The Joy of Believing

"Nana Ardie," seven-year-old Josh asked, "do you believe in Santa?" It's a question that invites thoughtful consideration before giving an honest answer to a trusting child. I sensed from the tone of his voice and the look in his eye that this was not the first time he had pondered the question. Why it surfaced in the middle of summer while riding a skateboard at top speed I did not understand. But now was the time he needed an answer. Looking into his trusting eyes I began, "Let me answer your question, Josh, so you will never outgrow your love for Santa and all he stands for."

The Joy of Believing is a collection of inspiring true stories from beloved author Ardeth G. Kapp that reveal why she believes in Santa Claus. In her warm recollections of Christmases past, the spirit of celebration and giving comes shining through. Perfect for family sharing, for an individual treat, or for a heartwarming gift for friends and loved ones, this book will be a holiday favorite for years to come.

Everyday Lives, Everyday Values Interview with Ardeth G. Kapp, author of The Joy of Believing.
Program originally aired on KSL Radio on December 2, 2007.
Host: Doug Wright

Doug: And a warm welcome to the program! It’s great to have you along, especially at this time of year, on Everyday Lives, Everyday Values. Today we are going to talk about a delightful new book, The Joy of Believing, and Sister Ardeth Kapp is here with us. What a pleasure to have you back. You are one of my favorite guests here on this program and to have you here is a real joy. Welcome.

Ardeth: That’s kind, Doug. I enjoy being here and visiting with you.

Doug: We have had the opportunity over many years now to talk about many different books, many different topics. This one, The Joy of Believing, I am anxious to find out more about that. Let me reintroduce you to our listeners. Sister Kapp served as the Young Women General President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and, later on, with your husband Heber in his assignment as president of the Canada, Vancouver, mission. There served as matron of the Cardston, Alberta, temple, and also served on the boards of several major corporations. What a joy to have you back — author, as I’ve mentioned, of other books. Maybe you can bring us up to date. What’s been happening in the life of the Kapp’s?

Ardeth: Well, we continue to be busy and enjoy serving and enjoy being back in Bountiful. We enjoy Utah, but, of course, coming from Canada originally, it was fun to be back there for a while.

Doug: For just a moment let’s talk about this legacy of yours in service to the church and also with profession. I gave just a little thumbnail sketch, but for those who perhaps haven’t heard our conversations before, as you look back over this long and illustrious career and authorship and different experiences you have had in your service to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, what are some of the things that just come to mind?

Ardeth: I guess one of the first things is to reflect back on my childhood, raised in a small town of 300 people, in a farming community, and I think I learned there some of the basic principles of leadership that have sustained me through these challenging years of opportunity. You plant what you sow – you harvest what you plant, pardon me - and you know you have to wait for the seasons and you learn to pray and depend on the Lord, and you learn to work, and I think those are values that have sustained me and strengthened me.

Doug: Absolutely. Let’s talk about this brand new book, The Joy of Believing. What was the motivation behind the book? Where did this idea come from?

Ardeth: Christmas is such a special time for everyone, ranging from, you know, the excitement of Santa Claus and all the festivities and the traditions, but underlying it all, of course, is the commemoration of the birth of the Savior, and sometimes we can get a little bit drawn to one side and maybe miss the real foundation principles of why it is so important, and such a blessing. And so in the context of this book I tried to cover the whole – well, maybe not the whole waterfront – but at least from a child asking, “Is there a Santa,” and that hard question, and then those who speak of themselves as the black sheep, and how that happens, and then the idea that whatever the situation that we all find peace and comfort in the solid conviction that Jesus Christ did come to earth and our life is better and we understand it. It makes Christmas for all of us. And it can be Christmas all year long when we believe.

Doug: I thought it was so interesting that when you open the book that the first chapter is Do You Believe In Santa? And then number two is, Is It Okay to Believe Just One More Year? Let’s talk a little bit about that. That’s an interesting moment. You know, I think every one of us – and, you know, recognizing that we have some younger listeners right now – the concept of Santa Claus and the idea of giving and sharing and receiving at this time of year is a rather unique thing for children and for parents, and most of us can remember rather significant moments where some of the true meanings of things came to light. I hope I put that delicately.

Ardeth: Yeah.

Doug: What are your thoughts on that?

Ardeth: Well, little Josh, who is my niece’s little boy, who thinks I’m his grandmother, was on his skateboard in Phoenix, Arizona, in the heat of the summer, and he ran full speed toward me in this setting and asked the most incredible question. He said, “Aunt Ardeth, do you believe in Santa?” And I looked into his trusting eyes and realized the many lessons that he had had about honesty and trust and integrity…

Doug: Oh, yeah.

Ardeth: …and I thought, “So how do I answer Josh?” And so I stopped and I said, “Josh, I’ll answer your question, but can I tell you some things first?” And he said, “Sure.” There was a tall flagpole with a flag on it just through the neighbors and I said, “You see that big flag pole over there? Is that a flag?” And he said, “Yeah.” I said, “No, don’t you think it is just a big piece of cloth?” He said, “No, it’s a flag.” This dialogue continued for some time. Then I said, “What about the eagle that’s on Papa Heber’s desk? Do you believe in the eagle?” And we talked about eagle scouts and all that. “Yeah, I believe in the eagle.” I said, “Well, what about when you go to the mall at Christmastime and you see someone in a big red suit and a big ho-ho laugh, wanting to give gifts and have everybody love each other…” Before I got to that, first I asked, when we got to the point where I talked about the flag and the eagle I said, “So do you really believe in the flag?” “Yeah.” “You really believe in the eagle?” “Yeah.” I said, “Okay, let’s go to your first question.” So I went through and I said, “You know, Santa Claus, when he is in red, what does he remind you of?” “Christmas, Christmas and gifts.” And I said, “And he can be in the North Pole and he can be in the South Pole and he can be everywhere because it makes you feel like giving and loving.” And he said, “Yeah.” I said, “So you believe in the flag?” “Yeah.” “You believe in the eagle?” “Yeah.” “Then let me ask you, what do you think about Santa?” And he said, “Yeah. I believe in Santa.” And I said, “So do I.”

Doug: What a great answer. It’s more the representation of so many wonderful things personified in that. Let’s talk for just a moment, or at least in that representation. I love this – there is something about Christmastime and the songs have talked about it for years, the poets have talked about it for years, the storytellers have said it for years and our hearts – it’s a time when Joseph and Mary went home, to the ancestral home, to be taxed and participate in the census. There is something almost genetic in human beings. We want to go home at that time of year. You address that in the book.

Ardeth: Yes. This chapter is about in the mission field when the missionaries were away from home for the first time.

Doug: I have to tell you, that was one of the toughest Christmases of my life when I had Ian on his mission. I’m not kidding you – it was tough! I don’t know about him, but it was tough for dad.

Ardeth: We were anxious that the missionaries feel the spirit of Christmas even while they were away from home, so as we would go to the zone conference the missionary zone leader would say, “This year we are all going to have a white Christmas.” Now in Canada that’s not hard, in the northern part. But the point was that we were going to feel the spirit of Christmas so at each conference we sang songs and we read from the scriptures. It didn’t sound like the tabernacle choir, but when they bore their testimonies and shared their feelings I wanted to sing “Hallelujah,” or at least shout it.

Doug: Right.

Ardeth: And, you know, there was kind of a parallel. They didn’t have lights on the tree, but the lights they had in their eyes and the lights of the people that they were teaching would pale to Christmas lights. And there were so many similarities. They weren’t after gifts, they were after souls. It was a rich experience.

Doug: Isn’t that amazing how much sweeter things are? You mentioned that regardless of the songs that were being sung, regardless of the quality of the voices singing them, it is amazing how much sweeter everything is at this time of year.

Ardeth: It really is.

Doug: Moving on through the book a little bit – again, the title of the book, for those who may have just tuned in, The Joy of Believing, and Ardeth G. Kapp is here with us. We have talked about Santa Claus and believing and hearts returning home for Christmas. I’m going to skip ahead just a little bit to Special Gifts and then I would like you to talk a little bit about the frame and the yarn, and then we will take just a brief break. Special gifts come in all different fashions. I’ll leave it at that. Your thoughts when you were putting this chapter together?

Ardeth: I think that Christmas is important to us at all stages of our lives and we don’t outgrow it. But I was caught in my own awareness that I hadn’t totally grown up when my niece, Christmas morning, was so anxious for me to open this present she had made for me. She gave it to me, I was taking time to open it, and she just ran over and tore the paper apart and just wanted me to see it – “Look, look!” And she had made kind of like a hot pad with yarn that she had wrapped around a little frame, and she was so excited for me to have this frame that she had made for me herself. I just, I was so thrilled with it and it was so cute and memorable. And then they went on, the morning, and then it was time for my sister to open a present that I had made for her. And I found myself discovering that I was just like little Shelly. I said, “Open it, hurry, open it, open it!” Because I had gotten this frame that had been in our family for years and years and I did all this needlepoint to make the background and then I put little Shelly’s ballet slipper and a clip of her first haircut and all of these treasures that were so precious, and I was giving them to my sister, and finally I caught myself thinking, “Oh my goodness, this is a frame and yarn, and I am acting like Shelly!” And I thought, “It’s okay. It’s okay.” We don’t have to grow out of those things.

Doug: I’ll never forget when I had that first – many of us can actually remember those types of moments, and for some it comes earlier than others, and I’m embarrassed to admit that I think it’s natural that there is a certain point where it is all about “Gosh, I wonder what I’m getting?” and the excitement is all about opening your presents. But there is a transition that occurs somewhere and it’s almost mystical and magical and it’s almost imperceptive at first, but all of a sudden you realize that everything that everybody told you, all those things that you’ve heard for years, that the joy truly is in the giving and that there is – a gazillion of them are coming to mind right now where I was, I’m sure, more anxious for them to open the present than they were. It’s interesting.

Ardeth: It took you so long!

Doug: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Let’s take a brief break at this point and we will come right back on the program. The Joy of Believing. Ardeth G. Kapp is our guest here on Everyday Lives, Everyday Values. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Doug: We’re back! We are talking about The Joy of Believing. Ardeth G. Kapp is our guest on Everyday Lives, Everyday Values. Sister Kapp let’s, in the few precious moments we hare remaining to us, let’s walk a little bit more through the book. One think I would like to ask you – as you were preparing this book and as you were putting it together, refining it, editing it, and putting it together – what do you think you discovered that’s maybe a little bit new in you and in your thoughts about Christmas and the season when you put this together?

Ardeth: That’s a good question because I really did make a discovery when I was trying to focus on an experience or an event or a happening that I could think about from a personal point of view and kind of relive many of those Christmases. It was like reliving it and I was seeing things in it that I had not, I don’t think I had realized when I was experiencing. I think that is one of the reasons that it is so good to keep a journal. I’m a great journaler.

Doug: Yeah, yeah.

Ardeth: And I think that you, sometimes with a few years behind you, you look back at some of those things that look quite routine and ordinary and realize the magic in them.

Doug: Yeah.

Ardeth: You know, when we went down in the sleigh to take raisin pies to a family who lived some distance away and we went in and gave them the pie and the lady cried and you wonder why she cried. I look back now and I think, you know, as a child I didn’t know why she cried, but I remember the feeling I had. So it’s kind of motivated from that sort of thing, and then as you go on in different ages, there is a story of this lady that I met at a conference that I spoke at. I didn’t know who she was, she just slipped a note in my hand as she left and it said, “Thank you for your encouragement. I’m one of the black sheep.”

Doug: Oh, yeah.

Ardeth: Then I got a little black lamb, a little wooly lamb, and I thought, you know, the routine of life sometimes dims the sensitivity to what is really happening.

Doug: Yeah. You know, I was listening to you talk there and I was just reflecting back. The older I get, and I don’t quite know how to articulate this, but sometimes when I think of Christmas, or I am embroiled in it, engrossed in it, I almost – this is a weird way to put it – there is almost a delicious melancholy about it. Longing for, remembering the things of the past when I think of my grandpa or my grandma or some of those amazing events or those special moments of years past. It brings a tear to your eye. It creates almost a blessed hollowness inside of you where you just know someday that will be filled again. That’s the only way I can put it. It’s almost like a delicious melancholy that comes with aspects of it – certainly not the overall season – but it’s almost a haunting, almost the ghost of Christmas past. I don’t know how else to put it and listening to you talk just reminded me of that. Moving on a little bit in the book…

Ardeth: Doug, can I just mention…

Doug: Please.

Ardeth: The very last chapter in there relates so much to what you are saying because somebody in our family said, “What shall we do for Christmas?” And we have the traditions, and I stopped and said, “What do we want to have happen?” And that changed the whole dialogue and we wanted to have a Christmas like grandpa and grandma used to have and it ended up by us doing things we have done before, and then we even went to the cemetery and put a tree, a little Christmas tree, on the cemetery plot. And now every year the details in there explain that when we plan what we want to have happen it is a whole different experience.

Doug: What an interesting idea. This is in A Christmas Never to be Forgotten at the very end of the book.

Ardeth: Yes, it is. Pardon me, sorry for jumping ahead.

Doug: No, no, no. That is great. The chapter, I Told You He Would Know Me, let’s talk about that for just a moment.

Ardeth: Oh, this is a tender one that brings back tender memories. It was a busy time of year, as it is for everyone, but I received a call to go to the care center not far from where my office was, and I thought, “Oh, I hardly have time to go, but yes, I can use my lunch hour.” So I rushed over there and went up to the secretary at the office thinking, “I’ll hurry and deliver this message and get back to my office and I won’t miss an appointment.” And as I walked in with all of these dear, precious older people, time stopped. It seemed like it was moving at a different time, if it was moving at all.

Doug: Yeah.

Ardeth: They were in shawls and had slippers on tired feet, and at the end of my short message one of the girls came up to me and she said, “Would you like to go down to my grandmother’s room? I’m pushing her down there now and she would like to see you because she says she thinks she knows you.” She said it in a tone that suggested that maybe her mind was tired.

Doug: Right, right.

Ardeth: And so I said, “Sure, I can do that.” So I followed her down as she helped her grandmother down to her room and then her grandmother turned around in a casual, little bit of an awkward way and she dropped down onto the bed and she looked up at me and our eyes met, and I said, “Sister Myrtle Dudley. You were my primary teacher.” I was just overwhelmed. And she pulled on her granddaughter’s jacket and she says, “I told you she would know me.” I said, “Oh, Sister Dudley. You were my primary teacher. I remember how you wore that one dress with the big sleeves that went back and forth when you were teaching “Give Said The Little Stream.” And she pulled her granddaughter’s jacket again and said, “I told you she would know me.”

Doug: Oh, wow.

Ardeth: And she said, “You came this far to see me?” And I said, “Forty years. Forty years. I have come in that period to see you today.” And then she just reached her arms out and embraced me and I felt like a child in the arms of my primary teacher, and she said, “I knew you would know me.” And then I left and casually, slowly walked back to my car. Snow was falling. I turned on the key and the windshield wiper opened the snow from my window and the overwhelming thought came to me, “If we serve each other one day I will be able to say, ‘I told you He would know me.’”

Doug: Yeah, boy.

Ardeth: And I just felt overwhelmed with the feeling that we know those we serve, and He knows.

Doug: What a beautiful story. What a beautiful, beautiful story. We, sadly, are out of time. I so look forward to sharing this book with people in my family. The Joy of Believing. Sister Ardeth G. Kapp has been our guest, and I have just so valued our relationship, our friendship, over these many years, and I so appreciate you sharing this with us, especially at this time of year. Just a final thought – What do you hope people walk away with at this time of year, maybe after having read your book?

Ardeth: I hope they will walk away with the feeling that the spirit of Christmas, if it is based on the true fundamentals of Christmas and the life of the Savior, that we can be home for Christmas all year long. When we find him we go home another way and it can be a part of our life every day.

Doug: The title of the book, The Joy of Believing, published, of course, by Deseret Book. Ardeth G. Kapp has been our special guest.