Interviews

As a registered nurse who experienced her own life-changing neck injury, Abi Schnell has developed an empathetic heart that will serve her well in her future as a midwife. Abi’s love of people and adventure has taken her to a study abroad in Jerusalem, an internship in Fiji where she spearheaded an evaluation of the […]

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, […]

Maryan Myres Shumway uses art, music, and teaching to build community and cultivate “Zion” wherever she is. She has traveled all over the world, living most of the year in Qatar and spending summers in the United States where she and her husband run a girls ranch. Maryan is the oldest of nine children, and […]

Listen to this interview at the Mormon Women Project podcast, available on all platforms. This interview is part of our Mixed-Faith Marriage series. 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 […]

Eline Strand-Amundsen is a life-long member of the Church from Oslo, Norway. Raised in a family committed to the Church, Eline grew up with the gospel as a central part of her life, the lens through which she saw the world. She married in the temple, but six years into their marriage her husband Runar […]

Listen to this interview at the Mormon Women Project podcast, available on all platforms. This interview is part of our Mixed-Faith Marriage series. 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 […]

Identical twins, Lexie and Lindsay Kite’s life missions became clear to them during their freshman year in college.  An introductory communications course coupled with the pain of having grown up with severe body-shame would be the catalyst for their MA and PhD research and the beginning of their non-profit, Beauty Redefined. Lexie and Lindsay’s mission […]

As a professional historian, Kate Holbrook has focused her career on telling women’s stories through the lens of two of her favorite topics: religion and food. Currently the director of women’s history at the Church History Department, she talks about growing up as an only child raised by her mother and grandmother, how the Church […]

Sveinbjörg Guðmundsdóttir translated most of the Book of Mormon into Icelandic, beginning in 1977. She had joined the Church in 1976 after two missionaries knocked on her door and taught her the restored gospel. When approached by Church representatives about translating the Book of Mormon, Sveinbjörg quit her job and humbly accepted the assignment. She […]

As a seamstress with a special spot in her heart for the traditional Chilean cueca dresses, Maria Teresa Toro Valenzuela knows how to modify and improve on a good pattern.  Having been ‘born of goodly parents,’ Maria Teresa joined the church as a young mother.  Threads of love of family, country and the gospel now run through […]