Amy Stokes was born and raised in Utah. She grew up in the church, but didn’t realize until she attended BYU a lot about church doctrine. Amy then spent her twenties feeling out-of-place and unsure. It wasn’t an overnight decision to change in feeling all-in on the church. She spent the next decade or so “on the fence,” with so many unanswered questions and it was exhausting. Luckily, now Amy approaches life and spirituality with a lot more trust in God and has allowed herself to not need all the answers right now. Amy's testimony is “I know He’s got me—and that’s enough for now.”

Camey Andersen has seen the blessings of education change her own life and now works to provide educational opportunities for others as Lead Manager of Strategy and Research and Africa West Area Manager for the Succeed in School program for the Church. Several years ago, she returned to school to earn her Ph.D. in Instructional Psychology and Technology, and she teaches at Brigham Young University as an Adjunct Instructor. Many of her publications focus on mentoring, and she sees mentoring as key to gaining a vision for who you can become. She is the mother of four adult children and Cece to five wonderful grandchildren!

Shahna thinks of herself as someone who is mediocre at a lot of things and a master of none, but she is totally okay with that. She is a native Texan, a teen convert to the church and a recently transitioned empty nester. (Don’t believe what they say, it is awesome!) Most of her days are spent doing a work she loves as a Professional Mental Health Counselor with licenses in TX, ID, and UT. She is a big believer in routines, community service, reading before bedtime, journaling, and breaking a sweat most days of the week. She developed a love of scriptures by attending a local institute class during a particularly trying time in her family’s life and has had the chance to pay it forward for the last 10 years as an institute instructor herself! She believes in the power of good conversation with a close friend over chips, guacamole, and Diet Coke. The biggest blessings of her life were giving birth to five of her six favorite humans on the planet and being married to the best man she has ever known for more than half of her life.

Brent M. Rogers, Ph.D., is a managing historian for the Church History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He worked for thirteen years on the Joseph Smith Papers and, for three of those years, served as the project’s managing historian. Brent is the award-winning author of numerous books and articles. His first book, Unpopular Sovereignty: Mormons and the Federal Management of Early Utah Territory (University of Nebraska Press, 2017), received The Charles Redd Center-Phi Alpha Theta Book Award for the Best Book on the American West, the Mormon History Association’s Best First Book Award, and the Utah State Historical Society’s Francis Armstrong Madsen Best History Book Award. Brent is also the author of Buffalo Bill and the Mormons (Bison Books, 2024) and several articles including “A ‘distinction between Mormons and Americans’: Mormon Indian Missionaries, Federal Indian Policy, and the Utah War,” Utah Historical Quarterly (Fall 2014), which won the Western History Association’s Arrington-Prucha Prize for Best Article on the History of Religion in the West. When he is not researching and writing history, Brent enjoys reading about history, watching movies, walking his dog, and trying to keep up with his family’s busy schedule of school, sports, and music.

Together and growing since 1971, Rachelle Parker and Lisa Nelson have married the loves of their lives, Darin Parker and Todd Nelson, birthed 11 kids including twins for Lisa (Rachelle was jealous) and spend as much time together as humanly possible.

We are Jim and Aileen Jensen. We are married with 3 adult children and 4 grandchildren. We love working in our yard, tackling home remodeling projects, traveling, and serving others. Jim is a convert to the church, and Aileen is a lifelong member. We are grateful for the blessings the gospel offers our family.

Carli Anderson is an assistant professor of religion and the humanities at Northern Arizona University. Her academic research—which focuses on female figures in the Hebrew Bible—blends textual hermeneutics and religious anthropology and is enriched by theoretical frameworks related to ritual, pilgrimage, space, memory, and affect. She has an MA in Hebrew Bible/Ancient Near Eastern Studies from Brigham Young University and a PhD in religious studies from Arizona State University. Her dissertation work focused on the biblical Rachel as an emplaced cultural figure at the site of Rachel’s Tomb in Jerusalem. Dr. Anderson has spent many years working and researching in the Holy Land. She currently lives in the beautiful mountain country of Arizona.

Shannon Foster is a wife, mom, and former seminary teacher who helps people study the scriptures in the middle of real life—between laundry piles and carpool runs. She didn’t understand the scriptures when she was younger, and that experience has become her superpower in helping others truly fall in love with them. She's happiest in the mountains with her family, staying up late and losing at board games. She's the founder of The Red Headed Hostess, where she creates gospel learning tools that feel doable and deeply meaningful. She believes the Lord always makes a way—and that walking with Him leads to more than we ever imagined.

Do we understand who we really are? Do we grasp the significance of the divine potential that lies within each of us? Based on the decisions I see many people make—decisions that seem to be founded on temporal trivia rather than eternal truth—I’m afraid the answer is "No, not really."

This year has been quite the "Mormon moment" with politicians, musicals, ad campaigns, athletes – you name it – and many of LDS Living's stories have followed these people and topics.