Welcome to At Last She Said It, a podcast where women of faith come together to acknowledge

that it's complicated and support each other while we figure it out.

Hi friends, it's Susan. If you've hung around the podcast much, you've probably heard me talk about having gone from being kind of an outspoken young

Latter-day Saint girl to a pretty repressed grown-up Latter-day Saint woman.

What happened? You know, well a lot of things, but it's taken me years to untangle it for myself.

What's important to me now though is that I've figured out how to start saying

things again and in doing so I have actually found out that I'm not the only

Mormon woman who has felt silenced.

So today I want to share with you a piece I wrote about that journey into silence and

out again.

We'll call it speaking up. And as always, thanks for listening.

When I was a kid, primary was on Tuesday afternoons. I remember climbing the long hill to our ward, swinging my school bag in a gaggle of chatty friends hoping there was a treat

and wondering what it might be. After a long day at school I mostly wished we were on our

way home instead. Opening exercises were in the chapel.

The church building of my childhood was much bigger than any I've attended since,

a cavernous mid-century space presided over by a bone rattling pipe organ.

I loved the feeling that the big echoy chapel was just for us on those afternoons.

Our small songs, our childish voices.

We got birthday pencils and brought pennies for primary children's hospital.

We heard stories from the children's friend.

We sang popcorn popping and sing your way home and Jesus came to John the Baptist.

We loved the songs with actions best. We sang The Chapel Door seemed to say to me me taking special delight in adding too loudly the shh shh be still

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