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[00:00:00] In one of my favorite Christmas devotional talks ever. Sister Sharon Eubank said, if you think about the words you sing this season, you will find a divine message tailored, especially for you that will lift and comfort you. She continued. Here is one that found me this Christmas season. I've been fretting all about the people, our humanitarian aid.

Can't reach and how the nations sometimes make it difficult for us to reach brothers and sisters who suffer. And then just this morning in Relief Society, I paid attention to the song that we sang, bless all the dear children in Thy Tender Care and fit us for heaven to live with the there and quote like Sister Eubank.

I had been fretting about who would be a great guest for our Christmas episode this year. And it was while rereading this fairy talk that it occurred to me Christmas is most meaningful when we care for others around us. And Sharon Eubank is among the most qualified people I can think of to help us understand how giving at Christmas time can fit us for heaven.

As I was preparing for this podcast, I found a bio for Sharon Eubank that I loved it. Read Sharon Eubank for many years, owned a toy store in Provo, Utah and spent endless hours advising Santa Claus on the coolest stuff for kids who had been good. In quote. You may also recognize Sharon Eubank as a former counselor in the Relief Society, general presidency.

And currently the Global Humanitarian Director for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints sister Sharon Eubank recently authored her first book, doing Small Things with Great Love.

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 honored to have Sharon Eubank on the line with me today. Sister Eubank. Welcome. Thank you [00:02:00] so much. Well, I am gonna start out and tell you what I loved so much about this book.

There are many things that I loved, I felt like I learned so much, but one thing that I loved is I think it's a unique ability to be able to write a book that is edited by other people and preserve your own voice. And I felt like throughout the book I could hear your voice talking to me, and I think your voice is one that we all love so much.

And so it was so fun for me to read the book and feel like I was spending time with you. So congratulations on a beautiful book. You've done such a good job, and I'm so excited to talk about it today. Thank you. I'm excited about the conversation that the book starts with people. That's the thing that's most interesting for me.

I'm sure. I'm sure you'll, you've had and will continue to have so many interesting conversations and I'm excited about our conversation today. I felt like, as I thought about Christmas, I felt like one of the most beautiful parts of Christmas when we think back to Christmases of our childhood and adolescence.

That have been impactful? My guess is most people can remember sometime when they were invited to give some sort of service. Um, I, when I think about Christmases growing up, I don't necessarily think about certain gifts that I got throughout the years, but instead. Christmas jars dropped off on doors and, and collecting coats for kids.

Um, and I think those are the things that stick with us. So I wanna start today with something that you describe in your book as being a touchstone in your life. It's a statement by Elder j Rubin Clark, who said The real long-term objective of the welfare plan is. The building of character in givers and receivers, rescuing all that is finest, deep down inside of them and bringing to flower and fruitage the latent richness of the spirit, which after all is the mission and purpose and reason for being of Christ Church.[00:04:00]

So I wanted to start out and ask you how have you seen this building of character in the lives of the people that you've worked with, both the givers and the receivers, and maybe even in yourself. Thanks for pulling out that quote. It's one of my favorite quotes. It's also one of the founding doctrines of, of welfare and self-reliance in the church.

And it was given at a time, you know, the, the, the, the stock market had crashed in 1929, 60% unemployment. And so there, the, the church in Salt Lake City. Jay Rubin Clark was the ambassador to Mexico, and he actually told the, the president of the United States, I'm gonna give up my ambassadorship because my community, my faith community needs me.

He was in the first presidency at the same time. And so he came back and they're, they're worried about physical needs. People don't have enough food, people don't have enough, uh, heating, uh, in their house. It was a hard, hard time. And then he gives this statement about. It is about givers and receivers rescuing the thing that's the finest down, deep inside them and then uses that old fashioned language.

You know, it's the flower and the fruitage, the richness of the spirit. And I think, so you are worried about all these physical things, which we do at Christmas and, and, and yet you are saying it's about my character. That everything that we're talking about is about character. If I, if I apply that to Christmas, I'm just like you.

The things that I remember the most are the, the toys that we wrapped up to give to somebody else, or the, the service that we gave to people who, you know, we didn't see very often. Those are the kinds of things that I remember more than the gifts that I've received. And the reason I think that you and I remember those things is because of what it did.

Inside of us. It unlocked some of that flowering of what's important in our spirits. And it wasn't about the tangible thing we hold in our hand. It's about something that we exchanged with each other. We thought we were being a giver, [00:06:00] and in the end we received something that was important to ourselves.

And so that exchange that Jay Rubin Clark talks about. Is happening to us. We're both a giver and a receiver, and it's strengthening something in our spirit that we didn't know had a need, and yet it, it makes us richer. So I really, really love that, that description, if you don't mind, if. I can give you an example, and I talk about it in the book, but I was just thinking about it again this morning.

When I first became the director of humanitarian services, I didn't know what I was doing. I, I, I was too young and I wasn't the natural choice. And I'm sure a lot of people were just rolling their eyes thinking why did they choose her? But a man that I worked with named Patrick Reese, you know, he could have done my job in his little finger.

He, he knew everything and he knew all about Jay Rubin Clark and everything else. And instead of being irritated with that, you know, why did they choose her? He would sit inside my office with me every morning and he would ask me a bunch of questions. He'd say, what do you think we ought to do today? And I'd go, I don't know, Patrick, what do you think we should do today?

And he would say, look, you, you know, we've been talking about this. What's on your mind? So I'd dig back in my mind and I'd say something and said, all right, if that's what you wanna focus on, what can I do to help you? And the gift that he gave me. Instead of judging me was he trusted me and his mantra.

This is why I wrote about him in the book, what he would say, my solution to your problem will always be wrong. What do you think you should do? And I, I, I didn't trust myself. And after months of Patrick just asking me, what do you think is the most important thing? How can I help you? I started to trust myself.

Patrick gave me that gift. It was a wonderful gift. He, he trusted me to be the leader that I wasn't, and it helped me be the leader that I wanted to be. And I think trust, respect, dignity, admiration, those are some of the most valuable gifts that we give each other. [00:08:00] I love what you said about trust, and I think that that is such a gift and it's a gift that Heavenly Father has given us, right?

That's the reason that he sent us here with agency, and when we extend that gift to someone else, we're giving them something that God has given all of us. You mentioned dignity, and that is something that you talk about throughout the book in multiple places. You have a chapter about dignity. Why is this idea of safeguarding dignity so important, and especially today as we talk about service at Christmas time, how can we make sure that we're safeguarding the integrity of those that we serve?

Thank you for asking that question. It is the right question to ask. When we think about, uh, how to help people, it's so easy to re-victimize people and make them feel like, uh. They're victims all over again. I'll give a, lemme just tell you a little story and then I'll tell you why it's important. I was a missionary in Finland 40 years ago, and I got there right at Christmas time, so it's very dark.

The sun goes down at two o'clock in the afternoon. It's freezing, freezing cold, and I'm struggling so hard with the language that it's very difficult for me to understand. And after I'd been there about. I don't know, five weeks. I need to get my haircut. So I go to an unfamiliar place where I've never been before.

My companion's sitting in the chair and I'm trying to describe the haircut that I want in finish. Well, these are words I didn't learn in the MTC. And so the woman says to me. She goes, don't worry, I know exactly what I think you need. She says, I'm gonna make you look great. And I started to, to try and describe, let me tell you what I want.

And she says, I've got it. And so she starts cutting my hair and I walked out of that salon looking like Joan Jet. This is 1984. My hair is just. Punk rocked, you know, up to the top. It's shaved on the side, and I am just horrified. That's not the thing that I [00:10:00] wanted. So I wore a wool cap, you know, for the rest of the four months till it grew out.

But I, I tell that story because as funny as that is, and she was impatient to try and listen to me describe what I wanted in, in a language that I didn't speak very well. I. Know how easy it is to do that for people who we are trying to help. We look at their situation, we think, oh, I know what you need.

You need this. And then we dec we offer them the thing that we have decided that they need, and it's always a mistake. And when I look back in the New Testament and I notice how often not, not just the New Testament, all the scriptures, Jesus will ask these questions and he knows. He know He, he has godly prophetic abilities to know more about us than even we know ourselves.

But he offers this to people. He says, what sea He. What will you that I should do for you? What Desir is thou, he asks some version of that question over and over again because it allows us to come up with the thing that we want and then he can respond. And that is the premier skill when you're trying to help somebody and preserve their dignity.

To be able to say, what do you want and what kind of help can I give you? And I'll honor the thing that you ask for, even if it's completely different than the thing that, that I think you need. We understand that principle, but we go against it all the time with our kids, with our parents, with the kids in the neighborhood, with the people in our ward because we think we know what they need and we'll help them.

And we, we skip over that step of asking them what they want, preserving their agency, and then following up with what they ask for. I love that. I wanna touch on something that I noticed and I, I think is. So important throughout the book is kind of these, these things that touch on questions that a lot of people I think are asking right now in the world that we live in.

There's a [00:12:00] part where you say this, I sometimes hear the question of why in all powerful God would. So much evil and suffering in the world. It strikes me as an uncomfortably passive inquiry. For me, the compelling question is why do we as children of an all powerful God who has given us strict and holy commandments to love one another, permit so much evil and suffering in the world.

End quote. You also talk later in the book about how it is easy to feel overwhelmed by the enormity of the issues in our world. And I think that tends to be my problem. I'm just like, it's too much. I just shut down, kind of become paralyzed. And, but you offer a couple of suggestions that I thought were profound.

The first is that you say you in quotes, go small. And then the second is that you pray. Could you talk to me about what those two things mean to you?

I wasn't trying to be glib about, you know, the, this age old question that people have of why is there so much suffering in the world? I think it's a legitimate question, but I also think that we know in scriptures that this is the point in our spiritual development that the Lord has said, I'm going to let you decide and choose.

I'm gonna give you some guidelines. I call them commandments, but, and they will make you happy. And they will, they will help things work out. But when those are not followed, it creates a. A huge amount of suffering and we're reaping that suffering from the corruption that we are living as human beings.

And so for people like you and me who want to do something good, but we get overwhelmed by these paralyzing, complicated questions who. When I feel like I'm just one woman, you know, what can I do? And the example is, last night I have been so stirred up about Ukraine's position. They're being forced to accept a peace plan that was drawn up by other people without consulting them, but it impacts them the most of all.

And I'm just stirred up by this and I'm, I can't sleep at night and I'm, I'm, [00:14:00] I'm upset that, but there's very little that I can do. Even with church resources, I cannot impact that issue that's happening, you know, this week in the world. But one of the things that I have discovered in my life is I. I cannot impact what's happening about the Ukraine Peace Plan, but I can go smaller.

I can reach out to Ukrainians that are living in North Salt Lake where I live. I can stand up when other people in my community are being RAM rotted and I can be a voice for them. And so that issue, although I can't do much about the big issue right now, I can take that principle and I can apply it in smaller ways.

And as I do that, it gives me experience and it gives me. A little bit of power so that I can push against, you know, some of those, what I call corrupting influences in the world. The second thing, and it's more powerful than the first, is this idea that, uh, I can pray and it's easy to dismiss prayer as like, mm, yes, yes.

We can all pray and, but there's a real power in prayer. And I tell the story in the book about, I was visiting Israel right before. Uh, the October 7th attack, so this would've been probably July or August of 2023. And as part of, uh, my visit, I crossed over into the West Bank, passed Bethlehem to a church where there is a, a Catholic nun and her sisters who.

They rotate and they take turns praying at an altar 24 hours a day so that they're praying for peace. And a lot of people, it's easy to say, oh, you know, that's sweet to see a nun sit there. But, but what good is that really gonna do? You just pray for peace. But I think we, we underestimate the power of when we ask the father, uh, to work on things that we don't have any control over.

I, I believe there's real power in that, and I, I take it from James five. James is the brother of, of the Lord Jesus, the, the half brother, and he becomes the bishop of, of Jerusalem. And, and he writes [00:16:00] just a, a very short little book in the New Testament toward the end. But chapter five, the whole chapter is, what do I do in the face of corruption?

And he lists. You know, he, he goes through and he lists all these different things. The, the, the rich men are now howling for the miseries. Their, their riches are corrupted, their garments are moth eaten. You've condemned and killed the just, and they didn't resist you. And people have grudges. And he goes on and on and all these verses.

And then he gets down to verse 16 and he says, confess your faults one to another and pray for one another that you might be healed. The, and then this is the important part. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous person availeth much, and I. Really believe in that. Jesus says, if ask and you'll receive, knock and it shall be given unto you.

He says that 20, 30 times in the scriptures and James says, this will avail much. So when I'm wondering what do I do in the face of corruption, in the face of suffering, in the face of things, I can do everything that's in my power to do. And then like that, that nun in her faith. I can kneel and I can pray to God and say, will you intervene?

I'm using my faith to ask you to intervene in a way that I can't. And I believe with every Christian cell in my body, there's power in that. There's power to bring forth help and aid beyond what we are able to do, and that's the power of faith that helps me when I can't do anything else. I think it goes back to, there's been this big conversation recently, right?

About thoughts and prayers. Yeah. Where people are like, oh, the thoughts and prayers don't do anything. But I, I love what you said about there being power in the things that we don't have any power over. When we turn it over to an all powerful God and do offer the one thing that we have to give, which [00:18:00] is our.

Thoughts and prayers. You talk about the divisiveness in America between political parties and I have to think every time that I see people just like jarring at each other, I'm like, the adversary has to be stoked to see us just at each other's throats. But you quote Jimmy Carter. Who said, whenever you have a chance, say something good about our country.

With God's help and for the sake of our nation, it is time for us to join hands in America. We are all Americans together, and we must not forget that the common good is our common interest and our individual responsibility. Why would you say that this is more important now than it may have even been?

When Jimmy Carter originally said it. It's one of the most important parts of the book for me. That quote, I wanna say that. At that point in his presidency, Jimmy Carter knew he wasn't gonna reelected. He, he knew that, you know, what had gone on before his chances were over. And so he was supposed to talk about energy, but he gave this dis uh, this fireside chat from the presidency on this other topic instead.

And his advisors were very nervous about it. You know what, he, you, what are you gonna talk about? Why, why do you wanna talk about that? But he didn't have anything to lose. Now he's gonna tell you what he really believes is best for our country. 'cause he knows he won't be reelected. And he was a man of very deep faith, and I think he showed that throughout his long life he lived to be a hundred.

He, he and his wife were married for 70 years. He was very frugal. His, his grandson talks about how they washed plastic Ziploc bags out and had a little rack where they would dry them in their, in their house. They, they lived in the same house all their lives in Plains, Georgia. And he looked around the world and he saw, all right, here's some things I can work on Guinea worm, that that's a disease that, that with education can be eradicated.

And I think last year there used to be. Hundreds of thousands of people die of this disease. I think last year, [00:20:00] 14 people died. That is significant because of the work of Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter. They created that, they cared about affordable housing. They, they cared about faith as a foundation. So when all of those things, knowing that when he says.

That we're all Americans together and that we can't forget that the common good is our common interest and our individual responsibility. The American democratic institutions were founded on this ability to listen to each other and make a compromise. Let's find something that we can all live with. And unfortunately, 50 years after Jimmy Carter said that we're losing that ability.

It's being RO eroded because. Our lack of common interest is being superseded by our personal interest, and that just can't be, the country will not sustain if everyone is after their own personal interest and they don't care about the common good. And it's not just happening in our politics, it's happening in our personal relationships as well.

We, we live in a time where. I mean, we call it cancel culture, but it's just, if you don't vote like me, if you don't worship like me, if you don't look like me, if you don't exactly like me, then I can't be your friend. I can't have anything to do with you. And that's really detrimental for us. You know, we're, we're losing friendships that we've had for decades because we don't agree and.

I, I've said this before, Pamela Atkinson, who's an activist here in Salt Lake City, she says, she says to, to legislatures, I disagree with you 75% of the time, but I still like you. I still respect you as a human being. I know that you have very heartfelt reasons for the views that you have, and I can respect that even if we don't agree.

You have President Hinkley who was just all about, you know, yes, there's a lot of problems, but focus on what's good, focus on the, the, the positive things that we can agree on to move forward. That's how you chip away at the bad things. You find the good things that we can agree on and to move forward. So I say all of that to [00:22:00] really build on the idea that we can't forget that the common good is our common interest and our individual responsibility.

We each have. Roles to play, and you started off by talking about, you know, prayers, thoughts and prayers are powerful. They are powerful, but they can't just be an empty promise. We have to back that up everything we can, and then relying on the thoughts and prayers. And sometimes I think we get flicked a little bit in our, in our modern culture of just saying, well, I'll just offer my thoughts and prayers without doing the work on my side.

We have to do both. Well, and I think the interesting thing is that perhaps we can't, and, and you talk about this a lot in the book, we can't do something for this issue somewhere else, but if we wanna offer our thoughts and prayers toward that issue, then go and do something that's closer to home. So I love that you talk about we're most powerful where we live.

Can you share with listeners ways that you've seen this particularly, I think at this time of year, at Christmas time, um, that we're, that we are more effective where we live. It's a controversial thing that I'm saying that we're most powerful where we live, because right away, immediately people say, my neighborhood doesn't need me as much as they, they need me over here.

And we're naturally drawn to places that are away from us. They're exotic, they're interesting to us. You know, we, we like traveling and, and seeing those kinds of things. And I do too. I'm not saying that I don't, my career has been so interesting because I've had those chances, but I have learned over the decades that I've done this kind of work, the real power of what we have to offer is our presence.

The fact that we speak the language, the fact that we live in the neighborhood, it's personal to us. We're here all of the time and we can personally interact with people. It's not the things that we give. It's not a hygiene kit or a [00:24:00] coat or a, a school desk or it's not the tangible things, the real power goes back to what Jay Rubin Clark was saying.

It's the exchange that we have of, of respect and dignity. I, I'll tell you a story that happened to me when I was a missionary. It was at Christmas time and we had been teaching a young woman who was like 23 years old and her family, her parents invited the missionaries for Christmas. And so we came on Christmas Eve and we, it was, it was a bold decision on their part, you know, to invite the, the Mormon missionaries and.

So they, we cooked with them. We had this big meeting. They lit all the candles on the Christmas tree. We sang all the, all the, uh, hymns. It was just, it was really beautiful to share this cultural Christmas with us that we would've never had access to as missionaries. And then her dad. Who always just seemed like such a sad man.

He said to me as we were leaving at around 10 o'clock, he said, I'm gonna stay up and read something all night. And he said, could you recommend something in the scriptures? Tell me what to read. So as a good missionary, I pull out a book of Mormon outta my bag and I say, we've been talking to your daughter about this book, and it talks about Jesus on the American continent.

Why don't you read this? And so I marked it for him and I gave him the book. We came back the next morning. And his eyes were just shining. And he said, I stayed up all night reading this book. He said, I have to ask you something. Is this really true that we can be forgiven for the sins that we've created?

And, and I said, it is true. And then he told us, he said years ago he was driving his son in the car and he was drunk and he hit a light pole and he killed his own son. And he just, he was just weeping and he said, if it is possible that I can be forgiven for that. He said, my whole life is different. And I remember, as you know, I'm just a young woman myself, but I remember bearing just this fervent testimony.

It is true. Your whole life can change. You can be forgiven of that horrible thing that you're so sad about. [00:26:00] You don't get those chances to have that kind of interaction. If you're sitting hundreds of miles away, you know, working on some humanitarian project that is about stuff and money it. You have to be present to have that interaction and the Lord will open up avenues for you and you think.

Well, I don't have anybody in my life like him. You'll be surprised. There are people in your little horseshoe neighborhood where you live. There are people at your work, there are people in your ward. There are, uh, old friends that you haven't connected with for a while that need what you have to give inside you.

And to me, that is the most powerful thing we can give each other. It's around respect, dignity, love, testimony, assurance. And we give those things one-on-one in personal relationships, and that's the most powerful form of humanitarian aid that we can engage in. I love what you said about. It's, it's the being there.

And I think that sometimes we don't think of it that way of like by shipping something across the ocean, we're kind of almost cheating ourselves out of the thing that like changes you as a giver. And not that you can't get something from collecting those items, but you're not having. That human element, the, the face-to-face.

I, as you were talking, it gave me a little flashback to, I was an ward and I had a girl in the ward who was amazing and every weekend she taught an English class to refugees. Here in the Salt Lake area and one day she wasn't gonna be able to make it. And so she asked me if I would go and sub for her class.

And so I did. And there was this darling girl who her family had immigrated not long before. And I was talking to them about sharing their stories, like being able to articulate your story. [00:28:00] And I got to her and I said something like, you know, how would you sum up your story? And she said, well, my, my story isn't much.

And I was looking at her and I'm like, are you kidding me? You know? And. It, it made me think about myself and that sometimes I downplay my story and that we all do that, and it that really left an impact on me is that I, I kept thinking after that, am I the same way? You know, do I just say my story isn't much, and it made me more inclined to share?

And so I do think like we have these interactions with human beings and it does have the ability to change us. Sister Eubank. Some people may be surprised that you, director of Humanitarian Services of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints spend nearly an entire chapter of this book talking about the Salvation Army and the great work that they've done.

We all see the Salvation Army Bell ringers this time of year, but talk to me about why it was so important to you to pay tribute to the Salvation Army and the work that they've done the way that you did in this book. I tell the story in the book that my great grandparents were immigrants from Norway, that there was a, you know, they left Norway.

They made it to Canada, and then they dropped down into the United States. And so they were living in North Dakota and they were young. They got married and they, they had the chance to homestead in Montana. This would've been like 19 0 6, 19 10, something like that. And so they get a thousand acres in Montana.

They're gonna live the American dream, they're gonna plant wheat, they're gonna have a little house, they're gonna have a store in town. They're gonna try and make it in America, these Norwegian immigrants. And so they're super excited and they start off and they have a baby, and then they have a second baby.

They're so proud of these two sons. And, uh, then my grand, my great-grandfather's name is Ebert. He's out in the field picking rocks because it's undeveloped. And so the farm field has a ton of rocks that come [00:30:00] up and he's picking 'em up and, and he's building a fence and he contracts scarlet fever and it weakens his heart so much that he dies.

Now Agnes has a thousand acres, two boys. No way of, of making good on that, that ranch, she's just, and then the stock market crashes, so this is 1929 and she, she just can't do it. So she leaves Montana and she goes to California, moves in with her sister. And she doesn't have any money coming into the house except for Bill, who's her oldest boy.

He's 12. He has a paper route, so you know, he delivers papers every morning and one of the places pays him in a sack of donuts. It's a bakery, and he gets a sack of donuts. He brings home every morning. But Agnes is worried that the boys aren't getting good nutrition. They're eating donuts every. And so she goes around to all the agencies in Los Angeles asking for food help for a widow in the middle of the depression.

And when they find out that she has this, this farm up in Montana, they're like, no, we can't help you. There's other people who don't have a farm and they say, why don't you sell the farm? And she said, it's the boy's inheritance. It's all that their father can give to them, and it will, it will be their livelihood if I could just hang onto it through the depression.

And they're like, sorry. And one day Bill comes home from his tape paper route and there's a. Case of canned milk on the porch, and it says it's from the Salvation Army. And they had given to them, and it's such a gift to them, it's canned milk that they don't have to, it's not gonna spoil, you know, they can drink it at their leisure.

And it's 24 cans. And it just felt like a richness to them. And the, the Salvation Army didn't require anything from them. So I tell you all this because you know, it's just a case of Milch from the Salvation Army. But that boy Bill who had the paper route, he grew up, he ran that farm, he, he planted it, he bought out his brother.

It got passed down to my mother Jean, and got passed down to, you know, my brothers and sisters. We spent so many summers. Working on the ranch and helping with the harvest and finishing up the wheat. [00:32:00] It supported my family for a hundred years and every Christmas my mom hands out $20 bills and she says, go put that in those red cuddles.

You know, the Salvation Army? We, we stuff our bills in there and they're always excited because not a lot of people put $20 bills in there. But it's this story that's been handed down for a hundred years in my family that when nobody else would help us, the Salvation Army would, and the reason I spend so much time on it in the book is.

President Oak said in a talk, maybe, I don't know, two or three years ago, he said God is using many kinds of people to accomplish his work. There's too much work for just one. One group to do. And I think that that's really instructive for us as Latter Day Saints. God is using people who love him to do his work, and that includes the Salvation Army and any other, you know, people who love him and wanna serve him.

I was in a dinner with Elder El Tom Perry when he was still alive, and it was with Orthodox rabbis, and I remember he pounded on the table and he said. We want Catholics to be better Catholics. We want Jews to be better Jews. We want Latter Day Saints to be better Latter Day Saints. And I remember thinking.

We do, I thought we wanted everyone to be Latter Day Saints and he was recognizing that same thing that President Oaks is teaching. The world is divided basically between people who don't believe in God and are corrupt and people who do believe in God. And so we as members of of Jesus Christ Church, we should be building bridges with anybody who loves God.

And that's one of the things I love most about our, our faith, is that we believe in. In seeking after anything that's lovely or virtuous or good report or praiseworthy. We seek after those things and we want friendship with people who love God and are doing his work. My family benefited personally from that and I've seen it all over the world.

The good that happens because people are expressing their love of God in the way they love their neighbors. [00:34:00] Well, you'll laugh, but I think the one year that I dropped money in the Salvation Army Bell Ringers bucket was because Kelly Clarkson was working with the Salvation Army, and I was a really big Kelly Clarkson fan.

But I, I love that story about your family, and I think that. There. You know, it may not be the Salvation Army, but we can all point back to a time when we were in need, our ancestors were in need, someone reached out to them, and we can try to find a way to pay it forward. There's a quote in the book that I loved from the commissioner of the Salvation Army in the United States, uh, Ken Hotter, is that how you say his last name?

Uhhuh. And he said, whenever someone begins to hope, when they sense and that their circumstances can, can improve, and when they find people in whom they can put their trust, it is like a booster. Rocket gets lit inside them, it changes everything. And beyond the impact of their own life, it has an enormous impact.

Influence on their children and their opportunities. End quote. Hope is something Sister Eubank that I became obsessed with on my mission. The idea that just a glimmer of hope can give people something to ride for some period of time. And the scriptures talk a lot about hope and I, I studied all of those scriptures.

I studied any talk I could get my hands on about hope, because I felt like as a missionary, that was kind of what you were offering people. Why would you say that hope is so important and how can what we do, especially at this time of the year, to serve others, offer hope? I li I like that you were obsessed with that and that you studied it so much.

I think if you're gonna study something, faith, hope and charity are kind of the foundations all, all my companions could attest to this. They would be like, yep, she's not lying. [00:36:00] I heard a story last Friday, uh, from someone who was. Volunteering in one of the bishop storehouses and he said he was helping a really rough looking man who had come in, get his food order and the guy hadn't bathed for a while, looked really rough.

And so the, the process is they, they come in with their food order that's been filled out for two weeks worth of food and then the volunteer helps him kind of find what they need in the storehouse. So he started on the very first aisle with this man and the first thing was a ca was beef stew. So he reached up on the, on the shelf and he.

He handed the man the beef sous so he could put it in the basket, and the man held the can and he looked at it and he burst into tears. And he had been homeless and living on the street such a long time, he could not believe what it felt like to be in the bishop's storehouse and to have somebody handing him food that he was gonna walk out of.

And the man who was telling me, the volunteer, who was telling me, he just said it was the hope that was in his hand. That he could have a different life than the one he'd had before. And that this was the beginning of the help that people were offering him that he could take advantage of. And it was, you know, somebody cared about him.

It was the hope of maybe getting off the street or repairing his relationships or, I dunno, leaving addiction behind, but whatever created the situation that he was in. Jesus Christ is more powerful than those forces, and I think Christmas is about honoring the strength of the hope that came as a tiny little baby.

You know, we all have nativities in our house and there's this tiny little figure in a little manger of hay that is completely dependent on Mary and Joseph. And yet that was Jesus Christ. He came into the world and he took all suffering. That gave him all power so that we can trust in him. And he gives us the hope that whatever has happened, the horrible, terrible things [00:38:00] that we killed our son, or that we've, we've destroyed our relationships or addiction has just eaten us up.

He can overcome all of that and that, that hope that gets born out of that, that I can be different. I can live differently no matter how badly I've messed up. To me, that is the ultimate. Joy and gift of Christmas, and if we can give it to somebody else, if we can be the one that's handing them the can or, you know, listening to their story or reading a scripture with them or inviting them to our table to, to spark the hope that starts.

Aren't we lucky? Isn't it a gift that's given to us that we get to be that person, the hands of Jesus Christ to reach out to other people? That's my favorite part about Christmas and it, it has nothing to do with the things we buy, it's just about the things that we, we get to do with the people in our circles.

So well said. Thank you so much. I wanna ask you, there was a part in the book that I loved. I loved it so much that I read it aloud to my husband last night, and I don't wanna skip over it, so it might seem a little bit out of place. But then I had the thought. No, it's actually very relevant to the conversation that we're having.

You talk about an an influential mentor that you had, that you've worked with named Lloyd, and how he talked to you in one of your last conversations with him prior to his passing about multiplying and replenishing the earth. And you said you thought that it was kind of an odd thing to talk about with a woman in her fifties who was still single, but you said that.

You realize that it, it was so important and one of the be best pieces of advice that anyone had ever given you. I wondered if you could share a little bit of about Lloyd's thoughts about multiplying and replenishing, and I think specifically this idea of replenishing is important during the holiday season so that we don't get burnout.

So could you share a little bit of your thoughts on that? I wish everybody would have known Lloyd Pendleton. He was so type A, he was just, his family would go on [00:40:00] vacations and he would like, I I'm just so bored just sitting on the desk. You can't do it. Yeah. He just, I just, he was a workaholic and he just worked on causes that he cared about.

He loved, he loved helping people, but he never took breaks. And in the end of his life, Lloyd got pancreatic cancer and his wife called me and she said. This is probably his last week and he would love to see you. So I drove the several hours down to his house and when. His wife let me in and I walked into the room where he was, he greets me with this, what do you know about multiplying and replenishing the earth?

And I'm like, hello Lloyd, nice to see you. But this was our relationship. I worked for him, he'd been my boss, and he would always, you know, give me thought questions to think about. And he said, I've been preparing for your visit and I've written some things on a, on a legal pad. He said, Sharon, you have tendencies that I do, uh, to work too much and to not.

Rest. He said, I wanna talk to you about this. He said, multiplying and replenishing the earth. And everyone thinks that's about children. He said, it's about children. But he said, I'm gonna tell you what else it's about. This is just his personality. And he said, when we, when we give out energy, we multiply and we're commanded to multiply.

We're commanded to take things and make them better. That's part of who we are as as children of God. He said, but the commandment is to also replenish, to wait to sit back. He said, think about all the rest that are built into the, to the rhythms of the gospel. He said, we, we rest every Sunday. We sleep every night.

We take the sacrament, repent of our sins. We, we have the holiday season where we. Replenish. He said, it's built into the rhythms that we replenish because if we multiply, multiply, multiply, we burn out. He said, I didn't know this, and he said, if I could give you any gift as I'm leaving this earth, it would be this gift that it's a commandment to replenish.

He said, I want you to know this. He said, you can't be a good multiplier unless you replenish. And [00:42:00] I'm so grateful that I heard that from him and that he told me it's a commandment that to do that because. We sometimes skip over the most important part of what we do to sit back and to look at what we've done and enjoy it and, and re revel in the people that we did it with and celebrate the thing that we did before going on to the next thing.

I think we, we. We sometimes feel like it's more noble to just move, move, move without fulfilling the entire cycle of, of replenishing and celebrating that. And so I was so grateful to learn that from Lloyd and it's very helpful at, at this season, a time when we can just be run ragged and forget all about what the season's really about.

It's about sitting with your family and looking at the lights on the tree. Enjoying. You know, you told me before we started the podcast that your, your 2-year-old daughter felt like she created the tree for her 1-year-old sister. That's beautiful. And we should, we should celebrate that with her all year long.

Look at the tree that you created for your little sister. I think that as you were talking, I, I thought about Mary and about how the scriptures talk about how she kept these things and pondered them in her heart, and what if she had just. Kept going, you know, hadn't taken a chance to, to stop and think about what she was experiencing and seeing Sister UBank.

I went back last week and reread your Christmas devotional talk, which I have to tell you is one of my all time favorites. Um, where you talked about love's pure light, that line in silent night. And I love that line and I love it even more the way that you took out kind of the punctuation in your, in your little girl mind.

And I think that at this time of year, it's so important for us to. Be conduits of that light and that as we seek to, [00:44:00] to fill our lives with that pure light that we, we recognize that that is something that the savior loves and he loves that in us. I wondered if you have any final thoughts about how we can most effectively serve others the way the savior would, as we seek to turn our hearts to him and share that light with other people this Christmas.

The way that you studied hope. I've thought a lot about power because power and the the lack of power is creating a lot of the humanitarian needs in the world right now, and the corrupt corruption of power. But I think one of the most powerful things that. That we can do is to share the power we have with other people because it's what God is doing with us.

Jesus Christ received all power because of the atonement. And what does he do? Instead of bossing us around, he shares his power with us and shows us how we can be powerful, uh, with his help. And so the most powerful expression of our faith in Jesus Christ is to protect and to defend people who don't have any power.

And. You know, you see in the scriptures, Jesus reached out to everybody who was powerless in his, in his little circle in Jerusalem, Judea. So the lepers, the tax collectors, the, the, the unclean women, the gentiles, the Samaritans, I mean, you, the list goes on and on about what he was doing. But his message was, I am come that you might have life and that you can have it abundantly.

And I'm gonna give you beauty for your ashes. I'm the light that you can trust. And the people are all around us, uh, in our lives. And if we can try and defend somebody whose hope is low, who doesn't have a circle, whose power is gone, that's how we love pure light. That's how we express our love of Jesus, who is the light of the world, and that's how the light in us grows brighter and it, it [00:46:00] spills over into all those other people.

So I've, I've probably mangled that, that analogy of, of light. The The fact that he loves pure light, that he is pure light, and that he allows us to get lit by him and then share that light to other people. That's the whole cycle. It's the meaning of life. It's what everything matters. And I really appreciate that.

Jesus is hope. He is light, and he is love. And those are the most important things that we can give at Christmas time. Which is such a beautiful visual. It makes me think of like the different traditions where you light a candle and then you pass it on to someone else. This has been such a rewarding conversation for me, and I so appreciate you taking the time.

Sister UBank, my last question for you is, what does it mean to you to be all in the gospel of Jesus Christ? Before I answer that, Morgan, I have to thank you for asking that question of so many people. You know, the podcast features a variety of people and the answer to that question, we could keep a book on that.

I think it's been a really powerful question. It was, it was helpful for me to think about why I am all in, in the gospel of Jesus Christ. There's a scripture in the Old Testament. It's important to the people in the Jewish faith, but it's important in my life too. It's in Micah. I think it's in chapter six, and he, it says he has showed the, oh man, what is good and what does the Lord require of thee?

But to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God. And those that Old Testament injunction, the great thing is the New Testament. Jesus showed us how to do that. He showed us how to do justly, how to love mercy, and to walk humbly with th God. And the thing that he asked us to do was to love God and love each other.

And of all the different aspects of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the restoration, I'm most grateful for the restoration scriptures that show me how to live that. How [00:48:00] do I do what's just, how do I be merciful? And the, the, the examples from the Book of Mormon, from the Doctrine and covenants from the Pearl of Great Price, I don't ever wanna Live Without, to King Benjamin.

I just finished reading about King Benjamin who, who just said, if you're in the service of your fellow being, you're in the service of your God. Why would I ever not want to have that in my life? Aren't, aren't I grateful that because of the Book of Mormon, I know that little line because it's so important to teach me how to love mercy and walk humbly with my God.

I'm all in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Because it works. 'cause it makes me happy. 'cause it helps other people. And because as I, as I live it imperfectly, it makes me better and I'll never give that up. Well, I want to applaud you. I, I, as I was reading your book, I kept thinking, this is so cool because it is someone who has had these experiences that are so unique because of the nature of your job and your previous church calling, and you've taken that.

Expertise, if you don't mind me saying that, and have shared it with us in a way that makes it actionable for those readings. So I am so grateful to you for the work that you put in this book and also for all that you've done. For the church and um, you've just been such a great example to me. So thank you so much, sister Eubank, and I hope you have a Merry Christmas.

The same to you Morgan. Thank you.

We are so grateful to Sister Sharon Eubank for joining us. On today's episode, you can find Sister Eubanks new book, doing Small Things with great love in Deseret bookstores Now. We are so grateful to Derek Campbell of Mix at six Studios for his help with this and every episode of this podcast this year, and we are so [00:50:00] grateful to you for listening.

We wish you a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year, and we'll look forward to being with you again in February.