Episode 235: Is it Too Expensive to be a Latter-day Saint? | A Conversation with Natalie Brown
Release Date: 09/16/2025
Episode 248 (Bonus): Revisiting Christ Chose Women
At Last She Said It
Latter-day Saints are often told that the contemporary Church is built on the same model Jesus Christ used to establish His church. In this bonus re-release, Cynthia and Susan offer a few thoughts on that idea, and also discuss the pattern they see: the Bible doesn’t only show Jesus choosing women in the New Testament—beginning with Eve, women are cast in pivotal roles from the very start. The original episode explores how Jesus’s inclusion of women was radical within its cultural context. Yet for most of history, his namesake religion has been marked by near-total domination of the...
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Episode 247: Let's Get Curious About Curiosity
At Last She Said It
Curiosity should feel foundational for Latter-day Saints—it’s the birthplace of our religious tradition. Any member of the Church can recite the story of young Joseph Smith seeking wisdom he lacked. Curiosity is where any search for God—or for anything beyond ourselves—begins. It’s an open stance that can help us get comfortable when we find ourselves unexpectedly dropped into liminal space. Empathy has its origin in curiosity, as does creativity. All of this makes it a perfect wrap for our series of discussions centering change and transition. In Episode 247, Susan and Cynthia...
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Episode 246: What Women Don't Get | Part Two
At Last She Said It
In a podcast season devoted to talking about change, it makes sense to revisit some previously covered topics to see whether there’s been any. In Episode 246, Cynthia and Susan take another look at a foundational ALSSI discussion: What Women Don’t Get In Our Church. What’s the official messaging for Latter-day Saint women now, and does it reflect movement? Are we going forward? Backward? Nowhere? And do current narratives around women and our relationship to priesthood reflect actual progress...or not?
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Episode 245 (Bonus): Re-Acknowledging the Elephant | A Conversation About Polygamy with The Faithful Feminists
At Last She Said It
Every four years, D&C 132 comes around for study again. If you ask a Latter-day Saint woman what she keeps on her metaphorical faith “shelf,” there’s a good chance polygamy will be there. It’s mostly ignored in contemporary church conversations and teachings, a murky doctrine wrapped in a historical wound that continues to fester, easier to ignore than to heal. Many friends and family members won't even share their true feelings about it with each other. But what are the consequences of our silence around polygamy? How long can we collectively carry this enormous weight we...
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Episode 244: What About the Word of Wisdom? | A Conversation with Linda Hamilton
At Last She Said It
Though Section 89 of the Doctrine & Covenants describes itself as a “principle with promise,” “to be sent by greeting, not by commandment or constraint,” contemporary Church leadership has elevated some of its prohibitions to the level of requirement for temple worship. Other suggestions this section contains seem to be completely ignored. To complicate things, current medical research hasn’t always supported the specific tenets that have been designated “commandments.” No wonder lots of Latter-day Saints have lots of feelings about the Word of Wisdom and its application in...
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Episode 243: Embracing Your Journey | A Conversation with Whitney Call
At Last She Said It
Each Latter-day Saint’s path looks different, a combination of unique experiences, choices, and challenges. No matter how insistent our culture may sometimes feel, no woman fits in a mold. “I think my life began with holding dissonance,” explains comedian Whitney Call. “I grew up in a very faithful LDS family...but a little squidgy around the edges. We would go to church and activities every week, and we’d watch the Simpsons together on Sunday nights. We’d bear our testimonies to each other, and we used crude humor about sex.” In Episode 243, Cynthia and Susan are joined by...
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Episode 242: Are You There God? It's Us, Susan and Cynthia | Part 2
At Last She Said It
No matter what language we use to describe the Divine, for spiritual seekers the hope is that our understanding and connection will continue to expand and deepen. As Richard Rohr reminds us, “God is always bigger than the boxes we build for God, so we should not spend too much time protecting the boxes.” In Episode 242, Cynthia and Susan take another look at the spaces where their own ‘god-boxes’ used to be: It’s two women getting personal about what’s new, what’s not, and where and how they’re seeking communion and/or communication now.
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Episode 241: Demystifying Mysticism | A Conversation with Kathryn Knight Sonntag
At Last She Said It
Was Joseph Smith a mystic? Searching for the term ‘mysticism’ on the Church website yields, “See: False Doctrine, Sorcery, Superstitions; Traditions of Men.” So it’s no wonder many church members haven’t thought much about mysticism—the role it may have played in Joseph’s experience, or how it might inform their own everyday lives or transform their spiritual practices. But poet Kathryn Knight Sonntag describes it differently: “Trusting the groundless ground, trusting that the darkness or the chaos or the unknown place actually is deeply full of knowing and love and purpose....
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Episode 240 (Bonus): Navigating Transitions 4 | ALSSI Listener Stories
At Last She Said It
We can't get enough of these stories! Bonus Episode 240 features more ALSSI listeners answering the question, "What triggered your faith journey?"
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Episode 239: Let's Talk About Enmeshment | A Conversation with Dr. Julie Hanks
At Last She Said It
“Differentiation of self is being a unique individual while maintaining connection with people you love,” explains Dr. Julie Hanks. “We've been trained, particularly as women, to be enmeshed—to feel other people's pain for them. And that does no one any good. It doesn't help them, and it doesn't help us.” On Episode 239, Dr. Hanks joins Cynthia and Susan for a conversation about enmeshment. It has been a core theme in her 30 years of practice as a therapist in Utah, working with families in which “the boundaries are not clear at all and everything's everyone's business.” So...
info_outline“In all my angst about if I would marry and if I would have children and if I would have a career, I did not fully consider how the ideals in this proclamation from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints reflected a certain moment in white, middle-class America’s economic history,” writes Natalie Brown. Most Latter-day Saints have absorbed a lifetime of talks and lessons centered around an “ideal” family model in which a father goes to work and a mother stays at home with the children. This arrangement is no longer economically possible for many American families, and the disconnect between Church teachings and members’ lived experience can have many consequences. In Episode 235, Susan and Cynthia are joined by Natalie to explore the collision of realities that have changed with teachings that haven’t. How might our church adapt to better serve members caught in the middle?