Transcript: Interview with Steven Kapp Perry and Emily Thomas
The Cricket and Seagull Fireside Chat Podcast – February, 2012
Recorded in Jerusalem, Israel
Steven Kapp Perry (SKP): As many of you know, who have listened to our podcasts in the past, I love taking church history trips in the US and in the holy land. This week finds me at the end of the tour in Jerusalem with a friend I made on this tour, Emily Thomas. Emily, thank you for being with me.
Emily Marie Thomas (EMT): Thank you.
SKP: Emily has a very interesting and unique story that I think will be a benefit and fascinating to our audience. You have a PhD in marriage and family therapy. Where did you get that?
EMT: Amridge, Amridge University.
SKP: Ten years in private practice, and now part time you also work for LDS Family Services, but you have a very interesting story in straddling two worlds between Deaf culture and hearing culture. I wonder if you can just give me an overview of your life experience of that.
EMT: I got cochlear implants in 2010. I got the left one in May, and the right one in December, and that’s a very big deal in Deaf culture. For myself, I did not grow up in Deaf schools. I grew up with a hearing family that were oral, meaning they did not use sign language in the home. For these and many things, for me, it was a good choice.
SKP: So even with your family practice and with counseling, before the implants, you were reading lips.
EMT: Yes. I was reading lips. I had hearing aids for a short time, but I was depending a lot on reading lips. It was just becoming more and more difficult to communicate in both worlds. I wanted, for me, for myself, it was an option for more access that was my choice and not just dependent on interpreters or other things that are good alternatives but I wanted more access for myself.
SKP: So actually your learning to speak English, which we have to remind people is a whole different language than ASL, has been miraculously fast.
EMT: Yes, English is very different than American Sign Language. American Sign Language paints pictures instead of word-word-word. The grammar would be much closer to French or Spanish than to English.
SKP: If you would like to follow Emily, she has a blog called www.housewifeclass.com, (Laughing) do you want to tell why you named it that?
EMT: When I first was beginning to investigate the Church, I loved the third hour for the women. At the time they were doing a big push about self-reliance, and we were learning about canning and all of these things. I didn’t know in English that it was called Relief Society for quite a while. At the time, I called it “Housewife Class”, which I know is horribly offensive, and I am so sorry, but it was a term of honor because it was such a gap in my skills. So I was excited about it, and meant it in a good way, but I know it was horribly offensive. But the name just stuck then, with the people in my ward and my community, it was sort of a term of endearment, and we just stuck with that and it became the name of the blog.
SKP: Also, you have an app, if people want to listen or go to the app store, they can follow you just through that.
EMT: Yes, they can just search for “Housewife Class” in the app store. Right now it’s only available for iPod or iPad in the apple app store, but it’s coming for Droid.
SKP: I wonder if you can tell me about the experience of Deaf people in the church. You mentioned that it’s a whole people in a way, because they even have their own language.
EMT: Yes, this is the interesting thing about Deafness. It’s the only disability – and the Deaf community would not consider it a disability – because they are the only ones who have their own language. So instead of seeing it as a disability, it is a culture. This is actually one of the things that attracted me to the church in the beginning, because it is so accessible. Online, all the hymns are in sign language, in General Conference we get the feed in ASL and in captions (and you can get it in both with captions and ASL), the Book of Mormon is in ASL, and when I go to the Temple that is in ASL. They are very good about teaching. In the handbooks, I don’t know how to say it, in the handbooks there are good sections, I mean there is good teaching for bishops and stake presidents for how to help the Deaf community and how to keep it accessible and Deaf friendly. That very much impressed me as an investigator.
SKP: What was your first contact with the church?
EMT: Oh! Actually, my story of finding out about the church is that Marlee Matlin was coming to our town to dance. She had been on a dancing show. I wanted to go see her. The local arena was brand new, the place where she was going to perform was brand new. They were refusing to give us interpreters. It was so ironic, because Marlee Matlin was in the show, and you just can’t get away with refusing interpreters when Marlee Matlin is in the show. So I actually contacted Marlee Matlin’s press agent, and told them the problem we were having, and they helped work it out. Now they know well how to do it. But anyway, so I got to see her dancing, and I loved it! I thought, well, if she can do it, I can do it – which is partly true. I do love it, but I am terrible at it! But I do love it, and so I wanted to take ballroom dancing lessons.
I started calling all of the companies in my town that offer ballroom dancing lessons. At the time, I had to call on relay and only one company would even answer the phone.Everyone else either didn’t know how to do relay, or wouldn’t try, or thought I was a telemarketer or something and so they would just hang up and wouldn’t even talk to me.
SKP: And relay, that’s someone interpreting in between two conversations?
EMT: Yes, I would either type, or depending on which kind of relay, I would either sign on video relay, or type on old relay, and the interpreter voices to the other person. Then it works the other way back for me.
So one company did talk to me, and I got lessons set up, and I started taking lessons. So for a whole year, I took ballroom lessons with myself and my teacher and an interpreter, the three of us moving around the floor, trying to teach me how to dance! By the second year, my teacher knew enough sign language that we didn’t need the interpreter anymore – which was impressive, again, not just that he was willing to use a sign language interpreter, but that he learned my language. That’s very important and it’s a big deal in Deaf culture. So I became good friends with him and his wife and their children.
Then one day they sent me a text message that said their church was having a fair for jobs, and that there was someone there needing work as an interpreter, and did I know any places for that.
At the time, as now, the economy was really starting to struggle. I was very impressed by this. Social justice was important to me, and I was impressed that their church was worried about that, even knew about it, much less doing something about it. So I asked him more about his church, and he told me the name of his church. I had to google it because I didn’t know what it meant, and that’s when I found out it was the same thing as the Mormons. I didn’t know that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was the same as the Mormons. So I learned that.
Then I started – I didn’t want them to know that I was interested, and so I started chatting with the missionaries online. That was actually at the very beginning of when they started doing that, which I didn’t know at the time. I was at the very beginning of that, and it really made the church very accessible to me, especially as a Deaf person, to be able to chat with the missionaries online.
SKP: What would hearing members of the church need to know? What don’t they know about Deaf members of the Church, or the way they live, that you wish they would know?
EMT: Oh, the biggest thing probably is that people try to speak louder, or more loudly, or they try to distort their words and make funny faces. When they do that, I cannot lipread them, because they are making these horrible faces, thinking they are communicating. It’s just scary. (laughing)
SKP: So just speak normally?
EMT: Yes, just speaking normally is fine. It’s important to look directly at the person, not looking away while you are still talking, and not lots of movement. Just be still and look at them, so they can see your face. It’s important to know that not all Deaf people read and write English. Lots of time people will try to write us notes. I understand English well, my mother was a librarian, and that was very important to her. But many cannot, especially younger Deaf, so it’s important to know that writing notes (which was the advice in the old days) is not necessarily helpful. Sometimes it can be, but not always.
The third thing I can think of is that there are many signs you can learn very simply, like “Hello”, “Thank you”, “How are you”, just simple, simple greetings – just like you would learn in Spanish or anything else – that would make a Deaf person feel very comfortable and welcome.
SKP: Thank you very much. You have mentioned some of the church resources, and actually you are a church resource right now. You are on a special mission with the FamilySearch Worldwide Support Research Team, which must give you the longest missionary name tag (laughing) that exists. Tell me what you do on your mission.
EMT: I am serving a thirty month mission. I have finished 18 months, and I have a year left. Our team is the one who answers emails, and phone calls, and the forums, and the Facebook pages for questions about help with research.
SKP: This is for anyone, or this is for people who have some level of Deafness?
EMT: No, this is for anyone at all who has a question about how to research their family history, from beginning questions to “this is my brick wall, and I am stuck. Can you help me please, because it’s driving me crazy”.
SKP: What kind of training did you need? Had you had any family history or genealogical experience before the mission?
EMT: I knew nothing! (laughing) I knew nothing about it! I was very excited because I didn’t know that I could serve a mission because I was a convert as an adult. So I thought I had missed my chance. So to find out there was a way I could still serve a mission was very exciting to me. But I had to learn. The computer parts, the learning how to do the software and things like that, was easy for me because I grew up with computers. It has been a challenge for some of my companions who are seniors. But they are better at research, so we are good at helping each other learn how to do what we do.
SKP: And you live in Oklahoma, so how does that work? Are you part of a local team, or do you connect electronically with others?
EMT: I do it all from my computer. I do it all from my computer at home. So we actually need lots more missionaries, so anyone else who has time to work from their home is welcome to come and help us. For email cases, I would sign on, log in, from my computer to the church computer, to see the emails that are there, and help answer them. But we also use Skype now, and Facebook pages, the forums are just on the internet; there are so many options now using so much technology, and all of that I can do from my own house when I have time to do it.
SKP: Now I am imagining that the Deaf community is not just one thing, because every community is not just one thing. You have people who are adventurers, and you have people who would rather just stay home.
So how has this trip been for you, from that perspective, to say, “I think I will fly halfway around the world, join a group of people I have never met before, and explore the holy land”? Is that typical? Is that just like any other society, where some people do and others don’t care to?
EMT: Yes, it is like any other community. There are some who do a lot of travelling. There are some who travel alone or who travel in groups, just like anybody else. There are people who have worked hard and have more resources and are able to travel, and some who just because of finances just cannot. I have been excited to share my blog with many back home who have never even left Oklahoma, for lots of reasons. They have been able to see these places, and learn about them, and learn about the gospel, and see for themselves – be their own eyewitnesses to these places, that they are real places, and that it all really happened, and that it’s true.
SKP: I wonder if you can think back. It’s surprising to me with all that you’ve done, that you just started the discussions three years ago, total. You sort of dove in head first. (laughing) I am wondering if, as you look back, you are able to see what is most different about your life? What important changes have being a church member and having the gospel made in your daily life?
EMT: It has changed everything! I will just brainstorm, and you can edit as necessary. (laughing) Before I was baptized, I ran away from home when I was 16 and I had no contact – at all – with my family for over a decade. I was very much in that state of misery, both from my own choices and the consequences, and from, since I was not with my family, the people I landed with were not good for me. There were lots of consequences and just that bondage and that misery. It just really was.
But to find the missionaries, and to learn about the church, has been the most powerful thing to ever happen to me. My life is completely different.
When that family gave me, for my birthday, the Book of Mormon, and in the back wrote their testimony, I read it overnight. I could not sleep; I could not eat. I could not do anything. I missed work the next day, actually, (laughing), because I had to sleep all day because I had been up reading. But then I was awake and I had to read it again. And I read it again, and I read it again. By the weekend when I saw them again, I said I need to know more about this. But I was so scared because I could recognize – I was on the other side of the atonement. I had not yet claimed it. So I could see how good it was, but that also showed how not-good I was and what a mess I had made of things, and how I really was in that destruction – not just for myself, but everybody around me, all of my family, all of this.
When I got baptized – everything changed when I got baptized.
Most significantly would be that I found my family. I didn’t know what to do on Sundays because I couldn’t do anything on Sundays. (laughing) As a convert, that was my initial “I don’t know what to do with myself now because there are so many things not to do”. I would literally be sitting around thinking, “Okay, what can I do now?”, because I was learning. I was learning.
I began writing to my parents, and that is how I would spend my Sunday afternoons after church. I wrote to my parents every Sunday. I had their addresses, and I wrote to them. My mother responded, my father did not, so I kept writing to both of them anyway.
Eventually, I began interacting with my mother, and then one day I called her and said, “I think I am going to go check out this place called Nauvoo, this weekend, do you want to go?” And she said yes. So I picked her up early Friday morning, and we drove all the way to St. Louis. We spent the night, and then drove from St. Louis to Nauvoo, and went through Nauvoo, and then drove back to St. Louis the same day. This was all the time and money we could afford. Then we came home. So in one weekend, we literally went all the way to Nauvoo and back. But what that meant was that we were stuck in the car together all of that time! (laughing) It gave us lots of time and good opportunities to talk, and to work things out, and for me to share my testimony, and for us to learn about each other. It was very tender, actually. It was very emotional at times, but very healing for us. Now I have moved her into my home, and she is living with me, and it has been very good for us.
My father did not respond to my letters until June of last year. He invited me for Father’s Day at my grandfather’s house. I got to meet him there, and he told me then that he had received all of my letters and was learning about the church, and that he had done our family history, a great deal of our family history, because he had a Mormon friend in a place we had lived when I was little, which I did not know about. So we got a lot of family history from my father, which is just a fabulous way he fulfilled part of his duty in a way that otherwise I did not get to have him as a father. So that was very special. Then he got cancer, and I got to be with him as he passed. He died in October.
Another part of the restoration of my family is that my brother was baptized a year after me, and his wife was also baptized, and they got sealed in the St. Louis temple last November. Yes, and he has just started his mission on the LDS Tech team. It is all exciting for us. It has been a miracle of healing. There are not words for it.
SKP: What a blessing to have those people come into your life, especially with your father at the end.
EMT: Yes, it was very profound and very healing and very special.There was not time for us to learn to be father and daughter, but there was time for healing, for me to share my testimony, for us to find that at-one place. That was absolutely a gift, a tender mercy beyond description.
SKP: As we have travelled as a group, one thing people have commented to me about you over and over, is “she loves her life so much”, “she is so enthusiastic”, “she is so open to every experience”, “I want to be like that”.I have heard that from many, many people on this tour. I hope you felt that. Is that how you have always been?
<p style="margin-bottom: 0.
0001pt; line-height: normal;”>EMT: Oh, that is just the gospel! He is the Light and the Life, and He gives that to me. I know that I get to receive that to share it, that that is the whole point, to give it away.
SKP: I hear that you also have been asked to speak a lot.
EMT: Yes, I love to write, more than anything else. (laughing) Any artist knows you have to have day job to support your real work, right? (laughing) I do love my job, but my passion is writing, and with that comes speaking. So I am asked to speak for youth groups, or I am asked to speak for different places or different groups or Relief Society activities or different things.
He has given me a gift of words, which to me is a precious and sacred thing, because it means He trusts me with them. I know that is part of the atonement, because I do not deserve that. It is a gift, so when I go to speak I just pray that the Spirit will speak to their spirits. All I have to do is open my mouth – and sometimes close it.
SKP: Emily Thomas, from Oklahoma, thank you so much for taking time.
EMT: Oh, thank you very much.
