Category: Mormon Life

An Inappropriate Friendship

By Stephen Carter Stephen Carter is the director of publications for Sunstone, host of the Sunstone Podcast, and author of Virginia Sorensen: Pioneering Mormon Author (Signature Books).      It was the middle of April, and the beginning of the pandemic. My friend Anna and I were standing, six feet apart, in the middle of …

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Linguini to Spare

By Megan Greenwood     Or download the audio file here: Linguini to Spare   I am really good in a crisis. Seriously. Really good. I’m actually kind of famous for it. Cancer diagnosis? I’m your gal. Divorce? I’ve got you. Lost your job? I’m here to help. Years ago, my mom and I were …

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The Mormonator and Me: A Pandemic Face-off

By John Hatch John Hatch is an editor at Signature Books. His book “What Do You Mean, Murder?” Clue and the Making of a Cult Classic will be published in 2023.     Or, download the audio here: The Mormonator and Me: A Pandemic Face-off   One Sunday morning, about eight months into the pandemic, …

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Tell Me the Stories of Jesus

By Dana Haight Cattani DANA HAIGHT CATTANI was diagnosed with uterine cancer in April 2012. She lives with her family in Indiana.     How impressionable and vulnerable we are in the face of a story.1 —Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie   When the sacrament meeting speaker began telling a story about a young mother who had …

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Tyrants of the Spirit

By Dorothy Allred Solomon Dorothy Allred Solomon is the author of In My Father’s House and Daughter of the Saints. She has appeared on The Today Show and Oprah.     Or right-click here to download the audio.     Seven years after law enforcement had come down on polygamists, my poor father was collecting …

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Confessions of a Shopping Mall Santa

By Rory Swensen     Or right-click here to download the audio.     Christmas Season, 1989. I was a freshman at the University of Utah, my first year away from home. As a poor student I was looking for extra holiday cash, and the Help Wanted ad for a shopping mall Santa seemed like just …

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Poured Out Like Water

By Charlotte Johnson Willian Charlotte Johnson Willian is a child/family advocate who resides in the southern hills of Indiana, where she is surrounded by the trees she loves. This essay received first place in the 2017 Eugene England Memorial Personal Essay Contest.         A drop of water, if it could write out …

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Arnold Lobel and Me

By Martha Taysom Martha Taysom is a retired scholar of American intellectual history and the mother of five children, of whom Matt is the fourth.     When Matt was young, we often read Arnold Lobel’s Frog and Toad stories together. His head would rest against my arm as he followed these simple but wise …

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On Outrage

By John Hatch Every day, I log on to Facebook, Twitter, and a few message boards where I get much of my news. I like these platforms and I like the wit and the humor and the insight and the people I meet; however, it’s become evident to me that a kind of Audrey II …

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The Stubborn Ounces of My Weight

By Dana Haight Cattani     Or right-click here to download the audio file: The Stubborn Ounces of My Weight   …But I am prejudiced beyond debate in favor of my right to choose which side shall feel the stubborn ounces of my weight. —Bonaro W. Overstreet   THE TRIGGER MIGHT have been the cancer center …

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