The following transcript is intended to aid in your study. However, while we try to go through the transcript, our transcripts are primarily computer-generated and often contain errors. Please forgive the transcripts’ imperfections.

===

[00:00:00] Shannon Foster knows that we all carry an image of what perfect scripture study should look like, calm, consistent, uninterrupted. The reality is that we all tend to fall short of that glorious ideal, but Shannon is a believer that this is part of the beauty of our seeking personal revelation, that somewhere amidst the busyness.

The noise and the ordinary. If we seek him, we find him. We hear him. Shannon Foster is a wife, mom, and former seminary teacher who helps people study the scriptures in the middle of real life. She didn't understand the scriptures when she was younger, and that experience has become her superpower in helping others truly fall in love with.

Them. She's the founder of the redheaded hostess where she creates gospel learning tools that feel doable and deeply meaningful, and we're excited to announce that for the first time ever, the redheaded hostess is partnering with Deseret Book. To release new guidebooks.

This is all in an 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 excited to have Shannon Foster on the line with me today. Shannon, welcome. Thank you, Morgan. Well, I am so excited. We have some mutual friends that I love, and I have long seen your work and admired it.

And with this new collaboration with LDS living in Deseret Book, I feel like this gives me such a good excuse to learn from you. So I'm so, so excited. Especially, I feel like as a new mom, I'm looking at all of these resources that are out there in a very different light and just wanting to learn. I just am so hungry for, for help.

So I wanna start out, Shannon, you grew up in a home where, from what I understand, your dad, was [00:02:00] he a member of the church but not active? Or not a member? He was not a member. Okay, so you grew up in a home where church and scriptures were not read regularly. I wanna, I wanna start with kind of how did that impact your relationship with the scriptures and scripture study and wanting to have those things in your home?

That is such a great question to start with, and I think something so many women and men will relate to. But let me first tell you, he was. Not just a non-member, but his experience with Christianity was so limited. He grew up, he was literally a hillbilly in the hills of Kentucky. His mother was not educated.

She could not read or write until her later years. Wow. And there's, uh, yeah, there's a really spotty history of what happened with his father. He took us, my dad took us back to the Hills of Kentucky one time and pointed at the spot. He last saw his father when he was nine years old. And the history is a little spotty of what happened.

He was raised jumping on trains, going from relatives house to relatives house, and his experience with religion was, he called it the Holy Rollers, which is a nickname for a Protestant revival group that kind of was big in those days in the hills of Kentucky. And it was a lot of speaking in tongues and stomping and you know.

That as a child was very strange to him and he just had a lot of really fun stories, very different from my upbringing, and he ended up joining the Air Force. As a lot of people did in that day, and it was in the days when commercial airlines really took off and he became a pilot and he got married and had four children before he met my mom, and then was divorced and then met my mom who was a flight attendant and they got married in California and that's where I was born.

And my mother, she grew up in a small town in [00:04:00] Utah called Gunnison, and she was raised in, uh, she was raised in the church, but not a gospel teaching home. And I remember my, my grandma once asking me, was it Moses who was in the Garden of Eden? She didn't know the scriptures and. Down that line. I have ancestors of pioneers who crossed the planes and ancestors who left everything in England to join the Saints in Salt Lake to build Zion.

So I stand at this intersection of, of great faith and sacrifice through one line, and then the other line of knowing hardly anything. About the scriptures, and I grew up in a home where my mom, she didn't know a lot about the scriptures. Now she does, but growing up she didn't. And I remember her trying to do lessons about, like she had the old flannel board story set that I think every mother had.

Yes. And she would try to teach and you know, like we had ups and downs in teaching and my dad didn't participate. And actually when we moved to Utah so she could be closer to family, he turned more an more anti at that point just because he was called a non-member and did not like that. And I, I didn't think much about it then.

That was very much the culture, but that's. Yeah. Who wants to be called a non-member? It's not a very gathering phrase. And it wasn't so much about the teachings as feeling like an outsider that he did not like. And so the, the, at one point towards the end of his life and my teenage years, it was, he, he passed away when I was 20 there.

Religion was very contentious in our home. He wouldn't let me take seminary one year. And, um, it. It was a lot of us choosing what we wanted to fight for and have and, and then handle it very delicately in our home. He appreciated what it taught us. He, he [00:06:00] did appreciate the values we learned, um, but he didn't like feeling separated from what we were believing.

And what that has done for me is I feel like I can stand in my spot and relate and say. I was that girl who knew nothing about the scriptures, and now I have found great power in the scriptures. There's nobody that I can't look in the eye and tell them that they have full capacity to understand the scriptures.

So I am actually very grateful for my upbringing because there's, I don't have this background of, um, scripture depth taught to me where I might give an excuse. I, I, I knew nothing. I sat in seminaries. Begging not to be asked like a question. I was definitely that person who, if we're going up and down the roads reading, I am counting which verse I'm gonna be reading and I'm practicing the words and you better not ask me what it means.

'cause I will have no idea. That was me all through high school and through a lot of my institute courses. So walking that path and learning how to learn has been a very important part of my journey. So interesting. I, I think going back to your dad not enjoying being called a non-member mm-hmm. I have a friend who, in reference to being a single adult in the church, she said, I don't think anybody wants to be defined as something that they're not.

Yeah. Um, and so not married or not a member of the church. Nobody wants to be labeled by something that they're not. We wanna be labeled as what we are. And I, I love though, Shannon, that you, you mentioned like fighting for what you want in your life and being deliberate about that. I think, you know, we can make excuses for why we don't have something or [00:08:00] why we're not.

Something, but, but looking at life and being like, this is what I want. And so to me, you strike me as somebody that I deliberately am choosing to have the scriptures be a huge part of my life. So I'm curious now, I wondered if you could take me from growing up in a home like that to then eventually becoming a seminary teacher, because that feels like a big.

A big jump. Oh yeah. If you would've told me this was my life path, I would've been like, you definitely have the wrong person. I, I think the Lord just, I relate to so many people in the scriptures when it is like. I'm slow of speech or you know, like when Moses was called or Enoch was asked, or the Lord asks us to do things that make us rely on him.

And, and Gideon, there's so many stories of people in the scriptures asked to do things that they were not qualified for, but the Lord knows how to qualify. So I, I was definitely drawn to experiences like I went to Israel and studied there. I. I, I worked at EFY, loved that. I really loved being with youth.

And I was on institute council and the institute director came up to me and told me I should take the seminary teaching course. And I knew that that was a highly sought career. It was it. So many people I knew wanted that and didn't get that. And I thought that would actually be a fun course to take because I had been doing EFY at the time.

But I did not think that I would ever become a seminary teacher 'cause I didn't think I was qualified by any means. And, but I, and I also remember saying to him, I'm a girl. 'cause I had never heard of a female seminary teacher at that time. I'd never seen one. And he said, you need to take that class and I need to find him.

And thank him for that. I think he was directed to have me do that, [00:10:00] but at the time I just thought he was being nice. And I, I started taking that course and everything just made so much sense. It was the first class out of all my classes I took in college that made sense to me that I actually was interested in learning more about that.

It felt like a path I couldn't get enough of, and they placed me in an OPT teaching program or an OPT teacher position in two weeks. I was in it for two weeks, which is. Lightning Fest and I just was on it along for the ride. But they recognized something that I didn't see, which I recognized later as I really loved the youth and, but I didn't have this deep scriptural knowledge, but they knew I would learn that because anyone that wants to can have that, but they're looking for somebody who wants to teach effectively.

And so I started teaching and it was just so. Exciting like the Lord really did make up for all my downfalls of not having a lot of experience and the excitement I had for the scriptures as I was learning them in a way where I'm thinking about what do the youth need to learn. The thing I heard the most from the youth was, your excitement makes me wanna learn this story.

'cause I was really feeling it. And so I think. Um, just not having it. Growing up there was nothing I was taking for granted and it just kind of came out in the classroom and, um, I. Then it continued later. I ended up being on training council. I taught for 13 years. I taught your husband Morgan, which is crazy.

He said to tell you hello. By wasn't that he a big track star? Uh, he did run track and he still is a crazy runner. He runs all the time. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, yeah, he was just one of those like. I, I mentioned that a quiet giant where you just said, this guy is [00:12:00] gonna become something with very few words. He's a sweetheart.

Yeah. And I, um, I ended up teaching for 13 years and I. Was on training council for about half of that, where we were. It was a council of teachers where we had come together, receive material from church headquarters about teaching in the next phases and where we're going in the seminaries and institutes, and then we would train, we'd set up training.

Uh, opportunities for seminary and institute teachers through the summer and through the year. And what that allowed me to do was to really absorb all this direction that's coming from the Church Board of Education. And I just loved it and it really impacted how I taught and. I just through that whole experience just fell in love with the scriptures and teaching the scriptures and the power that that can have.

So it, I know it's just like this going, growing up in a home that was full of love, but also hard things to standing in front of. You know? I mean, I literally taught grandchildren of prophets. And it was the most amazing experience to go through all of that and just know the power that the gospel can bring into anybody's life and the love and the, the answers, and the strength.

So I, I am so grateful for my experience, but at the time, I never would've thought that this would've been my life story. Well that is, I think it's so cool to see how often people that I interview don't seek out necessarily the opportunity that they've got or the, the thing that they're doing with their life.

Their only desire is to. Do what God wants them to do. And then the Lord opens doors to us when we make ourselves like [00:14:00] instruments in his hands. And I think that it's so cool to see how often that's the case. You started redheaded hostess 10 years before, come follow me, ever began. What made you even start that?

That is a great question. I, I was, I was married, I, I was married three years before I, I retired from teaching seminary and I, so I knew that I would soon not be teaching anymore is I started our family and this growing, I guess the best way I can explain it is I just felt increasingly compelled to share what I was learning because what I would would see is I had.

I've been able to learn all of this important teaching, these teaching principles, but also just the power of the scriptures. And I learned ways to teach the kids about the plan of salvation where they would understand it. And I, after 13 years, you just learn some really good tricks, especially when you teach something seven times.

So by the time you've taught it over and over, you kind of refined it, and then you teach another lesson seven times. And that experience, I knew. In the home that if this could be in the home seminary then is just a.

And I also knew that mothers just didn't know how, they didn't know what, what did they go get some clip art? They, they didn't know how to teach and they felt this desire, especially as the world grew increasingly intense. And so I just started this blog, which is so funny because it's so against my personality to be like, I don't even have a personal Instagram account.

I very private. I, I prefer to be home. I'm not that social honestly. And I. I just felt so compelled, and I named it something my friends had had nicknamed [00:16:00] me because I do love gathering people. I do love that I, I love gathering and providing a good meal. I love, um, I love setting out things in a beautiful way, but so they, they nicknamed me that, and I just named this blog that, and it was so against my personality.

I was. I didn't know what I was supposed to say and I would kind of weave in scripture stories, and that was the thing that people really wanted to hear, which is really all I wanted to share. But I didn't know if I had to like. Hey, for my husband's birthday, I made this chocolate cake. I didn't know what had to be mixed together to get their attention, and it just became increasingly scripture focused, and that's how it started.

It was just being compelled. The blog world was kind of a new thing. It was a tool I had to reach women directly and it just took off and it, it worked well. It's amazing to me too that that blog. Era, I think there were so many latter day saint women within different spheres that people were drawn to.

Mm-hmm. And who likewise, the women themselves were drawn to do it and, and I think that that probably is not coincidental. You have said, Shannon, that your goal is for your products to be scaffolding, not the answers, but rather something that helps people receive their own. Personal revelation. You've also said that you don't want to be the teacher, which is a little bit different than I think some other come follow me related resources.

Um, but instead you wanna help others become teachers in their homes. Why is, why are these distinctions so important to you? Um, let me start by telling you a scripture story that is. I don't know if it's ever talked about, and it's something I think about probably once a month at [00:18:00] least. And it's in two Kings three, and it's a story of the Israelites and Judah and the Edam Iam.

So three nations that came together at this point. Israel and Judah were separated. They had, there was Northern Israel and Southern Judah, and they needed to fight against the Moabites. These three nations, Israel, Judah, and Iam, came together to fight against a common enemy. The Moabites were very brutal, worse than people.

And in two kings, three, the three nations had been marching for days, and they were at a desperate situation. They were out of water, and they turned to the prophet Elisha. He told them to dig ditches and the Lord will fill them with water. I have thought about that and that lesson right there. Can you imagine seven days you're so tired and now you have to go dig ditches.

I don't know if there's much harder than digging holes in the ground. Like that is one of the hardest things to do, and they trusted in this promise. There might have been some grumbling. I wonder, I actually wonder if you go back in time what they actually, there's a lot of different probably responses, but ultimately they dug the dish, the ditches.

And I imagine some shovels broke in the process, and maybe they didn't all have a shovel. But what happened was the next morning the Lord sent water from Edam, meaning from a certain direction, which is also. Pointing out that it didn't come from rain right above them. It didn't rain and fill the ditches.

Water came, which is an important part of the story because when the Moabites awoke and the sun rise was hitting the water in the ditches, it looked red and they didn't think it had rained because it hadn't rained where they were. They just all of a sudden saw red water and [00:20:00] assumed that those three nations had turned on each other.

And that they had killed each other with all that blood now flowing and they ran to plunder their camps and now these three nations are ready and they were able to defeat them. That's, I know that seems like a strange story, but that story for some reason, I think about for two reasons. One is it shows me that the Lord always has the power to save, even if you have no idea how he's gonna do it.

And so when we live in these last days, and we're facing all these situations with our children and our nations and where we live, and the times it is to keep focused on the Lord and his prophets and to trust, dig the ditches, and then also that the Lord often asks us to do things that are hard and the miracle is in that moment, but that doesn't mean it won't be.

Like there's probably gonna be some slivers and some broken shovels and some rocks. You hit and roots you hit, but it is in the digging that the miracles then come. And I know that if I give too much to others, they can't have those miracles. I can't tell them all the things I get from the scriptures and they get the same out of it.

They have to dig, they have to go through that. They have to hit the rocks. They have to hit the roots, but then the miracle comes. And so when I say. It's not just them being teachers, it's them just falling in love with the scriptures and finding the Lord in them and learning to completely trust and to find the miracle and the treasures and the gemstones that are in there for them.

But they have to find them themselves and they have that capacity. That is the path I have walked. I have learned how to learn and they can learn how to learn. [00:22:00] I think probably most people listening are like me, and as their wheels are kind of turning, it's like, that's true because for me, the the gems that I've.

Felt the most strongly about in the scriptures are not something that have, they're not things that have been spoonfed to me by some teacher or gospel doctrine lesson or a podcast. Instead, they're the things that. I worked for myself or that the Lord I felt like directly gave to me. And so I do think there's, there's definitely benefits to some of these resources that are out there, but I think the thing that makes the biggest difference is the work that we put in on our own with the Lord.

Shannon, you believe that scripture study can be transformative for families, that it can bind people together and take family relationships to another level. I wondered having not grown up in a home with scripture study, you have a family now and you've worked with other families. How have you seen this transformative power of scripture study?

Well, it's that story of the Israelites against the Moabites. It's in the digging and the digging together that the miracles happen. I mean, those, those soldiers that stood side by side, they had a story to tell after. It's the same with Gideon and Captain Marone. I and every single person who's turned their life over to the Lord and found him when come follow me, was announced President Nelson gave a promise.

He said that this has the potential to unleash the power of families, and it's not, come follow me. It's not a program. It's not a manual that has that power. It is the scriptures that have that power. It's [00:24:00] the examples of men and women who turn their lives over to Christ. And one after the other. After the other.

We see what can happen when we turn our lives over to Christ and we experience those stories together. What come Follow Me has done has brought us into all four books of scripture. Next year we study the Old Testament. That is such an important book to know. I don't know if we can fully understand what it means to be of the House of Israel.

Unless we understand the Old Testament to at least the degree where we learn the story of Israel, and that excites me so much that year after year, we're putting these things together. The Book of Mormon, in fact, is an, it starts as an Old Testament story. Lehigh would've lived in Second Kings 24. In that time period, they were an Old Testament family.

He knew Jeremiah. They would've known, I don't know if they all knew, but they lived in the same time as Habakkuk and Daniel and Shadrach, Micha, Abednego, Ezekiel. They all lived in that time period as Lehigh and Nephi. They were 100 years after Isaiah. This. These are critical moments where the Lord raised up many people to save Israel.

And so when we know the Old Testament, the Book of Mormon then begins to make more sense and becoming understanding what it means to be of the House of Israel. And then President Nelson's call that the most important thing happening on the earth is to gather Israel makes so much more sense because of.

We are an extension of the story that we know from the Old Testament, and we hear Isaiah pleading to our day to gather them because Isaiah witnessed the scattering of Israel. He lived in that time. And so he went from prophesying and warning to his, to the people in his day to looking to us to gather them back together.

And that is now [00:26:00] resting on our shoulders, and we knew it when we came here. So we have to remember, in fact, on the back of the Our Old Testament study guide for next year, the word is zar and it means to remember. And it is so interesting. That's a Hebrew word that means to remember. If you change one little part of the Hebrew, the Hebrew words, there's just one little line that you can change and it becomes man, instead of remember, because Hebrew is so symbolic, it is because when a man or woman remembers this deeply, it changes them.

That's why that one little line switches from man to remember. And when we remember who the House of Israel is and we are connected to them, it changes us. We now step into the ditches to dig because we are going to go do the Lord's work because that is why we are here.

Okay, so as you were talking, it made me think of, so I was kind of thinking about the next question that I wanted to ask you. And I have a feeling that we could be thinking similar things, but I'm, I'm curious. I feel like there will be people that listen and. They're the people who might be frustrated because they feel like they've done family scripture study.

Mm-hmm. And their children are choosing a different path, or their family has not turned out the way maybe they had hoped. So what would you say to that parent or family member? Um, I would say that this is part of it. I think, um, Adam and Eve [00:28:00] were the first parents and they left home the Garden of Eden into a fallen world, and that world was full of chaos and fallen nature, and their job was to tame that world.

And to turn to the Lord and to do whatever they could to bring heaven into their home. And our souls know that. And not all their children chose that. And I think any experienced teacher will tell you of of times, they hit their knees to help that one kid. And sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't.

And that there is no guidebook. For every answer, but this is the power of families. A parent is way more likely to receive revelation on what to do for a child than another teacher will do. Parents know better. I always had a class of 30 kids and you can only connect so much. Parents know better. I, so I would also say I, one thing I always, I think we're too hard on ourselves a lot as well.

I've used the metaphor before to think like a coach, a good coach never expects to win every game, to have no fouls. They'll have sick players, they'll have contention, they'll have wins, they'll have losses, and that is part of teaching in the home, that it is not meant to be perfect. There will be times when kids rebel.

I, I've, I've interviewed scholars of the scriptures who are like. I had no interest in high school. I just wanted football there. We, I think we, we care so much about our children that we will fear when there have been so many times where I'm like, oh, that kid's gonna turn out great. But the parents are so afraid because we love them so much and it's not like I, I know, but, [00:30:00] but I just think we naturally will fear because we love our children so much.

But I would also say expect the hard. Do you remember when Elder Bedner talked about scripture studying in his home and his kids would say, he's breathing my air. Like we, that's normal. It's all part of it. We're gonna have ups and downs and, but the Lord will help you know what to do next, but don't expect it to be.

Carefree, and I think we all think we're the only ones not being successful. I'm supposed to be an expert at all of this, and I am constantly realigning according to what my children are ready for at the moment. And probably the best advice I could give, especially if you have teens or older kids, is at that point you have to be ready when they're ready.

You cannot force it. And then I'm just constantly trying to inspire teens to act on their own. And they cannot know for themselves unless they act. In fact, I was in a meeting once when somebody asked, when did you fall in love with the scriptures? And every answer that was shared was on their mission.

And I remember sitting there, 'cause I didn't serve a mission and I thought, okay. It's not the mission, it's the method that happens on the mission. They take time to study the scriptures on their own. And I think often the gospel is told to youth and to children, and they're actually not invited to know or to have real study experiences.

And if we can do that. They can learn to study more slowly, more intensely or intently record what they're learning, [00:32:00] pause and ponder the things that actually invite learning and inspiration. Instead of a classroom setting, which is often or maybe always not at a true learning pace, it's usually too quick.

Then they're not gonna fully absorb it, and that danger can be that they. May think that they're not good at it, but that they can't understand it when really it was just too fast or over their head or maybe not explained well. And one of the best lessons I remember having in seminary is I just paused and I gave them a chapter and a piece of paper and I said, just start reading and writing.

Just write anything that comes to your mind and heart. And I cannot believe the insights those teens had. And most importantly, I don't remember what the chapter was. I just remember watching what the Spirit could do one given time. And I think we just need more of that because when kids have those experiences, they want more.

But when they're just told the gospel all the time and it's not, they're not connecting to it, we're gonna hit more. Contention or more resistance from them. So anything we can do to inspire them and invite them, they're gonna experience the fruits of the gospel and of learning on their own and differently.

I, I thinking about what you were talking about in, in response to my previous question about remember. Mm-hmm. I always feel like to, you know, the story of Enus and how he remembered the words of his father, and I think that it's probably amazing to. To see how often our, our efforts as parents come back years later and something that you said or something that you did in scripture study [00:34:00] will pop into a child's mind right in the moment when they need it.

Um, my dad helped me memorize a lot of scriptures when I was young, and it's amazing how often. Those scriptures will pop into my head right when I need it. And so to, to those parents, I would say just keep trying. I think that that, that makes a huge difference even when we don't think that it does. Um, and I love those suggestions that you gave.

I am curious, as a new mom, I would love to know how you would recommend. That a parent of a 2-year-old and a 10 month old approach scripture study. So I would go back to that, think like a coach. I have kids in soccer right now and my 7-year-old, the coaching is very different than my 13-year-old. And I actually like think like what the coaches are doing.

My 7-year-old, the coaches are literally on the field with them walking up and down in the middle of the field. They're in the field and they're calling their name and pointing out where to kick and, and then my 13-year-old, the coach is on the sideline and making notes of what. She needs to teach them when they're practicing and she's calling things out hoping they hear at the moment, but I, I sit by her often and help and I need to go teach 'em this.

We need to do this at practice. And so she's making notes of where she's noting weaknesses. So that's an actually pretty interesting idea when it comes to anything and teaching. And, but with young kids, I think if you think about. Children's, even like their, their palettes, they like mac and cheese. They like really bland foods and if you remember the phrase to make it taste good.

What tastes good to you is not going to taste good to them. And so my goal when my children were, they were really young, [00:36:00] was to help them love learning, to help them love scripture study. And it didn't always go well, but it absolutely changed what I did. I didn't expect them to sit quiet while I read verses.

I knew that that would be a disaster. So it was more things like I would use a lot of art. And point at art and let them point at art and try to tell the story through art or things like at Christmas time, put out a tablecloth and put the nativity right in the middle of it and let them play with the nativity pieces while you tell them the story.

Hands on. Short, simple, but. The most important part is that they are feeling the power. If there was a Christmas devotional by Elder Reland and he told of a story of his father at Christmas time would read the story of Simeon when the baby Jesus was brought to the temple and Simeon recognized and he said, my dad would look at us with his eyes and in his accent would say, and you can know it too.

And it was his father's testimony that, and the promise he was giving to his children that he remembers. And your children will not know the scripture language at that point. And we need to normalize that. We need to make sure that they actually don't feel bad for not understanding that it is part of the learning process that everybody has to go through these hard steps of learning Bible language and these and ths.

But also the promise that the effort brings a reward and the promise that they can know it too. And so to be on the journey with them at the stages they're at, but to always be testifying and promising them because at no point do you want them to start believing it's too hard for them, which is.

Usually the case that happens all [00:38:00] the time. I, I go and I will speak to release societies and I'm always trying to undo those beliefs that they've made for themselves, which is, I'm not good at that. No, you can be good at that. You, the God gave us his word in a way we can receive it. And in the last days, he gave us two more sets of scripture.

He gave us the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine of Covenants. You can know these things. You just need to learn how it's, and it might feel like digging a dish at first, but the treasures are there for you. And so I think with children, you just watch them and you teach them at their level slowly and you, you make it joyful if you have to have toast and milk, have toast and milk.

I, I also like to let my, when my son was younger, I'd let him flip through my scriptures really gently and see things underlined and explain like. This will be what you'll have. One day you'll do this. This is how you'll come to love the scriptures is with a pen and some marking pencils and time and a dictionary and, and so I just think it's to normalize the effort to give promises with the effort and the sacrifice, but then also teach them at their level and make it taste good for them.

I love so much of what you just said. First of all, the thought of make it taste good. So my 2-year-old, she hates food. My, my 10 month old will eat anything. My 2-year-old, it's like, how can we make you eat this food? And we figured out that if she can dip it in honey, she will eat anything. So. Anything dipped in honey to her tastes better and she'll actually consume nutrients.

And um, so as you were talking about that, I was like, how can I dip this in honey? But I also love what you said about not making it feel hard or that they need to know how to pronounce everything. I had a Sunday school teacher in North Carolina growing up. [00:40:00] He was an old. Cowboy and he was convert to the church and he made the scriptures come alive to me in a way that no one else had at that point in my life.

And I'll never forget the first Sunday that he was teaching our Sunday school class with his draw and probably had a cowboy, I on a, a church, to be honest. But he said, I'm gonna go ahead and tell you I'm not gonna pronounce all of these names right. He's like, I, to be honest, I don't really know how to pronounce everything right.

He is like, but I will tell you the stories. And he did. And he made us like we were, we loved it. We were eating it up. And so I think that there's a lot of beauty in letting go of that idea of perfection. And, and that's something, Shannon, that I understand. Can I, yeah. Can I just 0.1 thing out that you just said?

Yeah. Yeah. He filled himself up first and fell in love with it, and it was contagious to you. Yes, yes. So that is probably my biggest piece of advice. Fill yourself up first, and it comes out naturally. If you feel like you have to give a lesson and you have to go prep, prep a lesson and prepare it and learn it yourself, it's gonna be hard and it's gonna feel painful.

But if you fill yourself up first, it will flow naturally just like a fountain naturally flows water. And that's why you loved his lessons. He filled himself up first. So that's probably even for a 2-year-old, a 10-year-old, a 20-year-old, it that will always work and you will naturally know how to adjust, how to speak to them in a way that makes it taste good.

I love that. And I feel like that was, uh, that's, you said your mom was a flight attendant. Yeah. I feel like that's like the idea of like, put on your own oxygen mask first. Yeah. But I think, I think that that's so true and, and it is interesting. When you are teaching, like I think about gospel doctrine, you're, you're teaching a lesson.

If it's [00:42:00] something that you love and you're already passionate about, I feel like the lesson goes so much better. Mm-hmm. It's like, oh, let me cram for this lesson and refresh my memory of this scripture story. Shannon, you are a big believer of this idea of not not seeking perfection in scripture study, but just like putting in the effort and having that imperfect practice.

Is there anything else that you hope parents understand about the imperfect practice of di of like consistent scripture study? Yeah, it's funny because I've been making these guidebooks for so long. We try to make them so beautiful. And one thing I hear a lot is women saying, but what if I don't have good handwriting?

What if I have empty boxes and I just say, focus on. What you did right? Go to the scriptures for inspiration, for God's word, for the treasures that are waiting for you. The perfection idea will hold us back and actually invite failure. There is no perfection. This is a mortal world. Our kids are going to get sick.

We are going to go on vacation and get off our routine. There's gonna be so many things that happen that are disruptive. Soccer season comes or maybe a child becomes resistant. There's gonna be all these things where we're gonna be constantly adjusting. Perfection is returning again and again and again.

Not letting it drop away. If you think about that, just the journey from Jerusalem to the promised Land for Lehigh's family, think how difficult that was and full of hardship that was, it was the endurance. It was the continued going and finding new tools. That is what made that so interesting. That is what raising our children in the gospel is.

So there is no perfect scripture study. I don't, I think I would be so [00:44:00] stressed out if I had some idea, a perfect scripture study, and for me, it would actually block the revelation I need to receive. I know the scriptures are waiting for me to receive revelation. I also know that when I write it down, I'm more likely to receive more.

I don't have any expectation that I need to read every chapter. I know that if I can get into that chapter, there'll be something for me, but I also know that I need to be a mother. And so it's a constant balance of just turning to the Lord for direction and recognizing when I've gotten it and then moving on.

That to me is my relationship with the Lord, my relationship with the scriptures. And then if I put too much over that it will actually hold me back. I, I want to read something, Shannon, that you posted. This is about your, kind of what you were just saying about blank spaces and, and guidebooks. I think for me, I'm the kind of person that I get overwhelmed.

Like I have the little journals for my girls that have like, fill in the blanks and I'm like, oh my gosh, like I haven't filled in this blank and, and I looked like a terrible mom. And um, my mom was like the kind that wrote. These like really beautiful journals for us, and I'm like, I'm failing. But I loved what you said in this and I'm just gonna read this quickly.

You said, sometimes people tell me they feel guilty when there are blank spaces in their guidebooks, like they failed my response. The blank spaces are beautiful. They tell the story of a real disciple, a real life. These guidebooks were never meant for a perfect uninterrupted life. They're scaffolding for you to receive a place to receive, reflect, and record, even in the busyness.

The noise in the ordinary, you'll fill in some pages, others will remain blank. And that is exactly what makes it beautiful. And I think that that is so [00:46:00] well said. And I think that sometimes it's in those blank spaces that the most beautiful things are happening. We feel like, oh, nothing. Nothing's happening in this guidebook.

Nothing's happening in the blank, and in reality, like beautiful things are happening and that's the reason that it is blank. So Shannon, in conclusion, my last question for you is, what does it mean to you to be all in the gospel of Jesus Christ? That I will dig those ditches and I will take the broken shovels and I'll find new tools.

Because I have learned that time and time again that Lord will strengthen my muscles when I am digging, and he will send me into places that I didn't know I was ever gonna go into. But with him, when we are yoked to him, those, those are our covenant powers that come to us, we will be able to do what he asks us to do.

So that is what I've learned just to keep digging. I love it. Shannon, thank you so much. I feel like I've learned so much from you and I am excited to apply it and we'll try to remember it when I, when I feel like I'm falling short. So thank you very much. Thank you Morgan, and thanks for all you do to teach all of us.

Oh, you're very sweet. I don't do anything. I just, I just listen to good people like you, which is a privilege. So thank you.

We are so grateful to Shannon Foster for joining us. On today's episode, you can learn more about the guidebooks, that Deseret book and the redheaded. Are collaborating on by visiting Deseret Book dot com or the redheaded hostess.com. Big thanks as always to Derek Campbell of Mix at six studios for his help with this episode, and thank you so much for listening.

We'll look forward to being with you again next [00:48:00] week.