Melissa: 0:00

I'm the official pedicurist for three 80-year-olds in our neighborhood. Because none of them can reach their feet anymore.

Heather: 0:07

I'm Heather Ruth Pack, and this is the Approachable Jesus, a Times of Faith production. Jesus can feel distant. The people of the Bible lived in a different world, a different time, but their times of faith weren't all that different from ours. And that's what we're going to talk about. I'm glad you're here. Welcome to The Approachable Jesus. I'm Heather Ruth Pack, and today we are discussing quietly noticing the needs of others. And my guest is Melissa Wallentine. She's been a friend of mine for over 16 years, and she is someone who is really good at doing this. So thank you so much for being here, Melissa.

Melissa: 0:44

I'm happy to be here.

Heather: 0:46

Thank you. So Melissa Wallentine was born in Arkansas and raised all over. She's always had an interest in reading and understanding scripture and began her own private study at age seven because her family didn't subscribe to any specific religion, though her mom had been raised Methodist. She chose to join the LDS faith as a teenager and subsequently volunteered as a missionary during sabbatical from college, later finishing degrees in linguistics and English, with a minor in computer science, and later a master's in instructional design. That is quite the educational resume. I'm so impressed.

Melissa: 1:25

You got to be able to do a variety of things.

Heather: 1:28

Yeah, you definitely fit that bill. So Melissa worked for 15 years in computational linguistics and in UX design, then married, had four children, and eventually switched careers. And this is how I met her teaching business communications at BYU Provo and retired at the beginning of 2025. She and her husband live in Springville, Utah, and all four kids are temporarily in Utah as well. I'm curious why they're temporarily in Utah.

Melissa: 1:58

They have plans to leave or well, my youngest and her husband are, he's in the military and they are in Utah for the next four years. They were in Georgia last year, and they're in Utah for the next four years. They intend to end up on the East Coast. They just much preferred that culture. And then I have another child who says she definitely wants to leave Utah at some point and finish raising her family outside of the state, but she's also working on a nursing degree here. And so I've got two who want to fly the coop and one who says I'm never leaving Utah, and another one who says kind of depends. So there we go.

Heather: 2:33

I it's funny. I have five kids, and two have flown the coop. There, one's on the East Coast, one's in the Midwest. And then I have one that's trying everything she can to get out of Utah. Um, she's got her sight set on the East Coast as well. And then I have one who he and his girlfriend just told me they're looking to leave Utah. And then I have my free spirit has traveled all over the world, and she's like, I love Utah. I'm gonna stay here forever. And I was like, Oh, you've seen the whole world, and this is your spot. That's awesome. So yeah, it's funny how when your kids you they could be raised in the same home, but all experience things differently.

Melissa: 3:12

They're so very different. Yeah, and the one that has said, I decided Utah is it for me, is the one I was sure would leave. And she has just said, no, I'm I'm I've looked at other places, she's been around, she said, no, I'm just this is where I want to be.

Heather: 3:26

So that's awesome. I love that. So I'm curious. You started, or I I don't know if you started your career in computational linguistics, but you spent 15 years in it and then switched over to teaching at BYU. You and I both taught business communications. I'm curious what that change was like for you and if there were any skills from computational linguistics that carried over into teaching business communications. Any overlap or were you having to learn a whole new skill set?

Melissa: 3:56

Really. I I uh I loved computational linguistics because I tried doing it part-time and part-time UX design as a mom. Wanted to be able to work part-time and be a full-time mom. And both of those areas tend to suck you in. So you start off saying, I'll do 15 hours a week or 20 hours a week. And within three or four months, they're saying, No, we really want you to be here 60 hours a week or at a minimum 40. So I kept trying to do that and it just didn't work. So then I just quit working altogether for about a year and a half while I tried to decide what I wanted to do. And during that time, I was, if you look over here behind me, you can see some pictures of some kids. I we had a lot of kids who were in the youth corrections program who lived with us. They'd come and stay with us for two months to a year and a half as they were transitioning back to their homes after they had been in gangs or in school violence or something. And I was working mentoring those. Like once I started having my own kids, I didn't want to have any chance of my kids getting hurt. So I quit having them in my home and started mentoring them. And one afternoon I was trying to teach them all how to write resumes because that has always been fairly easy for me. And one of them said, um, yeah, that's all well and good, everything you're telling us, but we've got a record. No one's ever going to want to hire us. And I said, Well, first of all, you know, juvenile records are sealed. But secondly, you can get jobs you're not fully qualified for if you write a good cover letter and are willing to do the work. And they didn't believe me. So I said, All right, pick a job. This is back in newspaper days still. So we pulled up the employment wanted ads, and uh, I said, pick a job you know I'm not qualified for. And they found the business writing one at BYU, and they said, Your background is all computer science. This is in the business school. You're you're not qualified. So I showed them how to tailor a resume and write a cover letter that would say, Here's why I'm qualified, in spite of me not having X, Y, and Z that you want. And I got hired. So then I quit mentoring students and went to teaching.

Heather: 6:06

Which, funny enough, we taught them how to create resumes.

Melissa: 6:09

Yes. And um, yeah, and it wasn't as big a jump because during all the time that I did computational linguistics and UX design, those are very insular worlds. They're very small ponds. And you can become a big fish very quickly. So I was invited to speak at workshops and seminars all over the US and Canada during that time. So getting up in front of people and teaching them how to do something wasn't that hard.

Heather: 6:36

Yeah. Yeah. And and that's really, I think, my so my background is molecular biology. I was getting a master's in public administration. Our mutual boss, Bill, says, Hey, I want you to become a business communications professor. And I kind of like you, I was like, excuse me, I I know how to extract mitochondrial RNA out of plant cells. Like, this is sir, this is a Wendy's. I don't know what you're doing, asking me, but he saw the carryover, I think, of um I I did have a background in public speaking, and I think he saw that's really what it is. Is can you can you speak in front of people?

Melissa: 7:20

And keep their attention, help them want to learn something instead of being bored by it. Yeah.

Heather: 7:25

Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, talking about our mutual boss Bill Baker, who we both just loved, I think he was someone who, like you, was really good at observing things that others weren't seeing. And I think he saw something in me that I didn't even see in myself. And it sounds like that's what you did for these people transitioning out of juvenile court, is you could see something in them that they were telling themselves a story that wasn't even true.

Melissa: 7:55

Right.

Heather: 7:56

And you and you could see a different story for them. And and that's a powerful gift, I think, that you have and Bill had. Today's episode will be a conversation about the wedding in Cana. For those who aren't familiar with the story, Jesus, his mother Mary, and his disciples attend a wedding in Cana. The wine runs out, a major embarrassment for the hosts. Mary tells Jesus, they have no wine. He replies that his hour hasn't yet come, but Mary tells the servants, do whatever he tells you. Jesus has them fill six large stone jars with water, and when the master of the feast tastes it, it becomes wine, better than what had been served at the beginning. It's Jesus' first public miracle and was prompted by Mary. Um, so I had you read the chapter uh from Midwives of Jesus of of Mary, and just did anything jump out at you or anything as you saw, you know, my I have kind of this different perspective of the story through the eyes of a servant. Did anything jump out at you when you read it?

Melissa: 9:08

Well, first of all, I love the perspective. It was wonderful seeing it from that perspective. Secondly, I'm one of the things I love about talking with you and reading things you've written is you always bring in context that I don't know anything about. And I'm not a scholar of the New Testament, I'm not a scholar of those times. I love learning about it. So I had no idea uh about the whole shame and guilt. And if you don't provide the right thing at the wedding, it can go on for generations that your family is inadequate. So suddenly, why Mary cared about the wine made more sense. Because as I've read that story over the years, I've always thought, well, that was nice of her, but water, water would be fine. So as I'm reading that and seeing it in your context, what jumped out at me the most was that she was concerned about not just this evening. She was concerned about the long-term ramifications for the bride, the groom, their families, their children, that one little mishap right now could affect people for generations. And I love that that mattered to her. It wasn't her wedding. She didn't have to care. I love that.

Heather: 10:25

Yeah. I and I've heard, you know, speculations and some theories that this was Jesus' wedding. And I've done the research and looked at what theologians have said. It just does not make sense. Why would Jesus get married in a town so far away from where you lived? And there's just so many reasons why in my mind it doesn't make sense. This was her problem to worry about. And we even get that from Jesus in his response. He uses this idiom that doesn't translate super well into English, kind of it almost sounds like, geez, woman, why are you bothering me with this? But really, what he's saying is just more how does this concern me? What is this to me? And, you know, and almost I wonder if he was a little concerned about overstepping boundaries of, you know, I'm a guest, I'm not the host, and I'm gonna go up and tell the host, hey, you've got a problem. You know, I I we don't know what was in the mind of Jesus, but we do know what the meaning of that idiom is, and it's definitely not one of, well, I don't want to have to worry about this.

Melissa: 11:32

Which it's really which is how it sounds in English, right? Well, and we do so many poor translations of the scriptures, plus, you know, when they were translated versus what that would mean now, all of these things. That's one of the fun things about studying linguistics for as long as I did is seeing all of the different things that language does over time.

Heather: 11:51

Yes.

Melissa: 11:51

Well, I've got a good friend named Gay, but after a few years, when she was about 14, she adopted her middle name and made it Gay Lynn because gay by itself no longer was okay. And just language changes over time.

Heather: 12:06

You're right. Language changes over time. And so I think when we um project Jesus and Mary's conversation into today's words and in today's context, it can be really easy to kind of misunderstand that interchange. This idea of Mary picking up on something that it sounds like was before other people were picking up on it. Because the the context I get from the story is there were people who were unaware that there had ever even been this miracle and that the wine shortage was happening because even the governor of the feast, which I always kind of think of as like the wedding planner, he was like in charge of making sure everyone was happy. Even he was like, oh, whoa, you've saved the best wine for last, you know? So even it sounds like he wasn't even fully aware of what the situation was. And and I just wanted to talk to you about times in your life when you feel like that's happened to you where there's a problem going on and you're clocking it before maybe even the people know they've had a problem or others are aware there's a problem.

Melissa: 13:14

I think it happens a lot. I'm not sure how many people are focused on different things. I know I've got a brother who can sense mechanical difficulties in a car before anyone else can. So maybe it's just one of those things. But again, I taught for 23 years at BYU. And one of the things I learned very quickly was you would see from a student's writing from how they showed up in class who they were. And sometimes in the course of a semester, you would see a drastic change. Uh, one of the last semesters I taught, one of the young men came into class fairly normal, kind of, you know, half enthusiastic, half a little worried, did a fairly normal job for about the first month. And then he suddenly kind of dropped off the radar. And not in the way a lot of kids do, where they quit coming and they've probably got a girlfriend or something, and they suddenly are so in in love they can't bother to be bothered with life. He dropped off the radar in a way that would show he was still somehow struggling to make an effort and it wasn't happening for him. Like he'd get a quiz halfway done and then just be done with it. And I reached out to him and and just said, Hey, this isn't like you, this is not the behavior I saw the first eight or nine classes. I'm worried, are you okay? And he responded and said, I'm not really okay. Can I come talk to you? So he came into my office and was talking with me. And in the course of a week, and I I fact-checked these things, so I went out and looked them up. In the course of one week, his next door neighbor, the dad of that family, had been a second dad to my student, and he died by suicide. And two days later, the student's best friend, who was a college athlete swimming for another school, went out to practice some techniques late at night in the pool, got a cramp or something, and drowned. So within two days, he lost his substitute dad and his best friend. And he was here in Provo, and his people that he had lost were in California. And we talked and we worked on deadlines and we worked on getting him some counseling and some support systems. And at the end of the semester, he said, I did what I did in your class in all of my classes, and you are the only teacher who even noticed. And I think it's easy as a teacher to be so focused on getting the grades back to the students in a timely manner, getting your next day's curriculum set, whatever it is. But what matters is those people who are showing up. And so that's and and he's by far not the first one of those. I've had many, many times over the years when I've noticed something with a student, I'll reach out to them, they'll respond. And most of them say no one else even noticed.

Heather: 16:14

Wow. And why why do you think I this might be a hard question for you to answer, but why do you think you were the professor that noticed? What do you think made you different than the other professors?

Melissa: 16:32

Part of who I am, part of who anyone is, is how you were raised. And I come from an extraordinarily dysfunctional family. My dad was married five times, my mom was married five times, my dad's an abusive alcoholic, or was while he was still alive. I think that having to be aware of where he was and what his moods were, adapting to new step siblings, stepparents constantly over and over, you become very, very good at reading people or noticing things, seeing when things are off. And I think that may as much as anything be why that's something I've a skill I've developed, because I had to develop it as a child, and there's no reason not to keep on doing it.

Heather: 17:19

So tell me a little bit more about your growing up and and your family. I think you told me you were you're in the process of writing a book about it, or Melissa: yeah, I've got such an incredibly dysfunctional

Melissa: 17:29

family that a lot of people, if they find out about it, it's not something I wander around trumpeting. But if they find out, they'll say, How in the world did you turn out normal? And usually they follow that up with, you should write a book. And my family, my dad, uh I am the product of his second marriage, and he was this charismatic genius, absolutely probably the smartest person I've ever met. Extraordinarily charismatic, and he could talk his way into anything. And he he just he drove truck, he ran construction companies, he was a chiropractor for a while, he was a TV actor, he he was Glen Campbell's singing partner when Glen Campbell got his start. And the two of this. He could do anything. He could play guitar, he could sing, he's just but he and when I was very small, his alcoholism was limited to just getting drunk. As he got older, and as I got older, he became very, very abusive. And that's part of the reason he went through so many wives. And he just he was the kind of person you would really not ever want to encounter if you really knew him. But if you didn't, he was so polished and so charismatic on the surface that everyone who met him liked him. Everyone. I never met a single person who didn't like him after their first encounter with him. But if I'm gonna write a book about something like that, I'm not an autobiography person, and I don't know if you've ever heard of the the book and then later turn into a movie Glass Castle.

Heather: 19:04

No, I haven't.

Melissa: 19:07

It's a woman whose family was very similar to mine in a lot of ways. And her dad was a lot like my dad. So I thought, well, that book's already been written. That story's already been told. If I were going to do this, what would I do? And I realized that one of the reasons that I'm so very normal is that I've been blessed with an ability to pick up the good things here and there. So there were some good things that my dad had, along with all the crap. So I thought, what if I were to write a book where someone was able to kind of Pollyanna their way through some of the hard times and pick up the good things and keep going? So that's kind of what I'm working on.

Heather: 19:50

As you're talking about your background and your growing up and how that kind of informs how you are able to pick up on things that other people can't, it kind of makes me think about Mary and how here she was this very young what we today would call a child. She's most likely 12, 13 years old when um she was betrothed to Joseph, if if she was following in the tradition of her culture and society at the time. And to take on that kind of a burden at such a young age, I've you know, and and not everybody knew what was going on. And so I'm sure there was judgment. I'm sure there was talking behind the the scenes of whispers and walking into the market and people all of a sudden conversation stop or you know, whatever. And and I'm like, I bet uh things like that, uh knowing what embarrassment has done in uh Mary's life, maybe it made her more sensitive to the embarrassment this host family was facing uh potentially.

Melissa: 21:09

I was thinking about the fact that Jesus grew up watching Mary do those things. She was probably the person who, all along the way, for him as well as his siblings, for neighbors, was an active participant in her neighborhood, in her community. And he would have seen that she was consistently reaching out and helping people. So when she came to him with this, it wouldn't have been an unusual request, probably, like get out there and rake your neighbor's leaves. No, the little old lady down the street needs her walk shoveled. The things that we do now would have been natural for her to be doing. Go help her fetch the water, help her carry the baby in. So my guess is he was not in a situation that was new to him. He'd probably helped her serve people off and on his entire life.

Heather: 22:00

Yeah. Yeah. That's that's a really astute observation. I love that. I'm just thinking that can you think of times in your life when that's been the case for you?

Melissa: 22:11

Oh, constantly. And I think my kids have grown up doing that. We have a neighbor next door who she and her husband moved in here when he retired. They were probably here for two years when a freak accident took his life. All of her kids were grown. So she's lived her entire retirement as a widow next door to me. So I've raised my kids raking her yard and shoveling her yard. And it's so consistent that she's come to rely on that. And other neighbors have noticed it. And one of them came up to me and said, one of my daughters in particular really took on the leaf raking because she's got enormous trees. And she said, Oh, I noticed that Taylor is on her mission. I need to come over and rake the leaves so that you're not doing it alone because I know Taylor always helped you. It's it's such a thing that is so reliable that we reach out and we help other people. And we do it all over the place. It was an interesting story. This wasn't me, this was a neighbor. He was my bishop, and everyone loved him. He was one of these beloved bishops. And when he was getting released, he got up and he said, and this made me think of Mary. He said, Uh, everyone has complimented me for five years now on how great I am at getting out and noticing someone whose roof needs replaced, someone whose yard needs raked, someone whose car is broken down. I don't actually notice any of those things. My wife does. And she gets zero credit, and I get all the credit. The fact is, it's my wife who will say, Did you notice this person has been walking to the bus stop every day? They have a car. We we should find out what's wrong with their car. Did you notice this person had a tree fall, a branch fall off their tree? We need to get someone over there with chainsaws to break that up. Did you notice? And he said, She's the one noticing all of it. And she can't do most of what I can do. She's a lot smaller than I am. She doesn't handle a chainsaw well. So she sends And I think we do that constantly, and our children grow up seeing it. Our neighbors watch it and notice it. I have a neighbor who says, When you're out of town, I then watch over this other person's house because we're out of town a lot lately. But I'm the one who's watching my my neighbor. So she goes over and tries to make sure the neighbor's okay when I'm not there.

Heather: 24:31

Because they know when you're there, that's what you're doing.

Melissa: 24:36

Right. And it becomes such a community thing, watching out for each other. I I love the idea of this whole series of things you've got with the women in Jesus' life. He grew up watching them, very obviously. And he turns to them repeatedly for things that he needs, whether it's someone to talk to, or whether it's taking a meal with someone. The Savior turns to them over and over and over again. He grew up turning to his mom and then watching his mom be there for other people. And our children and our neighbors watch us.

Heather: 25:10

I think there's so many stories in the Bible where this is my guess. I mean, we don't know because she's not mentioned, but it just seems to me like Mary is probably there in a lot more of these stories than she's getting a shout-out for or mentioned. This we do know, and that is after Jesus ascended back into heaven after his death, um, she was there at Pentecost. So she, so you know, it seems kind of hard to believe she would pop in when he's 12, pop in at the wedding of Cana, pop in at the crucifixion, and then pop in at the Pentecost. I have a hard time believing that.

Melissa: 25:48

Well, you know, she had her little calendar alerts up for the big Heather: and so that tells me she was probably behind the scenes a

Heather: 25:59

lot more than we realized. And and that's kind of what she was doing at this wedding. She was a guest and in in a lot of senses behind the scenes, because when we talk about the miracle in Cana, we talk about Jesus turning the water into wine. That's the miracle we talk about. And I think Mary was a big part of that miracle in recognizing there was a need.

Melissa: 26:28

And with talking to the woman at the well, being the savior of the world aside, how many times did he probably watch his mom do that? My kids have grown up watching me. Any single people who are single older sisters in our ward, they get invited over for Christmas or Easter or Thanksgiving, or we take plates to them if they don't want to leave their house or they're not comfortable in large crowds. I invited all of my students over for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Anyone who doesn't have a place to go, you're welcome to come to my house. So I had this cute Korean student and she called me and said, Can I, can I come and can I bring a couple of family members, a couple of cousins and a friend? And I said, Sure. She was about a half an hour late arriving and she came in the door just laughing. And I asked what was so funny. And she said that she had walked into a neighbor's house and just walked in because in her village in Korea, that's what you do. You just walk into someone's home. And they had been, the husband of the house had been surprised. He thought his wife had invited these people. So he says, Come on in, come on in. And they they lay down. They brought Korean barbecue and they were putting all the food out. And the wife came out and she said, Oh, Mark, uh, who are these people? I don't know these people. And he said, Oh, I thought you had invited them. They gradually found out it was my guests and sent them over to my house. And she and I were laughing about it later, the neighbor, and she said, Well, I know you. I know you're always bringing in all the people who don't have someplace to go. So I shouldn't have been surprised. And I knew right where to send them.

Heather: 28:02

Oh my goodness.

Melissa: 28:03

And be and that's just out of all the things that I got out of my parents, my dad, like I said, Pollyanna, your way through life. One of the things my dad did really, really well, in spite of all the things he did poorly, was that he welcomed people into our home all the time. And I've tried to do the same thing. So we started taking in exchange students. So off that wall has those foster kids. It also has exchange students from around the world. And because we started doing them, almost half our neighborhood ended up taking in exchange students. So people from around the world know our little town of Springville. And a lot of them, one of them came, his parents sent him on the exchange program because he had gotten heavily into drinking with his buddies at home. And he was from Germany, so they sent him here. And as a result of hanging out with us, he got his grades better when he went back home instead of having to have very few options for a job. His improved grades got him a job, got him an education as a pilot. So it's just seeing little things. I saw this kid show up and he just looked like he didn't know why his family had told him to go away. And it was about halfway through the year before he said, I finally get it. They were worried about my drinking making it so I didn't have a choice in where I would end up as far as my life went, because your grades determine what you're allowed to study. And my grades were so bad that I wouldn't have been allowed to study anything other than some very basic skill sets. So a lot of it is just seeing, and I think I just I love the idea that Mary is setting the example for Jesus, that she is serving the neighbors, that she is noticing things. So then later he sees a leper and he's he's drawn to helping someone who's sick. He sees a woman sitting at the well, he knows things about her. He doesn't call her to repentance. He's drawn to her, to have a conversation with her. I love that he probably saw all of that in Mary's behavior as he was growing up.

Heather: 30:08

Yeah, and what a what a wonderful example to be raised by, you know, uh as a mom. And and we there's a lot of speculation that by the time this wedding happens, Mary Mary's a widow at this point. Um we don't really hear of Joseph again until, you know, after the um experience at the temple. And so there's a lot of speculation that at some point between the ages of 12 and 30, um, Mary became a widow and became the sole parent in this home raising these children. And and I think um when you're raised by one parent, or you know, there's just one parent in the home, um, I think children I I don't know, I was raised by two parents. So I I don't feel like it sounds like you were raised by kind of a whole bunch of different combinations. But um I the thing I've observed from people who were raised with just a single parent is they tend to be more observant and more helpful and and see things because that's how you survive as a family unit.

Melissa: 31:26

It's true.

Heather: 31:27

Jump in and there's no, well, go ask your dad, well, go ask your mom that they don't have that luxury. And so were you ever raised in a single parent home at some point?

Melissa: 31:38

Between all the marriages, all the marriages. Between my dad's between my mom and the first stepmom and my mom and the second stepmom, and then a lot of times my dad was gone for long periods of time. So we would be with just my mom or just my stepmom. And yeah, you if you want a normal life, you learn that you have to make it. So when my dad was parenting us alone, he was trying to hold down a job. So if we wanted to have uh well-brushed hair as a nine-year-old, my sister had to brush my hair. If I wanted my little brother to look presentable, my older siblings would go off to junior high and he and I would be going to grade school. So I'd make sure that his clothes were clean and his face was washed. There's not as much as you were describing in Jewish culture of the shame, but there's still a certain amount of, well, your brother's the one who never has his face washed. So you want the family name to be associated with a kid who can at least show up with some grooming. If you want the floor swept, I remember many, many times friends would say, Oh, I'll just come to your house and we can study. And I would think, ah, is my house okay? Has the floor been swept? Are the dishes done? Because my dad's off driving truck or off getting drunk. So yeah, if you're there with a single parent, or you know, I'm sure if you've got two parents but they're drug addicted or something, you have the same issue. If you want a normal life, you make it.

Heather: 33:07

I, you know, it's interesting you you mentioned that because I grew up with a mother who was an immaculate housekeeper. And when I say immaculate, I'm saying she stayed up till midnight scrubbing the house immaculate. And we Melissa: I'm never going to be that person. I never am either. And let me tell you why. She didn't teach us kids how to clean. We weren't asked to clean. We'd look we'd go to school and she would go into our bedrooms and clean up. And you might think, oh man, you sure had it nice, Heather. You, you know, I I'll I I promise you, it's not all it's cracked up to be. Because, first of all, when I started college, I remember my roommate going, Heather, it's your turn to clean the bathroom. I didn't know what to do. And I had to go back out and say, Can you show me how to do this? I was embarrassed.

Melissa: 33:59

That would be embarrassing.

Heather: 34:00

The one privilege I had that I didn't realize I had growing up in such an immaculate home was it I never thought twice about asking a friend to come over. I never thought twice about um saying, hey, do you want to come over for this or bringing a friend home from the bus or whatever? Because I knew when we walked in the house, the house was going to be spotless. In conjunction with that, I didn't see any problems with inviting myself over to other people's homes. I didn't see that as a big deal. And I'm now realizing there was probably friends in my life who, like you, were having to go, wait, what's the house like?

Melissa: 34:41

Right. And sometimes you're saying things like, Wait, is my dad lying half dressed on the couch, passed out drunk?

Heather: 34:51

And those were yeah, and those were situations that I'm sure people in my life were experiencing. And I was blind, completely blind to it, because like you say, it's how we grow up, it's how we were raised. And so um it's it's like you've developed the superpower of being able to look at that one student when all the other professors are just going about grading their papers, and you're like, something's not right.

Melissa: 35:22

And you see that. I mean, I've had I've been the Relief Society president twice on a ward level and once now on a stake level. I've been the counselor probably eight times. So I've been a lot of times in situations where I get to know a little bit more about a lot of ward members than probably the average ward member does, because people will come up and talk to you when you are in those positions. And so I will have there's a one woman in particular who she just seems to have a sixth sense for when she should know something about someone. And she will call me to this day, even though I'm no longer her relief society president, she will call me and say, This is going on with this person. So you get privy to a lot of information you might not otherwise get. So, in addition to what I notice, because I will act on the things I notice, I have a lot of people who will then say, Hey, you should know about this. Hey, you should know about this. And I will find out things all over my neighborhood, even about people who are not belonging to the church or not active in the church. I think this person's having a hard time. I saw an ambulance over in front of that person's house. So, in addition to what I notice, I get told a lot of things. And I think, again, I I've often thought about the savior that way and think of how many times you hear of someone come running up to him. This is going on. This is going on. And how many times did that happen again with his mom and he sees his mom act on it?

Heather: 36:48

Yeah.

Melissa: 36:48

You know, I think a lot of what the savior did is a result of him being the divine savior, but I wonder how much of it was also the result of being raised by a person who, as we saw at the wedding, notices things in other people's lives and acts on them.

Heather: 37:04

Just thinking about kind of my growing up life compared to yours, had we been little elementary school friends together, how much of each other's story would we have really known?

Melissa: 37:16

Right.

Heather: 37:17

So I don't think I would have thought what my life was like was any different than anybody else's. And you might have thought this was your normal. Um, or maybe you knew it wasn't quite like a lot of people.

Melissa: 37:30

You know, a little bit, but like I knew that other people's families didn't constantly get divorced and remarried, so there was that. Yeah, you're like, but it's not normal to have uh five marriages between two people. But I would go to someone else's house and I would see uh because of my dad's drinking, we never had enough money. I I bought all my own clothes as soon as I got my first babysitting job when I was 11. My parents never bought me another stitch of clothing the rest of my life. So I would go to someone else's house and I would know, well, their parents are buying them stuff. They can afford braces when their teeth are crooked. They can afford, you know, and I knew that I was babysitting and buying, I babysat and mowed lawns. I knew that that's how I got all the money I had for clothing, for haircuts, my own eye doctor visits, all of that. So I knew that there was some of that going on, but I don't think I had any idea to what extent until I got to college. And then you you have all these roommates and you're talking about your lives and you realize how very, very different your lives are.

Heather: 38:33

Yes. 100%. And I remember as a freshman, a little young freshman, um, barely 18 years old, I one of the very first things I went to was, and I don't know if BYU still does this, but they used to have these um firesides on a Sunday night. I think they were once a month over at the Marriott Center. And someone from the church leadership would come and talk. I've never forgotten this, but the person who came was um Boyd K. Packer, and he made a comment that I've I've thought of for decades, and I've repeated to my students many times, and this is what he told me, or well, me and thousands of other people in the room. Um, he says, you are going to learn just as much over pizza and root beer as you are in the classroom.

Melissa: 39:26

That's true.

Heather: 39:28

And what I took that to mean was um pay attention to your roommates, pay attention to the fun times, to the off outside of the library times, because there you're getting an education too. And I had roommates that I never saw because they spent 24-7 in the library. And I just thought, you know, book learning is great and it's important, but these people in my life have something to teach me as well. And I learned volumes from my roommates. And I had roommates from all situations.

Melissa: 40:09

One of my favorite things I learned from my roommates was who I was, who I am. I had one roommate who came. She she bought this absolutely awful, awful outfit at the store at the mall. And she came back and she'd tried it on for all the other roommates. I think there were five of us. And she came to me and she said, Melissa, I want your opinion. How do I look in this? And I said, It's a great color. Makes your eyes pop, good for your skin and hair. It's horrible on you. It it drags down your posture. You look frumpy. And she started laughing and she said, I knew I had to ask you. You're the only one who will actually tell me the truth. And as fun as that was to hear, it also kind of became one of those, you know, if you're building yourself, it became one of those building blocks because I thought part of who I am, at least known by this one person, can be Melissa's going to be honest with you. She'll be tactful, but she'll be honest. And that became huge to me. And later someone else said to me something about, well, I can tell you, I was the Relief Society president, and she said, Can I talk to you as Melissa, my friend, not Melissa the Relief Society president? And I said, Of course. She said, because I don't want this to go anywhere. I don't want it to come up in ward council. And I know that if I tell you, it won't go anywhere because you don't gossip. And I thought, okay, there's another building block. So part of what you learn is how you're perceived by others, and they're not always positive. Sometimes you hear something, you think, okay, I don't ever want to do that again because I don't want to be known as the person who does that. But it's wonderful to hear these things and think, yeah, that's who I want to be. So now I'm going to make a conscious effort to make sure that is who I am.

Heather: 41:56

Here's something I hadn't even thought of in you talking about the building blocks and people kind of teaching you what you should value about yourself. And that is for the few people in that room who knew that Mary knew there was a wine situation, they probably were like, that's someone I know I can trust to fix a problem when they see that there's a problem. She's gonna do what she can to make sure, and she knew her son could fix it. She had trust in her son. And and they probably saw her as someone who's like, hey, you know what? I'm not just gonna ignore it. I'm not gonna just let it go. I'm gonna do what it takes to get that situation solved. And I knew my son could solve it. And so I think that would have built some trust with Mary and whoever else in that room knew that um there a miracle had occurred that day. And someone knew about the conversation between Mary and Jesus because it got recorded. You know, it made it into the scriptures. So whether it was told later to the gospel writer or, you know, Mary or Jesus themselves are the ones that um reported that conversation to the gospel writer. And and I love that observation of there's things that you do that you just kind of come naturally to you, but someone else is like, hey, I value this in you. I love that you do this.

Melissa: 43:29

And it goes back to Mary knowing to talk to Jesus. It goes back to that knowing what your resources are and knowing who you can rely on to come through with those. And I mean, that happens all the time to all of us in our own families, right? You someone comes to you and says, Oh, if I have an issue with this, I'll go to this person. We do it all the time. It's just broadening family to include neighbors and ward members and communities so that everyone knows this is the person who I can trust to do this. And I, you know the. I have a trans child. And I was talking with a friend of mine who has spent a lot of time in Africa and Samoa on humanitarian trips. And she said, you know, there are a lot of people in some of the groups that we come to help with. She specifically works on people who've had scarlet fever and may have heart issues. And she said, We'll go into some fairly remote areas and there will be people who have, you know, tribes or cultures that have gay people, trans people, and they just don't care. They don't even make an issue out of it. And I said, Why do you suppose that is? And she said, Because their community relies so heavily on everyone to do their job. If you will do your job of gathering firewood, we actually don't care what you dress like. If you will do your job of bringing water, we don't care how you act. And she said, I think in some ways, you know, we consider these fairly primitive cultures, but in some ways that is way more advanced than we are. That we that these cultures can look at someone and say, who you are matters less than are you a part of our community? How you dress, how you speak, less important than are you doing your part to be a part of our community? And she said, in some ways that feels like it's a bit more advanced than we are in our culture. That calling them third world or primitive cultures kind of ignores the fact that they're better at some things when it comes to how people treat people than we are. And I think about the Savior that way. You don't ever see him saying, you were taken in adultery, and therefore you probably shouldn't even be talking or showing up in public. I just don't think we could, I don't think we value community the way that I think we're supposed to. I look at, I love all the examples in the scriptures of how people are helping each other out. It's constant. Everywhere you look, the stories in the scriptures are the people who are pulling the guy up so that he can get into the pool of Bethesda, the people who are running to tell the savior this person has died or this person needs your help. It's it's community everywhere. And I think we are Western culture, maybe more than most, we are so focused on, yeah, the individual getting ahead. One of my former exchange students lives in Australia, and we were talking to each other at the end of 2020, and she said, you know, the mask thing, the don't go out and do parties thing. She said, I think it's easier in Australia than it is in the US. And I said, Why do you suppose that is? She said, in Australia, the people who started Australia as a as a colony of England were dumped into what is actually a very hostile land. There are a lot of spiders that can kill you, there are a lot of things that can hurt you. And they had to rely on each other to just survive. And she said, so Australia's core culture is mateship. You take care of your mate. And that's how they advertised all the stuff during COVID was wear a mask. Your mate may be fine, but your mate has to go see his grandmother, and grandma may be weak. So protect your mate's grandma. And he said that's she said that's how it was advertised everywhere. And I think it's an interesting thing to see the cultural difference. And they're, you know, competitive just like we are. They have as many lawsuits as we do. But it was an interesting thing to hear her point that out, to think watching out for one another, that ability to do like Mary did and see a need and feel it, they try to promote that as part of their culture, who they are. And I think that's kind of a critical thing that you either build that muscle or you don't. If you're if you're inclined that way, like some people are, if you're naturally gifted that way, if you are like me growing up in an environment where noticing how someone else is doing is the difference between getting a beating and not getting a beating, that's one thing. But you can also then just start working to strengthen that muscle. You can look around you and see, my neighbor over here, she's hurt her back. She's single. I can look over there and say, I know that it is time for her to turn on her sprinklers this spring, and I know she can't crawl under that big tree of hers. I can go do something about that. Or I can sit around and say, that's her responsibility. She'll be fine. But strengthening the muscle to even notice those things is is half the battle.

Heather: 48:44

Well, and and I'm gonna be kind of vulnerable with you for a minute because growing up in such a pristine home, such a beautiful home, um I it really kind of taught me that impressions and what other people think of you matter. And, you know, I I think I was kind of raised with this inherent belief that put on a good face, put on a good impression, don't let people see the messy parts of your life. And that was always kind of, I think, quietly spoken to me. And I think about myself being in Mary's shoes at that wedding, and I'll be honest, I think this is where my brain would have gone. Oh my gosh, they're getting close to running out of wine, and they're running out of wine way too soon. And this is gonna bring a lot of shame onto this family. So I'm just gonna pretend like this is the most normal thing happening in the world because I don't want to embarrass them. So I'm just gonna let this go. I honestly feel like that's more my background and more my growing up inclination is I don't want to go to someone and say, hey, you've got leaves all over your yard. Do you want me to help you rake that? Because then I feel like I would be embarrassing them by saying, you've got leaves all over your yard. I mean, to be truthful, I think that's where a lot of my hesitancy to be like Mary comes from, is I don't want to draw attention to the obvious problem by talking to them about it. So um what advice would you give to people who maybe are like me or maybe just aren't even seeing the problem at all so that they could become someone who is more observational and less hesitant to jump in and help when they see an issue?

Melissa: 50:42

Well, let me let me do those kind of in the order you brought them up. How to how to approach that. Uh, I had a stepmom who was wonderful at this. She was amazing. And her approach was to couch it as you're helping me out. So she'd go over to a neighbor and say, I notice you've got leaves on your lawn, and I'm sure you've got a plan for taking care of them. But I've got a couple of kids here and they're bored and they're driving me crazy. Would you mind if I had them rake your yard? So she would couch it as you're helping me out for me to help you out. And she was very, very good at it. Um, you can't always do that. I was at a friend's wedding. They were doing crepes. She'd made a bunch of crepes in advance. More people showed up than she planned on. She didn't have enough crepes to go around. So I approached her and just said, Hey, I know that you're running out of crepes. You know how much I hate being at weddings. I'd rather be in the kitchen than out mingling with people. Can I run and get you some more from the store? So it was still a little bit about me, but mostly it wasn't, it was obviously her problem. But if you can find a way to say, you'll be helping me out to let me help you out. If you can find that approach, that makes it so much easier. And people, even if they see through it, they like that you've given them an out. So there's that. As far as how to notice it, this is, I think, becoming a bigger and bigger problem because we don't sit around looking at people. You watch people, it used to be you stood in the elevator and you tried to figure out some uncomfortable conversation to have. In fact, there were entire comedy routines, comedians who would talk about weird things they do in the elevator just to get people to be out of that uncomfortable silence. Doesn't happen anymore. Everyone's face is in their phone. So the first thing would be to start getting your face out of your phone and walk around your neighborhood at night, leave your phone at home if you have to, but walk around and just start actually seeing people. Brains that are constantly entertained are not brains that solve problems.

Heather: 52:48

Yeah. You know, your your comment reminds me of a, it's kind of a funny thing I say about myself, but I'm now realizing there's probably a lot more truth to it than I realize. And that is sometimes I turn down the radio when I'm driving so I can see better. You know? And I find I especially do that. This is when I probably do it the most, is when I pull into a parking garage and I need to find a place to park, I have to turn the radio completely off. And I, and I always kind of think, yeah, how is that sound to help preventing me from finding a parking spot? Like it's it seems like a funny old lady thing to do, you know. But now I'm realizing I think there's probably more truth to the to what's going on than I realize. And that is what if I'm getting stimulated even with sound, it's affecting my vision because it's all processing in the brain, right?

Melissa: 53:45

Right. And if you can force, I mean, that's one of the things that meditation is so good for. And and I remember when I first started trying to meditate, uh, I was thinking you have to be able to completely clear your mind. That's not true. It's almost impossible to do for most of us. What you have to do is acknowledge the thought and let it go and get back to focusing on whatever it is you're focusing on, whether it's your breathing or some mantra you're trying to say or whatever it is. But the whole point of doing a lot of that is that your mind is almost never quiet. And if you can let your mind be quiet, then you can be more creative. You can solve problems, you can notice problems in other people's lives or issues or when they need a hug. You're not going to notice any of that if there's a constant music or murder mystery or anything else going in your ears at all times, or if you're always, always playing games on your phone.

Heather: 54:38

Yeah.

Melissa: 54:39

Those quiet moments are what allow you to look around and see things. There's, I'm the official pedicurist for three 80-year-olds in our neighborhood because none of them can reach their feet anymore. And they all trust me to come and do that because the first time I showed up uh to this one woman's house, I said, Is there anything that you need me to do that you just don't want to ask someone else to do? And she said, Yeah, there is. And I said, I promise, I'm not gonna wander around telling people, hey, I had to go do this for such and such. Your secret's safe with me. So I pedicure the feet of a bunch of people who can't reach their own toes anymore because they're too embarrassed to ask somebody else. And I was smart enough to think, while I'm here, instead of paying attention to the next text message that popped up on my phone, I'm just gonna ask, what do you not want to ask people to do but you really need done?

Heather: 55:32

Yeah. And I think it's not even phones that can be the problem. It can even just be our own thoughts. Because when I go to a cocktail party that I'm going to as the plus one of my husband, I'm all kinds of angst going on in my head. And I'm worried about how am I dressed appropriately? I my husband and I are very close in age, but I look a lot younger than him. So people don't always assume I'm his wife. And I mean, I've just got all kinds of like issues going on in my own head that I'm not even thinking about how is someone else feeling at the party? Are they uncomfortable? Could they use someone to have a conversation with? I and I don't have my phone anywhere near me at those places, but it's in a way, it's like I have another thing distracting me that's keeping me from being the kind of person that Mary would have been at that party.

Melissa: 56:30

And they always talk about, you hear people talk about being present and being in the moment. And and I hate buzzwords, but they actually have a point there. If you can walk into, in our case, we have a neighborhood barbecue we do at the end of every summer. If you can walk into that and not worry about, did I make good brownies to share the thing? And instead, set your brownies down, forget about them. Go sit someplace and actually just be there. Don't be worrying about your brownies. Don't be thinking, how quickly can I get out of here because I want to go home and finish that book or that quilt or my weed pulling or whatever it is. Just be there and look around you. That's when you notice that, hey, wait a minute. My neighbor over here has shown up and her husband's not with her. He's always with her. I wonder if he's okay. And those thoughts won't come to you when you are tied up in your own stuff. Like you said, whether it's a phone or whether it's your own anxiety or whatever it is, if you can learn to take a deep breath and focus on everybody else or just the moment, it's huge.

Heather: 57:34

Because I one thing I just really dislike is when people ask if they'll ask questions kind of like, are you the second wife? They want to know if I'm like they'll want to know if I'm the first wife or this, because I just don't look, I don't match my husband. I don't know how to explain it.

Melissa: 57:50

You've always had a baby face. When you told me that you were about the same age I am, and you had kids who were the same age as my kids, I thought, were you 12?

Heather: 57:59

Yeah, I get that all the time. And and frankly, it's genetics. People ask me what creams I use, and I'm like, I was born to a Danish mom. I don't know what else to say. But, you know, people think, oh, I would love to look so young. It is not all it's cracked up to be. And it does create a lot of self-consciousness when my kids are at the Costco and they're getting yelled at because they're trying to get a sample without their mom. And I'm over here like, I'm the mom. And it's so it makes my kids not even want to get the Costco sample, you know, or people assuming I'm my husband's daughter or whatever. It gets me so uncomfortable and so self-conscious that I do get in my own head and I just start worrying more about what people are thinking of me than what I need to be doing to help others. It I'm realizing my, I don't know if my phone's so much a problem, but just my own internal angst of not feeling like I fit in and not feeling like I belong where I am because I don't look like I belong.

Melissa: 59:00

Well, see, here's one of the things, though, is it that's something that could be useful if you looked around and thought, I wonder who else here doesn't feel like they belong. Wonder who else here feels out of place. I I was always my dad moved us around so much. My dad moved us 37 times in the 11 years he was married to my mom. That's more than three times a year. We were always the new kids someplace. And so I'm really good at picking out someone else who feels like they don't fit in. I'm really good at that because I did I felt it myself so often. So sometimes those things that we recognize, if you're self-aware enough to recognize them, can help you find them in other people too and be the person who makes them feel good. I have a friend who, when we first built our house in Springville, we built the house we planned to die in. And she was in a little tiny starter home that was about the third the size of ours. And our house isn't huge, but hers was tiny. And I went over there one day and she'd done some beautiful things on the walls, and I complimented her and she said, you know, I love that about you. She said, My house is so humble compared to yours. And yet you find things to admire in my house. And I thought, didn't that look very hard? She's actually a really good decorator. She's she's got great taste in spacing and color, and I that's something I lack entirely. Anything that looks good in my house, my husband did, not me. So, you know, it's just that sort of thing where you think it's not that hard to notice what someone else does that's really good rather than focusing on what you have that's not so good.

Heather: 1:00:44

Yeah, yeah. And uh I went to a funeral of a great friend of mine. She died later in life and had lived a long full life. And and someone and gave a eulogy or, you know, some messages about her and said, she always had a way of making everyone feel like their home was the most beautiful home she had ever walked into. And I remember in that moment going, wait, mine wasn't the most beautiful home she had ever walked into. I generally saw, generally believed her. I thought she loved my home.

Melissa: 1:01:15

Awesome. That is awesome.

Heather: 1:01:17

And I just remember thinking, I would love for every person that I meet to think that that they just I lift them up and I and I just make whatever they did or whatever they said, just the, you know, I don't want to lie, I want to be authentic, but um I thought right how just from a genuine place.

Melissa: 1:01:40

I mean, she probably looked at your home and saw things that she genuinely loved and looked at someone else's home and saw things that she genuinely loved, and it probably was as genuine as could be. It just comes from needing to be able to see the world that way.

Heather: 1:01:54

Yeah, I don't think she ever said, this is the most beautiful home I've ever seen. I don't think those words ever came, but she made you feel that way.

Melissa: 1:02:01

Right.

Heather: 1:02:01

And I think it was the feeling that just grows when you give it away.

Melissa: 1:02:08

And the opposite is also true. You think about people who make everyone around them feel a little intimidated, a little less intelligent. It's the same thing, it's that same ability. And it comes from who you are deep inside you. Do you honestly look at things and think, wow, that's beautiful? That's what's going to come out of you.

Heather: 1:02:28

Yeah. Yeah, I love that. Well, Melissa, thank you so much for spending this time with me and sharing your wisdom and your perspective. And I I know I've known you for, you know, 16 years, but I feel like I've gotten to know you even better just talking today and sharing.

Melissa: 1:02:45

I love chatting with you. I it's one of the highlights that anytime I get a chance to.

Heather: 1:02:50

Yeah, we we could definitely go on forever, couldn't we? But um, anyway, thank you so much for spending this time with me and sharing your thoughts on how we can quietly notice the needs of others. Thank you so much, Melissa. Thanks for joining me at the Approachable Jesus. Please share this episode with a friend. That's how these conversations find the people who need them. My newsletter, current course offerings, and all my latest resources are at timesoffaith.com. Remember, Jesus is closer and more approachable than you think.