Liz Wixom Johnsen: A Place to Call Home

Morgan Jones Pearson

Liz Wixom Johnsen worked for years designing beautiful homes, and at the end of a long work day she'd returned to the home where she lived alone. It is a feeling that so many in the church know intimately, a desire to create home even when our lives don't look the way we've planned. Elizabeth Wixom Johnsen is the principal design partner at Establish Design, with nearly 25 years of residential and commercial interior design experience. Guided by her love for family, friends and all things beautiful. Liz's goal is to create homes inspired by the interest and personalities of those who dwell within them. This is All In, an LDS Living podcast where we ask the question, what does it really mean to be all in the gospel of Jesus Christ? I'm Morgan Pearson. And I am so honored to have Liz Wixom Johnsen on the line with me today. Liz, welcome.

Liz Wixom Johnsen

Thank you, Morgan. So happy to be here.

Morgan Jones Pearson

Well, I am so excited to learn more from you. I feel like I should tell listeners that I first met Liz and heard her speak years ago. You came Liz and did a fireside for my Young Single Adult stake along with your mom and talked about the temple and it made an impact on me and so I'm grateful for more people to have the chance to learn from you. But I think it's interesting when we're talking about the temple and the Spirit that resides in the temple and we often refer to the temple as the house of the Lord. And we're going to talk today about home and creating home. You run a business in your professional life where you help people create a special space to call home. And so I wondered, I imagine this love for the idea of home began because of the home you were raised in and many people are probably familiar with your parents. So I wondered if you could tell us about what your parents did to create a home that invites the Spirit?

Unknown Speaker

Oh, thank you, Morgan. Yes. So I remember, one of my first memories of home was when I was about seven years old, my parents built, they designed and built a new home. And I remember standing on raw land, just a big piece of dirt, holding my dad's hand. Anyway, I remember standing on this raw piece of land holding my father's hand. And he stood there with his vision of what this home would be for our family. And he would point over here and he'd say, Well, this is where the kitchen will be. And this is where the family room will be. And this is where the bedrooms will be. And I was a young seven years old. And that experience ignited something in me, where I watched a vision and a dream become a reality. And my parents built this home that they raised their six children in. And it was it was fun. I mean, they finished the main level and then continued, as they could afford, to finish the rest of the home. But I remember watching this process as I grew up, and knowing that there was something very special in that vision and then creating of home. And then of course, they were very intentional with that same vision on what they taught us in this home. And growing up, I believe there were three things that were taught in that home and that that home held sacred. Number one was that I knew that my parents loved the Lord, I had no doubt in my mind and heart that they put Him first. The second thing that they taught me that I knew, without a doubt was that they loved each other, that their relationship was strong, and that they would put each other first next to the Lord. And then the third thing that they taught us in this home was that they loved us unconditionally, that there wasn't anything that we would do that would break that bond or that love. And so I believe that once they visioned and built this home, they filled it with those three pieces of knowledge for each one of my siblings and myself. And I think that's truly what created home for us.

Morgan Jones Pearson

That's beautiful. I want to note, as we get into this conversation, that the homes that you work on, Liz, are often very ornate, very expensive cars, the kind of homes that most of us will only ever dream of having. But I wondered what would you say to someone who wants to create a special home for their family? but may not have the kind of money they imagined might be necessary to do so.

Liz Wixom Johnsen

I love that question because each one of us live in a home in some fashion, and it is our home. It's our individual home. And so just as we are individuals, living our lives with all sorts of unique feelings and experiences, and our Father in Heaven has created us as unique, beautiful individuals. Our homes are kind of a reaction to that, if that makes sense. Our homes are a place where we have the privilege and the honor to create something that feels good to us that reflects who we are. I once heard it said that our homes are a biography of our lives, that we can fill our homes with what we love: the colors that we love, the textures that we love, the people that we love, hanging pictures of family members who have gone before on the walls and furniture that has been passed down, and the smells and the tastes and the music that feels the air, that we have just as much power to create our homes as we do our lives. My mom tells the story of a home that was so full of the Spirit in the Philippines. And this home was barely more than a grove of mahogany trees. But his light, and his love flowed through this home and it was beautiful. And she felt was Spirit there. And this family had created a beautiful home with what they had.

Morgan Jones Pearson

That's so profound, I think. And it reminds me of a couple of things. One, our mutual friend, Emily Snyder, she talks about a home of one, and that she has had the chance as a single adult in the church to create a home. And when I was single, I had somebody suggest to me, they said, you know, you have been living with roommates for years, and have imagined what it would be like to have your own space, like it might be a good time to get an apartment and to decorate it the way that you would decorate an apartment and to pick out your own furniture and those kinds of things. And I did that. And I lived in a little basement apartment for three to four years by myself. And it was huge for me, it made a huge difference. And so I do think when we're talking about this, it doesn't have to be, you know, the kind of home that shows up in Better Homes and Gardens. Creating a home can look different for all of us. But I wondered, Liz, this is an experience that you and I have in common this experience of being single, a little bit longer than expected or planned. And I know one feeling that I felt for a long time was I dreamed of having a home and a family. But it often felt like I was on the outside looking in at something that I was longing for but not a part of. And I wonder did you ever feel those same feelings?

Liz Wixom Johnsen

Oh, Morgan. Absolutely I did. Absolutely. But what I have come to understand in life is that we create home around the life that we're living at the moment. Let me explain. So I loved my single years. I loved them. I had homes like you did, where I was surrounded by roommates, who brought the best of what they had learned from their homes. They were women of faith and character. And I learned from them. Then I had at that time in my life the same experience that you had. I was able to move into a home. That was my own and I lived there for several years by myself. And I loved creating that home. I loved creating the sanctuary of learning and a place that represented me and I will always hold that home dear because of what I learned within those walls because I truly came to know who I was and my relationship with my Father in Heaven as I had a lot of time alone in that home to to learn and to grow. I feel like our homes hold tight our hopes and dreams. It was a beautiful time. I didn't feel alone. I felt lifted. I felt angels from the other side. I felt watched over. Although some questioned, did you feel alone? Was it hard? And I actually loved it. I absolutely loved it. And my house became my sanctuary. It was so hard, in fact, to leave that home. Because I had created a place of beauty for myself that I felt so comfortable in and to gather friends in and my bedside became sacred. That's where I came to know my Savior on my knees. So yes, I understand. I understand when you say, did I feel like I was on the outside looking in? Yes. But also, I truly believe that we can create home around any situation we find ourselves in this life.

Morgan Jones Pearson

Liz, I think one thing that I felt, and I completely agree with everything that you said, I think that sometimes as single adults in the Church, and this is something that it's interesting, because I found myself wanting to make sure that I never forget the way that I felt as a single person in the Church. Because I think that it changed me in a lot of ways. And I think it's easy sometimes for the gospel to feel hard when you're single, because there's so much focus on family. But I also felt like, there's been no other period of my life in which the Savior felt more present in my life. And that my love for the gospel grew, it grew exponentially during that time. So I wondered how how did you feel the Savior guiding you? And how did your love for the gospel grow through your years as a single member of the Church?

Liz Wixom Johnsen

Morgan, I love that. I love that question. Because I wish there were words to put to the feelings I have. You know, when I talk to someone who's single, who maybe feels as though that blessing is passing them by I, I almost just want to grab them and give them a big hug and say, Do you realize how blessed you are? To have this moment, this time to know your Savior and to prepare? Because we both know, they're preparing for something extraordinary. And that our Father in Heaven holds blessings for every one of his children, and they will not be denied. My experience in coming to know my Savior through that time has to do a lot with one, one specific experience that I had. I, one day, was sitting on my back porch just thinking through the plan that I had formulated in my mind, which to me, was a blessed life. I'd expected what was my blessed life to every vision, you know, I could I could imagine my husband and a beautiful family and a beautiful home with a white picket fence and a hydrangea hedge and all of it. I had every detail. I'm a designer, I had designed this blessed life. And my angst would come when when there was that life. And I was over here and trying to reconcile the difference between where I was and my blessed life. And then the impression came, and I know it was right from my loving Father. The impression was 'That's your blessed life. Let me show you my blessed life for you. And that's when things changed for me in my single years. They had been building to this for many years, I was fine. I was having a beautiful experience with my career and my family circled around me and I had a wonderful life. But that's when I really understood that my Father in Heaven is the Creator of a beautiful plan for me and that if I were to set aside what I saw is my blessed life and really focus on what He has planned for me. That's when I started to feel the abundance of His love. And that's when I, with Him, began to create the blessed life that he had always planned for me to have.

Morgan Jones Pearson

I love that. And I love the idea that we really are invited to be co-creators with God in creating that blessed life, but we have to let Him co create with us. Liz, your life has ended up looking quite a bit different than I think you probably imagined. And so many of our lives I think that's the hard part about life is that often it doesn't look exactly like we've anticipated. But sometimes it ends up even more beautiful. And so I wondered if you could tell us a little bit about how you met your husband.

Liz Wixom Johnsen

Sure. I met my husband years after that experience. I say heaven lined us up, it was pure divine design. I met my husband through several friends who were gracious enough to listen to the spirit and daring enough to suggest something in my life, someone that I should get to know I guess I should say. And my husband was picking up the pieces of a tragic divorce, a painful, excuse me, experience for he and his children. And this was a hard experience for all involved on all sides. And a loving Father in Heaven led us, I believe, to one another. And it was a beautiful experience because as I met and fell in love with my husband, I met and fell in love with his eight beautiful children who took my life from black and white to technicolor. And I see His hand in every detail of that meeting.

Morgan Jones Pearson

Just hearing you say that, I'm like this is so great. I wonder how do you feel like you were prepared at that point, because that's that's a huge adjustment to go from being single to being a mom to eight kids. How do you feel like you were prepared to create a home at that point?

Liz Wixom Johnsen

You know, I guess by virtue of definition, this family that I joined we we would be considered a broken home. And what was so incredible is I truly believe that our Father and our Savior love broken things. Because that's where the light would shine in to our family and we would see miracles, I believe I was prepared in so many ways. My single years I had the time to study and to learn and, and wrestle some things of question for me and to understanding. And so I those singles your years through this transition to motherhood and step-motherhood, and we call it bonus motherhood. They're a bonus to me, and I'm a bonus to them. But I really feel like those years were such a gift. Because I had taken time to wrestle ideas and thoughts and understandings into my heart, so that I could be prepared to step into the situation and to see each individual person that had just come into my life, my husband, and each one of these children as our Father in Heaven sees them and I was able to sit and learn from them. It was hard at first. I mean, we had to get to know each other. They needed to teach me what they like to eat. I failed. I was an epic failure at the first weeks of meals, they all ended up in the garbage until I had to sit down and say okay, what do you love? What do you want to eat? And we laugh at it now and and they had to learn that the hoverboard can't be running into antique furniture, that we had ground rules. So we really had to get to know each other. But it was those broken cracks that the light came flooding in. That in our darkest moments that He appeared and He lifted and there were so many days where I would look up when I'd go to bed at night just with gratitude and also in awe of I don't know how many angels it took today to run this one across the finish line. But we did it and we're together and we have each other and we're learning So I'm grateful, I just stand in awe of His hand and His love and His grace in this family coming together, and you know we may be defined as broken, but that brokenness has brought us to our knees, and now, we know Him better because of the journey that we've been on.

Morgan Jones Pearson

Well, I think that's so well said, and I love the way you highlighted. It's funny, my grandma never served a mission. But when I left on my mission, my grandma said something to me about, you know, take advantage of this time, you'll never have a time where you can devote all of your time to studying the gospel. And I have always been so grateful for that advice. And I think it almost kind of translated into that time as a single adult, because I recognized it wasn't that I could focus all of my attention on studying the gospel, but I could focus all of my attention on developing myself and serving other people outside of my family. And I recognized that those were things that might change at some point. And so I think that it's so important to recognize the blessing of the season that we're in at any particular time, Liz, as we work to create homes. Homes come in all different shapes and sizes. Why would you say that it's not only okay that our homes look different, and, but also important to acknowledge and important to create a home that is uniquely ours.

Liz Wixom Johnsen

You know, I love that. And Morgan, you mentioned the different seasons in our lives, our homes will look different through our lives, they will be, and they will respond to our time of life. I went from a very small home as a single woman to a very large home. We need a lot of space for that many people. And I believe that homes do come in different sizes and shapes, because that's exactly what we need to house our life at that time. But I also believe that it's interesting in our lives, to look at our needs, and also create a vision for what we want it to be. So as our homes respond to what we need, we can also increase that. So we also have the power with God to make it the most it can be for the time in which we're living. So if we're raising a bunch of young children, of course our homes are going to react to that. We're going to put durable materials in it, we're going to to create a home where there won't be angst if the hoverboard goes around between the dining room, we'll respond to that. And then there are times when we can respond otherwise. I loved, absolutely loved, President Uchtdorf's talk years ago in the women's session of conference and it was entitled, "Happiness, Your Heritage." I sat on the edge of my seat, because he was speaking my language. He was talking about the desire that's within each one of us to create. And he says it's one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul. And then he says he validates every single one of us, no matter our talents, our education, our backgrounds, or our abilities, we each have an inherent wish to create something that did not exist before. And then he goes on to say everyone can create you don't need money, position or influence in order to create something of substance and beauty. And I think the most beautiful part of this talk is the title, "Happiness, Your Heritage." And so regardless of the structure that we call home, it is our joy. And it is our yearning, and it is our privilege to create home in whatever structure surrounds us at the time that responds to our current life. But I love that he entitles that with the word happiness and joy because that's truly what creation is. And the creation of home is, it's creating joy.

Morgan Jones Pearson

I love that and I wonder if you have any thoughts, Liz about approaching creating a home with enthusiasm and joy, regardless of the space or situation.

Liz Wixom Johnsen

I believe that we are creative beings, that we've been put on this earth to mimic our father. And as we study the creation, it's one of my very favorite things to study because in the creation, we learn how our Father and our Savior created this or how that happened and the intricacies of that. And that we also are put on this earth to do the same thing. President Monson reminds us of that. He tells us that "God left us the world unfinished for man to work his skill upon. He left the electricity in the clouds and the oil in the earth. He left the rivers unbridged, and the forest unfelled, and the cities unbuilt. God gives to man the challenge of raw materials, not to the ease of finished things. He leaves the pictures unpainted, and the music and song and the problems unsolved that man might know the joys and the glories of creation." And so truthfully, He designed this world just for that, just because He knows how much joy comes in creation. And that we may know that same joy that comes when we take something that's raw material, something that's unorganized, something that's kind of a mess. And through those powers of creation, wrestle it into something that's glorious, and that can bring joy to not only us, but those who we love.

Morgan Jones Pearson

That quote is so beautiful. I love that so much, Liz, I wondered, as you were talking because obviously, listening to somebody talk about the creation, I think, for those of us who have gone through the temple, the story of the creation will always remind us of the temple. And that is something that I know you and I both share a deep love for. I wondered, what would you say that we can learn from the temple about the importance of creating a house of order? And what have you learned about the power of covenants?

Liz Wixom Johnsen

I love the temple, it was my rock during my single years. And you know what? It's still my rock. I used to go to the temple. And we would learn of the creation. And that time I I just would, I wouldn't. Maybe I wasn't paying attention enough. Until here was a time when I ran to the temple because something in my life. And it could have been anything, I don't even remember what it was now, something in my life was an organized matter. It was chaos. And for some reason that time I listened to the creation through different ears, and understood then that his power, and I'm talking the power of the covenant that is so real. His power is what, combined with who we are. His power, plus our divinity creates beauty from unorganized matter. And that all of a sudden, I realized that through these covenants, the power that I'm given through the priesthood, through His power, plus my God given talents is just like the scripture that our youth are celebrating this year. You know, "I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me." There isn't anything that can't be you created when we add His power to our talents and who we are. I'm just so grateful for the temple and I'm grateful for the endowment. I'm grateful for our covenants. And I love the the creation in the temple and I love that He teaches us that with His power, there isn't anything that we can't accomplish.

Morgan Jones Pearson

I completely agree. And as I was thinking about this conversation that we were going to have, I thought about how our homes provide such a training ground for life. I think about all the things that I've learned from my experiences within my family of origin. And the way now I have the chance to kind of take what I've learned and then take it to a new family and try to apply those things. We know that we lived with our Heavenly Parents and our Savior prior to coming here and that our purpose is to become like Them. What would you say Liz is the role that our home lives play in that ability to become like Them?

Liz Wixom Johnsen

Well, we know we came from realms of glory, we know that that light is still pulsating within each one of us. And we're comfortable, I think our souls are comfortable in beauty. They're comfortable in light, they're comfortable in organization. And we learn more of our Savior and our Father as we strive to mimic Them. And so I believe that home life plays a huge part in understanding who we are in this great plan, and understanding where we want to go, we want to become more like Them, we want to reflect Them in our lives. And They in doing this, we discover who we are. And at the end of the creation, our Father, and our Savior, and all that were involved in that creation proclaimed it to be good. And we feel him in every detail, that His hands have created for us to enjoy. I stand amazed, as I think of the Prophet Joseph Smith, when he says "Let us cheerfully do all that lies in our power, and then stand still, and watch for his arm to be revealed" in Section 123 of the Doctrine and Covenants. And what I love about that is as we create these homes, as we look to become more and more like our Heavenly Parents, let us cheerfully do everything we can maybe just a little bit, do a little bit to make something a little bit brighter, try a little something different. But it doesn't have to be all at once it can be take the next best step in creating our homes or refining our lives or becoming like Him. And then we stand in awe and watch His arm to be revealed. And for Him to magnify our best efforts.

Morgan Jones Pearson

Liz, I think that you hit the nail on the head. And I'm grateful for all of the the wonderful thoughts that you've shared with us. Liz, before I get to the last question, I just wanted to ask you, is there anything that I haven't touched on?

Liz Wixom Johnsen

I think one thing, one thing I would say when I married my husband and moved into this home, that was not a home of my creating. I didn't choose the finishes. I hadn't even raised the children to that point. It was foreign to me. It was beautiful. The parents that my children have my husband and his previous wife, were given these children and they had done a beautiful job. I I felt like I was stepping into another world. And that was hard for a time because it wasn't a world I created. And so I found myself often questioning where is my place in this world? But I have to say that by and by I came to understand this world was what God had given me. This world that I just stepped into, was in fact, my plan that He had fashioned and not me. And when I realized that, my eyes were opened, and I began to see this home that wasn't of my creating as an absolute privilege and an honor to step in and continue to create with these beautiful children that I had been given. And this wonderful husband that He had blessed me with. This now was the home that He, my Father in Heaven, had created for me to live within those walls with these precious souls.

Morgan Jones Pearson

It's such a sweet tribute to your family, your whole family, and I think that that is that something that all of us could learn from. Liz, thank you again. My last question for you is what does it mean to you to be all in the gospel of Jesus Christ?

Liz Wixom Johnsen

Morgan, I love this question. I absolutely love it. And what it means to me to be all in the gospel of Jesus Christ, perhaps it means to invite Christ to be all in you, inviting Him into every single aspect of our lives. And just as I mentioned before, like Joseph Smith "stand still with the utmost assurance for His arm to be revealed." And so to be all in is to stand in awe of His grace in every detail, every single part of who we are.

Morgan Jones Pearson

Thank you so much, Liz. It's been such a treat to learn from you and I just admire you so much. So thank you. We're so grateful to Liz Wixom Johnsen for joining us on this week's episode. As always, a big thanks to Derek Campbell of MIX AT 6 Studios for all of his help with this episode. We hope you know how much we appreciate the time you spend with us each and every week. We'll look forward to being with you again next week.

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