Hi, I'm Kathleen

I'm a Mormon, a writer, and a computer genealogist, married to a chemical engineer, with 3 daughters, 4.5 grandchildren.

About Me

Part of Who I Am

Earlier this year I attended the Brigham Young University science fiction symposium, "Life, the Universe, and Everything." Because the symposium is at BYU, there are always a few discussions of religion and especially of LDS Mormon intersections of one kind or another with speculative fiction.

One of the things I noticed was that this year I seemed to be more into the LDS aspects of these questions than I think I have been in the past. For example, from the audience of a panel on blogging for writers, I asked if the panelists ever talked about being LDS when they posted on their blogs.

As another example, as a panelist on a panel on creating religions for fiction, I cited an LDS novel by a nationally published LDS mainstream author who was telling the story of an LDS character as she struggled with a nasty divorce. Though she talked to family members and friends about her struggles, she never in the book talked to God.

Well, LDS people are urged to pray continually, so my point was that this LDS character had not been portrayed as being true to her religion because the author did not show her doing something that should have been almost automatic to her, given her upbringing in her religion as presented in the book. I found the story particularly irritating for that reason. And I told the audience that when you use a religion in a story, you need to make sure your characters behave consistently in connection with their religion, or it doesn't work.

Another example and I will stop the examples with this one, from the audience on a panel discussing why there seem to be enough LDS writers of fantasy that people are noticing and remarking on it, I pointed out that most people don't seem to self-identify by their religion the way we LDS do. It seems to me that, for the most part, only Jews and Muslims self-identify as much as LDS people do. So most other writers are not particularly known by their religion, nor are the religions of most other writers even mentioned, so far as I have noticed.

So why am I giving these examples? Because I have decided that because I self-identify as LDS I need to include that aspect of myself when I blog, when I comment on others' blogs, and when I participate in other forums online. And I hope I can make it interesting when I do.

I'm trying to be like Jesus. That's pretty central to how LDS people define being "Christian." And He shared what He believed because of His love for all creation. He served others, He was humble and submissive to His Father's will, and He loved everyone.

I've had the opportunity for over a decade to serve as an online moderator of one kind or another. I was asked to be an "assistant sysop" on the late, lamented GEnie bulletin board system one of the few casualties of Y2K, and I have since gone on to moderate the Hatrack River Writers Workshop forum on Orson Scott Card's www.hatrack.com website. I have learned, I hope, to serve other writers. I have tried to be humble in my interactions with them online. And I have loved doing it.

And that is part of who I am.

Why I am a Mormon

I was born into a Mormon home, with pioneer ancestors in both my father's and my mother's ancestry. I grew up in Utah, attended church, and married in the Salt Lake Temple.

As I was growing and learning about the church and its teachings, I came to understand that these things were not only true by themselves, but they were right for me.

I gained a testimony of the Book of Mormon after staying up late to finish a book that disappointed me in its ending. I asked myself in frustration what I should read next, and the first words of the Book of Mormon, "I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents..." were spoken in my mind. That was spooky enough that I started reading it right away, and finished the Book of Mormon within a couple of days. I didn't have to wait until the end and pray as Moroni exhorts in its last verses, because I realized as I read that I knew it was true, that Nephi, and Jacob, and Enos, and King Benjamin, and Mosiah, and Alma, and Abinadi, and Ammon, and Helaman, and Mormon, and Moroni were real people who actually existed on the earth, and their stories were important to me.

I have since read the Book of Mormon and studied it and read about it and made notes about it and talked about it and written about it so many times that I can't count them. The truths in the Book of Mormon are great and wonderful and will bring blessings unimagined to those who study and follow them.

Personal Stories

How has your knowledge of the Plan of Happiness changed/benefited your life?

Losing a loved one seems harder to bear when it comes during the holiday season. When a baby has died, Christmas songs about a mother and her child can make the loss even harder.

While the last third of the year 2001 was a time of tragedy for thousands of people, our particular tragedy started well before September 11th. Our daughter and her husband were expecting our first grandchild and had volunteered to participate in a study of Down's syndrome babies. They went in for an early ultrasound, expecting to be on the control list with a normal baby. Instead the doctors found that their little girl had no skull and would not live long after birth--if she survived even that long.

The doctors recommended abortion, but my daughter chose to try to have the baby because she and her husband wanted this little girl in their family, even if they could only know her for a short time.

They grew to love her as she made herself known to them. Her mother was constantly aware of her as she shifted, squirmed, and stretched inside her. Her father would put his head close and talk to her and sing.

She was due to be born at the end of November, but as her parents prepared to leave home to join us for Thanksgiving dinner, my daughter sneezed, and her water broke. Both sets of grandparents spent Thanksgiving Day at LDS Hospital, waiting for the birth of their special granddaughter.

She survived her birth, and we took turns holding her, spending as much time with her as we could because we didn't know how much time we had. When it was my turn, I sang my father's version of "The Eriskay Love Lilt," a song he had sung as a lullaby to me and then to my children. He was not there to sing it himself, having died two years before, but his grave would be her resting place as well because there was room above his large coffin for her small one. As I held her and sang, I pictured him holding her when the time came for us to say good-bye to her, too.

She lived for ten hours. When the man from the mortuary came to the hospital, my son-in-law wanted to stay with my daughter, so I volunteered to carry her body down to the car. The man escorted me through the back ways, saying it was hard to have to explain to people that the baby I was carrying was dead, so it was better to go where we wouldn't meet people. I laid her on the passenger's seat and returned to the hospital room to help my daughter get ready to go home.

When her body was ready, we went to the mortuary and helped her mother dress her in a beautiful white dress trimmed in yellow that her other grandmother had made for her granddaughter. My daughter then wrapped her in a baby afghan crocheted for her by my sister and laid her in the tiny coffin. There was a viewing, and then we took her to my father's gravesite.

The snow had been cleared away, and though cold, it was a beautiful day. My son-in-law had a brother who had died as a baby, and his mother told us that it had been very hard to leave his body all alone in that cemetery full of strangers. It was a comfort to leave this grandchild's body with the body of her great grandfather.

Then came the Christmas season with all the songs about the world's most special baby and about how much His mother loved Him. Those songs took on new and painful meaning as we mourned our own special child.

Rather than mourn alone, though, we chose to go to out of state to spend Christmas with our son-in-law's parents so that our daughter and son-in-law could spend Christmas with both of their parents.

Christmas that year was on a Tuesday, but we arrived in time to attend Sunday services. Those of us who could sing became impromptu additions to the choir. And there we sang those songs about the most special child of all, welcoming Him once again, and feeling comforted because His coming has made it possible for us to be together someday with all of those we have lost. The tears we shed in sadness then will one day become tears of joy because of the birth, death, and resurrection of one very Special Child.

How has attending Church services helped you?

The lesson in Sunday School today was on Elijah, and our teacher's approach in today's lesson was to have us look for types of Christ in the scripture story about Elijah. One of the things that occurred to me was that our Savior was a widow's son, too.

I also thought about how the unfailing barrel of meal and cruse of oil were miracles that symbolize how the atonement makes up for the smallness and inadequacy of our efforts and our offerings, just as His miracle of feeding 5000 with a few loaves and a couple of fishes does.

But after Sunday School, as I was thinking about the lesson some more, I realized that the story of the widow of Zarephath is a story about how God is in the details, and that we really have to trust Him in order to receive the fullness of the blessings He has in store for us.

1 Kings 17:9 tells us that after the Brook of Cherith dried up, the Lord told Elijah to go to Zarephath to the widow whom He had "commanded" to "sustain" him.

So here is a woman who is trying to keep herself and her son alive in a famine, who has probably prayed to her Heavenly Father for help, and the answer she received was that the Lord was sending His prophet to her for her to keep him alive as well. I suspect she was less than thrilled to hear that.

When he shows up, her food supply is barely enough for her to feed herself and her son one last time before they starve to death. She explains this to Elijah, but he asks her for "a little cake" anyway and he promises her that God would provide. I wonder if she gave him her portion, so that she would not be taking from what she had intended for her son, but even so, it had to have been a real test of her faith. It certainly wouldn't have been what she had in mind when she prayed to the Lord for help.

But the Lord did provide, as promised. Imagine, opening the barrel of meal every day and finding there is still some in the bottom to be used, and tipping the cruse of oil and pouring out enough, each and every day--what an amazing blessing.

Beyond that, though, Elijah was there when her son sickened and died, and he was able to call down a blessing that restored her son to life, a blessing far greater than she may have dared to ask for when she prayed for help and got that unexpected answer. A widow's son is her only hope in the hardship of life without a husband. Not only was he expected to care for her in her old age, but everything he was heir to from his father was there to support her until he reached adulthood. If the only son of a widow died, all that he inherited would go to another male relative, and the widow might be turned out to fend for herself. Jesus, as a widow's son, on the cross, made certain that his mother was taken care of before He died. So Elijah, in restoring the widow's son to her more than repaid her faithfulness and obedience in taking care of him during the famine.

Sometimes our Heavenly Father sends us what appear to us to be trials and tribulations instead of the help and blessings we thought we were asking for. But if we trust in Him, and are patient, He will always make it work out even better than we could have imagined. Things will fall into place and be where they need to be to help us through the real trials and tribulations of this life, and we will be so very grateful that we were able to last long enough to receive the blessings He has in store for us.

He really is in the details of our lives, and we really can trust in Him in all things.

How I live my faith

I study the scriptures, the Bible as well as the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price. I pray morning and night and several times during the day. I try to attend the temple every week. I attend church every Sunday and participate in the classes as well as partaking of the sacrament. I try to be a better person, and repent of my sins and weaknesses, relying on Christ to help me become worthy of His love. I work on family history research for my ancestors as well as for those of people who need help with their research. I use my talents to help others as much as I can, and as often as I can.

What do Mormons believe about family?

Kathleen answered...

That families are the most important organizations in the world and that belonging to a family is one of the reasons we are on this earth. We believe that families can be together forever, and one of the purposes of temples is to make that happen.

We do family history work and temple work for those in our family who died before they could go to a temple so that they can be linked together with us as families extending back through time to Adam.

We believe that the blessings Heavenly Father has for His children though being parts of families are so necessary that He has asked us to do this family history research and temple work so that we can find our family members and connect them to us. Every person who has lived on this earth should have a chance to receive these wonderful family blessings, and family history research is how we find people who didn't have a chance to receive them while they were living.

We believe that everyone should have a chance to choose these family blessings, and so we do the temple work that will give them that choice, even if they have not lived on this earth for a long time.

My first grandchild only lived for ten hours because she was born without a skull, but we believe because of the family blessings of the temple, we can be with her after we have died and we can know her and love her as part of our family. We believe that Christ's sacrifice and atonement makes this possible, and we are anxious for others we know and love to have this great blessing as well.
Bradley. answered...

The family is a key component to support us in God's plan for gaining immortality and eternal life. All of God's children (all the inhabitants that lived, are living, and will live on Earth) are inseperably connected to each other, both (physically) by our Earthly families and (spiritually) by our Heavenly Father.

Families help us to understand our divine heritage. In this, life takes on purpose and meaning. Our immortal spirits were created by our Heavenly Father before Earthly existance, and we are directly connected to Him in this way. As a spiritual family, our collective purpose on Earth is to follow the commandments of God that lead us to live in heaven with Him again.

Our spirits need to progress, learn, and grow. In order to achieve that, Earthly existance was created as our test. Our Heavenly Father knew that being exposed to opposing forces on Earth was the only way for us to gain knowledge and wisdom.

However, we will not always choose righteousness, and so our Savior, Jesus Christ, is that great mediator to pay the debt of our mistakes. He is the only way by which we can be saved from our sins and transgressions. He is the ultimate example by which direction we need to live our lives. With the support of our earthly kin, we can learn from each other, serve each other, and strengthen our mortal weaknesses by being disciples of Christ. Our families are a gift from God, and we can be together forever.

What are Mormon women like? Do Mormons believe in equality of men and women?

Stephanie answered...

I think this is the question that I am most frequently asked. And as a woman and a member of this church, I consider myself an expert on the subject.

Mormon women are like any body of women--we're all different. We have different goals, we have different backgrounds, and we all have our own and very different struggles. But, there is one thing that unites us: and that is the love we have for the gospel, and the love that our Father in Heaven has for us. We are His daughters. We are oh so special to Him. We have been sent to this earth with talents and abilities that He knows only we can fulfill. These are things that build His kingdom--that lift, inspire, and strengthen those around us.

We believe that we are created equally. Women are not more special or more important than men. Men are not more special or more important than women. We are equal--but just because we are equal doesn't mean the things that we do are going to be the same, or even have to be the same. We work together in equality and together we accomplish what needs to be accomplished--and that can only be done as we work together.