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[00:00:00] I will admit, prior to this interview, I knew nothing about the Sikh faith. I didn't even know if you pronounced it sick or seek for your information. The Goldbergs told me, you can pronounce it either way, but I became enthralled by the beautiful tale of a young man who fell in love with a faith and became a disciple of Jesus Christ for the remainder of his life.

I loved this remarkable, true story, and I think you will too. James Goldberg is a poet, novelist, essayist, playwright, and occasional literary translator. He's the recipient of the Orson f Whitney Outstanding Achievement Award from Story Makers and is one association for Mormon Letters, awards and drama novel and creative nonfiction by day.

He writes for the Church history Department. His creative works include the five books of Jesus. Let Me Drown with Moses and the Bollywood Lovers Club. Nicole Wilkes Goldberg earned her MA in 2009 focusing on the cultural connections of life writing. Her work has appeared in Shofar, the Bard, and Moth and Rust, though she teaches writing and latterday Saint Literature at Brigham Young University.

Her full-time work is raising four children with her favorite collaborator. James Goldberg, the story of James Grandfather. Latter Day Sikh is available in Deseret bookstores. Now,

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 honored to have James and Nicole Goldberg on the line with me today. James and Nicole, welcome. Thank you. Glad to be here. I feel so lucky to have been able to read this book that you all have worked.

I cannot imagine the amount of work that must have gone into this. I, I actually originally had a [00:02:00] question in it about how you were able to get such good information and then you kind of answered that question at the end of the book. So I decided we'd save our time on that. But I wanna start out for those who like me, before reading this book, new.

Know very little about the sick faith. How would you describe the sick faith? Or what should we absolutely know for the purposes of this conversation, and I wanna start out, I always thought that it was seek, but at sick. Well, that's interesting. When I was a kid, we tended to say, seek more, because if you say sick, people think you're like physically ill.

Right, right. But that's like an anglicization of the word in, in Punjabi, which is the, the language of scripture for Sikhs, you say sick. Okay. And so in the past couple decades, that's become more common is just say it, say it the way we always said it. And so yeah. Sik is the correct pronunciation. People understand you.

If you say sik, that's fine. Okay, gotcha. Good to know. Okay, well let's, let's start then with having you just tell us a little bit about, kind of lay this groundwork and then we will get into. Who this story is all about. Yeah. A lot of Latterday Saints today know as Sikh, some Sikh men are very recognizable.

So both Sikh men and Sikh women can be in what's kind of a lay priesthood for them. It's called the ssa, and they wear different symbols. One thing they do is don't cut their hair and then men will wear turbans. Right? The uncut hair goes under a turban. And so if you've seen a guy with a long beard and a, and a turban, odds are that's so Sikh, right?

I think as, as Sikhs have moved around the world, more and latter Day Saints have moved around the world more. We're meeting each other. My kids cheered one year in general conference, uh, when there was a story [00:04:00] about, uh, six giving service as kind of an example of here's the, the sort of thing we're trying to do as Latter Day Saints.

So, so I think there's lots of fun interactions in connections in terms of what. People should know. One thing that's cool is we're both relatively young faiths. So Sikh are our older cousin in the world's religions. Uh, the religion started about 500 years ago in times that were really difficult in the north part of India and what's now Pakistan.

Um, you know, divided times where there was a lot of struggle and conflict. And then this man, man named Nik had a, a mystical experience with God and became the first Sikh guru, which is kind of like a profit. Mm-hmm. And then there were 10 in succession, so he was one of a line of 10, and they built communities together and made new traditions that helped break down the barriers between different groups and really focused on.

Family life and living honestly and, uh, doing charitable ex giving service. And so not only is the history same and kind of the feel, there's some overlap. Yeah. And there, and there was a, the, a lot of the teaching is about all, all people being equal before God, that men and women were all able to be equal before God.

That there weren't casts, there weren't divisions. And, and that's a, that's a lot of what they continue to do. They open their. Churches to, to let all come and eat. I talk to people all the time when they find out about this book, they're like, oh, I've gone and, and I've had, I've had food at, [00:06:00] at a St. Gu, like they don't know what the word gudo, but at the church and it's really good and everybody sits down and, and eats together, which was, which is one of those things with the caste system that was really frowned upon.

And so, so there's a, a real beauty in that. But there's also such an, such an emphasis on how the greatest pinnacle of life is to be in a family. You know, this life is about. Is about family and, and I think as Latter Day Saints we can relate to that because family is so central and Sikhism as well.

Absolutely. Well, I am excited for you both to have the opportunity to introduce us to who, as far as we know, was the first Sikh to become a latter day saint. Um, his name was, and you tell me if I'm saying this correctly or incorrectly. Gerran Singh Gil, is that? It's Gerin Singh. Okay. Say that. Say that. You were so close.

So Charin. The emphasis is on kind of the last egg char. Okay. Okay. I'm probably not even gonna attempt, I am terrible. You can call him Gil. That's what everybody started calling him. Okay. In the 1950s. Okay, perfect. And this, this book is a biography that you both have written of him. So tell us a little bit about who Gil is and why people might want to know more about him.

So, like you said, Grotta sin Gil was the, is the first known sick convert to the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He is also the first mission president of the Indian Mission. When it opened in the early nineties, it had previously been a part of Singapore and there weren't [00:08:00] any missionaries when he was growing up.

And so, so that, that's a, a. A really significant accomplishment. But he also is a pioneer in Indian family history, both in the church and for the people in India. So there was a period of time where everyone who went through the Provo Temple, if they weren't bringing their own names, were doing, doing work for people from India because he had submitted literally thousands of names.

Wow. And so he has, has the ability, he, he can read old records in DU and, you know, different scripts. And so he's been able to, to bring that to, you know, bring that work forward. It's been pretty amazing. Yeah. I think too, so Char is my grandpa, and so Nicole's known him for years from the time we were dating.

I was living at his house. And the scope of his life too is just kind of crazily epic. He was born in the 1930s under British occupation in India. He grew up surrounded by independence movement. He experienced what's called partition. When India finally got independence from the British, it, it split. They gave independence to India, which was mostly Hindu and Pakistan, which was mostly Muslim.

Sikhs were kind of caught in the middle and a lot of people moved. There was a lot of violence. He, he saw that he came to the United States in the 1950s, joined the church in 1956. So that's really quite early in the history of Indian immigration to the United States. And then, you know, there was a lot going on in the 1950s in terms of how the US was thinking about race and, and what was going on there.

So anyway, the, [00:10:00] the book is one person's story, but it's also. Two religions and two countries histories that you're, that you're kind of working in on the side. Seeing them through, through his eyes and his experience and his experiences, but by getting a lot of how this world has worked well, I, I also think.

And I completely agree with everything you just said. And I'll say this, I think listeners of this podcast listen, because they like hearing one person's story. Like that's what, that's what we do. Um, but I will add that for me, I think it was fascinating to get a glimpse into a period of latterday saint culture through his experience within the church as well.

So I think all of those things make his story fascinating. You begin by giving, and you already mentioned that, that both our church and the sick faith are relatively young. But you begin by giving a brief introduction, a brief history of the six, and in the end of the introduction, you show how this history of the Sikh faith is not entirely indifferent from the history of.

Our church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. You also introduce readers to this guru that you already mentioned, NA Neck. Can you share a little bit about where you see similarities between our two faiths and I think specifically to me, kind of the, the history with Guru n Na Neck and Joseph Smith is, is pretty interesting.

I, I just wanna preface James will talk a little bit more about this, but I just wanna say in terms of part of what we wanted to do here and the reason we do give that history, as you know, a prologue is to give the cultural and kind of an [00:12:00] ethnography of where. Gil is coming from and to better understand those traditions and, and his beliefs in his life.

And so, so we do try to include those things for like an ethno ethnographical map of, of his experience as well. Yeah. Your, your life experience and where you comes from gives you different eyes to see things. And I think part of what's fun about the book is being able to see the restored gospel freshly through his sick eyes so you can learn about this faith and maybe have conversation points for friends you made who are seek, but also see the gospel in a new way because of this.

And so, yeah, we wanted people to know that he comes from a tradition of seeking greater light. Mm-hmm. And knowledge and, and guru as a young man, actually one of the. Stories about him is of his sort of spiritual, he is looking for answers around that. Joseph Smith age in his teens and doesn't go through some of the, the Hindu traditions.

They had a like symbol of your cast that you would wear and he, he just said, I'm not gonna take that. Right. I don't think that's it. I think there's something more. And then, yeah, he has this visionary experience where he goes to a river to bathe and meditate and then just disappears. No one sees him for a while and he comes back having had like an encounter with God and starts teaching.

These teachings and, and one of the first things he says is, there is no Hindu, there is no Muslim. So India at the time was very divided around religion the same way that Joseph Smith is experiencing. Religion is supposed to point us to God, but often in practice it ends up kind of pulling people apart and becomes very contentious.

We are non equipped in the same kind of conditions and said, [00:14:00] no, the, it's not about our differences. There's this, there is a God and he wants things for us. And then Guran sort of teaches that message. And then, yeah, I'd, I'd mentioned it earlier, but the message is not just there's a God out there, there's a separate reality, but that.

Divine goodness and love can, can build us up and bring us into community here. So in a lot of traditional Hindu thought, there was this idea that there's like four stages to life. And maybe, you know, with the belief in reincarnation, maybe this life, you're not gonna get all of them, but they're there. And the idea was first you're a student, you're learning, then you're a householder, you're building a family and that kind of thing.

Then you are in sort of retirement, you've, you've stepped away from that and you can pursue spiritual things, right? Go out into the forest and just meditate on God. And then you might reach a point where you're free from all attachments and God is the only thing that mattered. And like you could go back into town and it wouldn't even matter that there's people around.

It doesn't, you've sort of transcended everything and Gurna doesn't end up doing that. He is interesting as someone who has this mystical experience. And then goes back to his wife and raises his kids and lives in family and says that household life, if you're gonna experience God, it's not separately out in the woods.

It's while you are taking care of the people around you while you're working. And just, if you work, honestly, you bring God to your work while you're serving others. Right? That's where you'll experience God. And then there is this idea that that meditation, right, taking the name of God is how they talk about it, is not just for a few people who live a specialized religious life.

That's anybody. [00:16:00] Yeah. That all, all people have access to that di divinity. Yep. So that's kind of the, the core of the initial vision of the Sikh faith and that, yeah. It sounds a lot like Joseph Smith in some ways looking for light, finding light and sharing it in the way that everybody can participate.

There's not a separate. Group of professional religious people who are different from the rest of us. Okay. So with that, with that backdrop, I wanna kind of shift to, to your grandfather, like many I think, who are searching for something related to religion, your grandfather long to know answers related to the plan of salvation.

Can you explain to our listeners why it was that he kind of set out on this search for, for answers? Yeah, so my grandpa's one of 10 kids in his family, very close loving family. He, he has an older sister and then there were nine boys, so bless his sister. Yeah, bless his sister. She was a really important example to him, just a little bit older, and we tell stories about him following her different places when there were some guys from school who were mad at him, wanted to beat him up.

He tried to go with his sister. She was kind of a wrestler, so nobody would mess with him if he just went with her and her friends. She, his dad actually never learned to read and write. His mom did to read sick scriptures, but his dad never learned to read and write. They'd been farmers a long time. His sister went to school and became a teacher, and she was kind of his example for seeking education.

When he was 18 years old, his sister got really sick. She was married by [00:18:00] that time and had a little boy. She got sick. He was with her visiting her. They took her to the next town where there was a hospital. At that time in India. The hospital closed at night. They just couldn't staff and so he stuck outside the hospital and they just found somebody who had some like army medical experience and, and took her to him for the night and then she died that night and that, that was rough for him to lose her around the same time his baby brother in a way that some latter day families might recognize.

The, the youngest brother and the nephew are like the same age, right? So his baby brother had just been born but had some complications when he was born. And so my grandpa was staying up. He and his dad would kind of take turns waking up at night to give a jab. His nae was his sister, a jab was his brother.

They'd give him medicine. About a month after Nae died, a jab died as well. And I think, you know, tough to lose a baby brother. Because he'd been one of the, an important caretaker. He just felt so much affection. So he had these two losses in his life and in sick thought. There's two things that can happen after we die.

One is maybe we didn't learn all we need to learn and we come back again and we're born in another life. The other is, they believe with us that like people are fundamentally divine. There's like this divine spark in us, but they believe that merges back into God. So like a drop works its way through the rain and a river into the ocean.

That's the soul works its way through life and ultimately you're trying to, to merge back into God. And my grandpa just couldn't shake the idea that his sister was still there as herself and his brother. And so when he came to the US he started asking people questions about [00:20:00] like, yeah, what, what happens?

Yeah. So he. He came to the US for college, for the opportunity to get a higher education, not long after losing his brother and his sister. And so he, he was not, of course, familiar with Christian beliefs, but he was talking to a lot of Christian classmates trying to figure out more about the afterlife.

What, what does the afterlife look like? What, where do people go? What happens? And people loved answering his questions. They were very supportive, but, but they didn't have answers that seemed to satisfy him, you know? And, and people kept teaching. They were saying, well, you know, you'll, you can, you can. Find Jesus and be saved through Jesus.

And he said, well, what about my sister and my brother who weren't baptized, who weren't, you know, who never accepted Jesus? What happens? And they're like, Hmm. You know, and, and like, yeah. They're kind of outta luck. They had their chance. And, and so, and that didn't sit well with him. Right. And, and so, so as he was asking some friends, one of his friend's mothers said, you know, as he's asking about the afterlife, she said, you should talk to the Mormons.

Because, because that, that was, she said, those are the people who, who know about, you know, an afterlife, who have specific this question of what happens if you died without being baptized, even though she wasn't latter day saint. Right. She was a Pentecostal Christian. She had heard that, that we had beliefs about that.

So I, I love that in his conversion story, there was somebody who was willing to [00:22:00] say, I don't have some of the things you're looking for, but maybe these other people will. And, and he had a classmate he knew, was a member of the church and so he, he asked her about about it and she felt very underqualified to answer all of his questions.

As, you know, just a, a member of the church, you suddenly feel like, oh my gosh, this guy wants to know so much more. And she said, well, we're having state conference on Sunday, and gave him the address. And so one of the, the talks was about the plan of salvation and it just spoke to him so deeply and he just thought, this is the answer I've been looking for.

This is what I've been trying to figure out. It's so neat to see, I think anybody, the, the road that leads them to the gospel of Jesus Christ. And I, I love this story. It, it's about to get just a little bit crazier. He goes to the state conference and at the state conference, correct me if I'm wrong, he randomly meets this family.

Yeah. So he, he sees a boy, I'll let you go, James. Okay. He, he's just found about, part of plan of salvation that's important to him is what comes after. Right. And the idea that everybody, there's work for the dead. Everybody can access this thing and, and that we have an identity that's stretched from before to after this life.

And so that's speaking to his idea that his, his sister's still there. It makes sense. But he's hearing about a life before this life in some ways. If you believe in reincarnation, the idea that you had a life before is not new. The idea that it was in the spirit world with God is new. It is wild to me that my grandpa, immediately after the meeting, he is looking around and he is heard about Joseph Smith and the first vision.

[00:24:00] And so this, this teenager, he sees a teenager who just makes him think of Joseph Smith, who he just heard about. And he goes, I wonder if I knew this guy in the pre-existence. I feel immediately like I knew him before he was born and he just goes up and says hello and do you have a message from God for me to a teenage kid?

Right? Uh, whose name is Jan Johnson. And as it happens, Jan Johnson's parents are stake missionaries. So yeah, he's got a message from God, Berger Charin. And that's how they made friends. It is. So I, I love that part of the story. So as, as the, as his conversion progresses, he takes the missionary lessons in this family's home, they end up inviting him to come live with them.

Talk to me a little bit as the posterity of this teenager that was searching for truth or young man searching for truth. Talk to me about your gratitude now toward this family that was ready to give him an answer for the hope that was in then. So the Johnson family, they are not only really important to Char and himself, but also to all of the family.

The kids called Norman and Gretna, the parents, grandma and Grandpa Johnson and. Before Gil and Vilo got married, they, you know, went and visited Johnson's to make sure that they knew Vilo, all of these kinds of things. Like he, they were his family in the US since his, he wasn't, hadn't gone back to India.

He hadn't, you know, they were, they were that We have actually gone and visited and stayed with [00:26:00] Jan and Julie Johnson. Jan has since passed away. But, but the, our kids called Julie, his widow, aunt Julie. And, you know, we, we tried to keep in contact with her and, you know, keep those connections and so, so it's, you know, not just that they were there for a part of his life, they were always there throughout his life and really important.

In the family as as time goes on. Yeah. And I think it's incredible that this, these were people who shared the gospel with, with all of themselves, with love. It wasn't just like, oh, we're gonna do a missionary discussion, but they were there for you. They wanted to hear your story. They wanted you to feel safe and connected When I was a missionary, right, in the early two thousands, so like 50 years later almost, there was a senior couple who had somehow made the connection, I don't know if they saw a family picture with my grandpa or something, and they're like, oh, you're, you're related to Gil, you're Tar and Gil.

Um, and Elder Spangler, the elder was like, I joined the church through the same state missionaries he did through the Johnsons, and I love the Johnsons and I love Gil. And it was wild to me, right, that here's this guy. Who feels a connection, like we're all part of the same family. We call each other brother and sister in the church and, and we talk about ward families, and I think a lot of people have felt that in degrees.

I think the Johnsons just did an exceptional job at making it real. Mm-hmm. And so, yeah, we have felt that I still sometimes talk on the phone with Julie Johnson, and certainly we're not the only ones where I, I am excited in heaven to [00:28:00] discover all the connections of affection and sort of the, those bonds of the gospel that bind people.

And how am I connected in ways I don't understand right now to so many of you who are listening right now, because we have those links. We, we can't always see them, but they're there and they're real. That's so beautifully said. Thank you so much for sharing. What a beautiful tribute to that family. One thing that I found really fascinating is that you point out in the book that many people, especially I think within the United States, who are taught by missionaries, already have a faith in Jesus Christ, their Christians, just of different Christian denominations.

But this was not true of Gil. He didn't know about Jesus Christ. He didn't know about the Bible. So why do you think this message of a savior resonated so much with him? Maybe one thing I would say is I think the message of a savior intrigued and attracted him, right? He was talking to this Catholic priest, he had Pentecostal friends and, and for him there's different angles for different people based on their life experience, independent of religious experience.

But like resurrection clearly was a big deal, right? For the questions he had, but I, I think the savior meant so much more to him. We talk in the church sometimes about salvation and exaltation that and how the gospel, yes, Jesus saves individuals but also can preserve those family relationships and, and sanctify them.

And I think what, what hit him with that full spiritual force was the second part through the plan of salvation, understanding the scope of what Jesus accomplished for us, [00:30:00] that opened his eyes. And then right when he had this full panoramic vision of what Jesus achieved, that's when he really embraced Jesus as a savior and not just an interesting figure, an interesting possibility.

And actually it was interesting. My brother went on his mission to India later and said, you know, if somebody was already Christian, there are a lot of Christians in India, right? Maybe not a huge percent of the population, but there's a billion people in India. So a lot of Christians to teach. When they teach them, they teach restoration.

First. When they taught people from other backgrounds, they often started with the plan of salvation. Interesting. Because understanding what Jesus did, right? That plan of salvation gives you a sense of of, of that scope and what the atonement achieves, and then when you understand, okay. We're, we're reaching our divinity, we're having our relationship sanctified.

And how does that happen? It's through Jesus Christ. That makes sense that that bridges the gap. So I think through the uniquely, through the restored gospel, he had a vision for why the atonement of Jesus Christ was so significant and so connected to these longings he already felt before he started looking.

So interesting. I love that they, they teach it in context. I think, you know, you think about anything being presented to you out of context and how confusing that can be, and it makes complete sense that they would teach it starting with the plan of salvation. GI had a fascinating experience when he went to receive his patriarchal blessing, and I'd love it if you two, when you tell this, if you could kind of go through to the interaction that he had with Hugh Nibley, because I [00:32:00] also thought that was fascinating.

Yeah, so after he was baptized, he was still in California, he was at Fresno State. He went to get a patriarchal blessing, and the patriarch really, he struggled when he met him because he said, I don't know your tribe, and it's likely that he, he looked and he said, this guy is from India. I don't know what this means.

I, I'm not able to figure out where these connections are. Well, and there's kind of a whole, we get into it in the book, and we don't need to in detail now, but there is kind of a, a racial context where in the 1950s, a lot of latter day saints were still thinking about lineage in racial terms. Right. And it was like, okay, people with native ancestry there through Manas, right?

Because a book of Mormon, and we feel like Europe, somebody from me from ended up in Europe. So a lot of them, we connect with that. And then it's, it's sad, but we've got historical examples of black people where patriarchs wouldn't name a tribe or wouldn't say they were outside Israel. And so, but India's like off the mental map.

Yeah. Right? And so here's a patriarch who's a faithful guy trying to do his best, but I think understandably nervous about what, what do I say and where does this fit? And this guy's got dark skin and we have ideas about that, but. But also it's interesting and different. And so, so yeah. He actually, the first time, uh, Gurian went to get his patriarchal blessing, the patriarch said, because I don't know your tribe, like, gimme time.

I'm not ready to give you a blessing today. Yeah, yeah. So, so a month later he went and he got his blessing, his patriarchal blessing, which, you [00:34:00] know, was such a comfort to him and told him that, you know, assured him that he was going to do work for his ancestors and assured him that he was, you know, going to be able to share the gospel with his people, all of this kind of stuff.

And so, so he, he loved this blessing and felt like it was such a, a comfort and a, a guidance for him. And then when he went to BYU, the. The professors in the religion department were fascinated by him because they were like, there's actually a funny family story. They tell where he is, you know, waiting with registration and somebody sees him and they say, are you Indian?

And he said, yes. And they're like, we have a line for Indians. And he just thought that was great. And it turns out they're all Native Americans and they, you know, when he got to the line and they were asking his tribe and different things like this, that he realized the wrong kind of Indian and, and so nobody had seen an Indian student on campus.

You know, this wasn't, this wasn't normal at the time. It's still not that normal now. But so he, you know, of course, went to the foreign student office and, and worked with them, but there was just this fascination from the religion department, this convert from Sikhism, from India, who just had such a strong testimony and passion for the gospel.

And so, yeah, Hugh Nibley liked talking to him to get his perspective, and he liked talking to, to Nibley, to, you know, learn more. And that he was just, just hungry for more knowledge. And Hugh Nibley said, look, I know this really good patriarch. Okay. He didn't say it quite like that because I just kind of made him sound like a gangster.

But he, but he, he said to him, he said, I know this really good [00:36:00] patriarch. I can get you a new patriarchal blessing. And Gil just, and, and maybe we left out the. In his patriarchal blessing after the patriarch and said, well, I don't know your lineage. I can't give it. A month later he comes back in that beautiful blessing.

He was just told he's part of the tribe of Ephraim that has this commission. To gather Israel. To gather Israel. Yeah. And I think Hug Nli was going well, you know that patriarch really? No. Is there something, there's something else. There's gotta be something else. Yeah. There's a little bit more to the story.

So there was probably a little bit of that idea that, that we, we could find out the tribe in India, you know, and Gerta and just was like, no, I, I like my blessing. I'm good. So, yeah, and I think it's one of those things, you know, when we were writing the book, at first he told us about the blessing, and before we finished he, he gave it to us and said, I do want you to read this.

Mm-hmm. I want you to read this. And as family, we felt like that's appropriate and it's a beautiful blessing. And that patriarch understood things about what he had been anxious about at the time that spoke to that. And it's just great. And I think, I don't know, the whole story is a lesson to me about the, the beauty of simplicity of the gospel and the importance of trusting in inspiration.

We don't have to figure out everything intellectually and approach, and sometimes there's no grand secret, right? That what the patriarch finally did is that I don't know anything about India, but I know how to listen to the Holy Ghost and I'm gonna put my hands on his head and say what I feel inspired to say.

And it worked. It spoke to him. It bridged this cultural difference. And, and it was the blessing that Gil needed. Yep. It was, it was the direction that he was longing for in his life. Well, I think [00:38:00] also it's like, it's a really beautiful lesson in contentment. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think there sometimes can be this tendency to, oh, I wish that my blessing was longer, or My blessing is not as long as this person.

Or, I wonder if there could be more. And for him to just be like, no, I'm good. I, I like my blessing. Yeah. This is for me. Right. And that's what matters. Right. And I, I love that and I hope we've communicated in the book Gil's personality that he is a person. When we were still dating, when James and I were dating, I went to his cousin's baptism.

And, you know, at the, the baptisms, they always have the kids on the front row and the speakers are really addressing the kids. He was there with the kids on the front row and raising his hand, answering questions, you know, with, with all these little kids. And he's just so guileless and so open and so accepting.

He is, he is a beautiful person and I just really hope in this book we communicate those kinds of things about him. That he is a person who says, I don't need a new blessing that is quote unquote better. I just want to do what God wants for me. And, and he, he is just that, that is. That is his personality and, and I just, hopefully we all strive to be a little bit more like that.

I agree. I think there's a lot that I myself can learn from that. We mentioned already kind of the attitudes toward race around this time, and James, your grandparents have a beautiful love [00:40:00] story and I think the two of you did such a great job capturing that in this book, but they also dealt with a lot because of the interracial aspect of their union.

I wondered if you could share a little bit about them, their, their love story and what they faced and why you think that we can, we can learn from their, their love story. Yeah. My, my grandparents were super important to me growing up, right? Kind of this. A safe place and reassurance and that sense of openness and humor Nicole mentioned was, was important.

And so, you know, we, we heard plenty of times about their stories. So in my family it was told almost like a funny story. There's a specific part, and then I'll back up and tell some more. But their marriage was technically illegal. They got married in 1958 in Arizona where her parents were in Mesa, Arizona Temple.

And the day before the ceiling, they go to get their marriage license. And when they go to get it, the secretary looks kind of nervous and is watching my grandpa fill out the forms. And when she sees he's from India, she runs and gets the clerk and then informs them, they, they can't get married because there's a law in Arizona that a Hindu can't marry a Caucasian.

And you know. And my grandparents telling, he didn't mention this in the book, he'd been called a Hindu before. That's what people called people from India at the time. His first job in the US was at the Hindu labor camp, but in, in California. But, but at this point, he is like, okay, I'm a latter saint. I grew up as Sikh, like I'm, I'm not a Hindu.

I should be allowed, how does this even apply to me? And my parents would, grandparents would talk about how the clerk, [00:42:00] uh, took his glasses and like, put 'em down on his nose and just looked and my grandpa and said, Hmm, looks like a Hindu to me. And then he would start laughing. Um, and then my grandpa would start laughing right about like, oh, how silly.

And then he would explain that they go to the lawyers and work it out, and finally are able to convince a judge that like, this law shouldn't apply. And they get paperwork filled out and they get married. And it was like this funny story, right? Which then. When Nicole was working on writing it and getting into all the research of American attitudes at the time, and some of the attitudes in the church at the time, she's like, this is not a funny story.

This is it. It was, that was actually, um, their, their courtship and marriage we're going to be one chapter initially, and Okay. And so, you know, we, we got like all this wonderful information about the courtship and how beautiful it was. And then as, as I was getting into the weeds, that was the hardest chapter of this book to write because there, there was so much suspicion around interracial marriage and there was in, in the church, it was discouraged.

And in, um, you know, the laws of the land, it was illegal. And there just, there were so many things and the justifications and, you know, I, I went through, I went through church magazines looking at stuff and, and it was just, it was just heartbreaking. It was so difficult to see what they were up against.

And so, yeah. Yeah, James, James and I went back and forth and wrote and rewrote and reworked that chapter because, because we wanted to give it the, the weight that it [00:44:00] deserves to know that, you know, these, these people have put their, put themselves on the line That, that they're, they're, you know, pioneers in a lot of different ways and they, they really.

Put themselves out there to be able to forge this path to say, you know, we can have an eternal family. And that was, that was what was important. Yeah. To, to Gil and to Vilo to say, you know, we, he, he was saying, you know, they said you can go get married in Las Vegas. Um, and he said, no, I need to be married in the temple.

You know, this was what was important. The eternal family built around the gospel. And I think when we tell the broader love story that starts before they get to the courthouse, that's what it's about, is two people who are really. Determined they have a vision of marriage that's celestial. Mm-hmm. They're thinking celestial before we talk that way.

Um, and looking toward the temple. And that's true for my grandpa who had heard this plan of salvation and understood the importance of temple ceilings and felt new in this faith that's very different and wanted somebody to be an anchor. And we talk about his, he, he did not come from a culture where you dated.

So he had to kind of learn how to date and then learn how to like look for someone who was spiritually strong and knew what she wanted and he found her and he didn't care what color she was. And we tell my grandma's story, right, of having looked for a relationship and been through relationships with people who maybe would've looked good on paper or other people in the ward and stake were like, oh, this is stake president's son.

Surely that's gonna be a good relationship. And it was not. It was, it didn't have that [00:46:00] spiritual foundation of dignity, respect, moral, consistency. And she said, no, I, I'm not going to marry someone who it looks like I'm supposed to. I need someone whose, whose heart is in this, whose whole soul is in this.

And when she found him, he's from India. Right. We found the letter, this was, this was actually a really late development. We had already submitted a manuscript, and James's aunt found a bunch of papers from her great grandmama. And so this is Milo's mom. And we found a letter as, as his aunt Tana said, I were going through all these, all these letters, all these.

The correspondence that her family got and from Violo, from from Janice's mom, and she talked the way she talked about Gil, she was like, he is a convert. He's so strong in the gospel. He has all of these beliefs, but there's, there's a catch. He's, he's from India and, and she's, you know, reaching out to her parents for their guidance for, for how they, what they would think is best.

And her mom had grown up in the, the LDS colonies in Mexico and she had seen struggles with interracial marriages. She was very concerned. She was very concerned with. How that would work for her daughter. And I would say, this is a time where I found a survey over 90% of Americans opposed interracial marriage.

Right. So just overwhelming. Can you, can you even find 90% of Americans agreeing on anything? On anything ever. And at that time, interracial marriage, 90%, [00:48:00] it's overwhelming. But they char and felt this, they understood it. There was this spiritual need. They moved forward, they went and kind of worked to get family on board.

And there were cool things like her, um, sister Amy, when they went in and visited her and her husband said, every marriage is an intercultural marriage. I'm a nurse. My husband's a rancher. We gotta figure out culture. Right. Um, her, her mom. Milo's mom had sent this long letter with concerns, and here's teachings of the time.

Her dad sent one line, which was about the longest letter he ever wrote her. The only letter he, she remembers ever really getting from her, God, God, he was a good guy, but just solid, quiet guy. But he said, dear Vilo, if he is a good Mormon elder, marry him. Love Joe. And that was it. He was somebody Wow. Who said, I don't care if 90% of people think this is a bad idea.

If you've got that core, that spiritual core, everything else can work itself out building on that foundation. So they did. They got married, uh, right what? Not long after they got married, within weeks of their marriage, there was another talk at BYU warning people against interracial marriage that we talk about at the book.

And he, my, my grandpa went and talked with a friend who was Japanese Canadian, a latterday saint in an interracial marriage. And they're like, oh, what do we do? Um, how do we feel about this? And instead of focusing on, okay, is this good counsel? Where is this coming from? Culturally, they said, look, we got one life.

We're married already. Maybe there are more challenges, right? But, but there's also, we have the spiritual strength and God can help us. And our job is in our situation, our life. Not to think about what might work for somebody else, but to say, how do we put our trust in Jesus Christ and move through?

[00:50:00] That's what my grandparents did for decades. And they went through lots of different life experiences, thin things, and had just a beautiful relationship. Right. And I have fond memories at the, it was during COVID, we had sort of a zoom with my whole extended family. So my grandpa's sick relatives. And my grandma had Alzheimer's at the end of her life.

And I remember my cousins seeing just my grandpa feed my grandma and the way she still responded to him, right? She'd lost a lot of memory, but, but, but had those feelings of trust and affection and seeing that, you know, my cousins just said, that's so moving, right? That's them. These are the people we knew through all these years.

Well, our families were coming to the US and we were getting settled here, and we feel anchored still in that love and that spiritual richness and grounding that they always had. So, beau, beautiful relationship. Uh, an example of putting faith in Jesus Christ against the, the prejudices of the day.

Well, I, I think that you all do a beautiful job as well at showing us how lasting and beautiful their, their marriage was. And like you said before, your grandparents, uh, went on to lead a mission in India, which is something that your grandpa had kind of, it seems like, always wondered if he would have the opportunity to return to India as a missionary in some capacity.

And so I wondered if you could talk to me about how your grandfather's lifelong service in the church influences your own service and dedication to the gospel of Jesus Christ. [00:52:00] So one thing that, that is really interesting, um, about. About Gil and his service is that whether he is mission president or he's a state president and in these leadership callings, or he is teaching a family history class, he is completely dedicated.

We share a story from early in the 1960s when he is deep into his PhD work and, and he has, you know, a very young family. He is called as a seventies group leader. They had ward seventies at the time. Yeah, right. So it's just, this is like, you have the elder, but you also have the seventies and he's part of that group.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So he, he is the seventies group leader and. Half the, the seventies quorum. There are about a dozen guys, they never come to church and by never, they haven't been there for 30 or more years. And he's really intimidated by this calling because he sees, he sees that, okay, I don't, I, he doesn't wanna just work with the guys who are there, but he said, oh, I don't know if I have the energy and the capacity to work with a quorum, who mostly isn't there?

And so he, he really struggled, but then he said, you know what, I'm gonna take this on. And he, he has this experience where he is at the library at the University of Utah. He's doing research and he just keeps getting inspiration. Over and over. It's interrupting his research. It's distracting him. And so he, he puts aside his books and he kneels down and he prays and he has this inspiration to reach out to one of the [00:54:00] brothers named Orland Tap and that he needs to go and he needs to find him.

So he kneels down in the stacks and prays and is led to Orland Tap. He tells a story in multiple versions of his own life history autobiography in letters. This was a really important turning point for him. So he goes and he reaches out to Orland Tap and he says. Um, I need to call you as a home teacher.

And I think, I think now we sort of think as home teachers or um, ministering brothers and sisters, and we we're like, well, everybody gets that calling. But he goes and he says, to a man who has not set his foot in a church building in three decades, I wanna call you as the senior companion, as as a home teacher.

And Orland Tap says, yeah, I have been wondering how to get back to church. I've been wondering about this. And he, he tells his story about, you know, not feeling like he, he was really welcomed after being on the basketball team and the program was discontinued and he didn't have the clothes. And so he started smoking and he started a business and he stopped going to church and just had his life.

And then, not long before this visit from Gil, he. He had a heart attack and his doctor said, if you wanna live longer than six months, you need to, you need to stop smoking. And so a few years later, there he is, and Gil is visiting him every single day and they're talking, and by the end of the week, Orland Tap says, what do I need to do to get a temple recommend?

Like again, going back to how important the Celestial [00:56:00] eternal Covenants are. And so when, you know, Gil went to church and he had talked with the bishop and they go to turn on the lights in the chapel and on Sunday and there's Portland tap waiting for sacrament meeting to begin. And it just goes through this story.

We go through the story in detail, but I think, you know, he. Um, Orland Tap says, I want this other brother to be my, um, home teaching companion. And so they reach out to him and we start getting all these brothers coming back to church and that, that was the energy that Gil brought as mission president. He said, we have members in, in India, but for various reasons they're not coming to church.

So let's start with them. Let's start with in, in a country with a billion people. He said, I'm gonna spend six months at the beginning of my mission focusing on inviting people back. Yeah. Right. And I think it's that it's ministering to the one. It's, it's listening. Mm-hmm. Um, and helping people feel that.

Like when you're there, you're all there with them and their experiences are important. I also think he is a good example of being non-judgmental about Right. Brother Tap could tell his story and Gil is not telling him, well, you should have been more valiant. You should have done this. You just goes, okay, that's, that's where you were.

Thank you for telling me what your experience has been and where you come from. Where are you going? Right. What do we do next? Yeah. And that ability to honor where people have been and, and then, and meet them where, where they are, meet them where they are and move forward. I think, I mean, I'm not my grandpa, but I do try to emulate a little bit of that [00:58:00] ability to, to listen to somebody and let them be themselves and let them bring themselves back to, to what they could find.

Here. Right. I've, I've had people, you know, we've had a lot of talks with people who have had tough experiences with church and, and sometimes they end up saying, you know, you're allowed to separate the way you grew up and some of the experiences you had growing up from, from the way you approach things now.

And let's find your way to come. Yeah. And, and, and come with what you have and where you are and what relationship you want with Christ and with the gospel. And, and I just think, I just think Gil is such an amazing example of that, that he says, you know, everybody has something to offer. Everyone in in the church has something to offer and you have something to offer.

And I think, I feel like that that has been such a big influence on the way that we teach our children. Service in the, in the church as well as the, the way that we try to, you know, just welcome people. I was, I was primary president up until about six months ago, not quite six months ago. And, um, one of the things, my counselor, um, who was just amazing, she said at the beginning of the year, she said, let's go and, and let's just go talk to all of the kids who, who don't come to church.

And, um, and let's invite them with, and we went around and we talked to their families and we gave them little invitations and different things. And then, um, the next week in the morning, you know, one of the boys was getting up and, and getting ready and his mom said, what's going on? And he said, well, I want to go to church.

I was [01:00:00] invited. And I think, I think that's what Orland Tap was looking for. That's what all these, these members in India were looking for. That's, that's what people are looking for, is that invitation. And if we can learn something from Gil, it's to be the people who invite. I love that, and I think that that is something that President Nelson models so well is this culture of inviting, which then helps us move into action rather than just hearing.

I love that you talked about, you know, honoring where people have been. And I think that that's something that Gild did so well. That was one thing that impressed me in everything that I read in the book, is that he seemed to always honor his heritage and where he had come from, while also embracing this new faith.

And that seems to be something that he has passed on to both of you because this, that's what you're doing with this book is honoring your heritage. So talk to me about what it meant to both of you to complete this project. And James obviously, like, I think it's incredible that you're able to do this for your family history.

I also think as a wife, Nicole, what a neat thing to be able to honor your husband's family history. So I'd love to get both of your thoughts on that. I'll just say quickly, she got invited first. My grandpa, he was happy. She'd come to a. Really, I think when we decided, when you decided you were ready to get married was after coming to a sick wedding and meeting the whole family and being like, okay, like I am, I can trust this guy.

'cause lots of people know him and they know strengths and weaknesses and I can, I can live with both. [01:02:00] But no, when, when my grandpa decided, he said, he didn't actually say a biography. He said, we need to write something about sig tradition, Latterday Saint Tradition. Right. And give people that bridge. And Nicole, would you write, would you do this for me?

And then I sort of invited myself to talk. Well, and Duke was like, can, can I write it with you please? You know? And so, so I was, I was really grateful. And, and that, that really touched me. That, that he asked me to do that. I do, I do wanna say that, that one thing, you know, they, they. Gil family is very proud of their heritage and their, and being Gild family.

And I will joke and, and say, oh, well, you know, ba ji that's what we call him. They say it's, it's my gild genes. And he just loves that, that I'll say, I have gild genes too. And so from the beginning I felt so much a part of this family. And James, James and I were in graduate school when we met, and he was living in, in his grandparents' house in Provo.

And, and so they just, they just embraced me fully. And I, I was a divorced single mom. So that was, that was kind of a big deal to have, have these beautiful people just say, you are welcome here and you, you are part of this family and. And that they, they wanted, you know, they were worried that that James was gonna scare me away, you know, and that, that means a lot when you're a single mom to have, to have people say like, okay, just, just be smart about this.

You know? And so that was just really they, from the beginning, I've just felt [01:04:00] like. A part of the family. It is funny because a lot of James's cousins, so his generation, they, they are amazed at how well I know Gill family history and I said, well before James and I were even engaged while we drove to this wedding in California, he brought the Gill book, which is a family history book, and started showing me and quizzing me.

Quizzing me on the relationships, you know, and there's like my 4-year-old daughter falling asleep while, while we're talking family history in, in the van. So, and if you see the, in the front of the book, there's like a table of Gil's one and 10 kids. Right. She knew all the brothers and all their wives by the time she got there to the wedding to meet them.

Yeah. And, and admittedly, I don't know everybody who is in our children's generation. I don't know everybody. A lot of kids have been born, but, um, but it is, it is fun. It is fun to be a part of that family. I grew up in a really close family and my mom's parents were always a big part of my life. And I, I was always, you know, close to my grandma on my dad's side, but I didn't have a lot of cousins.

My, my parents are both came from small families, and so being able to be part of this huge gill extended family has been, has been an adventure and it's so fun for our kids and it's so fun to have those opportunities. Well, I think, sorry James, I really quickly, I'll just say this, I think that it, it was smart of Gil to, to want Nicole to write it because you're not so, it's not so deeply ingrained that it's the stories you've heard your whole life.

You're, [01:06:00] you're able to invite us into this view of this incredible family. Oh, thank you. I, I really hope that's what we, what we did. So, no, I think you did a wonderful job. James, were you gonna say something and then I cut you off? Oh, no, just, yeah. I'm, I'm glad, uh, for, for the work she did in this book, you, you'd asked about kind of the deeper sacreds.

And I think if you, if there is truth from God in this world, hold onto it. Right? Like, don't, don't give it up wherever you find that, wherever it comes from. So it was really important to my grandpa that like the, the goal is not just to be a picture perfect, ideal, latter-day saint, right? The goal is God and to to be changed and exalted as a family and as a human race by reaching for God for God.

And so whatever he had from his mom, from his, he says sometimes he had five moms through life, right? Because his mom and his aunt and his other aunts he lived with when he was away at school and g Johnson right here, all these women. Who had spiritual experiences and different knowledge and wisdom and gave that to him and like, he would not give up the things his mothers knew, right?

That got that anti Nephi, Lehi kind of sons of Elam and Faith. And I, I was just raised that way, right? That if you find truth anywhere, treasure it and hold onto it. So that's been important to, to us and I think that's good for my kids. You know, my, my, one of my brothers said once, if there were one religion teaching us something, it would be [01:08:00] maybe a little easier to rebel or to go.

That's just tradition they just made up. We've got Jews on my dad's side, we've got six on my mom's side. He said, when there's three witnesses, you just gotta go. Okay, there's something here. Um, there's something here. And so. I think I would urge everybody, you know, whatever spiritual roots are in your family, hold onto them.

Whatever you find, just looking around, whatever you learn from when you're interacting with a friend, right? What's the reason for hope in them? And you learn that and as they listen and open up, you'll be benefited and edified. And sometimes that helps somebody else open to maybe receive more from you, whether that means they end up making these covenants and becoming part of our people, or whether they just take a part of what you believe and integrate it into their own spiritual experience with a different faith.

Either way, those, those encounters can only be good if we reach for the good in them. I completely agree. Well, James and Nicole, this has been such an enjoyable conversation for me. Thank you again for all of your hard work. My last question for you both is the question that we ask at the end of every episode of this podcast, and that is, what does it mean to you to be all in the gospel of Jesus Christ?

I think for me, especially as we're talking about this book, what it means to be all in is to bring my whole self that in the church, I'm not trying to perform some idea that's out there about what a latter day thing is supposed to look like or sound like, or whatever else, right? It's not for that. I'm supposed to bring everything I am and everything I have and what I've inherited, what came before me, [01:10:00] and, and lay it all on the altar before Christ.

And it's consecrated to me, right When I take these things to Jesus, there, there made more holy and, and he, he brings all truth back into that one great whole. And so, so yeah, being all in means loving and serving and, and bringing, bringing truth to all I do, but also that it, it means that I bring, bring all the parts of my, my culture and heritage and understanding that I bring my insecurities in a self-conscious way and they're part of my worship.

And so, yeah, I wanna bring my, my whole self to Jesus and I want to see what he can make of me and what he can make of us as we all bring ourselves and come together. I, you know, I thinking about this question, I thought, okay, there is the personal individual. How am I all in? But when I think of all in, I think all of us, I think of everybody that we are all in this together, not just as Latter Day Saints, not just as, you know, religious people, not just as Sikhs.

Not not just where we are, but that price atonement is for all of us. That we are all in this. Mortal life and going through these challenges together. And so the thing that we need to do is support each other and be there and reach out and take care of each other and be kinder and be more open and more loving.

And I, I really feel that being all in, being a representative of Jesus Christ, being a member of this church, it [01:12:00] fundamentally means that all are welcome, all can be a part of this. And I, and I feel so deeply that what we need is more openness. We need more of that love, like we learned from Gil in this book.

And we need more of that willingness to be open for each other. Thank you both so much, so, so inspiring both to hear your testimony and to be introduced to Gill's testimony. So thank you very, very much. Thank you. Thank you.

We are so grateful to James and Nicole Goldberg for joining us on today's episode. You can find latter day seek in Deseret bookstores now. As always, a big thanks 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 week.