Doubt Not, Fear Not | Our Turtle House: Digital Fireside

[Music] hello my friends welcome to another our turtle house digital fireside we are so grateful that you're with us again tonight we have a special treat for you i know we say that every week with the guests that we that we're interviewing and allowing to come and share messages with you but really this week is something i have been looking forward to for a really long time all right before we get started can we just talk about uh the people that are commenting and and and telling us uh giving us these positive reviews about these fireside because we are so grateful for you uh let me show you a couple of things that have been said one this is from kinsley she said she said these thank you for the firesides i have felt my testimony grow uh since i've been watching these i look forward to every sunday even more now thank you guys for doing this every kinsley thank you for sending in uh the comment because you know sometimes you never know you think are these doing any good is anybody liking these and to hear from somebody who said yeah they're doing really well you know the people who don't like you will tell you uh quite a bit that they don't like you but those of you who are enjoying these and they've been a benefit to your family this is it's really wonderful wonderful for us to hear from you all right let me show you another one this is from isaac he says thank you thank you thank you isaac thank you uh he said these have been life-changing and still has our our turtle house app um i don't know if you know about the app those of you who are listening um but i'll explain that here in a second he says thank you for all uh all that help and work that uh and work so hard oh thank you for all the help and worked so hard to provide these um yeah isaac there's a lot of people that are helping and uh they're magnificent aren't they so uh thank you isaac uh let me show you uh if you don't have the hour turtle house app i hope you will take the time to go get it um it's right here on my right here on my phone at the top right in the middle there i think wet you have a don't have a picture of how it looks i think i just saw that there it is our turtle house it looks just like that go to the app store um on your phone get the get our turtle house get the app um there's a lot of stuff on there that's absolutely free all right um our our topic tonight comes from uh kimberly uh she stands in as a suggestion uh and i love this one uh it's from the doctor in covenants doubt not fear not uh that is right out of doctrine covenant section 6. so kimberly thank you so much we are going to focus on uh what you sent us tonight let me introduce uh our speakers first of all i want to first introduce you to someone that you know really well already her name is meg johnson and meg is a i thought about this as we were preparing i thought i can't get emotional over this uh i don't even have a bio for meg just because she's been on our turtle house so many times she's one of the founders of our turtle house meg is just in one word um uh inspiring um she was in a very tragic accident at 22 years old back in 2004 in which she became a quadriplegic she went from a bubbling a bubbly dancer to a bubbly woman in a wheelchair in just a matter of months and over the years she's from become a very close friend of mine and someone i look up to and someone who i i talk about often in my own talks when i go around and speak i talk about meg quite a bit so i feel like uh she and i are even closer than she probably thinks we are just because i've talked about her so much so let me introduce you to meg johnson meg are you there hi hank thank you when i go and i speak to places um people want to talk to me about you they're like oh you know hank yes they're like is he really that odd and you're yes yes i've heard about you from hank that's exactly right i i love telling people all about you i just you're just phenomenal absolutely phenomenal as a as a human being so i'm grateful uh i get to host tonight so i'm not even worried about speaking i get to just hear from you which is a rare treat because usually when you're speaking i'm probably speaking too so i'm thinking oh goodness i've got to get my talk ready but tonight i can just enjoy i'm excited well that's nice okay magnet you have two other people joining you can help me uh bring them on let me tell you um let me tell you all about elder michael dunn i have an incredible bio here he is the managing director of byu broadcasting in provo utah where he oversees the nationwide operations of byutv and byu radio he has previously served as the general manager of kued channel 7 pbs station in salt lake city prior to his public television experience he founded dunn communications a salt lake city film production company he was there for 16 years michael is a senior writer and producer for bonneville communications where he worked for the homefront campaign for the for the church um he graduated from the university of utah i earned a bs in uh journalism and mass communications and a master's degree in film he's served as a full-time missionary in hawaii he's been salt lake uh a salt lake uh ysa state president he has he's been a mission president in south africa he is now a member of uh the fifth quarter of the 70 serves as an area 70 in utah south area uh he and his wife linda have three children seven grandchildren and are in the salt lake olympus stake uh he is a runner cross-country skier and cyclist complete completing more than 30 marathons including other endurance events including the boston marathon and the st george iron man i mean we could just keep how does the guy have any time to be here tonight so let's welcome uh elder dunn with us elder done thank you so much for being here thank you so much hank hearing that makes me tired that's that's a lot of running and writing already yeah i'm i'm reading this going oh wow and we don't mean these bios to ever be discouraging to people but i'm reading this going i i'm gonna do more i'm gonna do more right getting a new grandbaby right today right michael that's right a little update uh yeah we're uh our ninth is being born so we're very excited about that yeah now michael from what i've heard from my friends is the best thing that can possibly happen to someone is becoming a grandparent is that true you know it's it's awesome a lot of my friends are younger than me or excuse me a little bit older so when they started having grandchildren we're you know breaking out the pictures and oh you got to see this i just thought get a life and now i'm the worst defender in fact well i won't show you right now but uh they're amazing i love all of my grandkids and can't believe what a blessing that is i have been told yeah i've been told it's the reward for getting through raising kids is little cute grand babies i'm excited i'm excited to hear from you tonight michael and hear from you just your expertise uh this is going to be wonderful let me introduce our last guest for uh for you um this is someone who everyone in utah uh already knows and loves throughout her life sister gail miller has appreciated being able to serve and to be served through her callings in the church for her service is where we learn to love she has had many leadership positions in ward and stake relief society presidencies she was born and raised in salt lake city utah she and her late husband larry h miller raised five children while living in utah and in colorado in 2012 sister miller married kim wilson brother wilson is an emeritus senior attorney with snow christensen and martinu sister miller is the author of a book courage to be you inspiring lessons from an unexpected journey she believes every individual has a mission to fulfill on this earth and that we must emulate an environment of civility decency and respect sister miller and brother wilson are actively involved in many charitable causes and give generously of their time resources to multiple time and resources to multiple educational and civic endeavors they enjoy traveling serving and spending time with their large family they make their home in salt lake city utah let me welcome sister gail miller hello sister miller thank you so much for being here thank you it's a pleasure to join you oh sister miller i can't tell you um how how wonderful this is when meg told me she said hey i think i think we can bring uh gail miller onto our turtle house i my stomach turned over four or five times and i said i have to be part of this i have to be part of this uh and i'll try not to talk about this too much everyone at home please just have patience with me because i something happened to me when i was about seven years old it was back in the 1900s um i was just flipping through uh the channels you know this is back when you had to i don't know if meg you won't remember this but uh are you you too will michael and gail um i you had to walk up to the television and change the channel i don't know if any if you remember that but you walked up and changed the and i i remember going over to channel 14 and it was a station called kjaz and there i there was there was this basketball game on and i you know i there was nothing else good on so here i am my little seven-year-old self i planted myself on the couch and i watched the utah jazz for the first time and i still remember that and sister miller i know that you do many other things besides the utah jazz uh but for me it shaped my childhood my teenage life i didn't miss a game i don't think until i went on a mission i just i i had john stockton posters and carl malone posters and jeff hornacek posters and mark eaton posters plastered all over my room and it became part of my identity uh and so i just i just have to tell you thank you uh because it's not easy i'm sure to run a basketball basketball team and to keep them in a city like uh salt lake it's just been i don't know for me personally i know some people are going to say he's getting emotional over basketball i am i i love the team and um and for me and my family now we we watch we watch it's something that's part of us as a family well thank you very much we appreciate your dedication and we hope you'll always be again oh thank you i just yeah i will um i will try to put my what's it called meg fangirling i will try to to put that aside as we as we talk tonight well the last time you cried hank was when the jazz lost to the bulls like my wife when my wife she said you don't cry at the births of our children and i said i just don't have that gift sarah i don't have that gift and i frequently tell people and i think it's true the last time i cried was the jazz losing to the bulls back in the 1990s and i i was just devastated because i was so sure it was our year but um yeah that's she i can see gail going this guy's got some problems but i i remember it i remember it well oh uh well we'll talk a little bit more later i wanted to ask each of you a question the last five to six months has been difficult uh for most everyone i know everyone in my life um uh ever you know the groups that i go that i get to speak to from missionaries to youth to release society groups um and i want to ask you what what has been something and it can be anything that you know comes into your mind something that has helped you um just just get through the difficult days the difficult weeks of the last few months meg let's start with you what's something that's just helped you well i have taken up gardening so we live um my husband had all this cement poured around our house we have tons of cement um which doesn't make sense for anyone else except me in my wheelchair and then he had eight beds eight garden beds put into the cement and so i have discovered that i can grow carrots and onions and i'm not sure on the brussels sprouts but i can grow pumpkins and tomatoes um and broccoli and it has been awesome i know that lots of people have taken up maybe projects and that and our project has been gardening and it has saved me and sometimes when i've been feeling really stressed and sad you know and there's a whole theory about like earthing and you know touching the ground and i went out once to the edge of the cement and i was crying and i was looking at the grass like heavenly father it's okay that i'm in a wheelchair um and i can't reach the grass but will you please just bring it to me like i just want to touch the ground just please bring it to me and then um in my mind i saw a picture of my gardens and and i was like oh yeah oh yeah you did bring the ground to me and so i went over and i can't touch it with my feet but i sure get my hands dirty that's fantastic there is something about it that's very restorative right that's very healing yeah instead of sitting inside i sometimes i'll find myself being inside all day and i'm going why do i feel so down go walk around outside just go you know go go walk around the trees for a minute and i just kind of oh i do feel a little better michael gail how about you yeah i you know i would agree uh very much with what meg said i think just getting outside and my go-to is getting on a bike you know to be able to get on a bike and a mountain bike be on a dirt trail and and and just sort of see the expanse of nature and go out and enjoy you know this incredible world but i was thinking also hank could you ask that question you know this this is a really discouraging time and i tonight i'm thinking of anyone watching this fireside who might have challenges anyway with um emotions or spirituality or or other just you know anxiety i mean just all those things and it is like doubly uh disconcerting and there's a scripture i just want to offer that always has given me a great solace just an understanding that god is in his heaven he knows the travails all of us are going through and um he's just quick to rescue uh as as it said the savior but in second timothy chapter 1 verse 7 it says this for god hath not given us the spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind and that's so helpful for me to remember is that the fear that we're feeling is granted imposed by 24 7 network news that says you know the end is near but again god's given us this power and uh a sound mind you know and and as he says there love maybe the most important part and we realized you know what the sun is going to come up tomorrow and uh things are going to get better so there's hope in that for me yeah i love that it reminds me of uh there's a letter in the book of mormon from mormon to his son moroni where he tells him how bad things are and he's very honest even more honest than he is with the book of mormon reader when he's writing to them he's writing to his own he gets a little more graphic but then at the very end he said let not the things that i have written the grieve thee but let christ fill the up right let the hope of christ fill fill thy mind with with light right and that's that's just what you're saying here you know the things that you hear let them not weigh thee down unto death but let the light of the hope of christ lift the up i love that directly all right mr miller fix all of our problems here in just 30 seconds if you could well i agree with opening like it's an important time it's a difficult time but for me i welcomed the opportunity to be at home because i was gone from 6 30 in the morning and if we had a jazz game until 9 30 at night so even though i'm still working every day from home i have an opportunity to enjoy my beautiful home to spend time on myself and i know the heavenly father guides our lives and gives us direction in everything we do and what what has been my focus during this period of time is my own health so i you know i'm up there in age and i want to live at least another 20 years and doing that means i have to take care of myself so i've been able to create a health plan and a fruit plan and i have the time to cook because i am hope so for me it's kind of real blessing i know there are a lot of people suffering and there's a lot of english out there and other kind of issues going on but once i realized that it's okay to be weak it's okay to have feelings of am i doing everything i should it's okay to feel like you have to break down once a while because i think once you do that it gives you the opportunity to re-assess where you are and know that you can be strong your strength comes from those who watch over you including heavenly father and that's what i've found in my life right now is that i am guided in everything you do and i'm very grateful for that yeah that's profound um being able to look at a a really serious difficulty and saying okay where's the opportunity in this i think that is absolutely profound as i watched my uh you know as a professional speaker i watched my income in events meg can attest to this just kind of just kind of plummet in about three days we had six months of cancellations and and went okay uh but then you're right all of a sudden i realized i am going to be with my children here for the next six months and so we've made the best of it we've been creating some new traditions reading together and they're going dad we've never seen you this much right wow you stay home a lot more now and i'm i'm thinking i you know this has been a blessing this has been a yes it has been a trial but i'm trying to see the blessings oh wonderful all right well michael and gail i'm going to put you in the background here for a minute and just talk to meg we've been doing these firesides now for a few months um and it's it's really been a blessing for us hasn't it to people allow us into their home uh and to offer messages and to me there's nothing more i don't know it gets to my heart that there's a family listening right now who has allowed you and i and john into their home uh and we basically become i don't know i know we don't know them but we feel like we know them right we feel like there's people out there who you know when they write in we just go you know there's it's just a chance for you and i say thank you thank you for letting us in i love love to read the messages that people send whether they're suggesting a speaker or a topic or just seeing what the firesides are doing for them it is my favorite to hear um from them it's just it fills you up right like oh like oh good because after you give a speech to an audience um you're not exactly sure sometimes if you know how it was received if you have to rush out or something so hearing from people is it it does it matters it matters a lot well meg um every time i hear from you it's a home run so i'm sure we're going to have another one tonight so i'm going to leave it to you okay baseball reference oh my goodness my dad was a professional baseball player well he he got drafted by the minnesota athletics um but then he broke his leg and never ended up playing and he wanted all of his kids to play baseball and um everybody did and i was the biggest disappointment i could not play baseball um it was very difficult for me so i'm glad that hank thinks that i can do a home run at least with you know a verbal home run um hopefully hopefully we can we can talk about this important topic in a way that maybe is a home run and does help us to understand how we can doubt not and fear not um which is the topic for tonight and as i was pondering and thinking about this the word doubt is weird because it has a b in it and we don't say the b when we when we you know say the word in english and so we really could remove the b so we can choose to be not doubtful we can remove that b um that action word letter from that word and i want to talk about how we can do that and to do that we have to talk about the opposite of what we need to have when we're removing doubt because you just can't get rid of something and then just let that be all that you do you have to actually replace it with something else so i have a friend who smoked a lot and when he was quitting he couldn't just quit smoking he had to do something else and so he chose to eat peanuts not just peanuts but like peanuts in the shell because he wanted something to do with his hands and so when we remove something we've got to fill with something else so when we remove doubt we need to fill it with testimony when we remove fear we have to fill it with faith so i want to talk about those two things i want to talk about faith and testimony so what is the testimony it's a noun and we there's several definitions i looked it up in the dictionary a formal written or spoken statement especially when given in a court of law evidence or proof provided by the existence or appearance of something and then a public recounting of a religious conversion or experience we know these we know these um definitions of testimony at least these last two evidence or proof faith is things that we believe in that we don't have proof of but when we have a testimony it's because we put our faith into action and then we have seen a result of that action that we have done that we have accomplished and so in that action that reproduces that result that we can see or feel or hear gives us testimony and then we can share that testimony with other people and then we even teach our children my children are here in this room um we teach our children about the five finger testimony you know really it's very simple there's only nine basic doctrines of the church and we put five of them on your fingers so that you can remember that heavenly father lives and he loves me we're his children jesus christ his heavenly father's son and our savior joseph smith restored the church and translated the book of mormon he saw jesus christ and heavenly father um the church is the only true church on the earth and we have a living prophet um of course i got this online and that's not our current living prophet um but we have a current living prophet who talks to jesus christ who tells us um the things that jesus christ wants to do to to manage his church jesus christ's church we can have a testimony of other things as we put our faith into action we can have a testimony of the word of wisdom we can have a testimony of revelation a fasting of priesthood blessings of eternal families we can have a testimony of going to church we can have a testimony of anything in that we would like to have a testimony of as we put it to action so how do we gain a testimony we put our actions we put our we put our faith we believe this is true we put our faith into action and then the action produces a result so um jesus told us to do this in john 7 this is a scripture mastery john 7 no from heaven um john 7 16 and 17 so jesus is talking he's teaching he says my doctrine is not mine but him that sent me it's heavenly father's if any man or woman or kid or anybody will do his will he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of god or whether i speak of myself um when we do those things that heavenly father asks us to do we will discover a testimony we will discover a result from the action that we have taken so if we want to have a testimony of fasting then fast and then because you fasted and put your faith into action then your action will produce a spiritual result something will happen and then you will be like oh my gosh fasting is a true principle i need to fast i have a personal testimony of fasting because i fasted um if you want to have a testimony of going to church then you've got to go to church and then that action that faith that led to that action will produce that testimony like hey going to church really does bless my life um and but you'll only know that if you put your faith into action if you want to know the scriptures are true you have to read them and when you read them your faith put into action will produce a result and then you will have um a testimony then you will know that the scriptures are true because you've read them and they've answered your prayers and you felt heavenly father talk to you and and you you know felt the spirit witness to you that they are true because you put your faith into action and read them um but and we need to do this we need to do this we need to do this with every aspect of the gospel and um even if you don't know exactly what to do you can pray for testimony i remember this was actually i mean right after i got married i started to assess my life and i was like well i have a testimony of fasting and i have a testimony of tithing and i have a testimony of going to church and i have testimony of of the scriptures and i have a testimony of the living prophet um and i have a testimony of all of these different things i was like but i don't really have a testimony of the savior jesus christ um and this was right after i got married and i was like i i want one of those i want one um and i know the scriptures and i know john 7 no from heaven if if any man will do his will he will know of the doctrine whether i speak of god whether i speak of myself like i know that i need to do something but i didn't know exactly what to do to get a testimony of jesus christ and so i made it a new year's resolution um january 1st i wrote it down i said i'm going to gain a testimony of jesus christ this year and i didn't know what to do exactly and so i just prayed for it and i prayed for it every day and i said heavenly father i don't know exactly what i need to do but you know inspire my mind help me to know how to get a testimony of jesus christ and and then i would like that and then i'll do whatever it is that i feel prompted to do um and i prayed for that for a couple of months and by the middle of february i had a very very strong testimony of jesus christ and all i did for those two and a half months was pray for it and like that's all he did or for that month and a half rather that's all he did was pray for a testimony of jesus christ and then heavenly father blessed me with a testimony of jesus christ we just have to do the action whatever whatever it is we want to have we need to do whatever it takes to get that testimony um but then trials come along and they will try our testimonies um and that's maybe the purpose one of the purposes of trials is to test our testimonies and i want to share and i know i've shared this story before um but i but i briefly shared it and i want to get a little bit more in detail because this is a this was a very turning moment for me um when i was always born with a lot of ambition i've just always had a lot of ambition my whole life i just if i wanted something i went out and i got it and i did it you know whatever it took to get it and when i graduated from high school i was so excited and i was so ambitious and ready to conquer this world and it wasn't enough for me to graduate from high school and move out of the house i had to move out of the country and i you know was was not quite 18 and my parents were like well you just can't move out of the country i'm like yes i can like i'm going to just move out of the country and they're like no you know we've got to figure something out and so um i worked it out with my parents and we decided a nice safe clean way for me to move out of the house and out of the country was to go and be a nanny and i chose germany and i found this wonderful family and i i got on an airplane and i said goodbye to my family my mom and my dad and my brothers and my sister and i said goodbye to my high school boyfriend um if you have a high school boyfriend you probably should dump him or if you have a high school girlfriend you probably should dump her because you know it's just that's just a good thing to do um and so like get it out of the way you're gonna have lots of you know breakups it's gonna be fun you're gonna be fine and so um but i didn't i had this high school boyfriend and i said goodbye to him we had a plan right we had a plan i was gonna go to germany i was gonna learn to speak german um and then i was gonna stay there for a year and then i was gonna come home while i was gone he was gonna go on a mission good hopefully to like africa somewhere and learn like a click language or you know costa rica and learn spanish or brazil and learn portuguese and then i was going to come home he was going to come home we were going to get married we were going to make babies and they were going to be trilingual this was our plan and so i said goodbye to my high school boyfriend and i got on an airplane and i flew all the way to germany and i was so excited i was so excited to to do this and i flew and we landed in a sunrise and i just was like this is a this is a you know jesus christ talking to me like this is a brand new day for you and i was so excited and so happy and um my name in german rhymes with the word gone and i was the afternoon nanny for these little kids and so um the morning nanny would pass them off to me and they'd say oh i'm so glad to pass them off to you because they've been talking about you all the morning they'd say where is meg is she gone but in german it rhymes you know vote is to make it veg and so um anyway so i loved it i loved being a nanny but there are certain personalities that make very good nannies i just don't have one of those and i didn't do like a great job and so you know i was there for five days and on the fifth day the lady of the house came to me and she said meg we are sending you home she drove me to the airport and she dropped me off and i flew home back to utah in a sunset and i was so disappointed and so discouraged all my dreams all my plans my my my whole i was so excited to go and move to germany and here i was coming home just after five days and um i come home and the first person i call you know is my high school boyfriend tell him that our plans have changed and and all of this and when i called my high school boyfriend he had another girlfriend whom he had kissed i was gone for five days five days he couldn't wait for me for five days like again let me say if you have a high school boyfriend or a high school everyone you probably should dump them like like just get it out of the way it's going to be fine um anyway so i i was so depressed even more depressed than i'd been when i was kicked out of germany because now i've been kicked out of this foreign country and dumped and i laid on the floor of my room just on the floor like not on the bed on the floor in fetal position next to my bed curled up in fetal position crying i cried so hard that i made myself throw up i ran to the bathroom vomited came back laid down cried some more i had a friend at this time in my life who had a similar experience happen to her i mean she wasn't kicked out of a foreign country but her boyfriend had dumped her and at this time in my life my friend said to me well if god really did exist he wouldn't let my boyfriend dump me and so then god must not be true god must not be real if he is going to let my boyfriend dump me then he must not exist and at the time when my friend said that to me you know before i went to germany and everything it didn't make sense it didn't make sense to me that having her boyfriend dump her would equate to god not existing and so um it didn't make sense to me and i didn't know the long-term results of of this decision this this choice that she made to leave the church when because her boyfriend dumped her because she was sure that god couldn't exist when when um when her boyfriend when he would allow her boyfriend to dump her and so i didn't know that years and years and years later she would be on her second marriage with multiple children from multiple different dads trying to quit smoking unsuccessfully for you know the third or fourth time and be truly unhappy i didn't know that was her 25 years later i didn't know that was going to be her life so many years later i love my friend no matter what decision she makes or doesn't make um i love her very very much i just wish you know at the time she'd maybe made a different decision but at the time i'm lucky i'm very lucky that i had an opportunity in a clearer mind to have a conversation with a friend of mine who decided to leave the church because in a clearer mind when i didn't have any trials myself and everything was going my way that didn't make sense to blame god when her boyfriend dumped her to blame god when things didn't go a certain way that we think things ought to go and so then when i got kicked out of germany and dumped by my boyfriend laying on the ground in fetal position crying so hard that i made myself throw up soaked in my own tears and smelling like mud um that's exactly what i wanted to do like i wanted to blame god too trials create the test that tests our testimony um and i wanted to blame god too like why would he let me be kicked out of germany how could he smash my dreams like this like why would he let my boyfriend dump me and i wanted to blame him too there's a quote it goes god is forsaken in the all-too-human yet mistaken fear that he has forsaken us um and that's exactly how i felt i felt like god had turned his back on me kicked me out of germany and made my boyfriend dump me and i was so upset and um but i knew that in a clearer mind i could recall the conversation i'd had with my friend like no don't leave the church it's not god's fault i could recall that conversation in my own words trying to help her stay on the right path um and so that's all i had to work with now that i was the one in the same position who wanted to blame god too and so over and over and over i said a prayer to heavenly father the only prayer i could muster i said heavenly father please don't let me blame this on the church please don't let me blame this on the church please don't let me blame this on the church and that next sunday i made myself get up and go to church i made i didn't want to i did not want to harold b lee said you know what's the most important commandment it's the one that you're having the most difficulty keeping today and going to church was sure that most important commandment for me that day because i did not want to go to church i didn't want to explain to everybody why i wasn't in germany i'd only been gone five days i just seen him the last sunday and so and it was just as hard as i thought it was going to be i went to that first class you know relief society and everyone needed to know firsthand hey how come you're not in germany what happened let me hear it and the gossip couldn't travel fast enough like i had to tell everybody firsthand and um i sat there through releases this is way back when when we used to go to church and also even longer ago when church was three hours long and in relief society at the very end the relief society president came to me and said hey meg since you're still here we're gonna ask you to be the relief society coaster and i was like okay thanks and then i went to my next class which was sunday school and the bishop pokes his head in and said hey meg since you're still here we're not going to release you from your young single adult calling okay okay i was like okay thanks and then after sacrament meeting um the stake president was there so he pulls me into his office and he says hey meg since you're still here we're gonna ask you to be the young single adult president for the stake and i was like okay thanks and then i'm on my way out the door i even have my hands on the door to exit the church building and the bishop sees me and he pulls me into his office and he goes hey meg since you're still here we're going to ask you to direct the word roadshow i went home from church that day with four callings and a testimony that when you want to strengthen your testimony you need to immerse yourself into the doctrine that you want to grow your testimony in i asked heavenly father please don't let me blame this on the church and he said to me then immerse yourself in the church please don't let me blame this on the church get some more church it is remarkable how we can replace doubt not by simply removing doubt but putting into its place testimony of whatever it is we wherever we're lacking in testimony we can strengthen it by immersing ourself in that doctrine if we want a testimony of going to church immerse ourselves in church if we want a testimony of the temple immerse yourself in the temple if you want a testimony of whatever it is fill in the blank then immerse yourself there and you can replace your doubt with testimony and your fear with faith to action to get that testimony that you can replace in the place of doubt i know that this church is true i know the five finger testimony you know john f kennedy said the art of public speaking is taking a two minute idea and lengthening it out with a two hour vocabulary and that's what we do as speakers like we we take little principles and we lengthen them out in a nice pretty way and wrap them up in a nice little bow but really it all boils down to that simple simple nine basic doctrines those those simple five finger testimonies that we know the church is true we know jesus christ appeared to the boy joseph in the grove of trees and that's what we lengthen out with our nice pretty talks but really it's all about that testimony and if you'll allow me just for a second i would like to bear my testimony with not very exciting words because you don't need exciting words um to say the truth of what we know and that's that i really do know that jesus christ lives i really do know he knows who i am i really do know that he knows who you are i really do know that the church is true that the scriptures are true that heavenly father lives and that we are his children i know the plan of salvation is real and because i know all of this this life is very fun no matter what happens or doesn't happen no matter what we can do or can't do when i say this i really feel like i need to pull up the nine basic doctrines and and share those really quick so i'm just gonna stress out our av guy for a second and say we please pull up those nine basic doctrines of the church i'm sure you can find them on google um just in a little nice pretty package um it doesn't really take when sometimes we feel like this church um is so repetitive oh my goodness oh it's so repetitive i already know what the church has to offer because we said the same thing you know a couple of months ago well yeah because there's only nine things that we can talk about in the church and when we talk about those nine things we're gonna run out of time you know nine weeks later we've said everything we need to say but everything that we talk about in the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints boils down to nine simple things and if we can gain a testimony of really just nine simple things just plant those in our in our little garden beds of testimony and water them with the living water and let the light of christ shine on them we will discover that we have a very strong testimony of the whole church because we understand these nine simple things thanks navy man i love you so much um because he's my husband we can have a testimony we need to gain a testimony of one the godhead two the plan of salvation three the atonement of jesus christ for the dispensation apostasy and restoration um five the prophets in revelation priesthood and priesthood keys ordinances and covenants marriage and family and commandments and this is really only nine things and if you don't have a testimony of one of these things i challenge you to immerse yourself in it gain a testimony of this by putting your faith into action and your actions will lead to testimony and that testimony will replace your doubt and i say this in the name of jesus christ amen thanks wait for my amazing yeah very yeah that was that was smooth that was good our av guys were on it hey meg i i really liked uh the idea of of you can have your own testimony of these things so often we think well i just have to rely on somebody else you know i have to rely on the apostles and prophets and rely on my parents and rely whoever but you can have your own experience with the scriptures you can have your own experience with the book of mormon you can have your own experience with prayer and once you've had your own experience everything changes after that and it and i love whenever you share an experience that just is another she's had her own experiences with god you don't rely on anyone else and uh you know there's a time to rely on others and that's that's can be a spiritual gift but there's also a time to say i've got to have this for myself so absolutely i'm just gonna tag onto that i know i said my piece but um i mentor people one-on-one and a common thing that i'm seeing is that they'll say i'm trying so hard i'm trying so hard and then we get you know but i'm not getting any revelation um and then we get down to the nitty-gritty of it and i and then they need to maybe keep a set time to read their scriptures and say their prayers and really immerse themselves instead of just wait or assume that heavenly father will give it to us simply because we love where we want it we love him yeah i i it's that action do go move i like it michael gail before we move on anything you know the one thing i would say first of all wow thanks so much matt what a great reminder of just this core essence of our existence our testimonies you know our knowledge of god uh the thing i was thinking about especially with all of our younger friends watching tonight is uh you know you can gain a testimony but it needs nourishment it's not like it just stays there and we just have this constant need to go back to the well and and refresh and i think during this time especially being a home especially where we don't have church granted we have a home centered church and a lot of nurturing there but we've really got to do a lot of things don't you think to kind of to kind of nourish and grow to be prayerful to be in the scriptures to be doing these things because it's not just going to happen you got to continue to refresh absolutely absolutely all the time yeah i almost 32 is just you know plant the seed nourish the seed let it grow right you you've got it it's it's funny this idea of it it's not funny but occasionally a student of mine will say you know i just i just don't feel like i have a testimony anymore and i'll say how long has it been since you've been to the temple how long's it been since read the book of mormon and they're like well it has been a long time i'm going i i don't know where that disconnect is you stop nourishing the plant it dies it's you know i i don't look at the plants on my uh you know on my kitchen shelf and go well what's wrong with them right like why are they not growing well it's because i haven't done anything to help them grow gail do you have anything before we move on well that reminds me of bumper sticker that says uh if you're wondering why you don't have why you're not in touch with god consider who moved yeah it's you know it's not he'll never move he's always there it's where we are that makes a difference and we have to remember that without action nothing yeah to move closer to god i remember president kimball saying that he said whenever i feel distant from divinity i immerse myself in the scriptures and that's what you just said i move closer i move closer to him all right meg and gail i'm going to put you in the background uh and we're gonna talk to um i i've been calling you michael i should be calling you elder dunn i i apologize that's fine either way turtle house is a little less formal maybe than it should be i just feel like hey we're at home let's uh wait a sunday evening together exactly friend to friend chat right uh so um you mentioned that you are a cyclist and i have just picked this up uh and i gotta tell you i love it i i've always been a runner um and i felt like all those guys on bikes you know i i couldn't wear that outfit uh but then i gave it all a try and there's again i think it's something about being out in nature being out in those wide open spaces that you just feel kind of healed and restored i know you probably don't want to talk about biking that much tonight but i got to tell you it's been something that's really been a blessing the last few months yeah it it really is incredible and it just opens up a whole new world for you and i think as we talked about earlier if you can be on a bike great if not get out there running walking a hike uh you know we're just so blessed with this incredible world and we know that god created it for our enjoyment and our benefit and uh like meg's thought on testimony it's a rejuvenating force i think in our lives so uh definitely we want to take advantage of that it's much more enlivening than playing video games i'll tell you that yeah it absolutely is and i think part of it for me is nature is so accepting you don't have to look a certain way you don't have to act a certain way nature says come and enjoy right whoever you are all right well uh elder dunn i'm going to leave it to you uh and your message for us tonight well thanks so much hank i i i appreciate that i'm going to share my screen and talk uh just a little bit uh and see if we can extend this theme of doubt not and fear not in fact i'm going to talk about a pretty incredible experience i had in my life with a bear so with apologies to the sixth section of the doctrine and covenants and kimberly who submitted our theme tonight i'm going to say doubt not fear not and also growl not because when things come into our life that we don't expect when we have misfortune when we have trials and issues that come up i think the worst thing we can do is kind of say why me poor me or you know as again as meg was saying why did this happen in my life and tonight i'm going to tell you about an experience that sort of crystallized all of that for me as i said it involves a bear in fact a very big bear a grizzly bear and as many of you know we're depending upon where you live these are amazing animals in fact this is one of the most remarkable animals on this planet there's only about 1500 of these south of canada there's another 31 000 of them in alaska so you figure out the odds where you're gonna have a chance to probably meet one but i got a chance to meet one on a very fateful day in august of 1994 where on a trail in grand teton national park i ran into a grizzly bear that not only changed my life but almost ended it so i'm going to start where a lot of young people want to start which is they want to know the damage okay how bad was it you can imagine with a grizzly bear it's going to be pretty bad so first of all i had 16 major wound sites on my body where the bear had bitten clawed chewed on me spit me out their claws are incredibly sharp i have a claw here that was sent to me by a friend in alaska and they're just razor sharp and so they do a lot of damage so 16 major wounds and numerous minor wounds you can kind of see that it was a pretty bad situation well to put all that back together i had more than 300 proximal sutures in my body these little inch and a half long stitches that kind of quilted me back together and to do all that it took more than three surgeries so it was really really serious and as i say not only life-changing maybe life-altering thankfully not ending and in the midst of that i had so many well wishes from people around the world i had cards and notes it was a day in age where they actually had a thing called faxes ask your parents or grandparents what a fax is and they'll tell you about that but i got something one day that uh started to lift my spirits just a little bit it was a gift basket a basket of food enormous there were crackers and cookies and meats on it in fact we're still living off this in our home storage i'm just kidding but there was a lot of stuff on it and it was wrapped in this beautiful cellophane and attached to the top of this beautiful basket was just a tiny little note now i'm going to show you what the note said and before i show you that i should probably tell you that this was sent to me by friends of mine who also worked in the broadcast industry and they did know i was going to live i was going to make it through so maybe you'll understand why that ended up being a little bit more humorous but here's the note which they sent to me which probably made me laugh just a little bit for the first time in about nine days since the accident this encounter with the grizzly bear happen the note said this dear mike we haven't seen you in a while what's been eating you which uh i guess with friends like that who needs enemies right the apostle paul once said that charity never failed i think it finally failed in this particular instance no it actually didn't i was so moved wanted to laugh you don't laugh with 300 stitches in your body but it was it was a very very sweet thing well i got a lot of other things as well one day a package arrived in the mail that was a davinci a dimensional envelope and it was some other friends of mine who when i show you what they sent you'll see what a wicked funny sense of humor my friends have and what they said is boy we're sure glad you survived this we've seen the interviews on tv and the one thing that's the most disturbing is not the bear attack they said the thing that's the most disturbing to us is every time you're on television you somehow managed to appear in that hospital gown which was my wardrobe for many many months as i recovered from this bear attack so these friends said we're sending you a little button a little button to pin on your lapel to kind of spruce you up a little bit so you're going to look a little bit better well i thought that's probably a nice thing to do well let me give you their idea of what a little button is for your hospital gown here's the button which they sent me in fact i'll show you an image there you can see that you can see there's a pin on the back of the button and indeed it is a button i'm going to flip it around now and show you the top half of the button which has this very profound message which is live carefully probably a really good message for me right live carefully but what really makes this button is what we call the small print the fine print at the bottom of the button and what it says is this in its totality live carefully or this could happen to you now was that the perfect button to have on or what well it was and it's interesting because this little message lived carefully actually became sort of my mantra my lesson the takeaway from this experience with the grizzly bear and tonight i just want to share a couple of things that i hope will help you as you doubt not as you fear not as you go through life and specifically what you can do to live carefully and enjoy this incredible life so i think there's really only two things to the notion of living carefully and number one is something you've probably heard since you were a toddler it's very simple we need to follow the rules why do we follow the rules well in a national park where i was rules are put in place by people who want to see us return safely they know where the hazards are and where the pitfalls are and where the trails fork and where there are problems and so they give us rules that we can live by in a gospel sense we have a loving heavenly father and his son jesus christ our savior they love us more than we even know more than you could even imagine they love us so they give us rules not to impinge our lives or to drive us crazy but because they want us to return to them and because of that love they give us rules which we need to follow now the second thing with living carefully is something which you're discovering if you're a younger person and that is simply the notion of following the spirit why do we follow the spirit well if the rules are the broad path that we need to be in following the spirit is the customized gps for our life where the spirit actually helps us know exactly what we need to do within the subset of those rules and i think if we do those two things we are going to have a life that we can say we are living carefully and being blessed by now as to following the spirit why do i feel so strongly about this well i feel strongly because the savior did and the savior when he taught his disciples in the 16th chapter of john uttered a really remarkable scripture that i want you to think about just a little bit tonight jesus said talking to the disciples but also talking to us how be it when he the spirit of truth is come he will guide you into all truth for he shall not speak of himself but whatsoever he shall hear that shall he speak and he will shoe you things to come now if that didn't jump out at you there are two incredible promises within that one scripture for us if you're a young person struggling to find out about how to doubt not and fear not and knowing where you are going even in this calamitous day and age that we live in did you pick up on those two things that jesus said the first is he's going to guide you he's going to literally show you the way mark the path as we sing and read that is the promise of jesus so it's not quite as daunting as we look to our futures because we know we have him as our sure guide the second promise is almost equally as remarkable and that is that he is going to show us things to come can you imagine that almost like getting a preview of our lives and our events of our lives and what's going to happen to us well if you were me and you were about to go through something as uh horrific as i did with the grizzly bear attack on august 14th 1994 when you think of this promise is true that there would be a couple of warnings a a notion an impression something well as i thought back on the events leading up to that i could not think about a single instance where heavenly father had tried to warn me or remind me of what was about to follow me i thought about the months leading up to that time i thought about the days i even thought about really the hours right before that and i could not think of a single instance where i was given that promise found in john 16 that i would be guided and also warned not that is until i thought about the very first thing that happened to me on august 13 1994 the day before that very faithful bear attack and here's what happened to me on that morning of august 13 1994 i was with my family in grand teton national park and as hank and i were discussing our love of running and other things unlike normal people on a vacation i was up at the crack of dawn and out on a trail training for an upcoming marathon the difference in this morning was that it had rained ferociously the night before and what happens in wyoming after a big rainstorm like that the clouds don't just dissipate because they have those tetons those beautiful mountains around that valley that just kind of hug and hold on to all the moisture so as i went out on that morning and went on this run i was greeted to a scene which looked very very much like that and as i got to the middle part of my run just as i was rounding a corner which i knew was exactly the halfway point it was really almost like a remarkable series of choreographed events happened for me the first is is that i turned around just as i looked to the east the sun was rising over the eastern horizon and it just lit up the sky with all that moisture with the beautiful colors that you see here i wish this was the actual picture it's a representation of it but it was spectacular and along with all this wash sky almost a painter's palette in the sky there were the beautiful tetons on one side there was jackson lake on the other and i literally was filled with such overwhelming joy at the beauties of nature that i did one of the most remarkable things i've ever done in my life in the middle of a run and that is i simply knelt down opened my mouth and began to say a prayer and i remember kneeling because i remember the ground was still wet i was kneeling in the mud and the prairie grass and the the rocks and and pine needles of that trail but i opened my mouth and i said the words of the prayer out loud which was really profound to me because normally i pray to myself i say those words internally because i know that god hears them on this particular instance i said the words out loud and this prayer as you can imagine was not a prayer for help although i'm a not a good runner it was a prayer of gratitude just returning thanks thank you heavenly father for this beautiful moment this sky this earth this place where i find myself right now and that was it that was the only remarkable moment that i could remember of august 13 1994 well the next day don august 14 1994 a day that will forever in my life anyway live in bare infamy and as i got up on that morning go sweat doing again exactly what i was doing every day of the trip which was going out for a run but in those predawn hours in our little remote cabin in coulter bay as i got my pack together and put in the nutrition and maps and water that i needed i was stumbling around kind of in the dark in our little cabin as i got to the door i opened the door and had a little sort of i would call it an instinct but i looked at the little bathroom vanity across from the door there and there were a pair of sunglasses a pair of sunglasses that i normally wear when i run or ride in the middle part of the day well it was just after 5 30 in the morning and i picked up the glasses and i thought i'm not probably going to need these glasses and so i'm debating should i take them or should i not take them and i stepped outside the door and as you see that little picnic bench there i set them down on the picnic bench because i thought i'm not going to need them and i turned to go and in the very moment that i turned to go i had a very sudden but very certain impression that i should take those glasses now it wasn't like i turned around and all of a sudden there were electric lights around the glasses and a little mechanical monkey with symbols clapping them together going take the glasses take the glasses it wasn't like that at all it was just a very very certain feeling and i want to pause right here and just say you young people get those feelings all the time god is pinging your spiritual radar through the spirit to give you impressions all the time sometimes you act on those sometimes you don't when you do act on them isn't it interesting that when we do something amazing we walk down a different hallway at school and run into a friend and you both go oh i really needed to see you well i needed to see you and and then you both have this little moment where you say what what an amazing coincidence is that the word that we use well is it coincidence or is it god actually intervening in your life i love the words of one of our late great apostles elder neil maxwell who said there are no such things as coincidences in our lives that god is in the details of all of our lives or he can be or he wants to be if we'll just listen to him well coincide or not i didn't know but i knew i needed to take the glasses so i did and off i went and i was not on that trail on this particular run a different part of grand teton national park than i'd ever been on before i was not on that trail more than a couple of hundred meters when i looked down in the ground and there before me was the biggest baddest bear track you have ever seen in your life you didn't need to like be daniel boone and look down and go now is that a bear track or did someone's french poodle maybe get loose this morning it was a bear track and you talk about the way god warns us and tells us do you think there could have been a more overt message then maybe turn back brother dunn there's a grizzly bear who's been here well guess what brother dunn did brother dunn knew that there had not been a single grizzly bear attack in the 63-year history of grand teton national park brother dunn also knew he needed to get this run in and so this little thing we have called rationalization took full force in my life and i just said it must be a passing bear i need to get this run in off i went which i did and i literally was not on that trail probably more than a couple of miles as the sun started to rise it got brighter and i just had this beautiful day stretched out before me when i all of a sudden heard a sound i will never forget and it was the sound of thunder almost it was breaking branches and tree limbs it was so shocking that literally the hair stood up on the back of my neck and as i turned to see the source of this disturbance of this pristine beautiful morning in the forest sure enough i look and there is a full grown grizzly bear coming at me at an incredible rate of speed well the bear hit me plowed right into me knocked me as they later discovered the investigation about seven feet across the trail and began to bite and claw and maul and do what grizzly bears do i was in the middle of my worst nightmare i was screaming i was fighting i was doing everything i could with just this amazing realization that this is actually happening and guess what else the odds are so long here you're probably going to die and as i got to that point in the attack i also had another little epiphany which was probably something which you would think about if your life was on the line in any situation like that when we really need god's help we need to ask him we need to pray which is exactly what i did and in one of the shortest most to the point briefest prayers ever in my life i simply said heavenly father there is a bear on my back i am dying i want to live i need your help and i need it right now and as i finish that prayer and i don't mean 10 seconds later or 20 seconds later i saw the most remarkable thing i've probably ever seen in what was nearly the end of my life which was this bear suddenly back off retreat lose interest in fact he he actually stood up and and started to look around a little bit he looked nervous and by the way later the rangers probably said well if she she was a sow by the way if there were cubs she probably got nervous about the cubs and as they did their investigation they looked for footprints they couldn't find any bear cubs which confirms to me that if angels were there and i'm pretty sure angels were there they don't leave very good footprints but boy do they sure do a job well the bear did leave and then i was faced with the daunting task of being 10 miles from the nearest park road so i ripped up what was left of my shirt made tourniquets tried to dress what wounds i could and for 45 minutes literally dragged and crawled for a mile to a trail opening well it was there that as i draped myself across the trail and really i think started to get ready for the process of dying realizing how long the odds seemed to me ever getting out there it was then that i heard a couple of voices and i thought oh this really is the end i can hear voices well i could then see where the voices were coming from they were up on a hill and as i looked up squinting into the sun there were three people and they were looking at me i knew they could see me they had to see me i was laying across the trail this bloody pulp of a mess yet they were doing nothing and so i screamed i said i i gotta have your help i've been attacked by a bear i i need your assistance and they didn't do anything they just froze there and then all of a sudden after a few beats they just ran at full speed down the hill to me and and to my aid what they told me later is i didn't need to tell them i'd been attacked by a bear they just didn't realize that it happened a mile away and they didn't want to rush in and be desert for this bear well these remarkable people wildlife photographers two women and a man all came to my aid and rescued the two women stayed with me while the very brave man ran out on a fire road to get help and through his help they alerted the rangers they did a very dramatic backcountry helicopter rescue and my life was spared i want to pause here and just show you an actual picture from that morning this is uh trish lavin one of the women who rescued me and you talk about christ-like service the only way i could get comfortable is just by leaning up against trish which she sat there for an hour with me while we waited for the rangers there's one of the first rangers on the ground which you see on the left i'm playing the role of the incredible mummy in the middle wrapped head to toe and gauze which was my lot for a long time there and then this is a uh scene with the emts the paramedics as they got that helicopter in landed and got me thankfully in time to get to the hospital so a miracle in every sense of the word i want to just end up by sharing with you a couple of additional miracles that i just want you to ponder about as you think tonight about what it means to doubt not and fear not especially with anything that you're going through right now or which you may go through in your life because we know that this life is uh is not short on on problems and situations that we have to deal with the first thing that i want to remind you about is that morning prayer it was not coincidental that i said that prayer this morning but what is amazing to me is do you remember what i told you i was doing 24 hours almost to the exact moment i was praying in a situation where i think heavenly father had schooled me tutored me reminded me about the efficacy the power of personal prayer because here i was a day later not with my heart bursting with joy at the wonders of nature in fact the wonders of nature were about to burst my heart if you want to know the real truth but i'm saying a prayer guess what i'm saying it out loud and heavenly father did indeed come and i don't think that was any coincidence at all the second little miracle and i'll just uh say this because so often people want to know what was the worst injury well the worst injury was in my right leg where the bear and trying to roll me over had taken his claw dug into my upper thigh and literally like a backhoe going through earth and removed much of the muscle that was in that thigh well the miracle occurred and was told to me by the scrub nurse who had to clean out that wound and think about her job she's in surgery with me she has her wrists in this wound up to her wrists and she's clearing out rocks and needles and clumps of bear care bare hair and old rusty soda pop cans coming no there weren't even soda pop cans but a really good reminder about littering never litter because you never know whose leg it's going to end up in but as she's cleaning this out she suddenly retracts her hands and they're shaking just a little bit and the surgeon comes over and sees what's going on and even he is amazed he's amazed first of all her a seasoned uh emergency room nurse who's seen all kinds of trauma from gunshot wounds and and everything you name she is really rattled by this and what they can see as they tell me later is that as that grizzly bear claw came through my leg it literally cut parallel to a blood vessel didn't cut through it it just cut parallel and what happened is it dropped that blood vessel into the wound that was left behind and the claw passed through without injuring that blood vessel well that blood vessel it turns out was the femoral artery the largest source of blood supply between the upper and lower body and had that clog in just a little bit off had it nicked or hooked through that blood vessel i would have had five minutes to live as it were but it didn't it tracked exactly parallel laser-guided was the word they used and i began to sort of see the miracle of that and these doctors not of our faith said well just remember a couple other things look at the three little claw marks in your wrist they missed all these critical arteries and veins or the inch long slash right by your carotid artery they said what gets to us is in the randomness and fury of this bear attack you're hit in all these places but in the most critical you are missed and you know what their word was what an amazing coincidence coincidence i don't know i think it was an incredible blessing well the finally the last little miracle is one that you i think will fully appreciate and it is what i'm calling the parable of the forgotten sunglasses and what basically happened is as they did the investigation leading up to understanding why the bear attacked they did a very very thorough examination and about a week after the bear attack after two of the surgeries i one day get a call from the lead ranger who investigated and he says to me on the phone did you tell us everything you had with you on the morning of august 14 1994 and i said kind of impatiently of course i did i told you everything and the ranger said to me well do you think you could have forgotten to tell us you had sunglasses with you now do you remember the sunglasses i told you about that i picked up off the shelf almost sat down had the impression take those sunglasses well this ranger said we found your sunglasses and i think you're going to want to see these glasses and indeed i did and you're going to want to see them as well here's an image of the glasses this is the left lens which i'll hold up for you can see that left lens is nearly optically perfect it's a carbon fiber lens and this is a pair of eyewear favored by endurance athletes ultra marathoners and and iron man so great great great pair of glasses you can see how great they are but as you take a look in the right lens you can see that there's kind of a different story in fact it looks like what is probably a pretty good hole that is left in this lens and if i tip them up to show you this top view you can see that amazingly enough it's not a hole at all you see that little knob right there in fact whatever has hit these glasses hit them so hard and square on that it stretched this this amazing material that normally shatters just to the nth degree of breaking but they didn't break they didn't yield despite the fact that they took full on and there you see the the back part of the glasses they took full on the brunt of a grizzly bear claw that hit me square on in the initial moments of that attack now i'm not going to ruin your sunday evening by telling you how gross how um i mean just dreadful that would have been had that claw been delivered to an unprotected eye but because for one day on one moment i had been listening to the spirit heeded the spirit picked up the glasses well today i have an eye and a life and a perspective and love of god and our savior jesus christ that i could have in no other way so my young brothers and sisters let me just review a couple of those lessons learned really quickly first of all will you make a commitment tonight to follow the rules specifically the commandments of a loving god who wants to bless you in your life will you listen to hearken to and obey the spirit the spirit that god has promised that he wants to guide us with and show us the things that we need to do will you also remember this little favorite alliteration of mine decisions really do determine our destiny and it's not those big ones like i'm going to go on a mission or i'm going to get married in the temple yes those are great and those are important but it's the micro decisions it's the adjustments you make every single day in your life that are really going to bless you in the important ways you need to be blessed and then lastly let me just say this to you in this uh incredibly trying time we have right now as as we talked about earlier never give up do do not give up do all you can to survive and thrive do what is needed to get through whatever your situation or circumstances god loves you god knows you and if he would bless you as the hymn says me someone such as i i promise you that he will bless you doubt not fear not and growl not i leave my testimony of the divinity of this church of our heavenly father and of the savior and of your divine importance as a son or daughter of god and i do this in the name of jesus christ amen amen amen michael elder wow um i had never heard that story before in my life i will never go running ever i mean this is this is i just went running in a national park i was i was down in capitol reef and my we were camping and i said hey i want to go in a long run i'm training for a marathon my wife said you're crazy and now i'm thinking how close was i knowing you hank you were following the rules you were doing everything right mind if all the rules oh man that that wasn't incredible what an incredible experience what incredible story and an incredible testimony oh my goodness i was i was pretty riveted here i'm so glad whit never came onto me because there was a couple of times i was like no no oh no oh well you know you're so kind and you know i should just add this uh because i fear just what you said um you know with that that people are going to now be like oh i'm so scared i don't want to do anything you know that that's that's not the point you know i mean you could you could coat your arms with huckleberry jam take a salmon in either hand and run through the woods going neener nina bear and they're not gonna yeah you probably don't want to push your luck that way but a million to one are the odds so um be smart make noise in bear country follow the rules and you're going to be fine i was doing absolutely everything wrong so just remember that i was yeah that's it's just an impressive story and the idea i love i think in those moments of pure terror that you turn to god right that was your and you can't think that through you can't think what should i do right now right it's one of those moments of you find out who your source is because you went right to the source you know i i think that's really interesting and i think all of us do that i think it's an instinctual part of us as sons and daughters of god even your friends who aren't members of the church i guarantee you in moments of crisis we have that natural honing instinct that says i have a father in heaven i have a mother in heaven i have our elder brother and savior jesus christ right i'm going to look to them so it's natural yeah it was yeah beautiful meg uh yeah i mean i've rarely met someone who has gone through difficulty like you have uh but i'm going oh right like you both have seen really really incredible moments in life that uh are terrifying and you probably have an interesting perspective on terrifying moments well when i what i took i was like writing all these notes down um things that i learned for myself but what i thought was interesting commonality wise uh was that both of us uh had a very um spiritual experience with a sunset or a sunrise i mean not a sunset but at sunrise right before a very major trial that we had so maybe just to remind us that jesus christ is in charge and he'll be with us when the sun's maybe not so bright outside yeah i don't know i've met someone who's had as many stitches as you meg but i think you two could probably go stitch for stitch i actually never counted mine yeah you'll have to you have to see if elder dunn has beat you stitch wise we'll swap notes all right i interrupted you meg what were you going to do no no that's okay oh something that i really loved about what you said was when you in the beginning you kept saying you know it was life changing it was live all screen but it was not life ending and i think sometimes um when our life hits a trial um in my opinion physical trials are like on the lowest of the totem pole um that emotional spiritual mental trials uh really are more difficult and less visible and so but even like they're so awful then they're so and they're even worse because no one can see them and then we think like oh this is life ending this ends my life like this is so terrible um but i love what you said it's life-changing it's life-altering but it's not life-ending well listen you know it's it's part of the deal we send we signed up for just coming down here you know megan i look at your life what you've been through you know doubt not fear not uh i i look at gail uh the loss of a spouse uh uh but but but look at you two amazing women the way you just have not only soldiered on but made your life even more amazing just with your ability to embrace and all of us are gonna go through that so these these lessons are really really important to understand and the sooner we learn them to doubt not in fear not but that you know it's going to be okay i love your sunrise analogy meg because maybe maybe that's the way that was divinely designed to always give us that promise that hope that you know tomorrow is going to be a better day yeah wow you love that love it you're probably in as much uh as i am of this of these uh this attack what do you i gotta know what you think i think it's incredible what what a an experience um but i think the really important thing is are the lessons you learned from it and the lessons you're teaching because of it and that's our responsibility is the experiences we have are not just ours alone i think they're they're meant to bring teachings to those around us so that the gospel can be shared in a way that is practical that we know we we have learned through our own experience the blessings that we haven't evolved we want to say that that's a it is and you know i just quickly i'd uh because gail will appreciate this i want to tell you that you know there's always a recovery and i i did recover obviously but about a year later i was uh in someone's office who they they didn't know me but um they they said well that's the bear guy so i met the secretary who said ah this is like the best day ever i've always wanted to meet you and i said well why she goes well you're so athletic you're so funny the stuff you do i don't know how you think of the stuff you do but it's it's so great and i was like thinking wow that what i mean what a great compliment and she took a breath gail and said yeah since i have been a teenager i have always wanted to meet the jazz bear she was meeting the gym it was the major disappointment of her life so i had to do it there's no comparison between that is awesome uh elder dunn meg i'm gonna stick you in the background uh and uh sister miller i told you earlier that i would stop gushing uh but i will say this that uh of course uh the country knows who gail miller is and the state of utah knows who gail miller is um and we all feel like we're we know you right uh we all feel like we've uh kind of especially watched you over the last uh you know to what 11 years since larry died and just you've become a uh just a an inspiration to people across the state so i think people who are watching tonight are excited to uh just to hear from you um and hear your voice as they've watched you over the last decade but now they get to hear from you uh so i'm i'm excited as well so i'm gonna turn the time over to you well thank you elder dunn is a tough act to follow i've never had anything as dramatic as that happened to me but i do want to share some personal experiences that have shaped my life so i'm going to start with my book a few years ago i wrote a book entitled it courage to be you it's inspirational stories from an unexpected journey now the unexpected journey was that i never thought i would step out of my private world into a public world or take on the responsibility of a large company and and worry about where it was where it was going and how we were going to get there and create some governance issues take care of some governance issues and succession planning so it was a whole different place for me but the book is really more about the journey of getting there so i'm going to tell you that that story i wrote this book at the urging of a very good friend of mine who happened to also be my therapist and i had a therapist for a long time and i'll tell you that story i engaged a therapist because my bishop was aware of some difficulties i was experiencing not just myself but with my children who needed some help and i had no answers and as i went to him with my one child who was especially troubled he looked across the table at me and he said i am happy to help you i'm happy to help your child but you are the one that needs the help now he didn't know me but he knew that i had children who were troubled and that i didn't know what to do or how to handle it so he was willing to take me and my child honest as a counselor it was a point in my life where i i was welcoming any help i could get because to me life was pretty scary i didn't know how i was going to get through the things that i was dealing with but i also was a little bit afraid of engaging a counselor because what what would people think if they knew i was going to a counselor would they think of me as lesser than or unable to handle my problems i didn't know i just knew that i needed help so i called him and i met him with that i met him that day and i decided that i would go forward well it turns out that i spent several years in therapy with this psychologist and i credit him with not only saving me and my child but also my marriage and when the time came that i was sufficiently recovered and strong enough that i didn't need his counsel anymore which is a period of a lot of years actually he looked at me and he said i think you should write a book i'd like you to write a book about the experiences that we've been through that you've been through that i've helped you with because there are a lot of women out there who go through many of the same things and they have fears that they're less than or that they can't do it or that they're all alone and they're embarrassed and if you share what you've learned you'll be helping women everywhere who read your book because they'll say well if she can do it i can do it and then not only that but he offered to help me write the book so we met every other week for quite probably several months and he would say well right about this time and right about that time and i would write and take it back to him and he'd say well what did you learn from that and that was the problem all i could see were the bad things that i'd been through i couldn't see any blessings or any any way i could recount my experiences so someone could benefit from them but i i also thought about well if i write this book i'd be exposing myself and my whole life to people that i don't even know and then i realized i'm not going to have any control over what they do with what they what with my experiences but the main thing was that i had a hard time turning all of those things that i've been through into a form where other people could benefit from it so it was a really hard thing and we worked on it and worked on it finally i was so discouraged that i said i i just i don't think this is going to work and i'm not going to take i'm not going to do it so later on my son um had writ who is a writer had written a book about larry my husband and he said to me one day um if you'll commit to some things about writing about interviewing i'll help you write your book one of those conditions was that i needed to commit to interview with him on a regular basis and be open and honest about my story now he was very young when i started counseling so he didn't really know all of the things we've been through so this was another scary part opening up to my own son about personal things that i've been through but i i said all right i will i will commit to that so he got a crew together and he set up a room with a camera and an interviewer and asked questions and i talked and i cried and i talked some more and and the discovery was that maybe there are some gems here that other people can relate to that that would be helpful and after we'd interviewed in that process for another year they felt they had an enough that they wanted to talk about publishing a book so one of them said why don't we go to deseret book and see if they'd be interesting interested in publishing this story so um they did that they went to deseret book and they looked at what they had and he said well you know we've done larry's story and we'd be interested in a book about gail but we don't want her life story what we want are some inspirational experiences that women can relate to now isn't that interesting that the original idea was to write a book that other women could relate to and so to me that just indicated that it was the right thing to do that somebody was watching over me and somebody was guiding this project from the therapist to my son to deseret book and so they didn't feel like it would have enough appeal unless they connected me israel didn't think it would unless they connected me with an a a named author someone who had some credibility already so they wanted me to work with someone that was well known that they had worked with before and they set up a few interviews to see how i would relate to some other authors so i met jason wright who is a well-known new york times best-selling author and and an lbs author and we hit it off and i didn't even interview anyone else but so he said that he would help me compile my experiences into a book and he was on board with that mission because he understood the issues of women he was a bishop at the time and he he had a lot of women in his ward that he'd been working with me he said this is going to be so good and so we did another year of interviews he lived in virginia but he would we would interview by phone and then every other month or so he would come out to you tom you would be in person face to face he would take my interview and go home and write a chapter and then send it to me and i would edit it say this is right that's right this is not this doesn't sound like me so we did that for for a year and um still i was a little nervous in fact i was actually terrified of sharing all of my warts with the world of the judgment that would surely come as a result of thinking that i had anything important to say i worried about how my children would feel about the things i said about them and i even worried if what will this book even sell will anybody want to buy it so what i learned in that process is that heavenly father certainly works in mysterious ways he knows our purposes here and he uses us to bless lives and he also knows how afraid we are of a lot of the things that cross our path but i believe that he helps us deal with them one of the things that he wants us to have is courage he wants us to have the courage to live our lives to our fullest potential in dnc 636 it says look unto me in every thought doubt not fear not and i think that means not only don't be afraid but don't be afraid that heavenly father knows what's best for you don't be afraid to follow his guidance and don't be afraid to take what he knows about you and use it for his purposes so that's what i felt was the thing i had to do and then i i had to think about do i have the courage to do this well yes and i believe that courage can drive out fear maya angelou said courage is the most important of all virtues because without it we can't practice any other virtue with consistency so if we don't have courage and we don't keep that courage forefront in front of us we often will get derailed we'll get discouraged and we'll stop looking at where we're going and why we're doing it so we have to remember that courage no matter where we are is one of the things that is so important in our life journey now my book is has a lot of has ten chapters and each chapter deals with one particular topic and i'm not going to talk about all of them but there are some that i think are important and the first one is about not the first chapter but the first one i want to talk about is about finding my voice i i was naturally a fairly shy retiring person i felt very strong i felt very confident for much of my life but after i got married and i was a stay-at-home mom that's where my life centered and i i was i had a husband and five children my husband was a dedicated breadwinner and he spent a lot of hours at work and that left me home to deal with the children and the house and just about everything else and when we had an opportunity to start our own business the intensity with which he worked multiplied and that's when i really felt like a single mom with five children to care for and when i looked at what he was doing he was learning and growing and having all kinds of experiences in a dynamic business world and here i was spending all of my time talking to children all day and becoming very unsure about whether i had anything of substance to say or offer or do outside the walls of my little home i had really lost my ability to feel confident in conversations with adults in fact i mostly spoke in third person and i wasn't even able to take credit for an original thought and when i realized that that came about the same time that i began in counseling and through the process of counseling i learned a lot of things about myself i learned that fear is an enemy to progress fear keeps us from experiencing the good parts of life and it prevents us from growing into our potential that heavenly father knows is there i also learned that i have a heavenly father who watches watches over me and guides me if i'm willing to listen to his promptings i learned that his promptings will come when we need them our job is to listen for them and recognize them for what they are and then act on them to illustrate this point i was serving in a relief society president's presidency once with a very close friend and i said to her as i'd watched her over the years and the way she lived her life and i was very impressed with how spiritual she was and i said to her one day i wish i could have experiences like you do of a spiritual nature but i never get those i never have promptings and she said oh i'm sure you do you're just not listening and that was prophetic that was a wake-up call for me i had the right to all of the same blessings that she did and i learned that if i pay attention to them when they manifest themselves that i will have those blessings and i will have more promptings and i will be able to guide myself through the maze and tangled life of a mother and a busy husband and church callings and feel secure in who i was and i also learned that my family needed my guidance so i had to come out of my shell and take my rightful place as the matriarch of my family in a more spiritual way not just as a caretaker and i now believe that the mother in the home is really one of the most important people in the world i think the hand that rocks the cradle actually rules the world and it's up to us to do it with righteousness now another thing that i learned was that i do have worth i'm not just a wife and mother i am a child of royal birth and i have a right to all of the blessings of my heavenly parents if i live worthy of them and i think that knowledge has shaped who i am today more than anything else that i've learned because that knowledge drives out fear it gives me courage it guides my actions and my thoughts and it dictates how i act how can i disappoint my heavenly parents in dnc 6 4 36 it says therefore fear not little flock do good let earth and hell combine against you for if ye are built upon my rock they cannot prevail look unto me in every thought doubt not fear not and i think that is one of the most profound lessons that we can put into practice as latter-day saints we don't have the option of doubting and fearing ours is the opportunity of believing and acting this is a season when the lord has spoken to us in dnc 98 22 he said if ye observe to do whatsoever i command you i the lord will turn away all wrath and indignation from you and the gates of hell shall not prevail against you what a blessing what what a promise president hinckley has asked us to reflect on those words because they apply to not just me but they apply to you and everyone listening to each one of us heavenly father has made a promise and it's his promise and he has the capacity to keep his promise and it's my testimony to you that i know he does keep his promises i want to take just a minute to tell you about some of the virtues that come with courage that i think are very important and they've made a real difference in my life the first one is to believe in god who is the father of all of us we are his children and he loves us he's interested in us he's concerned about us he wants us to be the very best we can be he wants us to make something of our lives and he wants us to be honest and true and upright he wants us to be straightforward and clean and decent but he also desires to bless us and if we live our lives to be worthy of his blessings he will bless us and we won't be troubled by the evil of the world and we won't be afraid because we know he will be there with his arms around this guiding and protecting us right behind that is to believe in ourselves and in our ability to do something worthwhile this was something that i had a challenge with after larry died and i had to decide whether i was going to step out of my little family world and move into the public world and work in the company and try and guide this huge company that we've built into the future but i know that if we believe in ourselves and we have the courage and we don't fear that heavenly father will be with us he has given us a mind and a spirit and a body with which we can do our work we all have a tremendous capacity we just have to tap into it we have to believe that we are here for a purpose and we have all the tools it takes to do what we need to do we don't have to be a genius to do something worthwhile in the early world's eyes most of the work that's done in the world is done by just ordinary people they just learn to work in an extraordinary way and that's what makes the difference if you stand tall and you look sharp and bright you have a smile on your face you'll find people will honor and love and respect you william shakespeare said to thine own self be true and it must follow as the night the day thou canst not then be false to any man in other words once you're true to yourself and you know who you are and you live those values you're not going to let anyone down my next virtue is believe in goodness there's so much evil in this world it just seems to be everywhere it's in television it's in books it's in magazines it's in videos it's on the internet and we even carry it around in our pockets on our small smartphones but the challenge is to don't let ourselves be tempted with these evil influences because they won't help us they will hurt us we can be we can be addicted to those things and they can destroy us in a very short period of time and it's happened to the lives of a lot of people so instead of those things let's believe in goodness even in the midst of great evil there is a lot of good to be found in the world there are good people everywhere trying to do the right thing let's be part of that army let's make it our responsibility to follow the right to choose the right when a choice is placed before us as to himself there is really something wonderful and uplifting that comes from believing in goodness and beauty and truth it keeps us on a higher plane it keeps us out of that place where things can be just so discouraging and disrupting believing in goodness and looking for goodness and bringing it into our lives is a much better way to live another thing that i think is really important is education the glory of god is intelligence and the lord himself has said seek learning even by study and by faith now we may not all have college degrees i know i don't but i do encourage you with all the influence that i have to take advantage of all the learning you can for me my learning has been day by day in the real world and i have learned something new every day and so can you you can educate yourself by paying attention to your experiences as you go along in the world and if you do what you and if you do what you can to prepare yourselves to do worthwhile things and if you're hard-working and honest and you will create an education for yourself and then share that education with people around you share what you know and help others to become wealthy in that area that's one thing you can give away and never diminish because education is something that you can you can share and you can keep and everybody wins and one more thing that is very dear and near to my heart is service over the course of my lifetime i've learned that serving others is essential to true happiness and as an unexpected reward to that i've also found that whenever i've served someone i've learned to love them and there are lots of kinds of service if you have a serving heart you will never lack for opportunities to serve but if you're not familiar with serving others just start small and then you can build up to bigger and greater opportunities you know in the world today our nation is focused on social justice equality fairness and inclusion and in order to break through the systemic issues of our time our efforts and our commitments to service have to be sustainable so right now is the time to step out of yourself and work to serve others the savior's life was about service in the new world the resurrected lord said ye know the things that ye must do in my church for the works which ye have seen me do that shall ye also do for that which ye have seen me do even that shall ye do we bless others as we serve in the shadow of jesus of nazareth who went about doing good god will bless us to find joy in serving our heavenly father as we serve his children here on earth this is our time we should fear not but we should believe this is the time to make resolutions that will be binding with heaven to to you and it's the season to set standards that will hold you on the right course and make you happy now and in the years to come just remember there is no happiness in wickedness and there is no happiness in sin there is no happiness in disobedience and there is no happiness in going contrary to the teachings of the church in isaiah 41 10 it says fear not for i am with thee be not dismayed for i am thy god i will strengthen me yea i will help thee yea i will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness i know that heavenly father watches over each and every one of us and i know he has a mission for us but i also know that mission includes serving others and teaching them about the gospel and teaching them what the blessings are that come from living the kind of gospel-centered life that heavenly father would have us live there is joy in service there is joy in being like our heavenly father there is joy in doing good and being good and knowing who you are and how you can make a difference in the world we can't be afraid of what someone's going to think or say about us we have to be true to who we are what we believe and how we feel about what we're doing if we can pass that test we will have no problem in doing what our heavenly father wants us to do every day is a new day and i just want to conclude by telling you about an experience i had about a month ago when i took on this new role as the leader of a large company i hired a coach to help me overcome some of the fears i had and learn how to be the person that i would at the role that i was taking on and about a month ago he said i think it would be good if you'd write a letter to yourself and and talk about how you are different today than you were yesterday or a year ago so this is the letter that i wrote and it says dear self today you are a different version of yourself than you were yesterday the things you said did and experienced yesterday may have prepared you for today and they may not have prepared you the point is today is a new day a new experience a new challenge a new you and what you do today will prepare you for tomorrow life is a journey life gives you everything you look for life gives you every meaning you can imagine what i learned today intellectually i've known before but i have not put it into action because of that i have been a lesser form of myself today i will use what i know what i learn and what i feel to be a better me and engage with the world in a fulfilling way tomorrow i want to be and do even more than today i promise my future self that i will not waste my time or my life i will appreciate the efforts of my former self but i will not rest on my laurels i have time and energy and motivation and desire to move forward with purpose and leave the past behind i am what i am because of my past but the future is more exciting and that's where i want to go i'm 76 years old i can live another 20 years what will that 20 years be like i only have to worry about today every day and use that time to the fullest what i expect of myself is progress purpose usefulness better relationships and more love in my life i will give and receive i will look for meaning i will create meaning in everything i do even if it's to relax that has meaning i must go first i will lead out and make the difference for not only me but for others also i will find and put meaning in everything i do meaning is the way we decline ourselves i have to take in more meaning i am far from full when it comes to meaning there is lots more room for meaning in my former self i have often felt like a fraud because i didn't see the meaning in my life i have let things from the past hold me back it's that fear i don't need to do that today is a new me i can categorize my life in two places the good and the bad i have often categorized my life in two places the good and the bad because i've done that i have allowed those two to negate each other today there is only meaning no good and no bad just meaning without meaning there is no purpose without purpose there is no energy without energy there is no me i will look for and take in more meaning i will also forgive myself and others for past defeats so that they exist no more i just like to leave you with the thought that we all have a new life every single day and we have the ability to do whatever our courage will allow us to do and leave the fear in the past so that it exists no more and i do that in the name of jesus christ amen amen amen wow um sister miller thank you so much for that personal and um insightful message i was just just kind of riveted all three of you tonight have given us a personal look inside of your lives and it's not uh and they've been difficult times all three of you talked about the you know difficult very personal times of your life you know you think when people think of gail miller it's probably a lot like nephi when nephi says oh you know wretched man that i am and we're all going what nephi the greatest thing that's ever happened to us and we all think that with gail miller here's she's saying oh you know i was scared i was i didn't think anybody would want to buy this book and we're all going gail miller doesn't struggle right gail miller doesn't have a hard time she's gail miller so that insight to me was so refreshing and um so validating and uh beautiful meg what do you think i was really really touched by several things i was taking notes and one of the things i think that maybe these two men aren't gonna quite understand as much as you and i understand and a lot of moms out there is the is the very thankless position of being a mom and you love it you love your children you wouldn't trade it for anything but it it kind of your self-worth seems to slip out you know and you just don't feel like i know i really it really resounded me when you said you know i didn't feel like any of my ideas were going to be very important to anybody and i didn't feel like you know i said you talked in the third person you know and i i remember a long time ago um it took me a lot of time to have kids and i was speaking and i was at this national speaker meeting and somebody was talking to me oh i don't you love this isn't this so wonderful don't you love to be a speaker and i do love to be a speaker but then i just added i said yeah i love it but i would trade it all for a couple of kids and um now that i have a couple of kids i understand um how good it feels really like especially when we don't clap into church but other places clap and especially when you talk like at a religious thing outside the church they clap all through the talk i love it and you know sometimes they stand up and they're like yeah you know thousands of people standing up and applauding you're like that's right like this is the life um but i would not uh trade that um for my two kids i love my two kids so much and one of my daughters ran in with a with a plastic glass like it was a clear cup and it was halfway full of water and all the way full of all of my front flower bed flowers but to get them all in she had to shove them in all the way to the ground like it was like packed with every single flower from my garden and she was so she was a little she goes oh i picked these flowers for you mom and the feeling that i felt when she gave me this plastic cup stuffed with flowers um trumps uh the feeling that i feel when i get a an applause at the end of a talk there is no comparison but i understand what you mean by you just don't feel like yourself it's a very hard labor to be a mom and i love the title of your book and the theme you know the courage courage isn't the absence of fear and it's not the absence of you know all of those negative feelings but it's the willingness to do it anyway and you inspire me um a lot well i've been inspired with you for a long time elder john any thoughts before we close up you know i just want to celebrate something i think we've all been feeling listening to gail miller and uh gail i just really tribute this your willingness and ability to be vulnerable yeah and that is just so remarkable to you know again overcoming fears what will people think well and you know as a community leader as someone who has earned her own stripes and rightfully so uh in that organization i just salute you for that willingness to do that because i think it gives a lot of other people the courage to do the same thing and to realize that um or to admit that maybe everything isn't lined up as exactly and pretty as it looks in the store window right and and there's other there's other things going on and um i will just tell you all having dealt with many people in the miller organization that that is one of the things that they really love about gail is uh she's transparent she's honest she's candid and she's willing to do those things and that's the lesson i take away from this is i've got to come to grips with my own fears and insecurities and be able to share those in a meaningful impactful way that you know that again adds positivity to my many relationships so thanks for such a great lesson gail yeah i've enjoyed both your messages too thank you for letting me be a part of this we we are honored to have uh to have you here now um just to show you how real we are to our audience uh you can see that i thinking i'm doing really well as our host didn't have an opening prep i just thought well why don't we just skip the prayer uh actually i just completely forgot we were though we didn't have an opening prayer we're still gonna have a closing prayer meg will you offer us a closing prayer and then you want to stick around after the closing prayer we have a little uh our turtle house tradition uh so meg give us a closing prayer if you would i will dear heavenly father we're so grateful for this opportunity we've had to to listen to messages and to fill up the holy spirit we're grateful for for the opportunity we have to be members of the church and to have um the different unique trials and challenges that we have to help us learn the things we need to learn we're grateful for for the opportunity to speak in a way that so many can listen and hear wherever they are and for this wonderful technology we have to share the gospel in many different parts throughout the world we're grateful for our individual opportunities to bear testimony of the savior jesus christ and please bless us with the courage to to do so and to act and to do those things to um share the gospel with those who need it in their lives we love you so much let me see these name of jesus christ amen [Music] okay it is now time for one of my favorite parts like the dessert we've had our meal we have been spiritually fed and now we get to have a little dessert this is where we we people will write in and say i love the part after the closing prayer where we just we get to see every all the speakers as just human beings um just what they do and i'm quite i'm an odd human being but i have a question for gail if you uh have time for this question gail i've i've when i was a kid i never got to go to the salt pals ever got to go to the salt palace but man i watched now i'm a little bit older i i i will spend a little bit of money and i will go to those jazz games because they are worth every cent um now i see you down there on the front row and you don't look stressed you don't look ruffled when the score is you know within one point and there's five seconds left you just are as calm as the summer's day now are you stressed inside when this is happening or are you just calm like i just gotta get home to get to bed on time are you are you stressing out as much as we are you know i've been doing this for 35 years and i have learned how to hold it in okay trying to handle that much emotion through two three sometimes four times a week yeah more than i can manage so i've learned how to corral it and push it down and say it's going to be okay i want any control they'll try to the best they can and i just have to be clear so i do get i do get nervous and i hate overtime oh i i don't know about meg or michael but i'm one of those people that i'll i grab my children during intense moments of the game and i'm like watch watching they're like dad you're squeezing me really hard to watch this this is gonna we're gonna win uh so i i yell at the tv meg do you yell at the tv i think you yell i'm a i'm a uh i'm not yeah i know you well enough to know i don't yell at the tv but i'm a passionate person and it comes out yeah you're just ah michael you seem pretty even kill to me that when you're watching sports you're gonna go okay well are you pretty even when it comes to watching well you try to be i think like i think like gail uh says when you've accumulated some years like i have you you tend to realize that somebody's going to win and somebody's going to lose and as gail says you really don't have any control your emotions or your ranting and raving or squeezing those children is not going to have the outcome you know of a project what if i feel like it really does like if i i i have some sons who are who are you know who are very much that way and you know i was as you were saying that i think isn't it great don't we just celebrate sport that you know the very definition of a fan is to be passionate about a team and and to care about something you know and i i think that's great i think those are wonderful emotions it's sad when it goes overboard uh and we've all seen that sort of the the ugly side of that in terms of you know carrying a little bit too much at the end of the day it is a game we all need to remember that but hey isn't it great to have something to cheer for yeah i think it brings a community together i think the jazz have done something for utah that i don't know i'll stop gushing let's uh oh gail your cheering really does help the team they they it makes a difference all right i'm not saying don't do it i'm just saying i can only handle yes yeah it's not good for the heart really to have that much intensity that often yeah and i'll just say one more thing and then we can move on away from the jazz uh but uh the players we get i don't know i guess maybe i'm just biased but i feel like we get the best human beings we work on that we there are i just you know they're good you they just i don't know maybe i'm biased but i think these are good people yeah we try to get high count or quality character players it makes a difference i think so too it's easy to get behind such good people all right um so michael i want to tag on that but it has to do with the jazz um the very best compliment i ever got after uh after a speech a relief society or someone came up to me and she she goes sister johnson that was so amazing you're so beautiful you're so wonderful you're so this you're so that you must be kyle korver's sister i was like what what when he played for the jazz uh his company his like non-profit contacted me because they wanted to know uh who they could build wheelchair ramps for and he and his company built me a wheelchair ramp on my house and built several and gail you know little wheelchair girls ramps on their homes several of them one of our guys who works with us at jumping turtle kyle korver built him a wheelchair ramp for his daughter and i've got to ask michael when did you work for bonneville communications what years uh i it was in the it last century the 1900s that's what i yeah yeah it's it's as you said no very early i was there uh in the 1980s working on the whole campaign yeah okay well i was just thinking when i didn't know that you worked for bonneville communications but um so i run the miss wheelchair utah pageant for little girls in wheelchairs and women we we only do little girls now but used to be women and teens hank has hosted one of our pageants um gail you've been the judge for one of our pageants um even craig buller jacks hosted one of our pageants um so it's mark eaton he's been a judge and then the reason we have it was because after i got paralyzed i wanted to be you know i wanted to do that and i wanted to go to miss wheelchair america but it cost a lot of money to go to miss wheelchair america so i had to fundraise which is hard and so i contacted i just sent all these letters out and my first two hundred dollars came from bonneville communications and i was just when i heard you work for them i was like oh you know it's a real small connection but what a small world right yeah they do a lot of great things in the world yeah they do michael i want to hear i want to hear since you're been in television for so long i don't know if you can think of one um right off the spot i'm kind of putting you on the spot here but i want to hear about television craziness right where you're going uh oh do you have any uh oh moments where you're going okay we're gonna have to wing it we're gonna have to figure this out because live television that's tough right yeah you know the uh which day do you want to talk about it right um i'll i'll tell you one that uh that gail will will fully appreciate it wasn't uh for a program it was actually for a commercial years ago frank laden was a spokesperson for a company and we were filming a commercial in santa barbara and in this particular commercial he was the captain of a ship and so we had a tugboat you know anchored up to the uh a real dock in santa barbara and all the lights and you know everything there well the whole thing is is humming along the generator and all of a sudden we hear this big splash the lights all go dark and we realize that the vibration from the generator has it's walked itself off the dock and now fallen off oh my god you know we have coach lane there we have a full crew we're trying to do all this stuff and you talk about courage in the ingenuity we had just about given up we were already starting to write off our losses one of the crew members with a grappling hook was throwing it into the water trying to fish trying to catch the bottom of the generator frame he must have done it for 35 minutes and all of a sudden at 45 minutes i got it he pulls it up of course it's a gasoline engine he rebuilds the engine long story short and within an hour and a half the lights are back on and oh my word frank is doing his magic so that was that was near catastrophe and a little miracle at sea for all of us it does feel like moments you're going no no no no no no no meg and i have had a few of those on stage where we're going uh-oh oh what are we gonna do uh but we work it out right it just kind of begs always this smile and something good will happen just smile and it'll work it it'll work itself out um okay uh maybe maybe our last question uh we'll let these let these guys get back to their families meg uh but tell me uh tell me about kids and grandkids i'm uh i'm a father of teenagers i have two teenagers and three little boys so i have a girl who's 16 who loves the jazz by the way she had a ricky rubio's 15th birthday party where everybody had beards was a little intense um and uh and then i want to hear about parenting advice and i also want to hear that parenting i like really i like hearing that parenting is hard and you're not perfect so can you tell me how not perfect you are at parenting and also give me advice at parenting uh because it's discouraging sometimes to be an imperfect parent i want to hear this advice too yeah there are no perfect parents 45 grandchildren and 24 great grandchildren okay i know a little bit about parenting and i still feel inadequate okay that's good to hear actually okay but i did tell my my children even after they grew up and got married i said as long as i'm your mother i will constantly try to influence your life so it's a job you're never free of never released and my mother used to say parenthood is one job that by the time you're experienced you're unemployed meaning your kids are gonna come and she had nine children i like that that by the time you've got you've got it it's over well that makes me feel really good it does make me feel better because i go i i sometimes tell my kids like you won the mother lottery but when it comes to fathers i really am sorry i i think you got about a three out of a ten i'm pregnant i but i just uh sometimes i'm not very good at this make that me on the shoulder it's okay dad mom mom mom does a good enough job for both of you uh hey michael members they will know that they have the best dad in the world that's one thing about kids they are forgiving oh they are i remember reading you know reading larry's uh book reading the book on larry's life uh driven that was it was it's i didn't i didn't have the expectation that it would change me as much as it did but he was very open about his parenting about his work and of course me growing up as a jazz fan uh it really i've recommended it to a lot of dads who say hey what are you reading these days i'm saying you got it read redriven about larry h miller because there was there were some stirring moments in there for me well i told our kids you know they often felt deprived because their dad was gone so much and i i kept telling him you know you have two chances at fatherhood you have the one you had which you can't do anything about he is who he is and you have the one you are and you can be the best dad in the world you can be whatever you want to be you don't have to be anybody else just be who you are yeah i think that was the message of the book too was ah michael okay i'm ready i'm ready to learn from your wisdom well i would just say amen to everything that uh that gail has said it's interesting you bring this up last night we had dinner with a young professional couple both have great jobs newly married they're talking about how great and adventuresome and wonderful their life is and it is i mean with with good reason and it just got me thinking as great as that is there is no sweeter greater more divine gift than children as meg was talking about earlier it is just such an incredible blessing in your life does it drive you crazy sometimes yes but is it the sweetest gift with the payoff that you could ever have i mean absolutely and that job never does end and the one thing i've discovered with with our family is that there is no rote way that you can do that and that's because these are all individual sons and daughters of god come with personalities and temperaments and weaknesses and strengths and you got to celebrate those and live those and i think you as a parent need to adapt to those and find the you know the the best way that you can sort of bring out the greatness in them my one mantra with them has simply been this as you go through your life uh two expectations which is i want you to not over promise or not under promise but over deliver and uh you know that's that's just been a great thing with them i said whatever those standards or goals are that you have under promise but you over deliver i don't want to just hear it from you i want you to live and be the kind of person that you want to be and we'll deliver i love that i love that and it reminds me of karl malone so it's going to fit perfectly the deliver right sorry sorry you guys i'm sorry man i can't i can't stop it's it's my world revolves around it pretty much gail you're gonna get you're gonna turn this off going oh my word what a crazy what a crazy guy um meg do you wanna do you wanna ask anything before we before we let them all go back to their families oh god well now i don't know i probably did before you asked me that sorry meg i hate to put you on the spot like that no we've got to what i don't want this to end but i know we've been oh i know well before we do him like i know we've talked about families and the blessings of kids and all four of us have kids because we have that wonderful blessing but just as a shout out for all those people out there who don't have kids who maybe don't connect or relate i just want to share a little testimony that i have because i couldn't have kids for a long time and i got married late and then i still couldn't have kids for a long time and i taught seminary and um i was able to have a connection with my seminary students um that that rivals my own children i saw one of my students at lagoon like the amusement park near me um very recently last summer and he was married and he returned from a mission and i was so happy for the good choices that he'd made in his life that i cried yeah yeah i have my own kids now like my own kids and i can tell you that the love i have for my student is equal to the love i have for my children because i let it happen that way um how many are the children of the desolate right yeah that's beautiful and i've i've seen single men and women uh be incredible influences on my own children on my own students and their parents in and of themselves in their their mentoring of of others so good michael gail i just can't thank you enough thank you for being with us thank you for letting us take of your time uh and to learn from you it's been absolutely wonderful and meg i'm sure i will see you very soon on another another our turtle house fireside and thank you to the folks at our turtle house uh for providing all of this uh this space for us and this manpower for us we'll hope you uh will support them and download that app today uh but for now tonight thank you so much for being with us and we'll see you again on another our turtle house digital fire site good night everybody you

Channel: Our Turtle House

Views: 12,225

Rating: 4.9230771 out of 5

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Id: i8tVt74jSHM

Length: 141min 40sec (8500 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 30 2020