Interviews

At five feet tall, Esther Yu Sumner has a big vision for life. The 39-year-old marketing professional, now a published children’s author, is always in pursuit of her next creation—her energy and creativity has led her friends to call her a “hummingbird.” Whether she is sewing an apron for her niece, making grape juice from […]

Erica Glenn believes in the power of music and the healing process of creativity, and has seen from experiences around the world how creativity fosters communities. She started composing her own music from a very young age and has written and produced her own musicals, including The Weaver of Raveloe, which was performed at the […]

Cecilie Lundgreen, known as CC, is a Norwegian professional golfer. As she was climbing the ranks of European pro golfers, she lost several loved ones in a short space of time. She became friends with two Mormon women golfers from Africa, her coach Reeve Nield and golf pro Laurette Maritz, who offered her a glimpse […]

Trisha Leimer was raising her family in Frankfurt, Germany when the global refugee crisis hit a tipping point in 2015. As she volunteered in and out of camps and continued to work with refugees, she developed personal relationships and realized how intertwined their stories are with our own. Together with five other people, she co-founded […]

As a refugee of the Spanish Civil War, Aïda was raised in France with two families: her Spanish family of birth and her adopted French host family. Her love of languages and art led to a rich life of creation as she wrote and illustrated children’s books and raised three children in Ottawa, Canada. As her sight has failed her in her later years, Aïda continues to fill her life with beauty.

Heather Staker is the founder and president of Ready to Blend. She speaks and trains about blended learning, which is any formal education program that combines brick-and-mortar schooling with online learning. She also co-founded and helps produce “Brain Chase,” an online-learning program for 2nd-8th grade students that involves a worldwide hunt for buried treasures. In this interview she talks about the experiences that helped shape her professional interest in improving schools, how she’s felt “quickened” in her efforts to balance motherhood and career pursuits, and her views on the need for a nuanced approach to screen time for kids.

Always a “mother at heart,” Alyson Von Feldt is an organization design consultant, author, speaker, published religious scholar, seminary teacher, and mom of four. She discusses her forays in and out of the workforce, the blessings of scripture study, and how she’s integrated theories from her profession into a more mindful family life.

Morgan Lyon Cotti grew up with a mom who worked in politics. These early experience shaped in own future as she stepped into advanced education and made choices about work, marriage, and motherhood, managing the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah. She shares her experiences in these areas – and current thoughts on women in politics.

Although raised on an Idaho potato farm, Rachel Esplin Odell is now a PhD student in International Relations at MIT with a focus on Asian security issues. Her decision to study Chinese and become an expert in Chinese international affairs occurred while she was an undergraduate at Harvard, and Rachel feels a spiritual draw to being a representative of the Church in Chinese affairs. Speaking eloquently of the sacrifices and balances of being in a dual career marriage with her husband, who is also a PhD student, Rachel talks about her desire to contribute to and draw from her home community and parent her 18-month-old son with her husband.

At the age of 50, Sally Murray didn’t have a passport and never dreamed she’d find herself living across the world. But a prompting by the Spirit lead her and her family to Ghana, Africa where she involved herself in helping with schools and fundraising for supplies for the children. Sally learned valuable lessons in love, humility, and an increased capacity to feel the Spirit.