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[00:00:00] Camille Fronk Olson knows a thing or two about unmet expectations and unwanted detours. She describes her life as feeling guided by the Lord through door after door she didn't see coming. And now with the benefit of hindsight, which she says comes with age, she is hoping to share what she's learned through personal experie.

And diligent study to understand those experiences. Camille Fronk Olson is a professor emeritus of ancient scripture and former department chair at Brigham Young University. She received the Carl g Maser Excellence in Teaching Award. The university's highest recognition for teaching formerly Dean of students at LDS Business College.

She has served on the Young Women General Board and on the church's. Teacher development curriculum committee. She is married to Paul Olson, which includes the blessings of two children and four grandchildren. She is a beloved author and her newest book, but if not, is available in Deseret bookstores. Now

this is all in and LDS. Living podcast where we ask the question, what does it really mean to be all in the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Morgan Pearson and I am so honored to have Camille Fronk Olson on the line with me today. Camille, welcome. Thank you. Well, I have absolutely loved I devoured your book. I read it so fast.

My husband the other day, I was like, I'm two thirds of the way through the book. Camille knows this. We've had this terrible stomach virus going through our house. I said, I'm two thirds of the way through the book. And he was like, when I was like, I was reading it in the middle of the night. Um, so to set the tone for our conversation, Camille, this book is all about finding God in unmet expectations and unwanted detours.

That's. The subtitle of the book. You asked some questions though at a point in the book that I think we can use to kind of set the stage for our [00:02:00] conversation. You said, when you look back on your life, where do you see a divine hand leading you through a door you hadn't noticed? Did you accept his invitation?

Where did it lead? How is your life story different? As a result, you then say, it's a long story. I'll you share a little bit of it. I think our listeners would love Camille to hear at least more of that long story of how your personal experiences inspired this book. I'd have to say that my decision to serve a mission when I was 21 changed the entire trajectory of my life, and it was the one thing I definitely did not want to do.

There was no. Support from anyone around me to serve a mission. My dad was saying, my son's yes, but my daughter, are you kidding? No. No one will wanna marry you if you go on a mission, and I didn't know any other girls my age that are going on missions. My bishop, for some reason, felt real strongly. At age 21, I should go and I remember those prayers and I knew it wasn't coming from me because I had stuck my heels in the ground.

I did not want to go, but I remember finally after months, um, feeling that real strong answer that that's what God wanted me to do.

That was the beginning of learning to first recognize and then trust in that voice. And I remember thinking really distinctly back then, if I say no to God on this one. There will be far more important decisions I need to make in the future, and why will I expect him to answer me and help me then [00:04:00] if I turn him down on this one?

And so it started out, you know, just that idea of trusting that I felt like a major sacrifice at the time in my life, but. I decided that was the only way I could go and then I could get back to doing what I thought I was going to be able to do. And little did I know that that led then to being invited to teach seminary full-time.

And they said, we don't have any other women teaching seminary right now, but. You've been on a mission and so this should be a good thing. And I go, ah, be a seminary teacher. Didn't wanna teach seminary. And then, do you know how, how put off that is, that's so putting off for guys. It felt like I'd entered a nunnery or something.

It's, it's the equivalent of being a Catholic. Nothing to say, hi, I'm teaching.

And, and you know, no one quite understood it. They said, oh, she had so much going for too bad. She kind of wrote off her life on that one. And I couldn't explain, you know, it wasn't like, this is my dream. I've wanted to do this. I just felt so geeky. Here I am at home studying scriptures to get ready for the next day of school, and all my friends were out doing fun things.

Um, and so, you know, it. There was a door I hadn't imagined and it led to another door I hadn't imagined, and it led to another door I hadn't imagined. And um, at one point I just remember having that eye-opening answer to a prayer after decades saying, this is the path I want you to be on, and if marriage comes along this path.

It [00:06:00] you'll, it will be a man who will marry you and support you on this path. And that's just not anything a girl growing up in northern Utah, in my era, ever imagine.

Well, I, as you were talking, Camille, and you said door after door, I went through another door and another door I think. Probably most people listening can remember those doors for themselves. I think that. For me, I, I never planned on serving a mission either. And I, like you said in the book, it's a long story, so I won't get into it here, but I look back, like you said, hindsight, you talk about hindsight in the book and how powerful that is.

And, and for me, looking back, I can see how heavenly father was involved in every step, but. It fills at times. Also, when you're talking about seminary, I got home from my mission and I went to like one of the seminary teaching classes. 'cause I was like, is this what I'm supposed to be doing? And then I was like, no, this is not for me.

But I just think it's interesting to look back and see how, how heavenly father guides our, our individual stories and, and how you can feel so alone in the moment. But when you look back, it's like. As cheesy as it sounds, it's kind of like that footprints poem. Um, so Camille, I am curious, these things that you just described happened decades ago, and so why did you decide to write this book now?

Definitely. I must be talking about some of the things in my life at different times because. When Deseret book asked me to participate in an event [00:08:00] that they were sponsoring about questions worth asking or something like that, and I asked for a recommendation, they said, you could do unmet expectations.

And I go, yep, that's right. I could. So in that way it was very easy to start thinking through life and recognizing. How much of life's turns and twists were not expected and where they lead. And perhaps one of the greatest catalysts for me thinking about what I would include in this book is hearing a lot of the reasons some people are leaving the church and.

Some of them have talked so much about certain things that didn't happen as they expected, right? That promises that they had felt were given, were not realized. And you know, what we expect of the church and what we expect of our leaders and what we expect of God can make a difference.

Our relationship with all of them, and especially with our relationship with our father in heaven, and hearing the voice of the spirit, and I just start realizing that if we don't get our expectations right, if they're not aligned with true doctrine, we were setting ourselves up for a lot of disappointment.

Distrust. Right. And disillusionment and, and so I thought there's something about educating our desires and expectations of, of then not telling God what we want and what needs to happen, but really believing that he knows more than we do, that he [00:10:00] sees more than we do. And that in our little tiny. Piece of vision that we're able to recognize there is so much, much more.

And so I just thought there it, it isn't just looking at our own lives, but looking at what, who God is and what scriptures teach us about who God is. Right. Well, I think what you just said is profound. As you were talking, I thought of. Parents who feel like, well, we did everything that we were supposed to do.

We did family home evening, we did scripture study, we did family prayer, and we were promised. Mm-hmm. That if we did that our, our family, we would have a family that had been raised up to the Lord or. You know, I have a friend who has stepped away from the church because she received a patriarchal blessing and felt like she was doing all the things that the patriarchal blessing told her to do, but wasn't receiving the blessings that she expected based upon that obedience.

And so I want to, this is a perfect lead in to one misunderstanding that you address in the book, which is that if we keep. Commandments will receive certain blessings. You give the example of, in as much as you shall keep my commandments, you shall prosper in the land. And I wondered, Camille, if you could talk to me a little bit about how our faith.

Does not believe in what is called a prosperity gospel and how we can perhaps shift our thinking around this idea of, of certain blessings being attached to certain commandments in a way that is healthier. Yes. I think that, thank you for that question. That idea of prosperity gospel. I think our, our [00:12:00] faith, our restored gospel doesn't teach that, but I think it's real easy to fall into believing it as members, that idea that, like you've just described, you do this, this, this, and this.

And God is bound, bound to give you what you pray for. Right. And, and I, I remember hearing. Sandy Rogers was the International Vice President at BYU, and she told me once of meeting a man from Russia, a member of the church, a convert to the church from Russia who said. I read the Book of Mormon every year so that I don't forget that bad things happen to good people.

And I think you can look anywhere in scripture and any story. Any story. Mm-hmm. And there's not any individual whose life. Takes that perfect. You do A, B, and C and you get all these blessings and there's never skinned knees. There's never any tripping at all, let alone really devastating heartache that follows.

Every single story reinforces that. And so when you look at the Book of Mormon Promise that comes through there so frequently, if you keep my commandments, you'll prosper in the land. It's really easy to define prosper the way we define it today as material wealth. Mm-hmm. Um, and not only material wealth, but physical health success in every way.

And we love, we can quote that and, and say, God is bound to, to do that for me. But look at the people who are teaching it in the Book of Mormon. Look what the stories that are surrounding it. That's not what it's teaching. And that's why I've really liked to look at the rest of that. Um, couplet, I would call it.

If you keep my [00:14:00] commandments, you'll prosper in the land if you keep not my commandments. You'll be cut off from my presence, and if you look at them as, as opposites in like even a mathematical equation. If A then B. If not, A, then not. B, if you keep my commandments and if you keep not my commandments.

Those are opposites. Then the others are opposites. You'll prosper in the land. And what's then the opposite of prospering being cut off from my presence? That rings true with scriptures all. Through the standard works. If you, if you keep my commandments, if you give to the Lord, what is his? He'll open the windows of heaven.

He doesn't throw down money from heaven on you. He pours out revelation. He pours out inspiration. He pours out guidance and direction and help prospering in the land is not being cut off from his spirit. It's being connected to him. You can find that all through scripture, you can find it in your own life.

Um, I just think looking back, no matter how old you are, you look back in life and you recognize blessings that come from listening to the Lord. And oftentimes at first, they're not what you would immediately think of because they're not obvious outward blessings. Mm-hmm. But they, they are what we need at the exact time we need them, and they put us on a path where God sees that we will be the most fulfilled and where we can do the most good.

But, but it is not prosperity gospel. It, it is more intrinsic as [00:16:00] far as what he's wanting us to become. That, that idea of physical health and material wealth and. Just living without any stress of challenge that all of our family is in lockstep with the gospel all the time. And we, we get together every Sunday and we all speak kind words to one another.

Um, he told us, and I believe we knew it from the very beginning, that this would be a time where we would learn sorrow. And And what, what is hard because it's in those times of difficulty and hardship that we recognize. We don't have the answers, that he is the one that has them. And sometimes I can get talking and it sounds like, oh, this is just easy to put your trust in him.

I'd just say it becomes easier. As you do it more and more and more because you come to know him more and more and more and you trust him and you say, oh, this is not what I expect. This is hard and I cannot see a way out of this, but he does and it doesn't mean the way isn't painful isn't strewn with briers and thorns and some setbacks.

The detour. So you just think, why am I going this direction? But then those doors, yes, you know, this has taken me so far away from where I need to be. But then you realize down the road, and sometimes I think sometimes it might be the next life that we start seeing how this whole tapestry fits together.

But if going down that detour [00:18:00] that he has sent us down. Leads us to trust more in him. It is a glorious life. It, it is better than we could have ever expected. Well, I think so much of what you just said is profound. I have always the, the idea that, and, and you talk about the scripture and doctrine and covenants that talks about.

A law irrevocably, decreed in heaven. Um, but I've always thought, you know, when people share stories of tithing mm-hmm. It's like when you pay your tithing, then you get these great monetary blessings. I've always been like, well, but what about the people that don't have, oh, those, yeah. What, what about, I mean, is the Lord not opening the windows of heaven and pouring out blessings upon those people?

And I think it's just so important to disconnect the blessing from the commandment, meaning that, you know, I think that the Lord. Definitely blesses people financially for paying tithing, but that doesn't mean that that's always the blessing that's being poured out. And so I think that when we, if we are able to kind of detach, recognizing that the blessing that we receive is not always the one that we expected with a certain commandment, I think that that, that helps.

I love a quote that you have in your book by Elder de Todd Christofferson. It says it is essential that we honor and obey his laws, but not every blessing predicated on obedience to law is shaped, designed, and timed according to our expectations. We do our best, but mu must leave to him the management of blessings, both temporal and spiritual.

This to me, Camille [00:20:00] feels much easier said than done. And so I wonder, as we talk about this, how do you suggest or how have you found it to be effective that we leave to him the management of blessings? You, you mentioned that the more that you see it, the more that you trust him. But is there anything else that you think is helpful in, in being able to trust him, that he'll give us what we need?

I think one of the really nice three purposes of the Book of Mormon that are listed on the title page is to recognize what great things God has done for our fathers and our mothers. There's something, scripture has had a profound influence on my life. I mean, it's what I've done professionally. Little did I know what it would do for me.

So much more deeply personally in guiding me and helping, bringing me closer to trusting in God. I just think looking at the way God blesses others in scripture in just profound ways and at profound times helps engender greater patience. Our own challenges and trust in God. It would be a sad book of scripture, wouldn't it?

To read like a fairy tale that man, I don't, but, but not just reading a verse of scripture here and having our, our favorite ones. And they're our favorite ones. But looking at context and not being afraid to ask really hard questions and stewing on it for a while and going back and reading again, looking at scripture from a different angle.

I just think if we continue to read [00:22:00] scripture each day the way we have always read it, we'll continue to see the same things in them. Each time. Mm-hmm. But if we can find different angles, um, and I have, I have done it with women in scripture because I look at the lives of those women and find out, huh, not one of them has it easy.

Not one of them had was they're there because they help us come closer to trusting in God. And, and you see what their challenges are and they're different from mine, but there's something about their ability to turn to the Lord that inspires me. To say I can do that too there. I just think that that purpose of the Book of Mormon to remember what great things God has done for those that came before us is really helpful for engendering strength and the ability to carry on even when we cannot see those answers and, and, and that he healed the blessings that he sends and, and I really do believe.

Hmm, no one talks about the blessings of getting older. You just wanna say, oh, I wish I were young. And those were the days. And there are wonderful. But one of the greatest blessings is that you can see more clearly the potential to see more clearly. The way God blesses you and each day the blessings that come.

You appreciate physical health in a way that you didn't when you were younger in any manner. You've just been sick. That's how you know how good it feels to be well, right? And, and so [00:24:00] experience scripture. I just think general conference has a, a profound ability to infuse faith in us to follow the next few footsteps and for the next six months, um, right the way we talk and bear testimony to each other.

Being more sensitive as far as our ability to recognize the blessings that really. Have made the difference rather than the external outward obvious ones. You know, look at the car I drive, look at the house I live in. God has been so good to me. Mm-hmm. That's not helpful. Look how many children I've been blessed with.

Look, um, what my children are doing, look. That doesn't help us, but to see how God was there in the details in my really challenging times can really help me have faith that it will be the same for me and not exactly the same, but will bless. He will be there for me when I need him to, which is every day.

Right. Well, I, you said, you know, look at it from a different angle. I don't think anything has helped me see how much the scriptures are not a fairytale. I. As trying to tell scripture stories to a 2-year-old. I get like a little ways into the story and I'm like, hang on a second. How am I gonna, how am I even gonna tell this story?

My husband will be like, well, I skipped that part, and I'm like. Okay, but isn't that part kind of important to the lesson at the end of the story? So I think trying to figure out, you know, and, and look at the scriptures in a different way, oddly, that has been super [00:26:00] testimony building to me. Um, but it's like I.

Looking at it from a completely different point of view. You mentioned the idea of physical health, and I love Camille. You have a chapter that talks about how our bodies are mortal. And I love that chapter because not only do I know people who you know are getting older, but I also have known people who have either been born with or love somebody that's been born with.

A physical, handicapped, or someone that has experienced something that is brought on a physical handicap, and you quote President Nelson who said this, please note, a perfect body is not required to achieve a divine destiny. In fact, some of the sweetest spirits are housed in frail frames. Great spiritual strength is often developed by those with physical challenges precisely because they are challenged.

Such individuals are entitled to all the blessings that God has in store for his faithful and obedient children. I thought that this was such a unique chapter and I wondered what inspired you to, to kind of address this idea and why do you think that it was important to include? Yes. Two people in my family right now are facing some serious health challenges and that had never faced them before.

One is a brother-in-law who has been fighting a very advanced case of cancer.

And neither my sister nor he saw this coming at all very healthy, very active, and relatively young, and the questions that I hear my sister ask.[00:28:00]

And saying, this is not what we expected. So I was feeling very tender and sensitive to what she was experiencing. In fact, I wanted her to read a draft of this because when I first did it, because I, I thought I had her in mind as I wrote it. And then my mother. My mother is 98 years old. She has been in perfect health, I mean truly perfect health her entire life until just the last few months.

And she is spitting bullets about how unhappy she is. Why is God doing this to me? And I thought, I've told her many times, mom, I think you would've dealt with this better if you'd have had some more challenges a little earlier in life. But she always expected to go to the dentist and never have a cavity, and she always expected to be able to pop up.

Earlier than anyone else and go to bed later than anyone else and do work in the yard and keep her house clean. And she can't now. And I said, she says, why doesn't God, why does God let me stay here? Why does he, why does he need me anymore here? And I, and I keep saying, ah, there are blessings. To having challenges early in life and seeing God's hand showing us that there is purpose and ways that we can contribute differently than we thought we would.

And then I look at, um, other friends who have lost. Family members younger than they are, and I see that. I think the only way that we [00:30:00] proceed is to recognize and somehow get that direct answer directly from God, not from someone else, but from him, that he sees them and he's watching over them and he has a purpose and he has not forgotten them.

I just, I, it's physical health is so easily taken for granted until it's gone, and I wanted to, I just realized I needed to have more time on a chap in a chapter to talk about

our ways of contributing. Do not require a perfect body. The, you know, remember the story of Jesus with the Pharisees? Is it lawful to pay tribute to Caesar or not? And Jesus held up a, a coin probably with Caesar's image engraved on it. And he says, you know, whose image is here? Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's.

And unto God, that which is God's. God is interested in us, in our, his image is engraved on us and he cares about our souls and he has a way, um, to use us for his work. In whatever capacity our physical bodies are in or even our mental capacities. I mean, I just think it's an amazing thing that to watch people with mental illnesses.

And, and people that care for them. It's all part of the plan. This is not a mistake. It's all part of it. And because that's just such a part of everyday life, I do think it need, we [00:32:00] needed to just discuss it deeper. Well, I love when, I love when an author addresses something that maybe feels a little unconventional.

I don't know if you, if you've read, um, Michael Wilcox's Sunset. After his wife passed away. But that is one that I revisit because I just think it's something that we don't talk about a ton, the way that he addresses it. And so, um, and I, as I read, I was like, it just feels like there's more to this story.

So thank you for letting me kind of read between the lines there. I love that you said you, you wanted your sister to read a draft. We, we released a all in book a few years ago, and I had a chapter in the book about loving those that leave the church. And I have a, I have a, I have multiple siblings who have left the church, and so I asked my sister who was not participating in the church, if she would read that chapter.

And she was so kind in taking the time to do it and not only just read it, but then she like workshopped it with me to get it to a place where it felt like it was okay. And that is my sweetest memory of working on that book is that my sweet sister was willing to to do that with me. So I love that you had your sister read it in the middle of what she was going through.

Yeah. In fact, that's, I dedicated it to her. Oh, and I'll tell you just one more thing. You might not want to even, you probably won't want to put this, but she had. When I told her what the title that the Deseret Book had chosen the title, but if not, she started crying and she said, I have had the hardest time praying thy will be done, because I just can't go there.

The only thing I have found [00:34:00] myself being able to do in my prayers is pray to God, but if not so, yeah, I. Just needed to be dedicated to her. That's so sweet. I love that. Camille, in, in the book you discuss the idea of agency and how important agency is in our Heavenly Father's plan, and you tell this, this funny story about Sister Jeanette Hale's kiddingly saying, after being named young women general president, talking to her board, she was talking about the.

Responsibility that she felt for all of the young women all over the world and, and then kiddingly said, wouldn't it be great if we could just lock them all up in the temple until they turned 20? And you then shared one young woman's response to that. And I, I thought that this was profound. I wondered if you would mind sharing what this young woman said to you, and then why you feel like that response illustrates the importance of agency in our Heavenly Fathers.

Plan. Yeah. Yeah. I was, I was talking to the youth in our ward and I told them that story and I asked them what would be wrong. I mean, even if Sister Hales could have done that locked, it locked you all up until you were in your twenties. Um, what would be, what would be wrong with that? And, you know. You watch all the kids and there was not a sound until sitting on the front row.

I just think the youngest one, a little 12-year-old girl raised her hand on the front row and just said, you'd learn to hate the temple.

And I, I just go, that's it. That's it. You think about it, if Adam and Eve had been locked in the Garden of Eden. [00:36:00] If all we knew, if all we knew was the temple or life right there with our father in heaven, what helps us to understand what beauty and goodness and holiness is there was there of necessity we needed to come to fallen earth.

And learn good from evil. And how do you know? Good there would be no good. If there wasn't a potential for evil, there would be no righteousness and, and, and that ability to choose it. There's something about, I, I had this, I remember a discussion once in a BYU class. We were talking about opposition in all things, and there was an, uh, a suggestion being made.

It seemed like that maybe we should, the city was talking about mandatory closure of businesses on Sunday.

And, and all the opposition to that suggestion. And I remember saying just to the class, something like, you know, what good is it to not go shopping on Sunday if all the stores are closed? Is there a difference when it's there, but you choose not to have the choice? Yeah. You have that choice and, and what?

What level of of godliness changes in you when you choose to honor the Sabbath rather than have it required of you? And, and, and more and more and more. You just see agency is critical in all of that. And I think that little 12-year-old girl captured, I mean that's exactly, we would resent, um, God, if we didn't have a choice.[00:38:00]

If we could, 'cause we don't know what we're, we don't, we're not choosing, it's foisted upon us. That's what Satan was at. That's basically, wasn't that what he was suggesting, that he, no one would make a mistake. No one would fall, would be locked up in the temple forever. But what kind of existence is that?

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I, I thought that, that, that young girl's response, it just made me think a lot and, and also just kind of the idea of, I feel like maybe 20 years ago it felt like. That there was like an expiration on choosing a path other than the gospel, and it would happen in like teenage years, Uhhuh. And it feels to me like that is not the case now.

And so that was an interesting thing to think about too, as it relates to agency and and Heavenly Fathers plans. That's good. Yeah, that's a good one. I have loved this conversation. And before we get to our last question, I want to touch on a line that was in the acknowledgements of your book. You said, if this little book succeeds in reaching your heart to grow your faith and hope for the future, it is because of the power and love of Jesus Christ.

Uh, a few years ago, Camille, in hosting this podcast, I decided that I wanted to make sure that every episode somehow. Talked about Christ, and um, sometimes I've been better at that than other times. But it struck me that you, you put that sentence in there. Why was that acknowledgement important to you to include?

I hadn't planned on it. I was just writing those acknowledgements and. Just before I send it in, [00:40:00] that just that thought occurred to me. I felt it in in the Last Supper. The Savior teaches about the Holy Ghost, the gift of the Holy Ghost, the comforter, and that he's the one that brings lessons to our mind, that teaches us.

He's the true teacher, and I often taught at the end of a class. If anything from this class stays with you, if this changes your life, which I promise them when you're studying holy scripture, it will change your life. But I said, if it indeed does, it will not be because of something I have said or comments in the class.

It will be because of what the Holy Ghost has taught you and that remains with you. And that will be an indicator of its truthfulness. Um, I tried in this book, um, in everything to, to triangulate truth in, in bolstering it in ways that scripture bore witness. And our, our leaders bore witness and that mine and others' personal experience bear witness to this, these truths.

But if it has any impact in helping us, bring us closer to Jesus Christ and, and our appreciation for. His superlative gifts to us, it will be through his power and not any other source. And I have recognized since I started down what seemed to be this detour path that the only way I have [00:42:00] ever succeeded is with him.

And that includes even this book. Beautifully said. Camille, thank you so much for, for taking the time to talk with me. My last question for you is, what does it mean to you to be all in the gospel of Jesus Christ? Being all in means I have abandoned any plan. B. There is only one and, and that is to find what the Lord wants me to do and do it.

It wasn't easy. Those first few times. I really thought I was abandoning my hopes and dreams, but the Lord has been so gracious, so good, and so personal with me in and putting in me abilities that I know could only come from him. And so being all in means I am not I, you can get offended. I loved Elder Vargas's talk in general conference last April, and he mentioned some of the.

Hooks that Satan might use to pull us off the path and they were temptation being offended and self pity. I just thought those were very interesting and I just think how easy it is to get offended and being all in means it doesn't matter what anyone else may say or do. I'm not going anywhere else.

Where else would I go? Because he only has the words of eternal life and, and, um, there will still be[00:44:00]

more detours in my life. There will be heartache and challenges, but he's the constant, he's the only constant. And I'm not going anywhere. That's what it means to be all into me. Camille, thank you so much.

We are so grateful to Camille Fronk Olson for joining us. On today's episode, you can find Camille's new book, but if not in Deseret bookstores. Now. Also a big thanks as always to Derek Campbell of Mix at studios for his help with this episode, and thank you so much for listening. We'll look forward to being with you again next week.