Have you relied on someone’s else experience with the gospel of Jesus Christ? It’s so important to share our gospel experiences with each other, our families, neighbors, and more. They lift and strengthen us! Find out how Danette’s grandfather not only saved her life but helped her testimony of the Holy Ghost because he shared his experience with her.

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Find Danette Smith and her Norman book series on her website, Normanbookseries.com.

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Camille: Welcome to Chatting with Camille, helping you share the gospel of Jesus Christ at church, home, and beyond.

Welcome. Today, we have a great guest, Danette Smith; you may have heard of her before. She does some great books. Danette Smith grew up in South Jordan, Utah. She met her Canadian husband at BYU and they moved to her husband's hometown at Victoria, BC shortly after they were married. She is the mother of four and Nana to four, soon to be six. Congratulations. She enjoys doing Polynesian dancing, walking with friends, spending time with her husband and going to the beach with her grandkids. Her current passion is writing and illustrating picture and board books about a cute little mouse named Norman, who is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Welcome Danette!

Danette: Thank you.

Camille: We are happy that you are here. This week's podcast is all about stories. I asked if you had a story that you wanted to share with us that, helps discuss the gospel with our families. Share your story with us.

Danette: The story that came to mind right away was when I was about five or six, I really don't remember the age. My great grandmother at the time was alive and she was either a maid or a housekeeper or something, for some wealthy people in Arizona. I have no idea. Like I said, I was only five or six it's been almost 50 years since this memory. For some reason the family was away. I don't know.

They had given her permission that she could have guests at the house and so my family and my grandparents went to visit her. We even stayed the night at this house. They had this amazing swimming pool. My grandpa got in the pool first and I got in next; nobody else was in the pool yet.

It was a big pool and my grandpa was walking away from me and I was walking after him. Remember, I'm only five or six, maybe seven, but I, feel like I was only about six cause I don't think my little sister was born yet. All of a sudden, as I'm following him, I'm seeing his back, the floor beneath disappeared. Basically, it was a drop off into the deeper part of the pool I stepped into it and just sunk and floundered. And I was panicked. I was gaining water into my throat; I was totally drowning.

My grandpa was pretty much deaf. He had hearing aids, but when he went swimming, he turned them off or he took them out or whatever. He had no hearing aids. My family was still around. I wouldn't have died, but I thought I was dying because I was panicky. I was going under, there was no hope. I was so little and I couldn't really swim anyway. The feeling, it was so stressful and my family was yelling at my grandpa apparently. that he couldn't hear.

He couldn't hear anything. Then the spirit told him, “Turn around.” He turned around and picked me up and saved me. That was the first time I had ever experienced the Holy Ghost. Now it wasn't me experiencing it, but when he told it, he hadn't heard anything except in his head, he knew he heard the voice “Turn around” that saved my life.

It also brought me a testimony of the Holy Ghost. Till the day he died, he died when my youngest was born 24 years ago, but every time I saw him, he said, “Remember when I saved your life.” Because it was impactful to him as well. For both of us, it was definitely the Spirit that saved me. Although in retrospect, I'm sure my dad would've jumped in if nothing had happened but it was just very powerful to me.

Camille: That's a scary story though.

Danette: It was so frightening. Cause when you get as old as I am, you don't remember a lot of things in your childhood. The ones you remember are impactful and that was traumatic. That sinking, that stepping into nothingness was so frightening. I had nothing to push up on. I mean, I guess I eventually would've as I went lower and lower, but I didn't have any ground beneath me. The panic was so real.

Camille: That's quite the story. That sudden sinking. You can feel that. Wow. How did that experience then help shape your relationship with the Holy Ghost?

Danette: For one thing, it, provided a basis to know that he was there, that he cared about me, that he would come whenever there was trouble, if I needed it. I hadn't even been baptized yet, but I knew that the Holy Ghost was a significant blessing. He's been there for me many times since.

Camille: I love that you point that out though, that you weren't even baptized yet. It's not like you had been given the gift of the Holy Ghost, but you absolutely had access to the Holy Ghost, right?

Danette: Yes. And like I say, it was my grandfather receiving it, but it was, a huge testimony to me where I felt the Spirit after. When he told me what happened, I was like, “Wow” you know. The Holy Ghost confirmed to me, “Yeah. That was me.” And that was huge to building that foundation for later on in life. When I needed the Holy Ghost personally, to be there for me, I knew he was real. I knew he existed. I knew he would protect me and help me. Be there for me if I was worthy, but also just, I knew he loved me.

Camille: That's such a good experience, foundational experience to have at such a young age about the Holy Ghost. I'm sure you've thought about it through the years and it's had different influences on you throughout the years, but how have you used this experience in your life to have gospel discussions with your family?

Danette: Well, first of all, I told my kids when they were little and before they were baptized that the Holy Ghost is real. The Holy Ghost, is there as a member of the Godhead to look out for you. I mean, what a blessing it is that we have that member of the Godhead. That's pretty mind blowing when you think about it. For my kids, I often, told them that they would be protected because I knew I had been.

Camille: I love that. I mean, that's such a good thing to share with your family and they I'm sure have loved that story and used it and relied on it in their lives just as you have. That's great. Any other, lessons you might have learned from this experience besides just the Holy Ghost?

Danette: Yeah. Obviously, it helped me realize that I was important, important enough to be saved. That I had more things to do in my life; that Heavenly Father cares about each one of us individually, even a silly little girl who wasn't paying attention to what was going on. I think part of this experience, the other thing that it really brings out to me now as a grandma and when I was a mom is the importance of example and of teaching and telling.

If my grandpa had him never told me that, he, you know, if he just had a picked me up or whatever, I would've thought it was cause he noticed the splashing in the water or he heard. I assumed he heard everybody yelling, but cause I didn't realize about his hearing aids. It's the importance of example and of using those moments, when we feel the Spirit to tell our kids about them, to tell those around us, to testify basically of the Holy Ghost. As a grandma, that something else of that taught me is that to help others recognize it for themselves, but also recognize and lean on my example, cause I leaned on my grandpa for several years before I gained my own testimony specifically of an experience where the Holy Ghost spoke to me and I heard. I think we need to share those experiences.

Camille: Absolutely, not shy away from pointing it out and sharing it when we feel it and help others recognize it and know that we feel it.

Danette: And through that with the divine worth, you can point out that you're so important that the Holy Ghost. You know, a member of the Godhead wanted to talk to you, wanted to help you. Heavenly Father is aware of you. I know he's aware of me.

Camille: Yeah. You're worth it.

Danette: Worth it. Exactly.

Camille: Then we are not afraid to pray and to ask questions because you're worth being told the answer.

Danette: You're worth being helped.

Camille: Absolutely. That's beautiful.

Danette: You deserve it.

Camille: Thank you for sharing that. This goes great in what you do. You were talking about, your Norman books so tell us a little bit about them because it really kind of ties in well with this, about sharing more about the gospel.

Danette: Actually, my youngest daughter, when she was in high school, we live in Victoria, like you said, at the beginning. There are two stakes on the island, but in her high school, there were five members of the church: her, her sister, her best friend, her best friend's cousin, and her cousin, my nephew, were the only members of the church in the whole entire high school. It's like all the grades combined. And yet she was into writing and she wanted to get a writing scholarship for going to BYU Idaho. She had a portfolio with different, essays and stuff, but she wanted to write at a book.

She wrote a children's book, and we kind of collaborated on it with ideas and stuff, and I illustrated it for her. That was the Norman Gets a Blessing book. She actually won the scholarship then she went away to BYU and I was like, this is such a good idea. I wish I had books like this when I had my young kids around.

Inspiration came for the keeping the Sabbath Day Holy book, then the temple marriage then I just started writing more and more. And I had her collaborate on two other ones. And anyway, now I have 10, soon to be 12 picture books, which by the time this podcast comes out, there will be 12.

There are four board books and they cover topics. One of them is feeling the Holy Ghost. The things in the Holy Ghost book, are all examples from my life. Examples from, like real life ex. They're, not all my life. One of them is my husband’s, one of them is my daughter’s, one of them is Elder Stevenson’s story that he told. They're real-life examples, everyone. There's a baptism book, paying tithing, word wisdom. The ones coming out are following the prophet and the primary presentation coming out this year.

Camille: I love that. And I love that you started it with your daughter. That's so neat then you took it forward. I love that. That's so fun. Tell us where to get them.

Danette: Well, if you go to my website, Normanbookseries.com, you can get them there. They are available on, I have an Etsy site, and I actually have a code for your listeners if they want to get a discount (use Camille 15 for 15% off your order on Etsy). And you could also find them on Amazon as well. And in some stores in Utah, Idaho, and Arizona of Costco- there are bundles of the books. The Cardston bookstore is working on getting them too, I believe.

Camille: That's fantastic. How wonderful. Thank you for the discount for listeners. We'll put that in the show notes as well, I followed your Instagram account for quite a while now and I love seeing Norman, especially you have the, the full suit of Norman, right?

Danette: I made that for a, was it kids thing. I don't know what it's called at Thanksgiving Point a couple years ago. And my mom said, “Oh, you should do a mascot.” I was like, I love it. I made that. I'll be at Pinners in November this year and, I will have the Norman there.

Camille: That's so fun. I love it. The little videos with Norman, they definitely catch my eye.

Danette: Yeah, that's a lot of fun. We also have a little flat Norman that people can make to take on trips. When we were in Hawaii, once I had flat Norman and I was taking pictures in some. And like, it gets a lot of attention in this family. I had somebody say my daughter did a flat Stanley and I'm yeah. That's where I got the idea, from flat Stanley, but it's kind of fun. I'm actually, they're designing a stuffy for me right now.

Camille: Ah fun.

Danette: So I'll have those at Pinners. We'll see how they go.

Camille: Well, that's so exciting. Congratulations. Thank you for sharing your story. Tell people your Instagram handle real quick since I've been referencing that one.

Danette: @Normanbookseries.

Camille: There you go. So go check her out.

Danette: Yeah. Please do.

Camille: They're super fun.

Danette: We do Come Follow Me prompts every week. I ask little kids questions to help new families think about questions and conversations with their kids and there's coloring pages

Camille: It's wonderful. Definitely go check out Danette. Thank you so much for sharing with us. We're so glad you came on.

Danette: Thank you.

Camille: Want to have more gospel conversations with your family? Come to my Market and check out my gospel games at cknscratch.com, where you can have all kinds of fun, simple conversations while playing a game. Because the more we talk about the gospel, the easier it is.

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