Podcast appearances and mentions of Casey Blake

  Clement speaks to Registered Counsellor and Sex Educator, Casey Blake unpacking the concept of Aromanticism and the complexities that accompany it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    Clement is joined by Registered Counsellor and Sex Educator, Casey Blake where they define what is sexual fluidity. They look at how sexual attractions may change over time and how people may also experience changes in who they are attracted to, who they have sex with, and which labels they use to describe their sexual orientationSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week we are joined by Casey Blake who is a Registered Counsellor with a special interest in sexual wellbeing, gender, trauma and sexuality and relationship education (SRE). She created Tools for Having “The Talks” which is a series of workshops and online course to assist parents and caregivers to have conversations about bodies, boundaries and sexuality. In this conversation with Casey we talk about parents of young children can create a safe environment to have open conversations with their children to educate them about sex and also protect them from predators. Links from the episode You can find Casey's website hereThe UNESCO Guidance on Sexual EducationSubscribe and listen to 2 Broke Twimbos everywhere podcasts are available and keep up with all things 2BT via this link:2BT LinkPlease rate and review, and support

The Talk, About Sex… Casey BlakeThe Talks, when and how to start? This is a must listen episode, it will encourage you to think deeply and possibly challenge your perspectives about how to give these ‘talks' as well as how they might be received. The empowerment awaits, so that YOU can confidently move toward starting conversations about topics that youth is undoubtedly already exposed to. #anatomy, #bodyautonomy, #consent, #relationshipdynamics, #heteronormativity, #genderdiversity Caseys knowledge and perspective on these ‘challenging topics' is golden and I am so grateful to share this episode with you!Have a listen, reflect, explore and let us know your thoughts! Todays Guest:Casey Blake is a Registered Counsellor, with a special interest in sexuality, gender, traumaand parenting. Her career has focused on the emotional & psychological implications ofliving in a society where open, honest conversations about gender, sexuality, and sexualwellbeing are frowned upon. She created and runs sexuality education workshops forparents and caregivers, which is now also available as an online course.Workshops and the course: www.toolsforhavingthetalks.co.zaCounselling: www.whatnowcounselling.co.zaFB: https://www.facebook.com/ToolsforHavingTheTalkshttps://www.facebook.com/groups/857495814353422 (Body-Positive Parenting with Casey Blake, FB Group)https://www.facebook.com/WhatNowCounsellingInstagram:https://www.instagram.com/toolsforhavingthetalks/To recommend interviewee guests and suggest topics, please leave a review for the show along with your suggested topics. You are also welcome to head over to the YouTube channel and leave a comment with your desired topics and guests.  More from Candice IG: @nurtureyourvagina NurturePelvicHealth.com Use the code NURTUREPOD for a 20% discount on any courses.Todays Sponsor: Guided By Glow  Guided by Glow is giving our listeners $20 off the annual membership. Use the promo code NURTURE on guidedbyglow.com  This promo is available only through the website but if you prefer an app you can also access a few free glow sessions through their app!Thank you and as always, stay curious!Candice

In this episode, Steve Fretzin, Margaret Burke, and Casey Blake discuss:Inefficiencies in technology and financial management in law firms. Daily inefficiency improvements. What happens when you wear too many hats. Your law firm as a business.  Key Takeaways:Anyone considering working with you, not just clients, are looking at your website. Make sure it is supporting what you want people to know. Having a diverse team, with mixed speciality areas, can assist you in better supporting and understanding your clients. Fix problems, don't just cover them with a bandaid. Taking all the work on yourself, is only a bandaid. Let go and delegate to the right people. It is important to see your firm as a law firm and understand that it needs to operate in that fashion.  "Having a process in place really streamlines time and makes staff happier, because the staff end up, sometimes, doing extra work when there's not a process in place. The financial management and processes are critical." —  Casey Blake Connect with Margaret Burke & Casey Blake:  Website: https://www.kolibrilaw.com/Phone:  833-330-1633Email: cblake@kolibrilaw.com & mburke@kolibrilaw.comFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/KolibriLawSupport/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kolibrilawsupport/Kolibri's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/kolibri-law-support-solutions/Margaret's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/margaret-t-burke/Casey's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/casey-blake-mosca-82a99324/ Connect with Steve Fretzin:LinkedIn: Steve FretzinTwitter: @stevefretzinFacebook: Fretzin, Inc.Website: Fretzin.comEmail: Steve@Fretzin.comBook: The Ambitious Attorney: Your Guide to Doubling or Even Tripling Your Book of Business and more!YouTube: Steve FretzinCall Steve directly at 847-602-6911  Show notes by Podcastologist Chelsea Taylor-Sturkie Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it. 

1) Many old Friend alerts from around the league. From Carrasco to Marshall to Luplow to Guilmet. I also dig into some interesting players who have been designated for assignment recently in Tommy Doyle and Franchy Cordero.2) Discussing Yency Almonte and why his splits show that he could help a team. We talk about the completion of the Danny Duffy trade as the player to be named later is an Ohio kid and former Kent State pitcher.3) More stat sleepers talk as we dig into the players who could help the Indians as we attempt to find the next Mark Canha or Casey Blake.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKED15,” and you'll get 15% off your next order.BetOnline AGThere is only 1 place that has you covered and 1 place we trust. Betonline.ag! Sign up today for a free account at betonline.ag and use that promocode: LOCKEDON for your 50% welcome bonus.Rock AutoAmazing selection. Reliably low prices. All the parts your car will ever need. Visit RockAuto.com and tell them Locked On sent you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

1) Many old Friend alerts from around the league. From Carrasco to Marshall to Luplow to Guilmet. I also dig into some interesting players who have been designated for assignment recently in Tommy Doyle and Franchy Cordero. 2) Discussing Yency Almonte and why his splits show that he could help a team. We talk about the completion of the Danny Duffy trade as the player to be named later is an Ohio kid and former Kent State pitcher. 3) More stat sleepers talk as we dig into the players who could help the Indians as we attempt to find the next Mark Canha or Casey Blake. Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! Built Bar Built Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKED15,” and you'll get 15% off your next order. BetOnline AG There is only 1 place that has you covered and 1 place we trust. Betonline.ag! Sign up today for a free account at betonline.ag and use that promocode: LOCKEDON for your 50% welcome bonus. Rock Auto Amazing selection. Reliably low prices. All the parts your car will ever need. Visit RockAuto.com and tell them Locked On sent you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this week's episode, I talk to Casey Blake a registered counsellor, expert on sexuality, trauma, gender, parenting, and relationships. Casey joined the #MoneyMagic course in 2017 after meeting me in person at a workshop presentation. In this podcast episode, Casey explains to us how money impacts our ability to access different products and services and also takes us into the realm of sex and sex education. She shares her insights on sex and sexual trauma and how boundary violations can affect our sense of safety and how that can also impact and affect our finances and our ability to set financial boundaries and how that can also impact our decisions around visibility (it's mindblowing). She shares how she used to have a very interesting relationship with money - where she was middle class but never really made any money because other people were paying for her lifestyle. She explains how she was able to start contributing more financially in her relationship, how she was able to build a thriving practice and start saving more. I hope you enjoy this episode as much as we did recording it. Click play and leave me a comment in the comments section below.   Timestamps: [2:04] Intro to Casey Blake [6:55] Teaching parents to talk about sex with their children [11:36] Teenagers can't trust in their bodies? [14:47] Let's talk about consent [19:04] Separating pleasure and sex. [21:02] Learning to set boundaries [28:32] How would you describe money to an alien? [30:13] The money and excess [32:46] What would you have liked to know when you started your money journey? [34:09] The importance of sleep and rest [38:43] The poverty generated by the system [41:30] How can the system be improved? [46:15] How did you feel emotionally before starting the Magic Money course, and how did it change?   Contact Casey: Counselling: Website: https://whatnowcounselling.co.za Email: casey@whatnowcounselling.co.za   Sex Education course: https://toolsforhavingthetalks.co.za/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/toolsforhavingthetalks/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ToolsforHavingTheTalks Facebook  group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/857495814353422    If you enjoyed the podcast and were inspired by Casey's story and how she has changed her relationship with money, then I want to invite you to check out and register for the #MoneyMagic course.  The magic is in the healing.    In this course, I help women of colour create a consistent stream of income of R40,000/US$2,500 or more per month with ease. You can enrol or get on the waiting list for the course at this link: wealthy-money.com/moneymagic

Title: "Outsourced Back-Office Support Focused On Law Firms" Guest: Casey Blake and Margaret Burke - Kolibri Law Support Solutions Interviewers: Jeffrey Davis - MAGE LLC & Evan Macedo - Sapers & Wallack / FEI Boston The post “Outsourced Back-Office Support Focused On Law Firms” with Casey Blake & Margaret Burke of Kolibri appeared first on Radio Entrepreneurs.

In this episode I chat with Casey Blake, who is a Registered Counsellor. Her counseling interests include sexuality, gender, trauma, and parenting, as well as working with people whose lived experiences are outside of heteronormative expectations. She is the creator of Tools for Having “The Talks” - a series of workshops for parents and caregivers, building their confidence, comfort, and skills in having age-appropriate conversations with the children in their care. These workshops cover topics ranging from speaking about the body, touch, consent, bodily autonomy to sexuality. Together we discuss sex, feeling safe in a relationship, pleasure, what LGBTQIA means and why we should know. We also discuss how we should talk to kids about sex and all the things our parents did not know how to do back then. Oh, and having sex for the first time. Let's Be Honest! Contact details: Phone: 0732212609 Email:http://casey@whatnowcounselling.co,za Website:https://whatnowcounselling.co.za/ https://toolsforhavingthetalks.co.za/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WhatNowCounselling Instagram:http://@ToolsforHavingTheTalks Practice Location:http://Highway Gardens, Edenvale.

We generally find it difficult to talk about sex with our partners. And when it comes to properly educating our kids about sex… It’s even more difficult! Most parents really aren’t prepared to have THE talk, and this can leave it up to others, such as schools, where we take a more "better left unsaid" approach to exploring the topic with them afterwards. This is actually detrimental to your child's sexual development! This week I chatted to registered counsellor Casey Blake, who has a special interest in sexuality, gender, parenting, relationships, and trauma. Much of her career has focused on the emotional and psychological implications for people in a society where open and honest conversations about sex are frowned upon. She runs workshops for parents and caregivers that help feel more competent and confident to have age appropriate conversations with their children. So much of what Casey shares in this episode are concepts and lessons we all need - whether you have kids or already or you're planning to have kids someday. You can find out more about Casey and her work by visiting her website: www.whatnowcounselling.co.za or on Instagram @toolsforhavingthetalks

We generally find it difficult to talk about sex with our partners. And when it comes to properly educating our kids about sex… It's even more difficult! Most parents really aren't prepared to have THE talk, and this can leave it up to others, such as schools, where we take a more "better left unsaid" approach to exploring the topic with them afterwards. This is actually detrimental to your child's sexual development! This week I chatted to registered counsellor Casey Blake, who has a special interest in sexuality, gender, parenting, relationships, and trauma. Much of her career has focused on the emotional and psychological implications for people in a society where open and honest conversations about sex are frowned upon. She runs workshops for parents and caregivers that help feel more competent and confident to have age appropriate conversations with their children. So much of what Casey shares in this episode are concepts and lessons we all need - whether you have kids or already or you're planning to have kids someday. You can find out more about Casey and her work by visiting her website: www.whatnowcounselling.co.za or on Instagram @toolsforhavingthetalks

At a time when American political and cultural leaders asserted that the nation stood at “the center of world awareness,” thinkers and artists sought to understand and secure principles that lay at the center of things. From the onset of the Cold War in 1948 through 1963, they asked: What defined the essential character of “American culture”? Could permanent moral standards guide human conduct amid the flux and horrors of history? In what ways did a stable self emerge through the life cycle? Could scientific method rescue truth from error, illusion, and myth? Are there key elements to democracy, to the integrity of a society, to order in the world? Answers to such questions promised intellectual and moral stability in an age haunted by the memory of world war and the possibility of future devastation on an even greater scale. Yet other key figures rejected the search for a center, asserting that freedom lay in the dispersion of cultural energies and the plurality of American experiences. In probing the centering impulse of the era, At the Center offers a unique perspective on the United States at the pinnacle of its power.

Stories in this episode: A journey to learn more about his grandparents leads Jeff across the world to old chapels, monasteries and hidden towns only to find dead ends––until a chance encounter on a remote mountain side; KC’s inherited pocket watch had long since become a plaything for his kids, until a close inspection of the watch yields an inscription that broadens his definition of “family.” Show Notes:  To see pictures and links for this episode, go to LDSLiving.com/thisisthegospel Transcript:  Sarah Blake  0:03  Welcome to This Is the Gospel, an LDS Living podcast where we feature real stories from real people who are practicing and living their faith every day. I'm Sarah Blake hosting today in place of KaRyn Lay. I'm happy to report that KaRyn is on the mend after a rough week recovering from COVID-19. Our theme today is "Family Ties." But before I get into that, I want to talk about rock climbing. I am not a cool rock climber, but I have seen some movies. So I happen to know that most of the time rock climbers are clipped in to a whole coordinated system of ropes that are connected to secure anchor points. And then the other end of the rope is held and watched over by other climbers. But there is also this insanely dangerous thing called free soloing where you climb without any ropes. You may have seen or heard about the documentary about climber Alex Honnold's record-breaking, totally legendary, free solo ascent of the El Capitan cliff face in Yosemite National Park in 2017. My husband and I watched that movie at an IMAX movie theater so the screen was several stories tall and the heights were dizzying. I was clutching the edge of my seat and my heart was pounding like I was actually attempting the climb myself. And I felt like I lost about a pound in just hand sweat despite the fact that I already knew how it ended with Alex Honnold surviving the climb. And again, and again, I found myself kind of absent mindedly reaching down to find a seat belt in my movie theater chair, just so you know, I couldn't fall off El Capitan. So this brings us back to the concept of family ties. Family ties is a phrase that we use in English to describe the connections that bind us to our families. For some people, these connections are biological. For some people, when they hear the phrase family ties, they think about the obligations and duties that we owe to each other. For some people, these ties have a lot to do with your shared family culture and expectations about how you live and make choices. And hopefully, for most of us, these family ties are also just about plain love and enjoyment of one another. But I want to say that these family ties, whatever they look like, are part of the coordinated system of ropes that we need while we climb through life. In our spiritual and emotional lives, we all deeply deeply crave to be clipped into reliable ropes with somebody we trust on the other end. And I think that feeling that I had, as I reached for the imaginary seatbelt in the movie theater, I think that's how we feel if we imagine a life without any of those family ties or connections to other people. It makes your emotional palms sweat. Think of climbing through life ropeless, just one slippery handhold away from falling through space. To know where we fit in a web of other people, and how we are tied into the past and connected in the present, and how our connections might last into the future, I think that's a very basic human need and it's part of our eternal and our spiritual DNA. And this week, we have two storytellers exploring these ideas with tales of family ties, and the lengths that we go to find them and the ways that they find us. First, we will hear from Jeff. Jeff  3:23  I think, I think this story really begins with my curiosity about my grandfather because we were so close growing up. He actually wanted me to be a professional golfer so he put a golf club in my hands at age two. But that gave us a lot of time on the golf course and in a golf cart talking and, and sharing stories and things like that. However, he would never tell me where he was from or about his childhood or about his parents or anything like that. Both he and my grandmother would refuse to give me any more information than three points. And that was number one: He was born in the former Yugoslavia. Number two: he was raised in Worland, Wyoming. And number three: he changed his name from Mijušković to Marks. I didn't know anything about his family. I didn't know where he was from. I didn't know what his childhood was like. And if I ever asked any questions, he would always put his fingers to his lips and tell me to shish. My dad, he never even knew anything about his parents. And if I ever asked him about it, he didn't know any more than those three things either. And both of his siblings have since passed away. So I don't have any other way of knowing anything about my grandparents. And it kind of made me sad when he did pass away in 2000 that I just didn't know enough about him because of how special he was to me. Well, in my career, I've spent many years as a pediatric dentist as a remote EMT, spending time in humanitarian clinics all around the world. So I'm used to traveling into remote areas and kind of booking crazy flights and going from place to place. Well 10 years ago, right after the Haiti earthquake, I got called to serve as a volunteer as a first responder there to help with the devastation from that tragedy. And on the flight, there was a gentleman sitting next to me, another volunteer, we were all in scrubs. And he was wearing scrubs with a University of Wyoming logo on them. And I turned over to him and just out of curiosity, I just asked him about his scrubs. And he said that he was a Wyoming fan because he came from a small town in Wyoming that I would have never heard of. And when I asked him about what that town's name was, he said that it was Worland, Wyoming, of all the places and I said, "That is crazy because my grandfather was raised in Worland, Wyoming." He said, he asked me a little bit more about me and where I'm from and also about my name. And he said, "Tell me your last name again?" And when I told him it was Marks, he said, "You wouldn't happen to be related to the Mijušković, are you?" Out of all the things. that most random thing. And I just was completely blown away and he even told me on this trip, that if we make it through this trip, it was kind of a it was kind of a crazy humanitarian aid adventure he, he said, "If we make it through this, I want to meet back in Wyoming so I can show you all about your family show you everything about your family." And so we went back there and he took us straight to the cemetery and I saw  Mijušković gravestone. I saw the two gravestones of my great-grandparents. So these are the parents of my grandpa George. So my great-grandfather, Joseph, who died in 1951. And my great-grandmother, Meliva, who died in 1983. And this I was fairly emotional about this because, again, not knowing anything about my family, seeing the gravestones where my, my ancestors were buried was very special to me. And I had never done anything with family history work, genealogy, anything, my entire life. This sparked kind of this spirit inside me not only of curiosity, but of really, something deeper. Something kind of more organic of who I am and where I come from. And finding my own identity through my grandfather was was kind of a fun adventure. At this point, I came home and spoke to our family history consultant to have her direct me to a 1920 census. And I saw my great-grandfather's name on there, my great-grandfather Joe and his family on this census coming from the former Yugoslavia in a country called Montenegro. So, again, now I have dates. I have names of family members, I even have a country in the former Yugoslavia, which is again, nothing that I ever had before. I was then told that if I was going to find out any more information, she even tried to do some research for me and couldn't find anything else, but I was going to really need a death certificate for my great-grandpa Joe. So I sent a fax over to the Department of Vital Statistics in the state of Wyoming to try to request my great-grandfather's death certificate. And after sending that fax at work, I went and saw a patient that day. And that patient's name, the mom's name, I see kids. And so like the mom's name was Maria, Danlavich. And that of curiosity, and this is literally five minutes after I sent this fax, I went to her and said, "You know, I've seen your kids for years and I've never even put two-and-two together. But I've been doing this family history work and I just sent this fax, and your last name looks an awful lot like my grandfather's last name. And I just wondered what country you're from your family's from?" And she said that she's from the former Yugoslavia in a country called Montenegro. She told me she said, "If you ever wanted any help, you know I'm more than happy to help you with anything but you might want to start with some emails or some letters to the government, if you want to try to find out anything about your family since you're kind of at a dead end here with that trip to Wyoming." And, and since she spoke Montenegrin, which is like a dialect of Serbian, she offered to translate a letter for me saying, you know, "These are my great grandparents, this is my grandfather I'm trying to find any information I can about my family, this is their information, their birth dates, their death dates, where they're buried, is there any information you can provide for me?" And months went by and I never heard anything. So I got on my phone or even on my computer and started doing a little bit of research on how – what it would take to get from Seattle to Montenegro. Just for kicks, if I were to take that letter that she translated for me, go to Montenegro, and even if I had to go door to door to try to find anything more about my family, again, the spirit was burning inside of me to really find out more and it just wasn't enough. I wasn't satisfied with my trip to Wyoming and with this other stuff. And there had to have been something that I can maybe relate to or connect with, on a deeper level that would be meaningful for me and for my family. And I guess after having children, I kind of – I've got two boys now, and I just, you know, I want them to know where they come from. I want them to be able to connect with their past as well. So I went and looked at roundtrip ticket from Seattle to Montenegro – kind of going more directly – was over $6,000. And so of course, I'm not going to be going to Montenegro. I thought well, it's just that's discouraging. I'm not doing this. I guess the Wyoming information is all I'm ever going to get. And then right around that same time, Iceland air established service SeaTac airport where I live, and because I had served my mission there, I was a little bit more excited about the fact that they were running some free stopovers in Iceland on the way to Europe. Doing a little bit more research, if I were to go from Seattle to Montenegro through Iceland, the entire flight with that free stopover was $780. And so I immediately hit the enter button, bought the ticket and then told my wife that I was going on this trip. The only thing that I had with me on this flight over to Montenegro was a few things in my bag. And then these letters that were translated by this patient of mine, spelling out that I'm looking for my great grandparents, and if there's any information they can offer, that would be amazing. So I took these letters over there and I got off the plane and felt immediately a little overwhelmed. I mean, I couldn't read any of the signs, the people didn't speak English, I just didn't know what I had gotten myself into. I got transportation up to the town of Niksic, Yugoslavia, which I discovered was the town where my grandfather came from on that death certificate that came back to me from the department of vital statistics in Wyoming. And driving along this kind of main – it's not really a highway, but this this road that kind of heads up towards Niksic is on kind of a mountain ridge. And there was an adjacent or a parallel ridge on the other side, that just looked pitch black. And all of a sudden that kind of goes really steeply down into the valley where Nicksic – or the city – is. And there was quite a bit of snow on the ground. And for some reason, that was kind of fun to picture my grandfather coming from this place. Because I guess after serving my mission in Iceland, I prefer colder climates. It was really fun for me to kind of see where he came from. And it kind of, I don't know, for some reason, it just brought a smile to my face, knowing that that's where that's the town where he grew up. So I get into Niksic, and I didn't know where I was going to start, but I saw a church or a cross up at the top of the skyline, and knew that I would maybe get more information at a church then maybe even looking in a phone book where I couldn't read the language, I couldn't even navigate any of anything. And surrounding this church was a cemetery, almost surrounding the entire thing. And so I went from gravestone to gravestone with the little tablet that I had trying to kind of translate, trying to figure out which one was a Mijušković gravestone, and it took me hours, and I couldn't find one. I mean, and in all of my stuff, I'm tromping through the snow, nothing's happening. I was a little bit discouraged until I walked around the front of the cemetery, past the church to a funeral home, which I assumed was a funeral home, there was flowers out front, and a nice little lady that was just standing out in front. And I went up to her – because she was smiling – and I went and unzipped my backpack, I handed her one of my letters, and she was nice enough to read it. She called somebody and read it to them, and then she went inside, and I could hear some beeping sounds almost like a fax machine, and then she brought it back out and handed it back to me and blew me a kiss. And that was day one. So nothing had happened. I was obviously frustrated because she didn't have any information for me. She didn't tell me what the person on the phone said, nothing ever happened with that. The next day I started going around to the maybe, the government offices in Podgorica, in the capital city. I thought, well, what if I just went to some of the kind of the more government offices and the bigger buildings there just to see if there's somebody that could point me in the right direction. And I ran into this guy named Gordon Stojovic who was a ministry official. And so he invited me into his office, I gave him the letter and he read the letter, but didn't read it all the way. He kind of just read a few of the words and then asked me if I wanted to go and look around the town. In kind of broken English, as best he could, he at least invited me to get into his car. And we went from coffee shop to coffee shop, while he smoked cigars the whole time and telling me all about his beautiful country, and the architecture and everything about this place. And it was really fun to just kind of hang out with him and to see the city. But I was kind of on a time crunch, and I really needed to find out stuff about my family. So at the end of the day, I said to him, I said, "Gordon, I really love this and thank you so much for inviting me and, and showing me around your town, but I'm really looking for something to do with my family here. If there's any kind of help you can give me." And he goes, "What you look for is miracle." I said "That's exactly what I'm looking for!" And he said, "Well," he said and quote, "The Serbian Orthodox monastery of Ostrog is the most frequently visited pilgrimage site in the Balkans." He said, "Miracles come to those who visit the upper level." So I thought, "Well, that's exactly what I need to do then. I need to go to this monastery, I need to go to the upper level, maybe my whole family will be waiting for me or there will be open books. It'll all be ready for me and I'll have my entire family history right there and this will be amazing." So I took a big long journey the next day up to this monastery and it was up closer to wear Niksic was, just at the kind of on the other side of the mountain there. And driving up this road was crazy. If you google this monastery, it's one of the most, I mean, beautiful monasteries you've ever seen. But the road that goes up to it is this crazy, long, windy road, that takes quite a bit of time to get there. There's no railings on the side, the road is cut through the mountain, like through tunnels. And it is, it's quite a journey. And so I finally get up to the top of this road and get to the monastery, and again, it was almost breathtaking, the way that it's carved out of the mountain, it's painted white, but it literally is carved out of the mountain really high up on this cliff. Again, people come from all over the Balkans to worship their patron saints here. And I was, I was very impressed almost from a, you know, I know when we see our temples, we have that same kind of feeling of awe and beauty, and that's, that's what this felt like to me. And so I went up there, I knew that I had to get to the highest point of this middle tower, and there wasn't anything there other than there was a candelabra and a couple of photos of Christ on the wall. And that was it. And I thought, "Well, that was not exactly what I was looking for here." But looking out the window from this perch I, I prayed. And I prayed hard to see if maybe this miracle could really come that I could find something out about my family. And after about an hour or so it just didn't happen. Nobody came in, nobody talked to me, I didn't see anybody, I didn't see anything else that would indicate anything about my family. So again, once again, discouraged, I went down and got in the car and went to a little coffee shop kind of at the base of the main windy road there in a town called Povija. And I went into this coffee shop and from the coffee shop, there were three roads that kind of branched out from this coffee shop. One that went up to the Ostrog Monastery, one that went back down to the capital city of Podgorica from whence I came, and then there was another road that went around the back and kind of up – just randomly up the mountain. And it was kind of more of a dirt road, a smaller road. And there was obviously nothing up there. But for some reason, I decided to go ahead and travel that road. So I drove around the backside of this coffee shop and started going up this dirt road, not knowing where it was going to go. And then it branched off, it went a little bit, there was kind of more of a main road, and then even a smaller dirt road off to the left. And of course I went off to the left. So I started driving up the smaller dirt road until I run into a guy just standing there in the middle of the road. And he looked ironically, a little bit like me, he was a little bit bigger guy, he didn't have any hair on his head, he was wearing a big, puffy, blue parka. And, but there was nothing around. There was no car, no bicycle, no motorcycle, I don't know how he even got there. There was no homes, no telephone wires, I just it just looked a little strange having him just standing out there in the middle of the road. And I did the exact same thing that I did with the lady at the funeral home, I got out of the car, I smiled at him, I handed him a letter. And he read it and did the exact same thing. He turned and grabbed the phone out of his pocket and started calling somebody and reading the letter to them. Halfway through the letter, he points to the letter and says "Mijušković?" And then he pointed to me and said "Mijušković?" And I started jumping up and down saying, "Mijušković!" pointing to myself thinking that maybe this is it. He understood Mijušković, and maybe he knows something about this. And so he pointed for me to get in my car and to follow him and he started running up this dirt path. So I drive up to a long side of him and point into the passenger side kind of saying, "Hey, you know, would you like a ride?" And he shook his head and kept on waiting for me to follow him. And so I go up this dirt road, he finally tells me to stop. And then to go up even a smaller little path. I mean, this is literally like a little hiking trail up through the brush. And to follow him up into here. Now, this sounds a little creepy, right? I'm up in the middle of Montenegro and this guy is having me go up into this little trail up into the bushes. And who knows what's gonna happen here, but he just didn't seem like a scary guy. I mean, for crying out loud, he had a good look and haircut, I could trust him. So I get out of the car and follow him up this path. And he points to an old old house. And I mean, I don't even know if you could call it a house because all it really was is rocks and a couple of little partial walls almost really broken down and dilapidated. So he pointed to it and said "Mijušković," and then he pointed to another house on the other side of the trail and said, "Mijušković" and kept pointing to both of these houses saying, "Mijušković, Mijušković, Mijušković." And he almost started kind of hitting his head a little bit and smiling kind of just frustrated that I couldn't understand what he was saying. But he was clearly telling me that these two houses had something to do with the last name or the name of Mijušković. So we got done with that. He didn't want to keep the letter he handed it back to me and so I drove off and that was the next day. And so that was all that I had come up with. I now just have two photos of these two houses and obviously not a lot of other information. I get done with this day and I go again through government offices and finally run into the President of the Historical Society in Montenegro. So I thought, "Okay, this guy's got to have something for me, right?" I mean, this guy knows the history of Montenegro. He maybe knows the history of that area, and maybe can tell me a little bit about my grandpa and his family. So his name was Bronco Bondović. And so I go into his office and his secretary was there as well. And then a young girl, she spoke like better English than anybody in the whole country put together this far. So she told me that she was home from school that day and meeting her mom at work, who was the secretary of this Bronco Bondović. So I thought I'd go through her since they didn't speak any English. And she was amazing to just say to them that I was looking for my family, and they read the letter. And then I showed this Bronco my phone where it had the two photos of these two houses. And he went over and grabbed a book out of a bookshelf and brought it over to me and said to me, that all Mijušković descendants in the world come from two brothers in the late 1600s. And remnants of their home still stand on the Kunak mountainside in the town, or above the town of Povija. And this just completely blew me away. So I assumed that the Kunak mountainside was that road that I had gone up behind the, you know, coffee shop where I was. And that all Mijušković descendants, including me and my grandfather, came from one of those two houses where these two brothers lived. And I just, I can't even explain what this felt like. I was grateful more than anything. I was very grateful at that moment that he knew something about the Mijuškovićs and that I came from one of those two houses. I was also curious because I have one brother, and I also have two boys. And so there was just that connection, there was the two brothers and I was one of two brothers. And my kids are two brothers. And I don't know, for some reason, this was just a, it almost felt like a family reunion. I almost wanted to hug this guy and I just, but that would have been awkward for him. But I was so excited about all of this and just knowing that maybe I was on the right path here. And so after meeting with Bronco, the president of the Historical Society, I finally heard back from my patient that had translated the letter for me saying that she had a contact who could maybe help me since he was a UN translator in Montenegro. And he met me in that same building where I was going from door to door trying to find government officials. And when I finally met up with Oliver, it was such a treat because he told me all about Montenegro and the people of Montenegro and the geography and the history. And I was able to understand a little bit better about a little bit more about the country and about my ancestors even and so he offered to make some phone calls for me. And he started with the town that was on that death certificate of Niksić, Yugoslavia, or Niksić, Montenegro. First one that picked up the phone was a gentleman named Ilija Mijušković. And his name is spelled I-L-I-J-A, which ironically looks a little bit like Elijah, but it is IIija. So we met with him at this Povija coffee shop, the one that I had gone to before at the base of the Ostrog Monastery and Ilija asked if he could question me about a few things about my childhood and about my upbringing. And it was good that we had Oliver there, the UN translator, because Ilijia spoke zero English at all, like he couldn't even say hello. But it really was a fun meeting. And Ilija asked me questions that I just was a little surprised to answer. He said, he would ask me things like my upbringing and my, my brother, my parents, their birth dates, what I did for a career and what my education was in what classes I took in college, and in my graduate training, I mean, really took to an incredible amount of detail. And after about an hour of this, I said, "Listen, this is amazing." And I asked Oliver to tell him, I really appreciate meeting with him. And it's so fun to meet an actual Mijušković. But I'm really trying to find out more stuff about my family. But then he said, his eyes kind of lit up a little bit and he was not known, he did not smile at all. He had a big furry mustache. And you can tell he was very stern and stuff, but his eyes kind of lit up and said, "Well, let's go down to the cemetery so I can show you some things." And on the way to the cemetery, he said in these words. He said in the late 1600s, and again about the time that those two brothers were there in those homes, an Ottoman Turkish army executed 72 members of the Mijušković tribe inside a cave fire in the town of Povija and to Mijušković brothers survived. And I just thought, "You know what an incredible story." And Ilija took me to the gravestones and showed me a few things and said that most of the gravestones from my family weren't going to be there because they were all destroyed during these wars. But he said, specifically, "I want to show you this one over here." So we walked me over next to the little chapel that was there. And this chapel was just tiny. I mean, maybe two people could fit in this chapel. But the gravestone next to it, he pointed to this. And I looked up there and Oliver translated for me, and it said at the very top, "Here rest Marco Mijušković." I looked at the death certificate that I had with me and showed Ilia. And it did indeed show that Joseph's dad, father, was Marco Mijušković. So he told me that this was my great, great-grandfather. This was really amazing for me to see this, because, you know, obviously not having any other information Besides this, he had passed away in 1912, and was buried in this spot. And to see this was, was very special for me, and to even feel that the DNA inside this cemetery, or inside this grave, was the same DNA that runs through my blood. And I just, that was special for me to kind of be able to connect with my great, great-grandfather in that way, knowing that my grandfather came from this line in this town. And I just felt something really special there. So then I was about to kind of finish things up, I had taken my photos and I basically had spent $780 to go to Montenegro and find my great, great-grandfather, and it was worth every penny for me to see where he was from, I was kind of ready to go. I mean, I had told Oliver and Ilija, I said, "Gosh, this has been great. Thank you so much. I've got to get going here pretty soon. And I really appreciate all this information." And then Ilija was writing some stuff down on a piece of paper, and Oliver said to me said, "Hey, Jeff, you might want to come over here and take a look at this." And I looked down at the piece of paper that Ilija is scribbling on, and it was a family tree, a handwritten family tree of over 1,800, 1,900 names. And it was a pretty large piece of paper. And I saw, I noticed on this family tree that there was one single track of names that went up, and then branched off with two names, and then huge tree branches off of those two names. And what Ilija explained to me is that the two brothers that lived in those two homes are the two brothers that branch off into these two big trees. Ilija went on to tell me that he has been doing research on the Mijušković family line for 47 years, and that he had put all of this information together on this family tree so that he can eventually publish a book about the Mijušković family name and about all the Mijušković ancestors from the 1200s all the way up until now. What was amazing to me is that he pointed out that one of the brothers was a farmer, one of them was a priest, and that I come from the farmer side of the line. My heart was exploding, I just I couldn't believe that I had found all of this information, my whole ancestry line from the 1200s all the way up until my my great-grandfather Joseph. He then pointed out that there was a little squiggly line at the end of Joseph's line. And it was the only one on the entire page of 1,900 names. Oliver explained to me that Ilija had been looking for my grandfather all of these years that that was the one link that he didn't have on this family tree because my grandfather had changed his name from Mijušković, to Marks. And that was the one name that he didn't have. And he couldn't complete his book until he knew what happened with Joseph's line. And that's why he asked me all of those questions and wanted to write this book. We go back to the coffee shop. And he said to me, that he really wants to write this book, but he doesn't have enough money to publish a book. And so I asked him how much it cost to publish a book there in Montenegro. And he said it would be about 100 Euros. So I gave him 100 Euros, which at the time, I think was about $120. And you can tell his eyes got watery. And he said that he was going to dedicate the book to me and wrote down right there and all over translated this. He said, "My brother Jeff Marks gave me 100 Euros to publish the 47-year history of the Mijušković tribe. He came from America to find his family. And we finally found each other." And this is where it all came true for me where I got to connect with him on a completely different level and that he was looking for me as much as I was looking for him. He had been doing this research for 47 years and was 86 years old at the time. So he wanted to give me these 1,900 names so that I knew where I came from. And in Montenegro, he says that they don't hug but he says that because we're brothers now that we can hug at the end. And so we hugged and now we're family and that was really special. He started calling me his brother, no longer just my name because he says that, and, and Oliver even told me that in their country, brother is a term of endearment And I can only relate to this too because we're members of the Church, but that they call each other brother or sister, even if they're an aunt or an uncle or a distant relative, because they feel a kinship with them. And they share the same DNA, they share the same family stories, the same history. He felt like we are, we're connected in a totally different way. And I was able to really understand him. And he was able to understand me on a totally different level. But I think his looking for me, for this many years, or at least for my grandfather was very special to him because I came to him, you know, he would have never gone to America to find my family or to find George or his gravestone. But Oliver told me how emotional Ilija was about me connecting to him and now making this whole book happen and his whole story happened and that he was just so grateful that we were able to connect. He wrote me another letter, an email, and I could tell it was done with Google Translate. But it said, "Please come back to our homeland very soon so that we can read, so we can write the history of our brotherhood together. I have your book." My son, Max, and I went and traveled over to Montenegro to go pick up this book. We met with Ilija and Ilija really sat down with Max and and wanted to tell him about his family's legacy and the legacy of his last name. And not only handed him this beautiful hardbound family history book of not only the 1,900 male names that were on the handwritten family tree that he had. But now we've got women and children in this book, and we're over 3,000-something names. And each one of the members of this family on this family tree have a paragraph inside this book, including me now, because that's why he asked me all those questions. He also gave Max another book that was just titled "Mijušković" And it was hard bound as well, a little bit thinner. On the inside of this was a picture of the Ostrog Monastery. He told me that my family, specifically my family line, were the protectors of the ostrog Monastery. And this monastery is famous I mean in, in, especially in Eastern Orthodoxy. And so for, for him to say this was really amazing to me. And so he told me a little bit more about the Ostrog Monastery and how our family protected it. And most of our family members died protecting it through these, you know, Turkish invasions all throughout the centuries. Also, he took Max and me down to the cemetery, again, wherein a monument was erected a Mijušković monument, talking about the people the Mijušković that actually protected the Ostrog Monastery. And that that is their legacy. And so he wanted to do a family picture down there. And so I've got this great shot of Ilija and Max and me sitting at the base of this, this monument. And I still talk to Ilija, I'm constantly looking for a way to go back and be with him as my family now because with George gone, he's my new brother.   Sarah Blake  33:12  That was Jeff. I hope Jeff doesn't mind if I share that one of the challenges we had in editing his story was that every single detail was important. I would think we can cut this bit about the coffee shop, right? Just for time. But then, nope, that detail and connection were important because they led to the next connection, and the next one and the next one until finally, it led to the connection with Ilija and through him a connection to thousands of his ancestors and relatives. It is mind boggling to think how Jeff's sort of impulsive decision to go to Montenegro was actually an answer to Ilijas prayers after 47 years of work on his family history. And it is amazing to see how they both were led every step of the way, even in the seemingly random steps by a loving Father who wanted to give them this connection they needed. Jeff also talked about how in this family history search, he felt like he was working with God to do something that needed to be done. I liked that a lot. And I'm going to keep thinking about it, what it means to be working with God to take the actions that make the connections that tie us closer to our families. Our next storyteller is KC. You might recognize KC as a previous storyteller, and also he is my husband. His story is about a different kind of family tie that he found closer to home. Here's KC.   KC  34:37  In 1969, my parents built a house in the foothills of South San Jose, California. And about a year later, another couple built a house next door, the Rudd's. My parents took a plate of cookies over to their house to introduce themselves. And there was an instant connection when it was realized that my dad had been the flight instructor for their son in the Navy. My dad had taught their son Charles to fly fighter jets and trained him to go fight in the Vietnam War. So there was an instant bond between our families. And that bond would grow over the years both through good times and also through a lot of tribulations. The first of those being that Charles was killed in an airplane crash in Vietnam trying to land on an aircraft carrier in very rough seas in the dark of night. In fact, I'm named after Charles. I was born two years after his death and my parents named me Kevin Charles Blake, in memory of Charles Rudd. Unfortunately, that wasn't the end of tragedy. A couple years later, Harriet's husband died of a heart attack. My father was the first one over there, helped to move him and administer CPR until the paramedics arrived, but unfortunately he passed. And my mom was there to comfort Harriet during that time. And then in 1983, my father was killed in airplane crash in Angola, Africa. And Harriet became a listening ear and a source of comfort for my mom as she navigated being newly widowed. My brothers and I always had a very close relationship with Harriet. In fact, we didn't call her Harriet, we called her Hottie Dot. I think we call her Hottie Dot because our little mouths can't pronounce Harriet at the time and Hottie Dot was what came out. And that stuck. And Hottie Dot was like a grandma to me and my brothers. She was just a warm, loving, and extremely caring person. I remember going over to her house and she would always have Jazz music playing at her house and she would always have a bowl of cashews sitting on the counter and we eat cashews and listen to Jazz music. And Harriet came from a rich Italian heritage. And she was always making Italian food and trying to feed us. I remember a frittatas. I remember, rich Bolinas meat sauce over pasta. And it was like having an Italian grandma. And she was also the person that I ran to when I cut my finger really badly on my Scout knife when I was seven years old and my mom wasn't home. I remember running over there and she was able to bandage it up until my mom could get home and we could go to the doctor and get stitches. And later, Harriet traveled with us to England and toured all over England with my, my brothers and I and my mom. And she just was part of the family. Harriet was an extremely positive person, she just always was full of hope and happiness. And even in the toughest of times, I remember her saying, "This too shall pass." She just had hope in the future. And even, even when she contracted lung cancer in 1993. And that year, I remember her, just watching her deteriorate and being a lot of pain. And I would go over to help her with things around her house. And I just remember her still smiling and saying, "This too shall pass." Harriet didn't have any close living relatives when she died. And so because of this, my mom became the executor of her will and estate. And she had given almost all of her assets to charity. But my mom was in charge of getting her house ready for sale, cleaning everything out and, and just dealing with all of her stuff. And a lot of that stuff just ended up sitting in our garage for years and years. And about eight years ago, I was helping my mom clean out her garage, and I found this old jewelry box. It was locked and I thought it was really intriguing, of course. So I picked the lock and opened it up and it was full of costume jewelry, nothing, nothing valuable. Most of it was really fun 70s broaches and, you know pretty, pretty out of date stuff, but really fun stuff. Anything of value that had been metal or precious stones had been sold before Harriet's death, but there was one item in there and it was a beautiful old pocket watch. So I was able to do some research on the internet and I found out that this pocket watch made in 1925 was worth a total of about $18 nowadays, which is a real shame when you think of all the craftsmanship and the just the beauty of this piece. But because of that we stuffed everything back in the box and my mom said, "Why don't you take this and your kids can play with it someday?" So I took the box and several years later my daughter became interested in the jewelry box and started pulling out the jewelry and playing with it. Over the years, that pocketwatch came out dozens of times and we would play with it,  but nothing too interesting about it. And then one day, I was looking at it and I realized that the back panel of the watch would pop open. And I'd never realized this before. And inside, you can see all the gears and inner workings and it was beautiful. And then I realized that there was an engraving on the back of that, and it says, "Presented to H.A Cavassa by the employees of Peninsula Drug, December 25, 1925." Now, I don't think I'd ever heard the name "Cavassa," really before if I had I was younger, but I figured this this must have been Harriet's father. So this was really intriguing. And so we started doing some family history research on on H.A. Cavassa, and we were able to find out that it was Harry A, Cavassa, Harriet's father, and he immigrated from Bologna, Italy around 1895. And he had gone to the University of California, Berkeley and graduated from pharmacology school there. And in 1904, he started the first pharmacy in South San Francisco. And remember, this is right before the 1906 earthquake, so he would have been there during the earthquake and subsequent destruction of most of actual San Francisco. Now south San Francisco's its own city, but I'm sure that the whole community was affected by that. And so that drugstore turned into a chain of drugstores called Peninsula Drug, and eventually he married a nurse, Lillian Heifers, who worked for the doctor with whom he shared a building with and they had three daughters. The youngest of which was Harriet. And Harriet, is named after her father Harry, I'm sure that Harry was hoping he'd have a son and he could name that son Harry Jr., but he only had daughters so he had to name one of them after him. And so that's where Harriet comes from. And Harriet had two children, Charles and another daughter lost to sickness in childhood. And none of Harriet's sisters had children either. And so with the death of Harriet's sister, Marianne in 2001, there was no other living member of this family line. Since discovering the inscription on the pocketwatch, it really sparked our family's interest in family history, as we've done some of the work for Harriet and her family, and learned more about them, and thought about how our families have been interconnected through the years, and now how our families will be connected through eternity because of, of this bond that we're forming by doing their work. It's really made me appreciate how important these relationships are. The relationships we have with our family members and those who we choose to make our family members. I know that part of who I am today is definitely because of, I had Harriet in my life and her example. And I love that God chose to create a small miracle by putting that pocketwatch in our way so that we would rediscover that connection with Harriet and her family. I see it as a small miracle in my life to be a part of that. Sarah Blake  43:14 I am holding Harriet's pocket watch right now. I find it so beautiful. And it also feels a little magical how it just kept showing up until we finally really looked at it and let it lead us to their family. Someday we will get their temple work done, but for now I have a feeling that it is good just that we remember them – that they're not forgotten. These were people who made connections that mattered all through their lives. Harry A. Cavassa was so beloved by his employees that they chipped in to buy him a nice watch for Christmas in 1925. And Harriet was the one that little Casey ran to with a cut finger, and the one who taught my mother in law how to cook Italian food and to survive as a new widow. In all of these actions, all these connections are the ropes that made them family and that keep us family. This feels especially poignant to me right now, because here in the United States, it's the week of Thanksgiving, and the Covid–19 pandemic is raging worse than ever. This year, what we thought of as family or traditions or connections are not feeling very normal. This year, your Thanksgiving dinner might be you eating alone and doing puzzles over zoom. There are thousands of families with loved ones in the hospital who they can't visit or even speak to. So many people are showing love in the most counterintuitive ways this year. By canceling travel plans as my sister just did, or by isolating in a bedroom as my other sister has been doing for the past two weeks, or sleeping in the garage as we hear of health care workers doing so their families won't get sick. And let us never forget the families this year who are coming to terms with a more permanent separation. President Dieter F. Uchtdorf has said, "Whatever problems your family is facing, whatever you must do to solve them, the beginning and the end of the solution is charity, the pure love of Christ. Without this love even seemingly perfect families struggle. With it, even families with great challenges succeed." The tie that really binds our families and the rope that anchors and protects us, no matter what our family looks like, is this pure love of Christ. His pure love for us, and his transformative ability to help us love one another. Christ's pure love is strong enough to transform our strange virtual gatherings into holy and happy Places. And I know it is strong enough to turn strangers into family. And it is strong enough to envelop us in the arms of his comfort, even when we feel completely alone. When I visualize what a family tie looks like, for me, it is a lot more than a shoelace, or an apron string, or even more than a climbing rope. I personally find comfort envisioning a sturdy net made of the kind of crazy knots my little kids tie, quadruple gazillion knotted into a tacky grandma's macro, a hanging plant basket sort of thing. And I like to imagine that each of the little actions we take makes one more knot in that net, tying us all safely together so that no one has to free solo up these crazy cliffs of 2020. Whatever your holidays are looking like this year, I hope that you find ways to tie lots of messy little knots between you and all your people. Your biological family who's in the house with you, your church family in their separate homes, the colleagues on your screen and your zoom call, your neighbors and friends and delivery guys and grocery store cashiers – all the people who connect and hold us and give us a sense of place. This year, I think it's going to take all of our best creativity and positivity and just plain hard work, to feel the connectedness that we crave. And I also think it's going to take a lot of help from our Savior. But I know that we can do it because ultimately whatever our families on earth might look like, we are all children of our heavenly parents and part of their family and being connected to others is what we were made for. That's it for his episode of This Is the Gospel. Thank you to our storytellers, Jeff and Casey. You can see Jeff's pictures with his son Max and his new brother Ilija at the Ostrog Monastery and pictures of Harriet's pocket watch in our show notes at LDS living.com/Thisisthegospel. You can also get more good stuff by following us on Instagram or Facebook @thisisthegospel_podcast. All of the stories in this episode are true and accurate as affirmed by our storytellers. And of course, if you have a story to share about living the Gospel of Jesus Christ, please call our pitch line and leave us a story pitch. The best pitches will be short and sweet and have a clear sense of the focus of your story. Call 515-519-6179 to leave us a message. Finally, if today's stories have touched you or made you think about your discipleship a little more deeply, please share that with us. You can leave a review of the podcast on Apple, Stitcher, or whatever platform you use. And if you can't figure out how to leave a review we even have a little highlight on our Instagram page that can help show you how. Every review helps the podcast show up for more people who need this kind of light in their lives. This episode was produced by me Sarah Blake, with story production and editing from Erika Free, Katie Lambert, and Casey Blake. It was scored, mixed and mastered by Mix at Six studios. Our executive producer is Erin Hallstrom. You can find past episodes of this podcast and other LDS Living podcasts at LDS living.com/podcast.   Show Notes + Transcripts: http://ldsliving.com/thisisthegospel See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The league was thrown into a little chaos on Friday night, though it's business as usual for the Pistons. Hear what Dwane Casey, Blake Griffin and Luke Kennard had to say in their exit interviews and also we hop in the time machine to talk about the summer of 1985 and what the Pistons did in one of the best drafts ever. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The league was thrown into a little chaos on Friday night, though it's business as usual for the Pistons. Hear what Dwane Casey, Blake Griffin and Luke Kennard had to say in their exit interviews and also we hop in the time machine to talk about the summer of 1985 and what the Pistons did in one of the best drafts ever. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The guys are back for a new episode of Keeper of the Games, sponsored by Title Boxing Club at 21st and Rock Rd in Wichita! In this week's episode, Weston Mills and Tommy Castor tackle the following: (02:36) The guys are joined by former Kansas State Wildcats running back/defensive back Logan Dold to discuss what it was like to play for the legendary Bill Snyder, plus give his insight on what Chris Klieman and the Wildcats have to look forward to for the 2020 football season. (23:09) There is still no agreement between the owners and the players about a 2020 Major League Baseball season, but the Kansas City Royals have committed to not only retaining all their minor league players, but also compensating them through the end of the season. Good stuff for the Royals. (35:59) Pro Football Focus released their Top 50 Players in the NFL for the 2020 season and Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes is #2, right behind Aaron Donald. There are 5 Chiefs in the Top 25. The guys discuss. (42:42) #WichitaWhiparound The 2020 Class for the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame has been announced and it includes former WSU baseball player Casey Blake, former Wichita standout basketball player Adrian Griffin and more like Drew Gooden, Jordy Nelson and Darren Sproles. No #FinallyFunny today due to the unrest in the U.S., but Tommy and Weston discuss the unifying impact that sports can have on the society. Make sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode and make sure to listen on all major podcast platforms like iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, iHeartRadio and more! Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @KOGpod! #KOGpod

Stories in this episode: Bullied most of her life, Julie discovers that the autism that made her different is actually the exact thing that makes her gifted at family history work; A comic book heroine helps Sarah find her own superpowers when it comes to connecting with others; Kurt struggles with the weight of his calling as a bishop until the memory of a red superhero cape reminds him of his true desire to help others.  SHOWNOTES To see pictures of our storytellers and get a look at Sarah's DATING GIRL comic, go to ldsliving.com/thisisthegospel Follow us on instagram @thisisthegospel_podcast and facebook to find upcoming themes and to learn more about our team. TRANSCRIPT KaRyn  0:03  Welcome to This is the Gospel, an LDS Living podcast where we feature real stories from real people who are practicing and living their faith every day. I'm your host, KaRyn Lay.   I can't exactly remember when I first heard the phrase "double-edged sword." It was probably in Mrs. McAfee's eighth grade English class, or maybe Ms. Turse's ninth grade English class. Well, whichever well named English teacher at Rockland Junior High taught it to me, I have never forgotten it. Because a double-edged sword basically describes life.   If your junior high teacher never taught you that phrase, let me explain. A double-edged sword is anything that has the potential to have both positive and negative consequences in our lives. It's that thing that is both a strength and a weakness all at the same time. Need a concrete example? Okay, let's talk about perfectionism. It's the standard answer to the question, "What's your greatest weakness?" in a job interview because it's a strength disguised as a weakness. Or is it a weakness disguised as a strength? Trick question. It's both. And I know this because a desire to get things right is my constant companion, and it spurs me forward in so many cool ways in my life. But it's also the thing that when left unchecked leads to anxiety and deep paralysis. See? A positive and a negative, all in one, a double-edged sword.   I suspect that if we dig deep, it won't take long for each of us to recognize this pattern of strength and weakness coexisting in ourselves. It's what makes us both human and heroic. And today, we'll hear stories from three people who discovered exactly what kind of superpowers were waiting at the other end of their weakness. Our first storyteller is Julie who learned that her greatest challenge in life could be transformed when she focused her efforts in service.   Here's Julie:   Julie  1:54  When my daughter was four years old she was diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum, and when I was reading through the symptoms of it, I realized that most of the symptoms applied to me as well.   I was very socially awkward as a kid, and I was often bullied for it. I didn't understand social cues or body language very well, and I would come off as rude because I would interrupt people and I would kind of be silly in a way that they just didn't understand. So it was hard to make friends.   I was really fascinated with names and dates and I didn't understand why. I come from a very big family and I would make lists of everybody's full names and their birth dates and how old they would turn that year, and I didn't understand why I was driven to do this and I didn't want anybody else to see it because they wouldn't understand it either.   It wasn't until many years later that I realized that it was because of family history research that I had that unique quality in my mind. In fact, when I was 16, I had my patriarchal blessing and I was told that I would recognize the choice quality of the mind that my Heavenly Father had given me. And I always thought that maybe I would just realize I was smart, but I think it was more to do with my autism, that my mind worked in a unique way from other people, that I would be able to look at different family records and decipher information that other people had overlooked.   And because of that, I was able to break down a lot of walls that we had come to in our genealogy. I think I was given that because Heavenly Father knew that I would be the one to be able to find these people to have their temple work done for them.   After my dad died in 2001, after a couple of years, I had a dream where I saw him in our backyard, and he was bathed in a white light and wearing the purest white clothing, and he was walking toward me and all of a sudden I could see the veil separating him from me, and it was of the finest material that I had ever seen. It was completely see-through. It was like a curtain hanging down.   And he turned to his right and I could see couples standing just behind this veil. And he would point to them and name them off and I recognized the names in the dream of people that I had been researching, but I hadn't done their temple work for them yet. And they were looking at me with pleading in their eyes, smiles on their faces, but this pleading and they never spoke to me, but I felt that they were saying that they wish that their temple work could be done. And they were like, "Please, please, please get our work done for us." And that is something that I've kept with me for 20 years of just remembering that feeling and it's really spurred me on to be able to find these people.   When my oldest was very young, I started doing family search indexing because I had watched my mom do it. And at that time, it wasn't done on computer, it was done where I would have paper copies of documents, and I would transcribe them over to index cards that I would send over to the temple or to the church office building.   And I really enjoyed that aspect of it because I realized that I really enjoyed the data entry part of it. And it was after we started doing indexing on the computer, I realized that touching the keys gave me a lot of good sensory input that really helped calm my mind. Something about autism is people will really like to have sensory input where that sense of touch gives you comfort.   And because of that gift, I was able to do about 90,000 names in indexing because I can type really fast and it feels really comforting to me, and I can do it with a very high rate of accuracy. And I believe that's a superpower that heavenly Father is giving me because now I can help other people find their family members.   In 2002, I went to the Navoo Temple open house with my husband and our young son. And we were going to be staying in the same city that my relatives came from, and I was really excited about that because I could do research, and I dedicated an entire day to be able to go out and do research, but because of our schedule, I ended up with only an hour.   And so we went to a cemetery and I prayed to Heavenly Father to help me to find my family. Even though I had hardly any time, and I went into the office and I found the information that I needed to go out and find their graves, and I found a branch of the family that I only had very minimal information on. And I was really excited that I found... their oldest daughter actually passed away as a child and I had never even seen her name, and I was excited because I was able to record her and submit her for her temple work to be done when I had never even seen her name before, and this was the only way that I would have found her until many years later when those records were available on the internet.   And I really did feel like that was a miracle Heavenly Father had given me. It was at that point that I realized that family history research is really a treasure hunt, and I knew that my unique mind could help me with that. I have an urgent desire to help these ancestors of mine because I'm doing a work that they can't do for themselves. And I really believe that it is helping me build Heavenly friendships and relationships and deep bonds that I struggle to have here on this Earth.   And I like the fact that I can be a savior on Mount Zion and be a hero for them. I like to tell my daughter who's 14 years old now that her autism can be a superpower for her as well. She has an immense love of animals and ecology, and she has an amazing talent with art. And I know that she can go out there and make a difference. And I tell her that. I tell her that she has a unique quality in her mind that she could get out there and maybe think of solutions other people haven't thought of, and that she can help save the world. And I'm just really glad that Heavenly Father gave me this ability because it helps me to help her to make a difference.   KaRyn  9:19  That was Julie.   From the first moment we heard this on our pitch line, one of my favorite things about Julie's story is that as she began to rely on the Lord to tell her who she was, through things like her patriarchal blessing and personal revelation, she could tune out those voices that were telling her that she was awkward and weird, and begin to see her autism as a gift, and a superpower, a superpower that literally helps her to save souls through genealogy, family history, and temple work.   And that's not all. Her autism also helps her to be the coach and the mentor that her daughter needs. I think about that all the time. Wouldn't it be so great if we could all have someone sooner rather than later who tells us that the things that make us feel different might actually be the key to our greatest successes.   And the good news for those of us who are still looking for that reassurance is that it is available to us right now from a loving Heavenly Father. Even if there's nobody here on Earth who wants to tell us that, he really does, and I believe that, and Julie's story helps me to realize that it's never too late to ask and to receive.   Our next story comes from our friend and my fellow producer, Sarah Blake.   Here's Sarah:   Sarah  10:29  Growing up, I lacked confidence in social situations. Somewhere along the way, in my preteen years, I became convinced that I wasn't pretty or fun, no guys would ever like me. And although I was confident in school and the things that I felt like I was good at, I was very unconfident and uncomfortable in standard social situations like parties or dances.   Teenage girls tell themselves a lot of mean things in their heads and I definitely fell into that, and believed in this narrative that I wasn't good at social things, and no boys would ever like me. And so this was how I went into my young adulthood.   I served a mission and then I found myself living in Salt Lake City as a single member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, who still believed she was really not good at social stuff, but the greatest desire of my heart was to find love and get married and have a family.   And I began to realize how ill-equipped I was to make that dream come true. One of my survival strategies, actually, pretty much my only trick for getting through social situations was to look around for people who looked more uncomfortable or lonely than me and go be friends with them. I definitely had an identity as a kind person, and so I had the confidence to do that and I still think that's a good thing. I'm glad I learned that skill and that habit, but it did become clear that it wasn't the way to find my people, my match necessarily.   I was living at the time in the Avenues in Salt Lake with a wonderful roommate who was a really good friend who was really pretty, cute, and fun and was really gifted at all the social stuff that I felt kind of inept at. And it would happen all the time that she would get asked on dates and I would be overlooked. And the low point came when I was at a ward mix and mingle, and I look around for someone more lonely and uncomfortable than me, I see this really nerdy guy sitting alone at a table, I go over and sit down and start talking to him, and he barely looks at me, just stares at my roommate and then asks me if I know if she's dating anybody. It was a pretty low blow.   And the next day, I came home from work, I was alone in the house, and I was just pretty bitter and grumpy, and I was saying to myself, like, "How do people even date? How is it even done? Do you have to be like a superhero to date? Because it seems impossible to me." And I had just read a book about the history of comic strips, and so inspired by that and fueled by my bitterness, I started drawing a comic strip called, "The Adventures of Dating Girl."   The plotline was a mild, mannered legal secretary, Mary Shanahan, whose initials were a transposition of mine, was a nice girl, hard worker, smart, funny, spiritual, but just not a dater. And then on Valentine's Day Eve when she's walking home from work, she stops to smell some flowers in front of a florist shop and she is hit by magic cosmic lightning, and there's this huge explosion of roses and her glasses go flying off and when she finally stands up from the pile of sizzling roses, she's been transformed into this mega babe, and her outfit is different. She's wearing boots that say "Dating Girl." And there's a crowd of onlookers, some of them are holding up signs telling her how hot she is now.   That was as far as I ever got with drawing the comic strip, and it was just kind of cathartic and fun that night. A funny thing I thought to do with my bitterness about dating.   But I found I couldn't stop thinking about the story of Dating Girl, and I talked about it with my best friend Megan and it kind of became a hobby of ours to talk about the adventures of dating girl and imagine the continuing storyline. And a couple other friends got into it, and we spent a lot of those dateless nights talking about the mythology of Dating Girl, and the story evolved.   So the rest of the story is Mary Shanahan goes home that night after being struck by lightning and she washes her face and goes straight to bed and she doesn't even look in the mirror or notice that she's become this super babe. And in the next morning, she wakes up and her roommates wake up and discover that they also are kind of magically transformed. And over the next few weeks, they're like, "Something's different. We're kind of looking better," but also they felt like they had some new wisdom or skill in social situations and dating, understanding that they hadn't had before.   As they're trying to figure that out, they find themselves magically transported to this location where they meet a woman, Magda, who becomes their mentor. And Magda tells them that she used to be Dating Girl, but she has since retired and moved on. And there has always been a "dating girl" and there always has to be a "dating girl." And when Magda retired, the new "Dating Girl" had to be risen up and that's why the universe chose Mary Shanahan to be struck by lightning to become the new dating girl. And every dating girl has her sidekicks who are also dating girls, and they all have this power to bring balance to the force I guess or to improve healthiness and wisdom and goodness in dating.   And dating girl also learns that she has power to look out over the Salt Lake Valley and little like heart flares go up and she can tell where she's needed and she can go there and also she can fly, but that's like nothing compared to the power of love that defines her now.   So we came up with a bunch of plot lines for the dating girls. The most significant story arc of which was the rise of her arch nemesis, Matthew Nan, the natural man, who was a very cool, accomplished, smart guy who moved into her their ward who was a natural leader and who should have been an influence for good, but instead used his power for evil to encourage people to be lame in dating, to not try hard, to not take risks, to not think the best of others, to be selfish and insecure. He was just a bad dude and they were constantly trying to thwart him.   So, time went on, and the really interesting thing was that the story began to change all of us. It certainly began to change me. We had a lot of conversations about what exactly is Dating Girl's power? What is the superpower in dating? And I was very insistent that her power was not going on dates, that was stupid, and her power was also not being hot, because that's not a superpower that was just like a random side effect of being struck by magic, cosmic lightning.   But the power that she had was the power that she already had in her that was magnified by becoming a superhero. And the power was Christlike charity or love, to apply that to dating. Thinking about what that meant was really healthy for me to think, "What does that mean for the way you treat the person you're dating or the people you're flirting with or the people you want to know better? How do you Treat yourself, and how do you wish the best and work for the best for both parties in a relationship?"   And out of that came for me what was wisdom and self awareness about the ways that I was kind of competitive with other women and I was embracing my insecurities rather than my strengths. And I was letting bitterness lead me rather than hope, and that I was also really hard on guys.   I realized that if I tried to see my dating scene with Dating Girl's magic supervision, it made me see people more as I think Christ would see them, more for their potential and their hopes, and less their weaknesses and their failings. It made me see that we're all very scared and vulnerable in the scary world of dating and that we all needed people to be kind.   It was interesting to see that I had really gone through a time of thinking my strategy of finding people who are lonelier than me and reaching out to them was a weakness. But in fact, that was part of my strength that I did want to be kind when I dated, but I could also do it with more confidence.   The way the dating girl mythology affected my friends was also interesting. As my friends chose a "dating girl" alter ego, their superpower was something that they themselves thought was a weakness but became a strength.   And I think just the act of sitting around and talking about this, imagining these superhero plotlines, for each of us helped us organically move on to being the daters we had always wanted to be. We thought we were being super nerdy. I mean, we were talking about imaginary superheroes and comic strips but it actually was making us more competent daters, more gifted socializers, and it really made a difference in our lives.   After a while, I found that before I was going to a party or something that had me kind of nervous, I would literally psych myself up by saying, "You can do this. You're Dating Girl. Nobody knows it. Nobody has to know it, but you know it inside and you can do this." Sometimes in dating, I would literally say, "W-W-D-G-D. What would dating girl do?" And I would sometimes make lists of the ways that I thought Dating Girl would handle a certain dating situation, and then realize that that was who I was now, and I could do it.   It gave me so much confidence and comfort with myself, and I think because her superpower was based in something that was a part of me that I'd seen as a weakness, ut through the power of charity was turned into a strength, it stuck and it became a part of who I am.   I think it's so true in life in general. Whatever we believe about ourselves can become true. I'm happy to say that all of the "dating girls" that generation of Dating Girls got married, found love, got married. We all have kids now. And there's a funny ending to the story.   My husband and I run our own business and a lot of our employees have ended up being singleyoung adult members of our church. And I was talking to one of these girls in our home one night after work, she was telling me about her dating woes, and I started telling her the story of Dating Girl and she was really into it, and she's starting to imagine her own dating alter ego.   When suddenly there's this huge flash of lightning and a huge clap of thunder like right on top of the house, the lights go out and everything, and then they come back on and we just looked at each other like, "What just happened?" And we realized a new dating girl has been risen up. I just retired and I'm Magda now and she's the new Dating Girl and the generation continues. Dating Girl lives. She always lives.   KaRyn  22:05  That was Sarah. I never get tired of hearing her stories. And I'm also always surprised by the inventiveness of her imagination. And great news, the original Gating Girl comic still exists, and we'll have it in our show notes, so you can take inspiration as you try to find your own inner superhero.   There are a few things worth taking from Sarah's story about how we seek to understand our weakness and our strengths. I think it's really easy to compare ourselves to others, like Sarah did, or assume that all hero stuff happens to other people and not us. But I think something special happens when we open ourselves up to the possibility that we can become the hero of our own narrative.   We find that our capacity is magnified through Christ, and consequently our capacity to see others in their full heroic glory is also magnified. We begin to realize that there can never be too many superheroes and that our work is blessed by the existence of everyone conquering the natural man together. That kind of unity is what it's all about.   Our final story today comes from Kurt, who describes the experience of growing into a new calling as he accesses the only true superpower, the power of God upon the Earth, the priesthood.   Julie  23:17  Here's Kurt:   Kurt  23:19  It's Sunday, February 6th, 2011, and I've been Bishop for one hour.   I'm sitting in the bishop's office, I guess it's my office, but it sure doesn't feel like that, even though the plaque says that outside the door. I noticed the candy dish that I guess I now preside over, the strange carpet wallpaper, and various pictures that hang in the room, the First Presidency, Christ, and a random temple. And I guess I really am the bishop.   My Ward clerk comes into the office with a stack of papers, "Bishop Francom, I just need you to sign here, there, and one more here. Thank you." I noticed as he leaves the room, that he is going through a group of people outside the office. All these people suddenly look into the office hoping that it's their turn to now see the bishop. Because some for some reason, they think I have the solution to all of their problems.   Do they really understand who they're dealing with? I mean, I'm a 28 year old that was called to be bishop in an inner city ward, not because I'm anything special, but because the list of options was incredibly short. But nonetheless, the responsibility is on me to answer their questions.   It just doesn't sit well yet. I don't feel like a bishop though I am standing there in a suit. It feels like dress up. And believe me, I know a thing or two about dress up. As a five year old. I'm sitting there in front of the TV day after day watching a man I later find out is really named Christopher Reeves flying around on the TV screen, saving people from falling buildings, landing a helicopter that's on fire, and it was remarkable.   This being, this Superman was something to aspire to. I mean, the suit, the cape, I mean the strength that he exemplified. I thought, "I got to be that. I've got to be a superhero." My mother gave me a remarkable home sewn Superman cape, and every day I represented being that superhero and represented becoming that dream by wearing that Superman cape.   And sometimes, sure, my mom needed to go to the grocery store or run some errands. But I protested and said, "I will not leave this house unless this Superman cape goes underneath my clothes because crime could break out at any moment, and I must be ready so that I could become a great superhero." But now as Bishop Francom, that memory, that feeling of being a superhero seems so distant.   I've survived one full year as a bishop somehow because now I'm standing in the clerk's office with the ward clerk. He's busy at the computer printing off checks, one after the other, after the other. This has been such a heavy welfare month. I mean so many requests from so many people. Some I know, some I don't, and everybody turns to me as the bishop to make the decision. "Will I pay the rent? Will I pay the water bill? Will I pay the utilities?" As these envelopes are being in the stack in my hand all stuffed with these checks, going to landlords, going to banks, going to utility companies.   They remind me of another envelope I receive quite often. From Alice Wilkins. Every Sunday she shows up to church, big smile with their bright red lipstick. She's 92 years old and couldn't be a happier person, hands me the envelope every week trusting me that I will use these fast offering funds for the family most in need that needs these funds.   But I don't know, as I stand there, holding the stack of envelopes, it just gets heavier and heavier. I mean, these are sacred funds. These are Alice's funds that she has sacrificed. She skipped meals so that she could contribute. And now it's up to me to figure out how to use these funds? Maybe there's more I could do. Maybe I should think this through before I really place these in the mailbox.   Because what if I'm making a mistake? Maybe I've spent too much money. I've definitely spent way more than the ward's brought in. And should I sign the next check? I mean, I don't know. I don't really know that guy. And so maybe I should look more into it. What if I have disgraced these funds that have been given to me to use through the authority I've been given. Again, the pile of these checks gets higher and higher and higher. And I don't know if I'm being a good bishop.   The weight of this responsibility presses down on my shoulders, and I don't know if I want to do it anymore. I'm so frustrated with it all of the pressure of making the right decision, that I'm tired.   And in the moment, where I'm frustrated, I begin to utter the words under my breath, "I hate this." I couldn't complete that sentence before the spirit rebuked me in my mind with one simple phrase.   "I thought you wanted to be a superhero."   It was in that moment that I realize that capes don't exist or make men fly, but authority exists. Opportunities of service exist. There were so many families in dire need of help. In the sense I was wearing the cape, that could answer their prayers wth one quick, "Yes, cut the check." Suddenly, that stack of envelopes didn't seem so heavy.   Four more years followed of me being bishop, and throughout those years, there were so many decisions that weighed on my mind, so many circumstances, so many situations that were impossible before me, that took me to my knees to make the right decision and to give the right guidance and advice.   And I didn't always give the best advice, and I made a lot of mistakes, but I always went back to those words, "I thought you will wanted to be a superhero," because then I was reminded that I was doing a good work and that I was helping people, even with all my weaknesses.   The authority in which I was acting under as a bishop, the authority of Jesus Christ, the Priesthood of God, the keys that have been restored to Earth that make it all possible to reach out and use his authority as the greatest superhero of all time, where redemption is found, where infinite grace is in abundance. He is the superhero. We can turn to him in the moments when we have to stand in his place and act like the superhero, and he will strengthen us because he is our Savior.   KaRyn  30:53  That was Kurt Francom.   You may recognize his voice as the creator and host of the Leading Saints podcast. Kurt's work is focused on building the leadership capabilities of Church members around the world. So it's great to hear his personal story of feeling inadequate and then finding a way to grow into a leadership role.   I'm sure he's not the only overwhelmed disciple to mutter under his breath, "I hate this," and I'm also sure he's not the only person to discover that there is divine instruction, and divine power in the mantle of his calling to help him move beyond that place. We all have access to that superpower here on this Earth as covenant making and covenant keeping people of Christ.   So here's a confession. I probably wouldn't ever go see a superhero movie of my own volition, if it weren't for my comic book loving 16 year old stepson. I can barely keep track of all the franchises and the zillions of characters with backstories. My feeble brain cannot retain it all. And I'm a little bit partial to romantic comedies, but I will also admit that I regularly find myself weeping into my popcorn and Diet Coke at those same movies because they speak to a universal truth about weakness and strength.   In almost every movie, while the battles rage, the good guys are faced with impossible odds, their weakness is exposed, their strengths are many, but they're still never quite enough. They are always up against impossible odds.   And I feel that. I really, really feel it. Aren't we up against some really impossible odds? Aren't we staring down the cresting enemy with our battered and bruised armor and exhausted resources? Every day, aren't you and I praying and praying and praying that somehow our weakness, our insufficient faith, our fear will be replaced with power and strength and fortification from something bigger than us all.   And in the movies, that help comes often in the form of a magically activated forcefield, or the discovery of a new superpower they never knew they had, or perfectly timed dimensional leap from a long missing friend. Well in real life we don't get X-ray vision or super strength, or my personal favorite superpower, the ability to do 40 things all at the same time on deadline.   But there is in fact a real force in the universe that can transform us weaklings and weirdoes into truly spectacular beings. It's that transformative power that the Savior comforted the Prophet Moroni with in Ether chapter 12, verse 27, when he said, "...I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them."   Moroni charged with bringing the Word of God to you and me in these latter days with enough power that we would be convinced to stay faithful. He was convinced that his weakness was going to ruin everything, that he wouldn't be able to accomplish the task place before him.   The odds were against him, but the Lord wanted him to see in that moment that his weakness, his humility would be made his strength through grace. And I think that's what comes through in each of the stories we've heard today, evidence of the Savior's miraculous power to change us, to show us the double-edged sword of our weakness turned to strength, through his grace, his enabling power.   It reminds me of this quote that I love from President Ezra Taft Benson, where he taught, quote, "Men and women who turn their lives over to God will discover that he can make a lot more out of their lives than they can. He can deepen their joys, expand their vision, quicken their mind, strengthen their muscles, lift their spirits, multiply their blessings, increase their opportunities, comfort their souls, and pour out peace," end quote.   If that's not superhero stuff right there, then I don't know what it is. At the end of the day, we can feel assured that God wants and needs all of us, our whole selves, including whatever we think is unacceptable or failure -- our overwhelm, our lack of follow through, our social awkwardness, our inability to withstand that one temptation.   What we learn from these stories, from the scriptures, from that President Benson quote, is that if we offer our hearts in humility, he will help us to see our weakness clearly, which isn't always pleasant, but it's necessary, and in turn, he'll offer a hope that is stronger than any superpower we can imagine.   That's it for this episode of This is the Gospel. Thank you to Julie, Sarah, and Kurt for sharing their stories and their faith. We'll have pictures of our storytellers including Sarah's dating girl comic and a transcript of this episode in our show notes at LDSLiving.com/ThisistheGospel.   And if you aren't already following us on social media, there's way more good stuff throughout the week. Find us on Instagram and Facebook at "ThisistheGospel_Podcast."   Thank you so much for sharing the stories that means something to you with your friends and your family. We love to hear all the ways that this type of storytelling strengthens your faith in God and love for his children. If you have just a minute to leave us a review and a rating wherever you listen to this podcast, that's another way that you can share the good stuff. Every review helps us to show up in the search for more people.   All of our stories on this podcast are true and accurate as afirmed by our storytellers. If you have a story to share about living the Gospel, please call our pitch line and leave us a pitch. We often find many of our stories like Julie's from the pitch line, and we love to hear how the gospel has blessed your life. Call 515-519-6179 and pitch your story in three minutes or less.   This episode was produced by Sarah Blake with additional story producing and editing by Jasmine Mullen, Katie Lambert, Ashley Porter, and Casey Blake. It was scored, mixed, and mastered by Mix at Six Studios And our Executive Producer is Erin Hallstrom.   You can find past episodes, we have 50 of them now of this podcast and other LDS Living podcasts, at LDSLiving.com/podcasts. Have a great week.    

We are officially in 2020, but still getting our latest episode -- recorded December 26, y'all -- much faster than any other of our previous two episodes. Progress, not perfection, kids. In keeping with the fluid nature of this podcast, we spent some time on recent STEM superheroes in the news -- Miss Virginia, who made a science experiment her talent and won the title Miss America as a result. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fu-PSaIomn4 Camille Schrier wants to inspire young girls in STEM during her reign as Miss America. Her experiment begins around the 20-second mark. Because I am obsessed with our rescue dog, Casey, we also covered Stella the talking dog and Christina Hunger of Hungerforwords.com. If you haven't seen the footage of what happened when Christina left Catahoula Blue Heeler mix Stella out of her crate with a camera rolling, it is both heartbreaking and also completely amazing. Casey Blake poses with the blanket that bears her image. BEST. CHRISTMAS. EVER! But the star of Episode 3 was definitely black holes and our fascination with them. Jamee also shared her black hole STEM superhero -- the very much alive Jocelyn Bell Burnell -- and her discoveries of neutron stars and pulsars. Burnell also had a great way of sending the ladder back down for success. More on that momentarily. We did, of course, also touch on science fiction's fascination with black holes. Now that the episode is wrapped, of course, I am surprised we failed to mention that 2019 was the year we all saw the first-ever image of a black hole (and the unfortunate misogyny that resulted over Dr. Katie Bouman's visibility as a member of the team that developed the algorithm that made that image possible). Please note, I was suffering from a terrible gunky head cold, which definitely affected my sniffly, congested delivery as well as my ease in getting distracted by Baby Yoda discussions. I mean, really... Who isn't in love with Baby Yoda? We closed with a quick discussion of the recent Tech Crunch editorial on making 2020 the year of a tipping point for women in STEM, with brief segues into my DISC assessment (Correction! The I in DISC is for Influential, not Inspiration. I blame the head cold.) and our own struggles with softening or not softening or language. So, we may have juuuust missed our self-imposed deadline to get an episode out at the end of 2019, but 2020 lies ahead with oodles of great STEM stories in front of us and 12 months to tell as many of them as we can. How do you plan to help make 2020 that tipping point? What are the great STEM superheroes you are talking about and interested in? Is 2020 the beginning of a new decade or does that start in 2021? We want to hear from you. Until next time, progress, not perfection.

The Tribe reached the playoffs in 2001 and 2007. In the latter year, the team made it to the ALCS and had a 3-1 series lead before being eliminated. Close to the World Series, but no cigar! The team had exciting contention years during this decade along with painful rebuilding ones. Top performers included: David Segui, Ricky Ledee, John McDonald, Chuck Finley, Steve Karsay, Bob Wickman, Jason Bere, Marty Cordova, Juan Gonzales, Ellis Burks, Karim Garcia, Milton Bradley, CC Sabathia, Jake Westbrook, David Riske, John Rocker, Ryan Drese, Ricky Gutierrez, Matt Lawton, Chris Magruder, Lee Stevens, Coco Crisp, Ben Broussard, Brady Anderson, Josh Bard, Greg LaRocca, Brandon Phillips, Victor Martinez, Cliff Lee, Mark Wohlers, Jhonny Peralta, Casey Blake, Jody Gerut, Travis Hafner, Shane Spencer, Ryan Ludwick, Ronnie Belliard, Grady Sizemore, Aaron Boone, Ryan Garko, Andy Marte, Shin Soo Choo, Paul Byrd, Fausto Carmona (Roberto Hernandez), Josh Barfield, Trot Nixon, Asdrubal Cabrera, Ben Francisco, Joe Borowski, Jensen Lewis, Matt LaPorta, Carl Pavano, Kerry Wood, Justin Masterson and many more!

Casey Blake, Former Los Angeles Dodger and Cleveland Indian, joins us on this week's podcast. Casey talks about what made Joe Torre such a great leader, insight on Don Mattingly, and a behind the scenes look at the challenges of getting traded mid-season.

Not all Moonlighters start out as underdogs. We have had a lot of athletes on the podcast who have stories about overcoming long odds or being part of a special team. This week's guest was a star in high school and college and then had to find his way into a Major League lineup. Once Casey Blake took a hold of the hot corner in Cleveland, he was an everyday guy in the Majors for the next 9 seasons. Blake sits down with Tim this week to talk about his journey from being a 4-sport standout in Indianola to a successful college career before reaching his dream of becoming a big leaguer. Casey Blake is known for baseball but he did it all in high school. As a couple of former 800 runners, Tim and Blake talk about the guts it takes to be successful in the 800. Really, what made helped him be successful on the track was the same thing that helped him find his stride when he got to Wichita State. Blake and the Shockers went all the way to the final game in Omaha in his first season. Even though he had been drafted out of high school, Blake attributes competing for playing time at the start of his freshman season to his improvement as a ball-player. That freshman season set him on a trajectory to become a 3-time All American and included two trips to the College World Series. When Blake made it to professional baseball he had to grind his way through the minors with stops everywhere from Florida to Edmonton while playing for the Blue Jays, Twins, and Orioles organizations before getting his break for a consistent spot in the line up with the Indians. When Blake was given the shot to be the everyday third baseman in 2003, he didn't give it up. He led the team in games played with 152 and often hit 2nd in the order. After a little over 5 quality years with the Tribe, Blake had to leave the midwest for LA. Blake had a few really good seasons with the Dodgers before retiring in 2012, ending his 13-year pro career. Casey Blake came in at number 25 in the Moonlight Graham Top 100 athletes and this interview is a great reminder why. Blake takes Tim all the way through his resume and shares some really great stories about competing at all levels.

Ross sits down with former MLB Player Casey Blake. They talk about MLB, Grandview Little League and more.

Erich Viedge interviews Chris Deaton about polyamory and BDSM 0:00 Introduction and host chat Under 18? Stop listening now and visit http://www.scarleteen.com 1:15 Announcements We'll be at Southwest Love Festin Tucson, AZ April 7-9 And we'll be at RelateCon in Boise, ID April 27-29 2:00 Poly in the news The tabloids are loving poly story packages 6:30 Interview: Chris Deaton on hierarchy and power dynamics in polyamory Our South African correspondent Erich Viedge interviews researcher Chris Deaton on hierarchy and power dynamics in polyamory. He is doing a survey on how power exchange in BDSM poly relationships are reflected in poly relationships that might otherwise be egalitarian. 279 Polyamory and BDSM with Raven Kalera 538 Coming out to your kids with Casey Blake 28:00 How to make this podcast better Questions? Comments? Feedback? Email polyweekly@gmail.com and attach an audio comment or call the listener comment line at 802-505-POLY. Friend us on Twitter or Facebook, leave a comment here. Check out Poly Weekly podcasts at polyweekly.libsyn.com. Share this with a friend or write an iTunes review!  Our intro and outro music is courtesy of Pacemaker Jane, “Good Suspicions.”  

South African correspondent Erich Viedge interviews sex educator Casey Blake for tips on how to talk about your poly relationships and your general polyamory with your kids: 0:00 Introduction and host chat Under 18? Stop listening now and visit http://www.scarleteen.com 1:30 Intro and host chat So excited to bring you another piece out of South Africa. The audio line wasn’t the best, but we hope the great interview shines through! 2:30 Interview: Casey Blake Casey Blake is a South African sex educator who helps parents to break the silent taboo of speaking about our lives in ways that can make a difference for our children. She founded What Now Counselling in 2013 to provide a variety of services to help people cope with the life, when the first words that come to mind are "What Now?" and runs workshops on how to have “the talks” about sex and relationship with kids. South African correspondent Erich Viedge interviews Casey Blake to ask about how to come out to his own kids, and she recommends a few things: Don’t insist on being the source of all correct information—be willing to say you don’t know or to ask them what they think. Ask them what do relationships mean to you? If your kid discovers you have a date outside your marriage, ask them what they think about that? What does “date” mean to you? When we are silent about things, it teaches our children that they can’t talk to us. Bring stuff up, even out of the blue—it teaches them that they can also bring up unspoken things or ask questions after a while. It’s OK to teach that sex is nice/pleasurable, and that’s why the door is closed. An easy answer is to ask what do you think. For example, if your kid asks what you do on your date with your girlfriend, ask them, “what do you think?” Don’t let your internalized shame get in the way of communication with your kid. Ask the children for the information they’ve got in a conversational manner: where did you hear that? What do you think? (Listen, breathe and try not to laugh!) Pixelate what needs pixelating. Being ignorant makes your kids susceptible to danger. You can’t talk with your children about something you are ashamed they know you’re doing. You can find her on Facebook at Tools for Having The Talks - with Casey Blake or on Facebook at Body-Positive Parenting - with Casey Blake 24:00 How to make this podcast better Questions? Comments? Feedback? Email polyweekly@gmail.com and attach an audio comment or call the listener comment line at 802-505-POLY. Friend us on Twitter or Facebook, leave a comment here. Check out Poly Weekly podcasts at polyweekly.libsyn.com. Share this with a friend or write an iTunes review!  Our intro and outro music is courtesy of Pacemaker Jane, “Good Suspicions.”

CliffCentral.com — Mabale Moloi is joined by counsellor Casey Blake from What Now Counseling. Together they tackle some of the tough relationship questions people are afraid to ask. How to answer the "Do I look fat?" question when she really has gained too much weight? And how do you tell him you're bored with the sex and want to change things up a little?

CliffCentral.com — Damon, Lorraine and Bernice talk to relationship and sex counselor Casey Blake.

Scott Raab is talking this Monday morning about the Tribe mostly. The weekend series against the Twins, Matt Underwood, Superstition, Jason Kipnis, Lonnie Chisenhall and getting excited about the Browns. Jinxes and whether or not we believe them Matt Underwood and why Indians fans hate him so much Superstition on the field and how it has leaked into the stands and in front of the TV Man rules and whether or not you're allowed to carry a glove to the game Gun culture and how it interacts with man rules People hate Nickelback for the same reason people hate gloves at the game Matt Underwood conspiracy theories Justin Masterson's no-hit bid Jason Kipnis blundering the next ground ball after the bloop hit The meaningful nature of the games out of the break What is the decision to decide whether to buy today vs. plan for the future Chisenhall for Matt Garza and whether it's worth it Is Lonnie Chisenhall the next Casey Blake? Miguel Cabrera and Jhonny Peralta making up for defense with offense Mark Reynolds and how excited people got interested in extending him Mark Reynolds bat control with two strikes vs. hitting free throws in basketball Would you rather trade Asdrubal Cabrera or Francisco Lindor? We vs. they in Cleveland sports John Oliver from The Daily Show noticing the Chief Wahoo tattoo Joe Banner and his aggressive play style Talent is going to win or lose, but how much does risk taking impact It's legitimate to get excited about the Browns on defense Phil Dawson and how embarrassing his dominance was to offensive coordinators Steelers home games in Cleveland Sports talk and how difficult it is to fill time Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices