Noelle Pikus Pace is an Olympic medalist, speaker, author, Gospel Doctrine teacher, wife, mother and member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Her faith and understanding of her identity as a child of God have helped her through all her Olympian experiences, both trials and wins. She won a silver medal at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, where she wore her Young Women necklace on the medals podium.
She joins Church News reporter Mary Richards to discuss the thrill and danger of skeleton racing, her recovery through faith amid massive setbacks, and how keeping on the covenant path has helped in every area of her life.
Listen to this episode of the Church News podcast on Apple Podcasts, Amazon, Spotify, bookshelf PLUS, YouTube or wherever you get podcasts.
Transcript:
Jon Ryan Jensen: This podcast was recorded prior to the passing of President Russell M. Nelson, 17th President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Some edits have been made to note his passing, and some interviews include remarks made before his death.
0:22
Noelle Pikus Pace: I know now that as I fully go all in to my covenants, that the Lord is painting this beautiful canvas. Whether I’m going through challenges or hardships or being shaped or molded in a way that I don’t feel comfortable in, I do know that it is who God needs me to be, because I know that I’m a daughter of God. So no matter what experiences I face, and even though it might take more time than I’d hope, going through some of those hard, hard things, and some of those blessings won’t come until the next life, and I know that. But in knowing that I am a daughter of God, it helps me to strive to keep my covenants each and every day. And in keeping my covenants each and every day, I know that my path can’t go wrong. I know that it’s going to be OK, and it’s going to be better than OK, and it’s such a blessing to know that we have this opportunity to make and keep covenants with a loving Heavenly Father.
1:25
Mary Richards: This is Mary Richards, reporter at 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.
Noelle Pikus Pace is an Olympic medalist, speaker, author, wife, mother and member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And while those labels are important to her, her faith in and understanding of her identity as a child of God have helped her through a deluge of Olympian trials and blessed wins.
As a silver medalist at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, she proudly wore her Young Women necklace on the medals podium. And now, in 2025, she continues to live her faith, sharing her light as an inspirational speaker, writer, Gospel Doctrine teacher, parent and more.
She joins this episode of the Church News podcast to discuss everything from the thrill and danger of skeleton racing, her recovery through faith amid massive setbacks, and how keeping on the covenant path has helped in every category of her life.
Welcome, Noelle, to the Church News podcast.
Noelle Pikus Pace: Thank you. It’s so good to be here.
2:47
Mary Richards: So many titles. We could begin with any of those. But a lot of people, of course, remember you and were drawn to your story because of the Olympics and those different experiences you had and your resiliency, really.
When you look back at that time, what are some of the things you remember the most about your competition years?
3:06
Noelle Pikus Pace: Yeah, looking back, it was a journey. So, a lot of people saw the Olympic day, they saw that Olympic moment, and they saw that podium and standing up there, and maybe some saw me wearing the Young Women medallion necklace, which still carries so much significance in my heart. But it was a journey. It was so many years and so many moments.
So, for me, it was challenging, it was hard, it was sacrifice, it was struggle. And putting that into words, I don’t think I can, because there was so much emotion into it. And joy, I mean, and joy, sheer joy as well. But I had to struggle through those hard days, like we all do. I had to struggle through those valleys before I could see that vista. So there were just so many memories, so many good ones, too.
3:54
Mary Richards: Yes, they see you win silver, and they think, “That’s amazing,” but there were so many years leading up to that and other things in your life, like that terrible accident you had in 2006, was it?
Noelle Pikus Pace: Yeah, it was going into the 2006 Olympic Games. At our Olympic trials, I was ranked first in the world and just so excited to finally become an Olympian. I had worked so hard. My husband and I had this dream and this goal to go to the Olympics. And at our Olympic trials, a bobsled came flying out of the track, going 60 or 70 miles an hour, and it crashed into me, and it shattered not only my leg, but it shattered that Olympic dream.
And so, there was this time in my life where I had to say, “Heavenly Father, I thought this is where I was supposed to be. I thought this is what You wanted me to do.” And I really had to question my purpose and why I was doing what I was doing. And it was at that time when I had to turn back — I mean, I hopefully am always with the Lord, or hopefully I’m always by His side, and I know He’s always by mine, but hopefully I’m by His, choosing to be there. And I had to turn to Him and say, “Heavenly Father, is this what You need me to go through? Is this where I need to be?” And I could feel that peace.
It took time, as these struggles in our lives do. It takes time to heal, whether it’s physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally, but with the Lord by our side, that healing does come. It does come. And I just remember saying, when I came back to compete that following year, “I don’t know if I can do this.” My plan was to go in this direction over here. I planned on going to the Olympics in 2006. I had this amazing thought in my head that “I’m going to become an Olympian, and then that’s going to be the ultimate pinnacle of this success, and then I’m going to be done, and then I’m going to start my family, and then I’m going to make strawberry jam and quilt.”
And I had this plan in my mind of what I wanted to become, and little did I know the Lord needed me to become something else. I love the analogy of the potter, and he’s shaping this clay. And I’m like, “I want to be a cup.” And it’s like, “No, no, you need to be this beautiful pot to hold flowers. You’re going to become so much more than just this tiny little cup on a desk.” And you feel the pain and the stretching and the pulling and the heat that comes with it, and that’s what I felt going into that next Olympics. I felt His hand guiding me, and I felt His comfort comforting me.
And it wasn’t always clear. It was murky at times, and I felt lost at times. But if I continued to put my trust in the Lord, those opportunities, those pathways, began to open up to me. And as I had faith and courage — there’s something to be said about courage. We can have faith, but if we don’t have courage to act on that faith, where does that put us? And by having courage to say, “Heavenly Father, I trust you, and I’m going to put my life in Your hands,” He was able to make something even more beautiful than I could have imagined, with my broken leg and everything coming back from the healing. That was so, so painful, so intense. But then on the other side of that was this beautiful, beautiful experience that I was able to have with my husband and ultimately with our two kids, which was fantastic.
7:04
Mary Richards: Yeah. I love how you are sharing how your faith gets you through. Life isn’t easy. How have you found that your covenants with God have helped increase your capacity, even, for these things that you’ve been going through in your life?
Noelle Pikus Pace: Yeah, my covenants are everything. I actually came from the temple to come here, because I’m like, “Heavenly Father, help me on this podcast, and help me to know what You would like me to say.” And I think that is at the base of it all, let God prevail.
And as we covenant with Him, He will keep His promises with us as we strive to love God with all our heart and love our neighbor, which can be hard. And our neighbor doesn’t just mean who’s living next door. Our neighbor means the person at the grocery store or the person that just cut you off in the lane. Maybe you’re driving and listening to this podcast, and someone literally just cut you off. How can you love them? How can we have more compassion and be more forgiving to the people all around us and to see them as God sees them?
And it’s easier said than done, and that is something that I had to strive to learn on this Olympic journey, is that the battle was never between me and them. It was never between me and my competitor and by me not liking my competitor. I didn’t like a lot of my competitors; I’m just going to be so honest with you right now. At the highest elite level, you’re trying to beat the best in the world, so you have to be all in into this competition mode, and your whole goal is to come out on top.
So, how can I love them? I may not like them, but how do I love them? And that was a challenge that I had to face and had to ask myself, especially at that most elite level of competition, once I got to those 2014 Olympic Games, I felt like because of the challenges and the experiences that I’d had, and I’m skipping over a little bit here, but having the two kids along the way and going in on this all in with my husband and my two kids by my side, I realized that there was so much more depth to the purpose as to why I was competing and why we were going back together.
And if I couldn’t learn to love the people that I was competing against, then where did that put me? Then what was the point in God’s plan? Why did God provide this way for me to have this incredible opportunity to compete for myself, for my family, for my community, for my state, for my country, for the world? Why would He give this to me if I couldn’t uphold that covenant with Him, that first and foremost covenant to love God and to love my neighbor? And it took some time, it took some effort, but I feel like I did feel that when I was at the Olympics competing.
9:44
Mary Richards: In 2010, I think about, that one-tenth of a second.
Noelle Pikus Pace: Oh, why would you have to bring that up?
Mary Richards: I know, but I wanted to see how, then, this conversation applied to that, about how you were helped through that incredible disappointment.
9:58
Noelle Pikus Pace: Yeah, it was meant to be. And I don’t want to say that our lives are left to chance or that there’s destiny or fate, but if we can choose to see every experience that we go through as a canvas, like as God painting our canvas, this beautiful canvas, and say, “You know what, Heavenly Father? I’m going to give my absolute best today.”
When I went into the Vancouver Olympics, into those Olympic Games — this was four years after being hit by that bobsled — I had taken a year off to have my daughter Lacee — who, it’s crazy, is now a senior in high school; oh my goodness, love you so much. But I took that time off and came back with this other perspective, but now I was torn. I didn’t know how to balance motherhood and competition and the spiritual side and the expectations of the world. And it really was very difficult for me to find my place and to find what God needed me to do. And there were times when I lost my sight of where I wanted to be and where I was going.
And going to those 2010 games, I remember — this is the truth of it, Mary — before I went to the Olympics in 2010, I wanted it to be over before it began. So I’m getting kind of emotional, because I can feel the pull that it had on me in those Olympic Games, because I wanted so desperately to be with my daughter and my husband. And I was feeling so torn, because every time I was competing, I wanted to be home, and every time I was home, I felt like I should be competing. I felt the expectations of my coaches, of the world around me saying, “You can’t do this,” like, “This isn’t the norm, and this isn’t how it’s done.”
And so I didn’t know who I was or why I was doing it, and I just wanted it to be over. So when I competed in the 2010 games, I remember after I crossed the finish line. So, on our skeleton sleds, we go down, we run, we jump onto our stomachs, we dive headfirst on a little cookie-sheet sled and go 90 miles an hour down the side of a mountain, steering ourselves in and out of corners. And we crossed the finish line in about a minute after going down a mile-long track.
At the Olympic Games, they combine our four times together. We go down the track four times, they combine those times together. And I remember going down that fourth and final run at the Vancouver Olympic Games, and as I crossed the finish line and propped myself up off my sled, and I saw the fourth-place finish next to my time, I just remember feeling relief. I didn’t feel the pain of it yet — I did eventually, but I didn’t feel the pain of it. I was just like, “It’s over. Oh, it’s done. I can move on with my life.”
And I remember Carl Lewis, Olympian Carl Lewis, NBC commentator, comes up to me with a microphone in hand, puts his microphone in my face and says, “Fourth place, wow, man, how do you feel?” expecting me to be so sensitive, be like, “Oh, shoot.” And all I could say was, “Oh, man, shoot dang. A 10th of a second, see you later, I’m out.” I was like, “I’m out.” And I was just done. I retired that day. I knew I was done before it started, and I had to find myself again. I really, truly just had to take a break from everything I was doing.
And over those next two years of my life, I really just had to figure out who I was without the Olympics by my side. I had to learn how to be a mom, honestly, because I had been away from my daughter; I missed her first steps, her first words, her first birthday. And I think that’s why you can feel this emotion coming from me, because I was just torn as to who I was and what I needed to be and what God needed to me, and I just needed that healing time to figure it all out.
13:37
Mary Richards: I can’t even imagine. But you came back, and we have 2014.
Unknown Speaker: Yeah. Wow. That was so fun.
Mary Richards: It looked like you had the best time. And, I don’t know, I think all of America fell in love with you and getting to know you and this story of perseverance and resilience. And, like you said, we see those four minutes, but it was a lot of preparation and work to get to that point.
14:03
Noelle Pikus Pace: It was a lot. I remember before the Olympics came — so I had taken two years off from the sport, had our son Traycen in 2011. And when I decided to come back, I was actually the stake Young Women’s president, and I remember Sister [Elaine S.] Dalton got up during the leadership training and said, “Young Women leaders, pull out your medallion so that your Young Women can see who you are and where your sights are set and what you represent, and that you represent the Light of Christ, that we’re striving to do this.”
So myself and my presidency went home and went through our boxes, the older Young Women medallions for those that remember them, and the torch. And I remember pulling it out and just wearing it with so much — I want to use the word “pride,” but just with so much pride, because I am proud to be a member of this Church, of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It’s who I am. It’s what I — don’t know where I’d be without it.
And I remember during this time, there was a conference talk by Elder Boyd K. Packer. It was in the conference talk titled “Counsel to Youth.” And he said, “Take hold of your life, and order yourself to be valiant.” And to me, it hit me hard. “Take hold of your life, and order yourself to be valiant.” And it taught me to live — to want to live — without excuses in my life, to want to live up to my potential that God wants me to live up to. It was scary to think about going back to compete, especially as a mom of two kids, I’ve been out of the sport. I didn’t know if I could do it. I wanted to hide under a bush.
I think we all have times when we’re saying, “Ah, it’s just easier to not be seen,” or “I don’t have any talents that people can really notice, so what can I offer to my community? What can I offer to my neighbor? How can I minister to this family?” or whatever your thoughts are. A lot of times we have this way of thinking, and that quote just hit me, “Take hold of your life, and order yourself to be valiant,” that as we take accountability and have courage for what God has given us — and like Sheri Dew says, God wants a powerful people. He wants us to be strong and capable and use our talents for good, our time, our talents, our resources, and give it to each other and share and uplift each other with that.
And that was really at the foundation of me coming back to compete in the 2014 Games. It was saying, “I want to be able to share this light, but I want to do it as a family.” My husband and I decided, “We are only doing this if we can do this as a family, so that we can show those really good, wholesome family values and share those with the world.” And so the next two years, we were just traveling in and out of countries and hotels. My oldest daughter, she was about 6 years old, and my son was 2 when I went back to compete at the 2014 Olympic Games. And it was just — it was perfect to have them there by my side when I crossed that finish line in Sochi, Russia. Absolutely perfect.
16:57
Mary Richards: Rejoice with you with that silver medal. Because you’re not alone. You are part of a family. In the beginning, I kind of named some of your labels, if you will — Olympic medalist, inspirational speaker, author. You are a wife and a mother, and I love how you’ve been talking this whole time about the support from your husband, the decisions you made together, the fact that you are a mother and you’re thinking of your children. And then, of course, they were thinking of you and supporting you, because you’re not alone. You’ve got this with your family.
17:26
Noelle Pikus Pace: That’s a great point. I think that’s something that we all forget at times in our lives, is oftentimes — especially in this world of distractions and turmoil — we feel alone. Oftentimes, I know I’ve felt alone. I know when I talk to my neighbors or my friends, they feel alone, whether it’s through medical experiences that they’re going through or challenges they’re facing or questions they have or gospel principles that they don’t understand or that I don’t understand. And a lot of times we feel alone. And I think at the heart of it, that’s it, is that we are not alone.
We are not alone. We are a family. Yes, I had my family by my side at the Olympic Games, and it made it so much more powerful and memorable. And that’s how it is here in the gospel, is that we are a family, and united, we can do more, and we can uplift, and we can support. And then when we come together and we gather, there’s a reason we gather on Sundays or gather frequently together, so that we can uplift each other and feel that unity, be a little vulnerable with each other and open up and share our experiences so people say, “Oh, I’ve been through that too,” and you’re like, “Oh my goodness, I had no idea you had that experience. I’m so sorry.” Or, “Oh my goodness, that’s — you can relate to what I’m talking about.” And I think there is power in that unity and in that family bond, here in the Church and within our own homes.
18:40
Mary Richards: Yeah. I just thought of the counseling we do in Relief Society, or ministering to each other. These aren’t just programs. These are from God, because we do need each other. I just thought of that, and I thought, “I need to contact my ministering sister and see how she’s doing.” When you were saying that, I thought, “I should send her a text.”
You had two more children after your Olympic days were over — twins, twin boys. And how is it just raising these children?
19:06
Noelle Pikus Pace: So crazy. Oh my goodness, if you have ever wished for twins, just think again. OK, but they are blessings. They are a handful, and they are just our greatest joy. They are so fun. Just being a mom, being a mother, I just had no idea how much joy would come into my life from it. It’s greater than any podium I’ve ever stood on. It’s not even comparable to any podium I’ve stood on. And yes, there are hard days, there are challenges, just like an Olympic journey.
There are those days when you’re like, “OK, I don’t know if I can go on again. I don’t know how I’m going to make it through tomorrow.” But as we set our sights again on the Savior and yoke ourselves to Him and ask Him for the strength and trust in Him and keep our covenants — as we keep our covenants, I know, and I have seen it, I know there is power in keeping our covenants as we strive to do those little things. The small and simple things. “By small and simple things are great things brought to pass” (Alma 37:6). It’s the same in the Olympics, and it’s the same in our lives. And great things are brought to pass as we sit down for family prayer, as we open the scriptures with our kids. Or, if you’re by yourself, as you do these things each day, building our own testimony and our own relationship with God, it strengthens our homes.
20:18
Mary Richards: Oh, I love that, that idea of being yoked to Him. And I thought of that scripture in Doctrine and Covenants, “I, the Lord, am bound” (Doctrine and Covenants 82:10) — “I am bound.” These covenants, it’s true, as He is there for us and with us.
It doesn’t sound like you put your faith in a box, you’re like, “Well, on Sundays, I go to church, and yes, I’m a member, but then my life —” This is your life, all of it together.
20:41
Noelle Pikus Pace: It is. It’s interwoven. My faith — I couldn’t separate my faith from who I am on Sunday to who I am on Friday. I need this gospel too much in my life. I need the Savior by my side, probably more so on a Friday evening than I do on a Sunday, but equally, in all regards, whether it’s in a time of trial or in a time of gratitude and joyous circumstances.
I just — I need Him, and I’ve witnessed as I’ve put my faith in Him throughout this journey, whether it’s been an injury that I’ve had and trusting in a priesthood blessing, or whether it’s been as I’ve been on top of the world and saying, “Heavenly Father” — this was literally a prayer I had as I was going down, right before I went down the track for my fourth run in the Sochi Olympics, I remember saying a prayer and saying, “Heavenly Father, first, last, middle, crash, whatever happens, Thy will be done. But help me to know what to say in front of the media. Help me to know what to say in front of the microphones and the cameras so that I can be a light and live up to the potential that You can see in me, that You need me to be. What should I say? What should I do? How can I be an example and a light to others?”
And I remember thinking for a split moment, I’m like, “Maybe I should shove the Book of Mormon in my speed suit and go down the track, and I could be like, ‘Hey, you guys read the Book of Mormon. It’s a great book.’”
Mary Richards: It might affect your speed, a little bit.
Noelle Pikus Pace: It would, and I would have been disqualified. Good job, Mary. They would have disqualified me because of the weight. You can’t add weight to your body. I would have been like, “That Book of Mormon weighs at least a half a pound.” And I’d be like, “Ah, man.” And then I was like, “OK, what else can I do?” I’m like, “OK, I could just start bearing my testimony about the Savior.” And I’m like, “That’d be good.”
And by the time I got across the finish line, I jumped into the stands, embraced my family and went down to the media line, the whole line of people waiting for that media. My mind was like, “I don’t know what to say.” And I remember one of the interviews, I was like, “Remember who you are and what you stand for.” And after that, I remember getting a letter in the mail, and they were like, “I loved your interview so much that I tattooed it on my arm.” And I’m like, “Oh, all right.”
But then I also didn’t realize the impact of wearing that necklace. So, it was a decision that I had made — I had made the decision to wear that necklace over a year before — and I didn’t realize that in just simply striving to do what the Lord needed me to do, and striving to put myself in His hands each day, just saying my prayers in the morning, saying, “Heavenly Father, please help me to see the needs of someone else today. Help me to have eyes to see. Help me to have hands to do. Help me to be willing to serve today.”
If I could go into each day doing that, He ultimately put me in a position — I didn’t need to show the Book of Mormon. I didn’t need to say what I thought I needed to say. He put me in the position because I was trying to do what He needed me to do in the small and simple things the days leading up to that.
And I had no idea that the world would see that medallion around my neck. I had no idea. We actually didn’t even know the impact that it had until we flew back to the United States from Russia, a week later, and we landed in New York City for a few events. And some kids, we stopped by the temple to show our kids. We just like visiting temples wherever we go, even if we can’t go in, just to show our kids. And we were walking in front of the temple in New York City, and as we walked by, a group of youth were coming out from doing baptisms, and they recognized me. And I didn’t even know — when you’re thousands of miles away from home and you see this little camera lens, you don’t realize the impact of that camera lens. You don’t know how far that camera lens is going to go, or who’s on the other end watching, or who will be able to.
And I remember as they came out, they were like, “Oh my goodness, you’re Noelle Pikus Pace.” I’m like, “Oh my goodness, how did you know? This is so weird.” And they all were like, “Let’s get a picture with you. Can we get a selfie?” And they’re like, “I loved seeing your necklace.” And then that’s when my husband and I looked at each other, Janson and I looked at each other, and we were like, “What? The necklace, you mean this?” And I pull it out. And they’re like, “Yes, that’s how we knew you were a member of the Church. And we just loved watching you and cheering for you.”
And I was like, “Oh my goodness.” And it hit me that I didn’t need to say what I had planned to say, but that Heavenly Father was guiding my life all along, and He’s guiding each of our lives if we allow Him to and if we just find joy in the journey, find joy in the journey, in the good, in the bad, in the ugly, in the crappy moments, just find the light, find a reason to be grateful, and let your light shine. And it’s miraculous when that happens.
25:20
Mary Richards: Oh, He allows us to partner with Him in His work. He can do His work, but through us also, and He’s been with you every step of the way.
Noelle Pikus Pace: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Mary Richards: Yeah. And another moment, too, as I remember seeing a picture of you they’d taken at church, too. Somebody had taken a picture of you and your family attending church.
25:40
Noelle Pikus Pace: It was so fun. I was so exhausted, but we had already committed to going to church. We had been traveling the world for two years, in and out of hotels and with our two kids in tow. I would go to train and compete, and my sweet, sweet husband, Janson, would be pushing this jogging stroller, a double jogging stroller, with both of our kids sitting, and he’d have the little snacks and the drinks and the sippy cups and things like that.
And we had just made a commitment before we even took that first flight that we would always strive to put the gospel first. No matter where we were, we would try to stop by temples — even if we had to drive a couple hours out of the way just to drive by it — just to show that that is where our sights are set through this all. It helped me to keep perspective when I was competing, so that I wouldn’t get super mad or frustrated at my opponents.
Mary Richards: You’re like, “Love my neighbor. Love my neighbor.”
Noelle Pikus Pace: I’m not a saint. I’m not a saint, people. I did the best, I constantly tried to improve. But going to the temple, even just driving through it, walking around it, and also striving to go to church wherever we were, it helped me to renew those covenants, to say, “All right, Heavenly Father, I need to take a deep breath in and kind of reevaluate where I am.”
I love the comments that Sister Michelle Craig stated a few years back when she said during sacrament meeting she likes to ask herself two questions. She says, “What am I doing right now, Heavenly Father, that I shouldn’t be doing?” And then she also says, “And what am I not doing right now that maybe I should be doing?” And thinking about those questions as I take the sacrament helps me to reevaluate where I am, helps me reevaluate, “Yeah, maybe there are things. Maybe I’m scrolling a little too long each day, maybe I’m not being more intentional with my kids at night, maybe —”
And it’s not to pick on ourselves. For me, it’s really about just finding one thing, just one thing. Don’t beat yourself up. That’s why we’re on earth, is to make mistakes, to struggle, and it gets really messy. But just think of one thing. If I learned anything in my Olympic career, it’s that the 1% makes all the difference. It’s the small and simple things. So just change one thing this week. And as I’d sit there in sacrament and say, “What’s one thing?” More often than not, as we travel on this journey, and we did a sacrament throughout these competitions, usually in Europe, I remember just saying, “What’s the one thing I need to work on?” And more often than not, it would be either judging others — usually it was just, “Well, you’ve got to stop judging others.” You laugh because this is so real.
Mary Richards: Well, I kind of have a problem like that too.
Noelle Pikus Pace: Oh my gosh, seriously.
Mary Richards: Don’t we all?
28:14
Noelle Pikus Pace: Right? But usually it was just like, “Stop it.” One of the things that Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf says is — when we’re talking about judging others — he says, “I have three words for you: Just stop it.” Just stop it. Just stop. Just stop right now. And so that was usually the thing that would come to me on Sundays, but in thinking that it would help me to have more compassion and more love for my competitors as I’d show up for that race that week.
And in having more love for them, I would be able to invite the Spirit into my life and with my family and into our hotel room, which was always our home. That was our home. Wherever our family was, that we would call it home. “We’ve got to go back home.” And that would be our hotel room for a couple weeks. But by having this different perspective and these different eyes to see because of the sacrament, because of those covenants, it allowed me to love my neighbor, even if my neighbor was my competitor.
29:05
Mary Richards: You’re an inspirational speaker and author now. Are some of these messages the ones you’re sharing with audiences?
Noelle Pikus Pace: Yeah, I really love to focus on accountability and taking ownership for your decisions. Right now, I’m currently writing some stories and some principles that help people to take control of their life and be more self-disciplined, in a fun way. We all make mistakes. It’s not about being perfect. Living without excuses isn’t about being perfect. It’s about trying. It’s about being intentional with the decisions that we make and trying to move forward each day a little bit better by design, crafting out who you want to become and taking the steps to be there.
29:44
Mary Richards: Yeah. Maybe not living with regrets or that anxiousness or that worry, but maybe taking some ownership and moving forward.
Noelle Pikus Pace: Yes, absolutely. We don’t want those regrets and that shame. We don’t want that in our lives. That’s not what we want. But we do want to feel that empowerment, I think is a good word for it. We want to feel like we have control over how we react. We don’t always have a choice as to what happens to us, but we can choose how we react to those circumstances, and that makes all the difference.
And when we can step outside of making excuses in our lives — when we make excuses in our lives, we’re just telling ourselves small little lies, I pick up my phone, and I’m going to text someone, and I see that they sent me a text, and I’m like, “I don’t even know how to respond to that, so I’m just not going to respond to it right now.” And you get back to it a week later, 10 days later, and you’re like, “Oh, sorry, I didn’t see your text,” when, in reality, you saw it.
Mary Richards: Well, I’ve done that.
Noelle Pikus Pace: Well, we all do. We all do. And that’s what I’m trying to do. This year, my theme for the year is “Living without excuses.” It’s no excuses for myself. I actually got this theme for myself by reading Doctrine and Covenants 88, and it talks about not making excuses for ourselves. There’s an actual scripture in there that talks about not making excuses (see verse 82). And I said, “I need to stop making excuses. It’s putting a distance between me and who God needs me to be, because I’m really just making these small little lies to myself and to others, and it’s digging me in this hole.”
And once you can take hold of your life and order yourself to be valiant and live without excuses, you’re able to live up to those standards and elevate your standards and do things that you didn’t think you could do. I’ve had a kitchen that has had this splotchy paint on the wall for five years. When we moved in, there was a little area that never got painted. And I’m like, “Ooh, I’ll get to that tomorrow. Ooh, I’ll get to that tomorrow.” And five years went by, and so the first day of this year, I said, “I am done living with excuses in my life.” And I went straight to the paint store and picked up a gallon of paint and pulled out the paintbrush, and it took me two hours, and it had been annoying me for five years. And so that’s what I hope to help people to do. I just hope to do good, to be good, to share good. You can do hard things. You got this.
31:58
Mary Richards: Yes. That valiant — I love that word — bravery and courage. But you have God helping you.
Noelle Pikus Pace: Absolutely.
Mary Richards: Every Sunday, that line in the sacrament prayers to always have His Spirit to be with us. So trust in that, I guess,
32:16
Noelle Pikus Pace: Yeah. Trust in it that He wants to be by your side, no matter where you’re coming from, no matter what heartache or challenges or mistakes you’ve made in your life, no matter where you are, He loves you, and He wants to be — but He is by your side. It’s us who pulls away from Him. He’s always there. We just need to turn and face Him.
We need to take action, and we need to — first step is just saying a prayer, whether you drop down on your knees or whether you’re in your car right now or whether you’re on a jog, or wherever you’re at right now, you can have a prayer in your heart, and that moment, right now, is that moment when you draw closer to Him. And He wants to be; He wants to help you in every way. Just turn to Him.
33:01
Mary Richards: Connect with Him again. Turn to Him. A lot of people might think repentance seems like big, scary, “I’ve done something really bad.” But really, it’s just returning. It’s returning to God.
Noelle Pikus Pace: Yeah, that’s so good.
Mary Richards: Well, it’s not my words. Many, many wonderful people have taught me that over the years. And speaking of teaching, you’re a Gospel Doctrine teacher.
33:21
Noelle Pikus Pace: I am. I love it. It’s so fun. Well, I teach like I would teach Primary. I don’t know. I love having little stickers on the wall, and I have little scriptures under desks and under chairs. And I’m like, “OK, let’s see who the lucky winners are today.” And some people are kind of rolling their eyes, and some people are like, “Oh, this is so fun.” And I’m like, “OK, you’re the one I’m going to call on.” So I absolutely love it. I love facilitating. That’s what I love doing, is I love standing up there and diving into the scriptures, learning about them together, sharing stories, how they’ve impacted my life, and hearing from those members in the room what has influenced them and how their life has improved or been changed or been challenged because of the words that are spoken in the scriptures.
So I absolutely love it. And I love, love, love our ward. I love our area, just such good people. I love this Church. I just love this Church. It’s the same whether you’re in Utah or New York or Canada or Mexico or Germany. It’s the same everywhere, and I absolutely love it.
Mary Richards: You saw that in Sochi, you saw it in Costa Rica, when your family lived there, that it’s the same Church everywhere.
Noelle Pikus Pace: So good.
34:28
Mary Richards: You have all these components to your life and all these things that you’re doing. Do you think maybe some athletes might struggle with “Well, I’m an athlete,” and that’s that label, or Olympic silver medalist, and you’ve had that shining moment, and then what?
President Russell M. Nelson has taught about our three main identities: child of God, child of the covenant, disciple of Jesus Christ. At one point, your identity probably felt like your whole identity was “athlete.”
How have you worked through that from those peak competitive years and everybody looking at you as “Oh Noelle Pikus Pace, she’s an athlete.” But you’re all these things too.
35:01
Noelle Pikus Pace: I love that. I love that so much. And I think it applies whether you’re an athlete, and yes, I definitely went through identity crisis. I think most athletes do, because you’re known as this one thing. And then people are like, “Oh, but you used to be an Olympian” or “You used to be an athlete,” and it starts wearing on you by other people’s stereotypes or boxes that they want to put you in. And it’s not necessary that people are trying to be mean or unthoughtful. It’s that they just don’t know how to ask or to bring it up again.
But I think we all go through these stages, whether your kids are leaving home, now what? Or whether you’re retiring from work, now what? Maybe it’s a high school student just graduating high school, and you’re like, “Now what?” And I think we all go through these times where it’s like, “Who am I, really?” And I love that you touched on President Nelson’s message, because that’s who we are. God knows who we are eternally, not just here in mortality. He knows who we are eternally.
And if you think about eternity as like — I try to share this analogy with my kids — if you had a kite string and you tie a little tiny knot in that kite string, and then you take that kite string and you wrap it around the world infinite times, you go around the world one time, two times, 10 times, a thousand times, a million times, our life here represents that one tiny little knot. And so sometimes we can be very closed-minded as to who we are and where we’re going and what we want, but eternity is all the rest of that string that’s wrapped around the world. And I know that can be overwhelming sometimes. I think my youngest was like, “Oh my gosh, why am I here? What am I doing?” Maybe I instilled a little bit of anxiety in him.
But if we can recognize one of the things that I did have to do is I turned back to my patriarchal blessing. I turned to the promises that have been given to me that are beyond that moment, whether it’s competing in the Olympics. And now here I am years after this Olympics, and I’ve got my kids, and I’m a mom of four kids and navigating a daughter that’s about to go to college, and my youngests are still in elementary school, and this whole slew of things going on all around me. “Now who am I, and who will I be once my kids leave?”
As I constantly come back to the Savior and say, Heavenly Father, who am I, and who do I need to be?” Interesting that you asked this question, because I actually recently dove into my patriarchal blessing, and I found answers that I thought I had checked off. When I had read it years before, as I was going to the Olympics, I’m like, “OK, well, I’ve done that, check. I’ve done that, check. OK, well, that, I don’t know if that’ll get a check. And going back and reading it now these years later, I’m like, “Oh my goodness. He still needs me. He still needs me to be a light. He needs me to get out from under this bushel.”
I’m not an Olympian — I mean, I’ll always be an Olympian, but I’m not an Olympic athlete right now, and I’m not coming out of retirement, people. I’m not doing that. But I know who I am because I want to be a light of our Savior, Jesus Christ, and I want to continue to learn and to grow, and I want to take classes. One of the things that my husband and I did after this experience ended, and we were feeling a little bit of that “Who are we now?” is we created a bucket list. Keep learning, keep pushing yourself.
And it’s not a bucket list to go swim with sharks or anything, but it’s a bucket list of learning and growth and books to read and sights to see and places to go. I wanted to learn Spanish, and my husband wanted to get a master’s degree. And so instead of throwing our arms in there and saying, “This is gone. I’m just an athlete. I’m a has-been athlete,” instead of doing that, we said, “What’s next? Let’s look forward with hope. Let’s move forward with faith. Let’s have courage and take action.” And so because of that, we moved to Costa Rica, and I learned to speak Spanish. So, yo puedo hablar español. [I can speak Spanish.]
39:04
Mary Richards: Muy bien. [Very good.]
Noelle Pikus Pace: ¿Tambien? [You too?]
Mary Richards: Bueno, claro que sí. [Well, of course.]
Noelle Pikus Pace: Chévere. [Cool.]
Mary Richards: Y tenemos Church News en español. [And we have Church News in Spanish.]
But I love this idea of setting goals, looking at what’s next. Heavenly Father loves to watch us grow and through that become more like our Savior, Jesus Christ as we learn and grow. And you know you can trust Heavenly Father’s help through all of it.
39:26
Noelle Pikus Pace: Yeah, and I think in this past summer, I’ve really had to dive in more to who I am. And I’ve talked to my husband about this a lot, because I felt like — I’m just really glad you asked this question because I felt like my big purpose for being here came and went. And I know that’s a really sad thing to think about, but I feel like either He could find me laying down on my kitchen floor, and I’d be like, “What am I doing with my life?” And I remember thinking, “What am I supposed to be doing with my time?” And I’d fallen into complacency. I feel like over the past few years at least.
While my kids were really little, it was exactly where I wanted to be, at home, spending time with them. And now that they’re all a little grown and more independent, I was like, “What am I supposed to be doing? Am I done? Do I not have anything else to give? What am I supposed to be doing?” And that’s really why I had this impression to dive back into writing. I want to write another book, and I want to get out there and help people and be the good. Like Moroni 7, I just want to share goodness and share light in whatever way I can. And if that’s through writing or speaking or in whatever way I can, I feel like it’s time for me to step out of my shell and come back and be back in His hands.
And I feel like I’ve been in His hands all along, but I feel like there’s been this emptiness in me that’s been that identity. I needed to refind my divine identity. And it doesn’t matter how old you are, you’re never too old to set new goals. You’re never too old to do what God needs you to do. And whether you’re 35 or 92, you’re never too old to serve someone or to look for a way to be God’s hands today. So it just takes courage, and it takes a little bit of overcoming those fears of getting outside of your comfort zone and taking action.
41:17
Mary Richards: Say yes to a calling, say yes to ministering. Be willing, be kind, be good. I love those things you’ve been saying, to be good. And so you’re writing now.
Noelle Pikus Pace: Yes, and I’m loving it.
Mary Richards: Oh, good. See, this again brings me back to your temple covenants of using your time and talents, consecrating sacrifice, all of those things that we covenant to do. And again, we have that promise that He’ll help us in that work.
41:41
Noelle Pikus Pace: Yeah, and he does, in whatever work you’re pursuing; whether you’re an engineer, whether you’re at home with kids, whether you’re alone, whether you’re working in your career — whatever area or season of your life you’re in, He’s there to help you. And as we keep those covenants, He cannot lie. He will not lie. He is bound when we do what he says, and as we keep those covenants of sacrifice and obedience and giving ourselves to Him, He will bless us. Those blessings that you are asking for deep in your heart, they will come as you put your trust in Him. they will come.
42:16
Mary Richards: I have absolutely loved this time to talk to you and learn from you. Our last question on the Church News podcast is always, “What do you know now?”
And I wanted to know: What do you know now about holding on to your identity while overcoming obstacles, perseverance, resilience and being a daughter of God?
42:37
Noelle Pikus Pace: I know now that as I fully go all in to my covenants, that the Lord is painting this beautiful canvas. Whether I’m going through challenges or hardships or being shaped or molded in a way that I don’t feel comfortable in, I do know that it is who God needs me to be, because I know that I’m a daughter of God. So no matter what experiences I face, and even though it might take more time than I’d hope, going through some of those hard, hard things, and some of those blessings won’t come until the next life, and I know that. But in knowing that I am a daughter of God, it helps me to strive to keep my covenants each and every day. And in keeping my covenants each and every day, I know that my path can’t go wrong. I know that it’s going to be OK, that everything is going to be OK, and it’s going to be better than OK. And it’s such a blessing to know that we have this opportunity to make and keep covenants with a loving Heavenly Father.
43:40
Mary Richards: Thank you for listening to the Church News podcast. I’m Church News reporter Mary Richards. 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.
