Despite a pandemic that forced the majority of interviews this year to be done remotely, the All In podcast never missed a beat, producing and releasing 55 interviews that were downloaded over 4 million times over the course of the year. The show’s conversations covered a wide range of both timely and timeless topics such as parenting, dealing with a faith crisis, racism, anxiety, and meditation. Here is a brief look at the 20 most-downloaded episodes of 2020 as of December 7, 2020, through one powerful quote from each of those episodes.
1. “Gerald N. Lund: Signs of the Second Coming”
“One of the things that I found curious is that even many of the members are focused on COVID and rightly so, it dominates our life right now [and] defines our schedule. But we're overlooking what I think are other really quite evident and quite remarkable signs of the times.”
2. “Jared Halverson: Giving People the Benefit of Their Doubts”
“I'll take the restored gospel's question marks over anyone else's because we have exclamation points that go along with them.”
3. “Justin Coulson: How Might Jesus Parent?”
“We must acknowledge what's happening in the world, and we also, we need to provide a really clear rationale or really clear reason for why we're doing what we're doing, why we believe what we believe, why we live the way we live, but do so in a way that doesn't make our children feel like they have to ostracize themselves, cut themselves off. We want them to feel like they can actually get along with people and embrace diversity while still standing strong for what they believe.”
4. “Eva Witesman: What May Be Keeping You from Accessing Your Spiritual Gifts”
“It's a complicated time, and we can't always see the pathway by ourselves. We need these spiritual gifts to be able to see them. And these spiritual gifts are real. They're as real as any other thing that we've proven with science. . . . And I think the more of us that talk about it, and the more of us that expect that and aspire to that, the more we will see that diversity of beautiful gifts and the more we will be able to develop those beautiful gifts and share the development of those gifts with each other.”
5. “Emily Belle Freeman: Grace for All Seasons”
“I wake up and I anticipate Jesus Christ will be part of that day, I expect His grace to be part of what I am doing everywhere, in my home, in my work in my relationships. I expect that He's going to show up. And at the end of the day, I look back and I think, ‘We did some really good things today.’ . . . Because it's not me, I'm not doing those good things, I'm not capable of those good things. I'm not smart enough, I don't have enough energy for those things, but in Christ, I am made capable.”
6. “Steven Sharp Nelson: ‘That Thy Performance May Be for The Welfare of Thy Soul’”
“All we're trying to do is be instruments in God's hands, and I love that anybody can do that. Anybody can do that. There's nothing spectacular about who we are. But there's everything spectacular about who God is. And anybody and everybody has access to that, in all kinds of fields—whatever your gifts are in.”
7. “Dallas Jenkins: Behind the Scenes of The Chosen”
“Even though [Christ] spoke to crowds, He was always talking personally, and He was always seeking that personal relationship. And that's what He wants from your heart. He wants that more than your accomplishments, and He wants that more than any kind of mass movement. He wants the personal.”
8. “Melinda Wheelwright Brown: How Understanding Eve Could Change the World”
“We are constantly presented with two mutually exclusive options. Sometimes it's two great choices that we have to decide between, sometimes it's two rotten choices that we have to decide between. Sometimes it's just a matter of some that are better than others in various ways, and it's weighing all the pros and cons and having to come to that decision. And I think, to me, the beauty of the way they were presented with these two mutually exclusive options is it made it 100 percent about their agency and their choice. They had to choose one or the other because, by virtue of not choosing, they were making a choice.”
9. “S. Michael Wilcox: Grief, Loss and ‘Filling Eternity with Love’”
“One day, [God will] say to me, ‘Mike, why weepest thou?’ I'll say, ‘Because I miss Laurie.’ And He'll call my name, ‘Michael,’ and I'll turn like Mary did on Resurrection morning, and there she'll be. And it will be over. It will be over. Waiting is over. It's over. Grief is over. Happiness is the destiny. Until that comes, learn.”
10. “Lori Walker: ‘I Am Not Broken’”
“I'm a very naturally optimistic person—I have been my whole life. And it's been discouraging to find myself being less optimistic than I'm used to being. I haven't always understood a lack of optimism in people, and now I'm learning that there is a place for those feelings. There's a time to be discouraged, and there are things to learn from that. I'm learning a lot in some of the darkest times about myself. And I think the lower I drop, the easier it is to recognize when I'm being lifted.”
11. “Courtney Rich: My Recipe for Battling Depression—Christ and Cake”
“He is a God of love. He's a God of compassion. And I think people would argue, ‘Then why would He let you do this?’ But I don't think we can grow and truly come unto Him and to His Son and understand our relationship with them and our purpose without going through the trials of this life, whatever they may be. And they're all different, and they're all hard.”
12. “Charlie Bird: Coming Out and Coming into God’s Light”
“Occasionally, I've received answers and it was almost like this feeling of, [God had] just been waiting for me to ask. And I know that He wants to share things and help me on my journey, but I can't connect to that if I'm discounting an important part of who I am or trying to hide things from Him. But on the flip side of that, when I come to God in full transparency, believing that He loves me and will lead me, that's when I really start to connect and find guidance.”
13. “Randal Wright: Learning and Improving Through Life”
“Don't just tell a story to be telling a story: ‘There was a prince in a far off land . . .’ I don't like those kind of stories. I like experiences that teach lessons. But don't tell a story just to be telling a story, not to tell one to be funny or anything else. If you don't have something that goes with it, don't tell it, because it's not motivational, it's not powerful then. But I would just say, [if it’s good story,] there's a lesson attached, and usually an invitation to act.”
14. “Brooke Snow: Christ Is the Breath of Life”
“I kind of imagined that the Lord was really far away. . . . It was kind of like I was either shouting from the kitchen or it's sending it off to this faraway place. But as I began to work on visualizing Him and imagining that He was right in the same space as me, those more natural conversations began to be able to happen. As I brought in those sensory tools of hearing and seeing and listening and speaking and feeling, a real depth of relationship started to develop that I hadn't experienced before. And that to me, is where the transformation really has occurred.”
15. “Abe Mills and Stephen Jones: Love Thy Neighbor”
“Understanding what [Jesus Christ] did for us, it gives us hope, which we live in a world with a lot of people that have no hope or they’ve lost their hope—whether it’s hope in equality, hope in fairness, hope in whatever—they’ve lost their hope, but the gospel has taught us hope because we know what Jesus Christ did for us. It has taught us understanding because we know Christ was the example of understanding, and on top of that, it has taught us forgiveness, or how to forgive, in a time where forgiveness is needed greatly.” —Abe Mills
16. “Debra Theobald McClendon: Scrupulosity—Obsessive-Compulsive Anxiety You May Mistake as Faith Crisis”
“The Spirit will nudge us and, as we mentioned earlier, it will even cause feelings of dissonance if we're guilty of something, but the Spirit does not shame us.”
17. “Josh Pack: The Faith to Be Healed”
“Nobody's walked in our shoes perfectly, but Jesus Christ has. And He knows exactly what it's like for me, individually, personally, to climb into this wheelchair every day and push it around. And knowing that, knowing that there is somebody that knows what I'm going through and knows the tears that I've shed and the thoughts that I've had, gives me strength to keep going no matter what.”
18. “Lola Ogunbote: Celebrating What Makes Us Who We Are”
“Everybody has been uniquely created to contribute. I don't think and I don't purport to know the mind of God, but I don't imagine that God wanted everyone just to be the same. I think that in His wisdom and love, He gave us things that make us unique. He loves us equally. He loves you, He loves me, He loves all of His children. Because He loves us, there's a place for us. There has to be— I just don't believe that God is a Being exclusive, He is a God of inclusivity. He wants us to be together.”
19. “Carrie Skarda: Creating Space for Mindfulness and Meditation as Latter-day Saints”
“In the sacrament, we focus our mind on a piece of bread or a sip of water. It's a means of creating a focused picture in our head of the Atonement, right? The Savior did such a beautiful job of giving us these emblems as very tangible symbols of Him and of the Atonement. But it's a way of focusing our mind toward spiritual things. And so that sound or focusing on the breath is just a touchstone to bring ourselves back when we get distracted, so that we can focus our minds and create a stiller place in our head to be able to observe from.”
20. “Ashley and Ryan Smith: The Confidence that Comes from Being ‘All in’”
“We need to be intentional. I don't want to wake up in life in a different spot than where I wanted or intended to end up and being like, ‘Man, how did I get here?’ I've been there before, and it's a slippery road. And part of the problem is, is what makes us really good as humans right now can also make us really end up in different spots. So I don't bring the same wrench or toolkit to the business world that I bring to my faith.” —Ryan Smith