Gail Miller, owner of the NBA’s Utah Jazz, says that everything she is today is related to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but during the first six to eight years of her marriage to her first husband, Larry H. Miller, she was not active in the Church. She explains in her book Courage To Be You that she began bringing her kids to Church by herself after her son asked, “Mommy, where does God live?” Eventually, Larry began joining her, but she says that the way her family was treated upon their return to the Church made an impression that has remained in her heart in the years since. Read a full transcript or listen to her recent conversation with host Morgan Jones in its entirety on the All In podcast here or in the player below:
Morgan Jones: I love something that you say, you said, "We weren't treated as lost, we were treated as found." What would you say to someone—I think this is something that we experience a lot in our wards and branches and stakes in the Church—is trying to support those who are trying to come back to the Church. So what would you say are the most effective ways to do that, to treat people as if they're found rather than lost?
Gail Miller: Well, I know for me that was really important because it gave me a place to feel welcome. And that, I think, when you're trying to get back into the Church and you feel awkward, you feel like you've been away, you maybe aren't looked at the way the other members are. That maybe you might feel like you haven't been doing all the right things. To be treated as you're found means "Welcome. We love you. Come in, be part of us." And that's the way I was treated. It was like I'd never left. Every time I went to church after that, my heart was just touched with the fullness of what I'd been missing. Not because I had done anything wrong, and I had. I had been rude to people, in fact, I have a story about a man that I was quite rude to that I've, I've regretted for a long time. I hope I've made amends. But I felt like I was there to make my life better and people welcomed me and helped me do that. And that's the difference. We need to look at people who are coming as—they're there because they want to be and let's help them feel welcome.
MJ: Yeah. During that period of time, where you were kind of bringing your kids by yourself, you tell the story in the book of how you would kind of bribe your kids by taking them to McDonald's after church. And I think that that's such an honest and raw example. But as a mother, you were trying to do everything that you could to make that a positive experience for them and get them there. Why do you feel like those experiences that you had were important to include and let people know that this is not, like, a perfect situation ever?
GM: Well, for me, I didn't really have any intention when I told that story, it was just part of what happened. It happened because I had four children under six when I was doing that. I have five total, but trying to take four little children to church all by yourself and keep them happy during sacrament meeting is a challenge. And I knew that if I could reward them, and that was the closest, instant reward I had, then I could keep them focused. And so I didn't feel bad about it. Of course, it's not the right thing to do, but sometimes you just have to bend with what's going on at the time and realize that Heavenly Father wants you to do the best you can. He wants you to be perfect, but you're not. So all you can do is the best you can do, and for me, that was one way that I could help the kids feel good about being there and have something to look forward to and keep them quiet and keep my sanity. So it all came together. And I think acknowledging the fact that I'm not perfect, and then I would do something like that, kind of gives other women permission to adjust their lives to what they need.
MJ: Yeah. And I think that's so important for people to realize. I was just having a conversation yesterday with my mom and a friend and we were talking about how, you know, kind of this idea of "spirit of the law" versus "letter of the law" and why we do the things that we do. And I think that that example is so beautiful just because you were doing the very best that you could, and that's what Jesus asks of us.
GM: Well, I hope it's okay.
MJ: I'm sure it is, I'm positive. How would you say that our wards and branches can best support people who are in this situation? You talk a lot in your book about the way that Larry was treated as he started to gradually come back into the Church. How can people best support someone like your first husband, who was very, kind of, slow in moving and help them feel loved in that process?
GM: Well, the first thing that comes to mind is not judging. You don't know a person's circumstances, you don't know why they've been inactive. You don't know whether they're a product of a broken home, a home where the parents have left the Church, whether they've had something happened to them. And so to treat people as if they are a child of God and start there helps to reactivate them because then they feel like they do belong. And in our case, it was just consistent friendship. It wasn't saying, "You should do this," or, "Let me show you how." It was, "Let me be your friend. Let me help you meet other members. Let me help you enjoy being here." And that's really what won him over was the friendships that he developed with the elders quorum president, the home teachers, the bishop, who were genuinely interested in him, not just because he was a statistic.
MJ: Yeah. And I think it's important to know, for those listening at that point in your life, it wasn't like, this is Larry H. Miller. Let's be his friend for that reason, right. He was just a regular—
GM: He was a nobody.