I do believe it’s just going to unleash goodness in the world in a way, that is our call. It’s part of our call as daughters of God, daughters of the covenant, disciples of Jesus Christ. And so whatever small part Deseret Book can play in helping amplify those voices and helping women be reminded daily of their identity and their call and their opportunities, I want to be a part of that.
36:05
Mary Richards: Yes. We have a tradition at the Church News podcast where we give our guests the last word. And we started this podcast talking about revelation, and so I’d love to know: What do you know now about revelation in your personal life and being a covenant-keeping woman in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?
36:23
Laurel Day: Wow. I think I spent a lot of my life thinking that revelation was moments — seeking something out, getting an answer; petitioning the Lord for something, getting understanding. I think I thought personal revelation was these flashes. And, you know, my life has been unique. It hasn’t played out in nearly any way that I thought it would. Reflecting upon Sister Kapp, one of the things I’ve appreciated about her being a model for my life is she was not privileged to have children. That is the heartache of my life. I have been blessed with four remarkable stepsons, several of which now have wives who feel like daughters to me, who I love and adore. I have grandchildren that make me feel the way I always hoped I would feel in getting to be a mom. But I missed out on this kind of central peace.
And so I spent a lot of my life thinking revelation was the Lord giving me insider, helping me understand how to attain this thing that I thought I was born to do and this thing I thought I wanted. And what I’ve come to understand is that revelation is actually, for me, oftentimes the ways He fills the gaps in my life, the way He fills the gap of what I thought my life would be and what it is. Now, in some ways, He has filled that gap with blessings and opportunities beyond my wildest hopes. My life right now feels a lot like that. But I spent two decades of my life longing for something that wasn’t going to be mine. And no amount of eternal promises, no amount of “Oh, there’s a Millennium,” no amount of any of those platitudes that people say, filled that gap. But what filled that gap is the revelation that came to my heart of what the Savior, Jesus Christ, has done and continues to do for me.
I think I didn’t understand the connection between revelation and the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I don’t think I spent my life understanding that connection. And so now I see that as one of the grandest revelations I’ve ever been given — not how to get married, not how to become a mom, not any of the things I thought I was waiting to receive, quote, “revelation” for. But revelation came to my heart to settle and to help me realize, “Yeah, this is the enabling power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. This is the healing power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. This is what it feels like. This is what it can do for you.”
And now, understanding that as revelation has opened my mind and my heart to all that the Lord has to teach me. Revelation isn’t discovery of some unknown answer. I think I would say revelation is the distilling of a testimony of the Savior, Jesus Christ, and that part of my understanding has helped me in ways I hadn’t imagined. And I hope I spend the rest of my life not seeking those big flashes but recognizing that when the Holy Ghost speaks to me and teaches me some of these basic eternal truths, that is the process of revelation for my entire life.
40:40
Jon Ryan Jensen: Thank you for listening to the Church News podcast. I’m your host, Church News editor Jon Ryan Jensen. I hope you learned something today about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and had your faith in the Savior increase by looking through the Church News window as a living record of the Restoration. Please subscribe, rate and review this podcast so it can be accessible to more people. And if you enjoyed the messages we shared today, please share the podcast with others. Thanks to our guests; to my producer, KellieAnn Halvorsen; and to others who make this podcast possible. Join us every week for a new episode. Find us on your favorite podcasting channels or with other news and updates about the Church on TheChurchNews.com or on the Church News app.
