There’s one aspect of my job that I’m still not 100% comfortable with, and that’s phone interviews.
You’d think after preaching the gospel and working as a secretary I would be used to chatting it up with people, but it’s still something I struggle with, especially when I can’t actually see the person and read their social cues.
My very first phone interview happened my first week at LDS Living. I had to (now in retrospect, got to) call an amazing LDS athlete named Fatima Dedrickson. (See my write-up here.) I knew nothing about her, I was just told to call her and get a good story. Yikes! I actually made a question tree, trying to map out every possible way our conversation could go so that I would always have a prepared response and follow-up question. I was that nervous.
Since that interview (which went really well--Fatima is awesome), I haven’t really had to do many more. I’ve transcribed many recordings of interviews that my coworkers have done, so it feels like I’ve done a lot, but I really haven’t.
This last week, though--man I’ve made a lot of calls. And in doing so I’ve talked to some incredible characters who, far from making me afraid to call people, have now made me want more interview assignments.
Clint Edwards
The first was last week, July 30th, a Wednesday. On Tuesday night we got a call in the office from Edwards’ mother-in-law, giving us a heads up that her son would be on Good Morning America the next day. Edwards was featured because of his viral blog post, “I blamed my wife for our messy house, I was wrong for many reasons.”
When I came in to work on Tuesday morning, my coworkers delegated me with the task of calling Edwards for a follow-up interview, to see what it was like being on the show, being an online “celebrity”, and so on.
(See my write-up here.)
I was so nervous making the call because again, I didn’t really know much about him. I hadn’t even read his viral blog post yet, just heard about it through Facebook. And then when he picked up the phone he was rushing off to work and I was afraid we were ticking him off by pushing for an interview when he’d just been on Good Morning America.
But when I offered to reschedule, he insisted that no it was fine as long as we made it quick. And we did. Only six minutes long, about. But in those six minutes I learned so much about Edwards and his ideas of marriage.
I won’t tell you everything he said (you can read it in that link above), but it was eye-opening to me to see the “celebrity’s” side of things. His bit on Good Morning America was surprisingly short, and the quotes they pulled from his interview seemed especially doctored to lead up to the discussion that the anchors then had about housewives. Edwards told me his side of things--how he almost wished that his blog hadn’t gone viral, because the fact that it did says a lot about our society’s ideas about marriage. And he was right on when he said that the GMA discussion sounded like “a conversation right out out of the 50s.”
He also got to retell his story with an LDS perspective, which I think he enjoyed because, as he said, “the Mormon Church teaches this.” His viral ideas about marriage are really commonplace ideas in the LDS world, and it’s interesting to see how society has reacted to it.
I don’t know what I expected a viral blogger to be like, but it certainly wasn’t as humble as Edwards proved to be.
Dr. Byron Adams Returns!
Then yesterday I had the privilege of calling my old friend Dr. Adams from the BYU Bio Department (I say “old” but really, it was like three months ago that I saw him last).
First of all, it was incredibly easy to talk with him. It was like calling a close cousin or something--we talked about how our summers were going, what was new with me, what was new with him--it was great.
Remember how he helped me with that Stowaway article about Antarctica? Well, in one of our brainstorm sessions we remembered, “Hey, isn’t there some way for people to get the sacrament in Antarctica?”
So yesterday I called him up and asked him about it. And it. Was. Awesome.
This guy is so eloquent. The Stowaway “interview” was actually just done through email, so I thought maybe he was just a good writer. Nope. He’s just a brilliant wordsmith in general. I asked him my questions, and he painted this beautiful picture of life in Antarctica, the best part being that we were talking about spiritual things this time around.
“The Church in Antarctica” piece probably won’t be published anytime soon (either online or in print--my bosses want both but it’s not on the schedule yet), so I’ll just give you a sneak peek of what he told me.
1) The Church really has a presence in Antarctica. There’s only one chapel in the researcher/military town McMurdo, but the Mormons have their own time slot for Sunday worship, and everyone on the base gets to see them on the schedule. The fact that there are enough Mormons down there on a regular enough basis to get their own Sunday slot in one of the few roomy, heated buildings on the base is pretty eye-opening.
2) There are missionary opportunities in even the unlikeliest of places. I mean, really. Antarctica? Who’d ever think that you could spread the gospel down there? But from what Dr. Adams told me, he gets questions all the time from fellow researchers, pilots, mechanics--tons of people down there. Everywhere he goes, people know he’s the “Mormon Guy,” and they talk to him about it all the time. It just goes to show that you always need to be prepared for the Lord to send people your way--even if you’re in an antarctic military base.
3) Antarctica is not God-forsaken. Dr. Adams gets to see life “at the edge of existence” as he put it. The ecosystem down there is so simple and so fragile that the scientists down there can observe and map the entire structure. It gives them a deeper appreciation for the grand scale of things--how beautiful this world is. If the life on Antarctica is so perfectly balanced and cared for by a loving God, how much more superb is the life on the rest of the planet?
It was breathtaking just hearing him talk about it. I felt the Spirit over the phone, it was that moving.
Tom Hale
Last but not least, I got to talk to a friend of my dad’s who served a mission in Paraguay, just like me! I’m writing “The Church in Paraguay” (again, set to some distant future date), and as much as I’d just like to tell my own mission stories, I need some outside sources.
Cue Brother Hale! I called him yesterday evening (busy day for phone interviews!) and we had the greatest chat about his experiences in Paraguay, his impressions of the people there, and his knowledge of the Church’s growth in that area.
Two things really stood out to me from our conversation. First, even though he served in Paraguay almost fifty years ago, his memory was sharp as a tack! He remembered names, dates, locations, exact occurrences without even having to pause to think! It made me determined to review my own mission journals regularly enough to recall fine details when I need to (which I currently don’t think I’m capable of). Apparently he remembers things so well because he tells his stories so often. In this day and age of digital storage and cheap photos, it’s easy to forget that traditions and stories used to always be passed down orally. Bro. Hale is a true oral historian, and I hope I can be that good at storytelling and remembering the past when I’m his age.
Second, the Church has grown SO MUCH since he was there. The Church was only ten years old when he served there, and there were only two small branches. Now, where the first tiny chapel was constructed sixty years ago, there’s a full-out temple! In researching for this article I found that there are currently 139 congregations. Some of them are wards in stakes! Not many, but some! And when I look back at how things were fifty years ago, it just makes me excited to see what the Church will be like there fifty years from now. Will there be multiple temples? Ten missions instead of two and a half? I’m so excited. Can I just fast-forward fifty years? Just to take a peek? Por favor??
Anyways, the moral of this blog is that I love stories. I most frequently find great stories in literature and the internet, but I’m starting to appreciate talking to people face-to-face (or...over the phone…). I truly believe that everyone has an incredible story to tell, but not everyone feels comfortable writing (which is why I have a job). If I’m truly interested in others’ stories, I need to be better about getting them straight from the source.
I’m suddenly really excited for my next interview assignment.
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