LDSPMA

Empowering Latter-day Saints to spread light and truth by connecting them at the intersection of faith, creativity, and professional skill

Craft Skills

The Arts as a Superpower

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By Shaun Stahle

“What is the most powerful weapon in the world?” I asked a class of fifth graders in Fielding Elementary School many years ago.

The Gulf War was raging at the time. Every news cast led with horrific scenes of destruction. “The Apache Helicopter with laser-guided smart bombs,” blurted one boy. “Nah,” said another. “Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from warships.” 

The boys grew animated with some coming out of their chairs in mock imitation. These sparkly-faced boys knew their weapons of mass destruction.

After the teacher restored order, I suggested that neither the laser-guided missiles nor the Apache Helicopter—as powerful as they were to level big buildings into little pieces of rubble—were the most power weapons in the world.

More guesses followed. “How about nuclear bombs?” asked another.

“No,” I said long and slow, squeezing every second to build tension. “The most powerful weapon in the world…is words.”

Three illustrated people with speech bubbles. Using words and conversation.
Words: the Most Powerful Weapon in the World

The class went thunderously quiet. Faces contorted. The mental torture of trying to figure how words trumped bombs in causing agony. “Words?” someone finally bellowed. “When did words ever win a war?”

“Think about it,” I suggested, trying to ease their pain before their faces froze in those positions. “When mean words are said, you get angry. When you get angry, you could throw a punch. If nations say enough mean words, people get angry and tempers flare. They sometimes hurl bombs. But do you feel like poking someone’s nose who has complimented you?”

I’m not sure the students understood my analogy. I’m not sure the teacher did either. But I still think the premise has merit. Words tell stories. Stories evoke emotions of virtue such as beauty and love. Such emotions build into peace and contentment and gracious living. Harmony and unity are the result.

Words can also fan the flames of hate and animosity. Words of deceit and injustice can enrage to violence. Instead of unity, we see others as a lower species.

Words Turn Enemies to Friends

President Dallin H. Oaks in his October general conference address recommended that we heed the counsel of a famous musical and make more effort to get to know each other.

He should know. As one who has stood in the heat of intense adversarial debate trying many cases—50, I think—before the US Supreme Court, and as a man deeply cultured in the affections of the Spirit, he knows how to turn enemies into friends.

That’s where we come in. Those who tell stories help society get to know each other. Words and images and sounds are our superpower. The more we use our powers to tell the plight of another, the more we defuse the ugly and demeaning and debase that confronts us.

Most of us will never be introduced in the Rose Garden. None of us will have a finger on the big red nuclear bomb button. But we still have power. “The kind words we give, shall in memory live.”

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Shaun Stahle was yanked from a comfortable bed early one morning at age five to cart newspapers off his grandfather’s printing press and has been cursed with ink in the blood ever since. He spent 17 years detailing the growth of the Church with the Church News. His retirement plan is to find a shoe box full of unmarked bills along the road someday. He says he has saved his wife of 33 years from a life of fame and prosperity.

4 Lessons I Learned from the BYU Folk Dance Ensemble

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By Laura Arnold

It may sound strange to say that dance has changed the way I see the world, but that is exactly what I’ve experienced as a member of BYU’s International Folk Dance Ensemble. I had been dancing for years before I attended BYU, my primary training being in Irish dance. When I came to the university as a freshman, I was immediately drawn to the folk dance program. I already knew I loved Irish dance, and I suspected I would enjoy other folk dance styles as well.

I had no idea how true that would be.

Celebrating Cultures

At first I stubbornly insisted that Irish dance was the best of all cultural dances; but it wasn’t long before I became enraptured with the dances of other countries. I discovered the strength of Russian dance, the dignity of Mexican dance, and the vivacity of Chinese dance.

Laura Arnold dances a Russian character dance in the BYU International Folk Dance Ensemble’s 2018 Christmas Around the World performance. Photo credit: Jaren Wilkey, BYU Photo.

I began to find joy in celebrating the uniqueness of people from different parts of the world. I soon noticed that any time I met someone from another country whose dance style I was familiar with, I had an instant connection with them. The love I felt for their culture’s dance style extended to love for that person, even if I had just met them.  

Making Friends through Folk Dance

I’ve come to appreciate this unifying effect of dance in my travels with the BYU International Folk Dance Ensemble. While we were in France for a performance tour, we connected with the youth of the area during a mutual activity. In Belgium for a dance festival, I stayed in the home of a Belgian family whom I still refer to as my Belgian mom, dad, brother, and sister. When we were in China as part of the 2019 BYU China Spectacular, I befriended the Chinese students who performed for us when we visited their university dance classes.

Laura Arnold dances with a student from Minzu University in Beijing, China, during a dance exchange workshop. Photo credit: Jaren Wilkey, BYU Photo.

The beautiful thing is that, in each of these encounters, it didn’t matter if we spoke the same language or not; we were united through our love of dance. In fact, to me, dance is a universal language. I may not know how to say “let’s be friends” in French, Dutch, or Chinese, but I do know how to join hands with someone in a dance circle.

Sharing Joy in Folk Dance

There is one aspect of dance that all cultures share, and that is joy. Be it through the sacred temple dances of India or the lively national dance of Ukraine, people all around the world dance to express joy.

Laura Arnold in costume for a Chinese dance. Photo credit: Jaren Wilkey, BYU Photo.

When I dance, joy is the engine that propels all my movements. And when the audience sees my fellow dancers and I experiencing this joy, they feel joy themselves. It is joy that unites us as a human race and makes us realize that we aren’t so different after all.

Sharing Light and Love

Perhaps the greatest blessing cultural dance has brought me is the ability to share the light of God’s love with others. Alma 26:37 says, “Now my brethren, we see that God is mindful of every people, whatsoever land they may be in; yea, he numbereth his people, and his bowels of mercy are over all the earth.”

I know that God truly loves all His children, wherever they live and whatever culture they’re from. When I dance, my greatest hope is that someone will more clearly understand God’s love for “every people” and the truth that we are all His children.

Laura Arnold and her teammates perform an American clogging piece. Photo credit: Jaren Wilkey, BYU Photo.

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Laura Arnold is a student at Brigham Young University who participates in the BYU International Folk Dance Ensemble.

All photos are credited to Jaren Wilkey, BYU Photo.

How to Start a Blog

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By Oakli Van Meter

Knowing how to start a blog is one of the hardest things, at least for me. My junior year at BYU, one of my professors said that we all should start a blog. She said it would be a great portfolio tool later on. I went home that day and started a blog. I wrote on and off for a while, then life happened. At the end of my senior year, I revived the blog for a class assignment. It felt great to have a required weekly post. Then once again, life got in the way and Wise Ole Oak is sitting quietly in the corner waiting for me to get back to it.

Why, you ask, does anyone care about my sad excuse for a blog? Why does it matter? Because I’m a classic case of “what not to do.” That being said, I feel prepared to share my advice on how to start a blog—advice sown from the fields of my failure.

First, choose a hosting platform.

Do you research, but don’t overstress it. There are plenty of free platforms that are virtually the same. Choose one that’s easy to use. My personal favorite is WordPress, but there are plenty of other good options that you can learn about here or here. Keep your site simple but professional. You don’t want text boxes of filler text from the template still lurking, but you don’t have to fill everything up with stuff.

Second, decide what your blog is going to be about.

You want to focus on what would benefit your potential clients. Editors could focus on writing or self-editing thoughts. Social media gurus could post about how to use social media. Whatever you choose, make sure it’s something you’re passionate about. Something you can write about pretty much every week. 

A woman planning a blog post.
Third—and this is crucial—make a plan.

When to post, how often to post. (Hint: Monday mornings are a great internet traffic time.) Without a plan, you’re going to struggle to keep up. Trust me, I know. Create a spreadsheet with dates and topics. Set reminders. If you can, write several blog posts over the course of a few days. Then you don’t stress-write two hours before you want to get it posted. 

Speaking of posting, make sure you’re sharing your blog posts to your social media channels. (And if you don’t have any of those, create some!) If you have an email newsletter, include the link there. Anywhere that your desired audience could see it, post it.

Finally, write. And enjoy it.

Blogging shouldn’t be stressful. It should be an additional, fun way to engage with your audience or clients. If it’s becoming stressful, step away for a bit. The inspiration often comes away from the keyboard.

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Oakli Van Meter is a wife, mother, and a freelance editor, writer, and blogger.

Acting with Juice Boxes: Exploring Indian Breathing Techniques

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I certainly don’t consider myself a professional actress by any means, but I cherish the memories I have from participating in school and community productions. Because we have so many talented and aspiring actors and actresses in our membership, I wanted to talk about a breathing technique I learned from my high school theatre teacher about rasa boxes.

Rasa Boxes

My director taught me and my peers this Indian breathing technique during one of our many play rehearsals. He explained to us that rasa was an Indian word that could be translated as “breath” but also “the juice of life.” We joked that the rasa box technique could also be called the “juice box” technique.

The technique can be illustrated with a three-by-three square. Each box represents a different state of emotion, such as sadness, pleasure, anger, and so on.

raudra
anger, frustration, rage		bhayanaka
fear, terror		karuna
sadness
sringara
pleasure, bliss		shantra
beyond emotion		hasya
mirth, laughter
bibhatsa
disgust		vira
gallantry, heroics, courage		adbuda
wonder, awe

Shantra is in the centermost box because it is “beyond emotion,” or a neutral state that can lead to all other emotional states.

The main idea behind rasa boxes is that your breath can be used as a tool to embody these various emotional states. Once you “activate” or engage the breath properly, you can better feel and portray the actual emotion throughout your body.

The Exercise

My teacher led us through an exercise to try out the technique. We would always start with shantra, a calm and even breath. There, we would re-center ourselves before and after we attempted other emotional states.

We would pick one of the rasa boxes—like vira, for example, the breath of gallantry, heroics, and courage—and try to activate that breath. We measured the intensity of our breath (and thus the emotion) on a scale of one to ten, one being the weakest and ten being the strongest. Then we would work our way up and down the scale to explore the breath—not necessarily to get all the way to a 10 but to see how our breath influenced our body language. After playing with the breath at different intensities, we would go back to shantra, recenter, and choose another rasa box.

It wasn’t an easy exercise. I struggled at first to know how to portray an emotion like vira—after all, how do you breathe heroically? My director encouraged us to just keep focusing and projecting the emotion through our breath. He warned us to not overthink the exercise and let go of whatever held us back, and I found myself understanding the technique more as I tried other breaths.

A young woman sitting crosslegged with her hands in front of her diaphram, breathing.
Takeaway Lessons

I learned from this exercise that how I breathed could actually influence how I felt and how my body reacted. I wasn’t an expert at applying this technique in all my high school acting, but I think it helped me better portray the role of a simple countrywoman going into shock after experiencing a driveby shooting. 

And although I don’t usually remember all of the Indian names for the different rasa boxes, I’ve become more aware of how my breath is related to my everyday actions. I’ve learned that focusing a little control on my breathing can truly influence my attitude and the results I see in my life.

Try out this breathing technique in your acting (or everyday) pursuits! Remember that the point is not to overthink the process and get each emotion perfect on every number of the scale. The point is to explore what your breath does to your emotions and body so you can be more aware of the power your breath has and discover new ways to portray various emotions.

***

Brittany Passmore graduated from BYU with a major in editing and publishing. She works as a freelance editor specializing in science-fiction and fantasy. When she’s not reading, writing, or editing, Brittany loves to be a stay-at-home mom to her 18-month-old son and dabble in her musical hobbies of piano, flute, guitar, and singing. Oh, and of course, she loves practicing yoga.

Website: https://brittanympassmore.wixsite.com/passmoreedits

A photo of the author of the post, Brittany Passmore.

So You Want to Be an Artist? Here are 3 Secrets You Need to Know.

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By Anna King

In this post, I’m going to let you in on the three most important secrets to being an artist. 

Number 1: Make Time to Create.

To be an artist, you must create art. It’s that simple. 

“But I just don’t have time! I’m a student. I’m a parent. I have a full time job. What’s the real answer?”

My friends. You will never make art if you don’t make time. 

For those of you who are discouraged, don’t worry. You don’t have to turn your life inside out in order to make time for art. 

Start by writing down exactly how you spend your time. You might discover that you  have to spend less time on Netflix or making TikTok videos. You might even have to tell your friends you can’t hang out sometimes.

Making time for your art is a signal to yourself that it is important to you. You’re giving yourself the mindset that you are an artist. And you get to create what you love! Start small. For instance, you might start with one sketch a week, then grow to sketching an hour every day. Do what works for you consistently.

The more you create, the better you will get. You won’t be able to help but get better. 

So create!

Number 2: Talk Back to Self-Doubt and Criticism.

You’re never going to be rid of that voice in your head that points out everything wrong with your art. And at the end of the day, that voice can help you get better if you learn how to deal with it.

Whenever you’re on social media or with a group of other artists, there is always going to be someone better than you. You’re going to see people that are worlds away from where you’re at, and that can be discouraging. 

But it doesn’t have to be.

When that voice compares your art to theirs, you have to talk back to it. Here are some ways you can:

  • Yes, they may be better than you, but use that to inspire you to become better. It does not mean you aren’t a great artist. 
  • Take some time away from social media and make art for you.
  • Reach out to that person who is amazing and let them know. Connecting with others can help you remember that they are just people too! Complimenting others also helps you turn that voice away and allows you to focus on the good. 
  • Do some master copies. Copy what you see, and you’ll be amazed at what you find.
Number 3: Be Clear About Your Goals.

Once you’ve finished reading this, write down a “success statement.”

What does success look like to you? Is it to have hundreds of Instagram followers? Is it to illustrate a book? Or is it to put some part of you into your art? Look up some examples of other’s success statements and then write your own. Knowing what you want from and for your art will help you ignore things that don’t matter.

Be patient with yourself, put in the work, and love the journey.

Anna King graduated from BYU in 2019 with a BA in Illustration and minors in creative writing and editing. She’s currently working as a freelance illustrator in Utah. She’s been the illustrator for two self-published books and is currently the illustrator for a superhero webcomic. When she’s not drawing, she’s writing novels or watching movies—unless it’s a perfect day outside, in which case you’ll find her dancing in the rain.

Instagram: @aoking_draws
Current Project: Webcomic – Variant Heroes

Latter-day Profiles

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Latter-day Profiles is a collaborative effort of students, faculty, and staff at Brigham Young University-Idaho. The program features in-depth interviews with noteworthy members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Guests range from leaders in business and industry to educators, to musicians and authors to volunteers. All have stories to tell that are interesting, informative, and thought-provoking.

Latter-day Profiles is produced by students in coordination with faculty and staff advisors. That means the students research the guests, schedule the interviews, run the cameras, and edit the programs.

BYU-Idaho Communication faculty, Brian Howard, hosts the program and works closely with the students in the production process. Currently, Latter-day Profiles airs Sunday afternoons at 2:35 Mountain Time on BYUTV. Twenty-eight new episodes are produced every year.

We thought you might be interested in seeing the schedule for the first quarter of 2021!

LDPRF_39_01 / Carmen Rasmusen Herbert / Speaker, Singer & Author

Airs January 3rd 2021 / February 28th 2021

Carmen Rasmusen Herbert was a Top 6 finalist on the second season of FOX’s “American Idol” in 2003. She has appeared on many talk and entertainment shows including David Letterman, the Today show, MSNBC, and Good Morning America. 

LDPRF_39_02 / Ed Sexton / Dean, College of Business and Communication at BYU-Idaho

Airs January 10th 2021 / March 7th 2021

Ed Sexton is the dean of the College of Business and Communication at BYU-Idaho. He has served in the Sixth Quorum of the Seventy and as a bishop, high councilor, mission president, stake mission president, stake president’s counselor, and stake president.

LDPRF_39_03 / Meg Johnson / Speaker & Author

Airs January 17th 2021 / March 14th 2021

Meg Johnson is a founding partner for Jumping Turtle LLC and Our Turtle House. Her work as an influencer has touched many on a local, national, and international level, and Meg is a recipient of the Athena Leadership Award. Meg was a ballroom dancer and professional party planner. Then a weekend trip changed it all, and Meg was paralyzed on March 6, 2004, when she was hiking in Southern Utah.

LDPRF_39_04 / Joel Bishop / Speaker & Actor

Airs January 24th 2021 / March 21st 2021

Joel Bishop is the president of Rise to Your Challenge, which offers speaking, training, and consulting services. Joel is an accomplished actor, speaker, and presenter.

LDPRF_39_05 / David Christensen / Author

Airs January 31st 2021 / March 28th 2021

David Christensen is a senior advisor to the non-profit organization Mentors International. David is an author and has served as a mission president in Chile and as MTC President in Guatemala.

LDPRF_39_06 / Trina Boice / Author, Podcaster, BYU-I Instructor & Entrepreneur
Airs February 7th 2021 / April 11th 2021

Dr. Trina Boice is a #1 best-selling author of 31 non-fiction books. She is an author coach at FromBooks2Business.com and creates online courses at LifelongLearningEducation.com.  Trina also writes movie reviews at MovieReviewMom.com. A popular international keynote, she has gone on many speaking tours around the world. 

LDPRF_39_07 / Sharla Goettl / Author
Airs February 14th 2021 / April 18th 2021

Sharla Goettl is the author of “Spiritual Resilience: Leading Our Youth to Go and Do.”

LDPRF_39_01 / Charlie Bird / Author

Airs February 21st 2021 / April 25th 2021

Charlie Bird was Cosmo the Cougar at Brigham Young University from 2016 to 2018. He received national acclaim for his multiple dance performances with the BYU Cougarettes. As Cosmo, he performed across the country, including on the ESPN College Football Awards and on America’s Got Talent. 2017 was dubbed “Year of the Mascot” by NBC Sports in honor of Cosmo’s character and performance. Charlie was born and raised in Southwest Missouri and served a two-year mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Redlands, California. He graduated from BYU in 2018. Charlie is an active LBGTQ advocate and is involved with multiple nonprofit LGBTQ organizations nationally and across Utah.

18 Books and Podcasts Recommended by LDSPMA Members

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LDSPMA is all about publications and media. But which publications? Which media? Before we jump into our March theme—“A Month of Editing”—let’s see what LDSPMA members and friends are immersing themselves in. 

Book Recommendations

Podcast Recommendations

Trusting Your Teenage Writer: Three Tips to Avoid Overwriting

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By LoriAnne Spear

Have you ever tried to bluff your way through a conversation with your teenager, pretending you’re an expert on a subject so you can give them advice? Have you ever made up statistics to make sure they remember your warnings about whatever it is you’re worried they might do?

If you say no, hooray for you, awesomely cool and integrity-filled parents! I may have given a few impromptu lectures with far-out examples about having unprotected sex, falling grades, drinking, or just the sassing-your-parents-means-you-won’t-be-able-to-keep-a-job variety. Maybe they saw through me, but I wanted them to believe that I am an expert in all the downsides of those exciting dangers, and I hoped the more I talked and used impressive words, the more they’d believe me.

In much the same way, many of us novice writers overwrite in our insecure attempt to sound like a real writer. We use flowery language or big words so the reader will believe we’re legit. Instead, we produce overwrought writing and get in our own way. 

Here are three tips to avoid overwriting traps:

1. Cluttery Language. Choosing a twenty-dollar word when a simple one-dollar word is more authentic to your character. When you can’t choose between three foreboding images to describe a spooky place, so you throw all of them in—in the same sentence. Sometimes new writers add intrusive adverbs to describe the action on the page, instead of simple, powerful verbs in short sentences. That is how you build tension. The rest is clutter, and it gets in your reader’s way.

2. Redundancy. Do you want to be sure your unfinished-teenage-reader’s-brain truly understands how complicated the conflict is, how high the stakes really are, or how forbidden the love is? Repeating the same information using different words, in consecutive sentences, or even on the same page, is just hitting the reader over the head again and again with your pointy-point. It doesn’t add emphasis. It is not effective. It’s just annoying. What’s worse is that it takes focus off of what is most important—the story.

3. How to stop. Carol Lynch Williams teaches her students to look at every single sentence. If it’s not building toward the climax of the story, cut it. Look at each word in a sentence. Get rid of all helping verbs, all -ly adverbs, all passive constructions. Make every—single—word—count. Then give it to your beta readers, ask them to highlight all redundant information, overwritten descriptions, and irrelevant tangents. Then cut. Tighten. Refine. Repeat.

My Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers instructors have told me, “Trust your reader. Let them fill in the gaps. It’s more satisfying for them.” One simple, but unique, description ignites the readers’ imaginations. They subconsciously fill in the details of a setting or a character’s appearance by drawing from their own life’s experiences. It personalizes the story to them.

Finally, when you tell your story, start the movie in the reader’s mind as straightforward as you can. Revise and decorate it later with lovely language if needed. Clear the clutter and let your reader hear the character’s voice, and see the story play out in front of them. Isn’t that what we really want? For them to remember the characters and story long after they turn that last page.