Today's episode is a little different in the very best way. We're sitting down with Mike and Amy Isom on the morning of their 47th wedding anniversary. Their parents, grandparents, and longtime members of the Chandler area with four grown children. In this conversation, we trace an incredible journey of discipleship through five missions and beyond. A five-year local service mission teaching the strengthening marriage course that ended up transforming their own relationship even more than the couples they taught an 18-month assignment at the New York and Pennsylvania historic sites where the Sacred Grove was literally their backyard as they helped pioneer virtual tours that reached over half a million people in more than 100 countries.

Several seasons serving as the Nauvoo pageant, Remy helps clothe entire cast in pioneer costumes and the Isom subscribe what it feels like to live in a Zion society for six intense weeks each summer. And then a call to to Brazil's Porto Alegre South Mission accepted in faith with almost no Portuguese, but they learned to rely completely upon the Spirit, Google Translate, and the kindness of the saints. And finally, beginning a service mission from home to continue supporting their mission in Brazil remotely. Along the way, Mike and Amy share how they navigated unexpected cancer, sold their home, flew back from Brazil twice for family medical crisis, and kept choosing Christ while also choosing their children. They talk about seeing the veil thin in the sacred grove in Nauvoo , learning to follow quiet spiritual nudges, and discovering just how deeply the Savior loves His children in every circumstance. If you've ever wondered whether senior missions are worth it, how to prepare for one, or what it really looks like to put your life in the Lord's hands, this episode will give you stories, practical perspective, and a powerful witness of the Savior. Stay with us. By the end of this interview, you might find yourself checking mission opportunities, looking up the Nauvoo Pageant application dates, or at least asking...

What more could I do to serve?

Troy and Stacey Hansen know a thing or two about covenants, callings, and saying yes to the Lord again and again. Both were born in the same small Utah hospital, delivered by the same doctor two years apart, though they wouldn't meet for another two decades on a blind date that wasn't supposed to be about them. But after an unexpected injury kept Stacey home from school, their paths changed, and so did the course of their lives together. From that beginning, they built a Christ-centered marriage, raised three children, now spread across Utah and Nebraska, Texas, and are the proud grandparents of seven, six of which are boys. In this conversation, we walk through a remarkable lifetime of quiet, steady discipleship.

Troy's mission detour as a visa waiter in the Arizona Tempe mission, and the full circle moment of later serving in that same mission presidency. Their years working side by side with the rising generation in a YSA stake. The experience of organizing a brand new stake from scratch, calling bishops and a patriarch, building a stake center and interviewing and setting apart hundreds of missionaries. You'll hear Stacey's powerful story of going after the one as a primary teacher and how a class of eight year olds learn that prayers plus action can literally change someone's life. You'll hear their very practical, honest take on ministering, on what to look for in an eternal companion and why teaching callings extend far beyond the classroom walls. And then we look forward.

Troy and Stacey are now preparing to leave everything familiar :home, career, and the comfort of being near family to serve as member and leader support missionaries in the Adelaide Australia mission. They share the extraordinary four generation story that ties their family to Australia, the financial and emotional realities of going as senior missionaries, and why they feel an urgent pull to tie the autumn years of their lives to the Lord. If you've ever wondered what it really looks like to put the Savior first in midlife and beyond, to prepare now for a future senior mission or to more fully consecrate your marriage and your ministry, this episode will both challenge and encourage you. Stay with us. You're about to hear a tender, faith-filled, and very real conversation with Troy and Stacey Hansen.

On today's episode you'll meet Charles Chuck Malone, a convert to the church, long time real estate broker, patriarch and temple sealer, whose life has been shaped by trial, faith, and a very real relationship with Jesus Christ. Chuck grew up a fun-loving Methodist kid in Holbrook, Arizona, the kind of kid who got a Bible thrown at him in Sunday school, got fired from auto shop, and then turned that failure into a trumpet scholarship.

As a teenager, a simple desire to earn his Eagle Scout led him to an LDS Scoutmaster, to the Order of the Arrow, to unexpected spiritual experiences, and eventually to a phone call home where he told his bishop, I'd like to be baptized into your church. From there, the Lord took him on a remarkable path, serving a mission in Eastern Canada with almost no gospel background and a setting apart by Elder Thomas S. Monson, driving his way through college after boldly declaring, I'm a drummer before he'd ever played a beat. Meeting his wife, Linda, in a community production of The Sound of Music and then riding the roller coaster of a real estate career where he says he became a millionaire in nine years and a pauper in the tenth four different times.

In our conversation, Chuck shares his conversion story and how the Lord used unlikely people and moments to guide him. The miracles and personal tutoring that led him to become a temple sealer. What he's learned standing at the altar about sealing power, faithfulness, and inviting Christ into a marriage. Sacred experiences with proxy work, including powerful moments with ancestors on the other side of the veil. How repeated financial loss and deep personal trial became a gateway to discovering hidden gifts and writing books like the sweetness of trial and winning through trial. And the simple message he hopes his posterity will remember 100 years from now.

If you've ever wondered what really happens spiritually inside a ceiling room, how to think differently about your own trials or how an ordinary kid can become an instrument in the Lord's hands, this episode will deepen your love for the temple and expand your faith in what God can do with a willing heart. Stay with us. Chuck's stories of conversion, ceiling power, and never giving up will change the way you see your covenants and your own life.

Today we sit down Brother Kelly Pond, a stake patriarch in the Chandler South Stake, a devoted husband to Marcie, and the father of six. Professionally, Kelly spent over 30 years supporting orthopedic surgeons, often in the OR, and bringing technical expertise and care to countless joint replacement patients. But this conversation goes far beyond work. In this episode, Kelly shares the tender story of receiving his call as patriarch, how humbling it felt, the immediate spiritual confirmation, and the unique blessing of serving alongside Marcie as his scribe.

We explored he's learned about creating a home where revelation can be felt in the three inspired phases of a patriarchal blessing, preparation, pronouncement, and transcription. You'll hear how he invites youth to come spiritually ready, how revelation comes in the moment during the blessing, and how careful transcription preserves what the spirit intended. Brother Pond also talks about the way his calling has changed how he sees people, recognizing divine potential in everyone, and why patriarchal blessings matter at every age including for converts or lifelong members who may not have received one yet.

He offers practical ideas for youth and parents, preparing through prayer, scripture study, the temple, journaling impressions right after the blessing, and even recording memories and family search as a personal Leahona. We finish with a powerful message to the rising generation. Your divine identity is discovered and deepened through making and keeping covenants, and true joy is found in becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ. Stay with us for this thoughtful, faith-filled conversation.

Today's episode is a conversation with someone whose life quite literally revolves around the temple. You'll meet Brother Kenny Barney, a lifelong farmer, Chandler High grad, husband, father of nine, and grandpa to 19. These days, his favorite titles might be Grandpa and Wednesday Morning Temple Worker. Every week he pulls into the temple parking lot at 4 a.m., watches the lights come on, and spends the morning serving as an ordinance worker and initiatory coordinator.

In our conversation, Kenny shares how he went from viewing the temple as a monthly checkbox to structuring his entire life around it. You'll hear the simple but piercing counsel from two incredibly busy friends that changed everything for him. You make time for the things that are important in your life and how that line pushed him to stop postponing temple service. Kenny tells powerful stories from his years in the baptistry, initiatory and at the veil like the moment he realized that the men he ordains in initiatory are now part of his own priesthood line of authority, or a sacred experience helping a deaf sister through the veil and filling the Lord's personal love for all his daughters, or what he learned from a young service missionary whose ordinances were almost unintelligible, but whose spirit carried every word. He's also had unexpected reunions with friends, youth, and former leaders that have strengthened his faith week after week.

He'll also talk about the brotherhood that forms among temple workers, how the Lord quietly answers prayers in the temple through other people, and why Kenny now says he's almost afraid to imagine where his life would be without these last four years of service. If you've ever felt intimidated by the temple, wondered whether you belong there, or thought you were too busy to serve, Kenny's perspective will challenge you, comfort you, and invite you to come closer to the Savior. Stay with us. You won't want to miss this conversation.

When Lori Neff first started going to the temple, it was mostly a box she'd checked a couple times a year. The ordinances were familiar, the plan of salvation made sense, but the temple wasn't yet the lifeline it would later become. That all changed when her children started making big decisions she couldn't control. In this conversation, Lori opens up about how the temple became her refuge when life as a mom didn't go according to the script. She talks about the heartbreak of a son choosing not to serve a mission. Another son coming home early from Fiji and a daughter walking a painful, difficult path she never anticipated. And how in each case, her time in the temple didn't change her kids, it changed her.

You'll hear how weekly and then almost daily temple attendance helped her hand her children back to the Lord, stop trying to manage their agency, and start asking the Lord a different question. How can I help you parent these kids? She describes learning to see her daughter the way Heavenly Father sees her, recognizing the Savior's hand in her children's lives and discovering that the real gift of the temple is not just doctrine, it's personal revelation.

If you ever watched the temple with a breaking heart, worried that you failed as a parent, or wondered how to actually let the Lord carry the weight you're holding, this part of Lori's story is for you. Stay with us as Lori shares how the temple turned from a place she occasionally visited into the place where the Lord reshaped her motherhood, her faith, and her relationship with each of her children.

Scott Neff never expected that the word of wisdom would save his career or his life. Laurie Neff never expected to marry everything her bishop warned her about. And neither of them expected that decades later they'd be managing a bishop's storehouse in Jeans, logging 12-hour service days and loving every minute of it. In this episode, I sit down with Scott and Laurie to talk about their journey from marriage in a Lutheran church to missionaries knocking on their condo door in Old Town Scottsdale to a hard-won conversation, conversion that meant walking away from alcohol, drugs and a lifestyle that had already led Scott to two DWIs and time in jail.

You'll hear how tithing, not the word of wisdom, almost stopped his baptism and what a simple lunch conversation with the mission president did to change his view on money, faith and priorities. We also dive into the early and intense church service that shaped them. Scott being called as an elders quorum president after just one year in the church, two decades in the young men's program, long Sundays of strong gospel mentors and how those experiences prepared them without them realizing it, to one day manage the Mesa Bishop Storehouse.

Scott and Lori pull back the curtain on how the storehouse really works. The semi-truck deliveries from Salt Lake, the youth service missionaries in the back, Wayne Produce, the humanitarian grants that quietly feed people all over Arizona, and the tender mercies they witness daily on the front lines of temporal and spiritual welfare. You'll hear stories of parents pleading for blessings for their children, of a widower whose grief began to heal through the service of a forklift driver whose cancer disappeared, and of how a simple decision to just serve on Tuesdays turned into a mission that reordered their calendar, strengthened their marriage, and blessed their business and family in ways they couldn't have anticipated.

If you've ever wondered whether tithing and fast offerings really bring blessings, what senior service missions actually look like, or whether ordinary people can make a real difference in the lives of the poor and the needy, this conversation is for you.

Stay with us as Scott and Lori share how the Lord used missions, money, and a warehouse full of food to change their lives and how those same principles might change yours.

Today we sit down with Ferma Howard, San Carlos Apache by birth and a beloved pillar of the Gila River Indian Community for the last 50 years. As a child, Ferma left home at age eight through the LDS Indian Student Placement Program. Her journey wasn't easy. Early foster homes meant long chore lists and loneliness, but she found her voice, her faith, and eventually a true family who helped her thrive.

You'll hear how a coyote-howled proposal under a mesquite tree led to a Salt Lake Temple marriage, how she and her husband Dean Howard built a life in Sacaton, adopted their first son before welcoming more children, and opened their home to nieces and nephews who needed love and stability.

Ferma became Relief Society president at age 20, served in nearly every calling, and watched the Santan Branch grow through triumphs and trials—including a church fire. Her perspective on youth, tradition, and fellowship is tender, practical, and deeply rooted: Be there for your relatives, create the right traditions, and prayer is our guide.

Stay tuned for a conversation full of heart—stories of resilience, community, and quiet leadership. Ferma’s life is a mission of love, and you're about to hear why her branch, and everyone who meets her, feels at home.