The Gift of Creativity and Finding Your Voice: Fay Klingler's Story - Latter-Day Lights

How do we recognize the gifts God has given us, especially when fear, grief, or self-doubt make them hard to see?

In this week’s episode of Latter-Day Lights, award-winning author and illustrator—Fay Klingler—shares a heartfelt conversation about creativity, spiritual promptings, and learning to trust the quiet ways Heavenly Father guides our lives. From writing bestselling books and raising a blended family of 12 children, to navigating the painful loss of her husband, Fay reflects on how God continues to shape and refine her purpose through every season of life.

Fay also opens up about her lifelong struggle with music and performance anxiety, despite receiving a patriarchal blessing that promised her the gift of music. With this, she shares the journey that inspired her children’s book “Finding Rena’s Voice,” as well as her current experience adapting to profound hearing loss and cochlear implants—all while continuing to fight for the ability to sing again.

Her story is a moving reminder that our gifts are often meant to be cultivated over time, and that God can continue calling us to grow, create, and serve at any age. Stay tuned to learn how you can use your talents to bless others and ourselves, even when they feel inconvenient or impossible.

*** Please SHARE Fay's story and help us spread hope and light to others. ***

To WATCH this episode on YouTube, visit: https://youtu.be/H2LjWU9N5eE

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To LEARN MORE about Fay’s work, visit: https://www.klinglerauthor.com/

To READ Fay’s book, “The LDS Grandparents’ Idea Book,” visit: https://a.co/d/02EY6Mu9

To READ Fay’s book, “Women’s Power,” visit: https://a.co/d/05ozr7nh

To READ Fay’s children’s book, “Finding Rena’s Voice,” visit: https://a.co/d/05bnZriS

To READ Fay’s book on betrayal, “Shattered,” visit: https://a.co/d/0315Ek6R

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To READ Scott’s new book “Faith to Stay” for free, visit: https://www.faithtostay.com/

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Keep updated with us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/latter.day.lights/
Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/latterdaylights

Also, if you have a faith-promoting or inspiring story, or know someone who does, please let us know by going to https://www.latterdaylights.com and reaching out to us.

Transcript

A Free Book Offer

Scott Brandley 0:00

Hey there, as a Latter-Day Lights listener, I want to give you a very special gift today. My brand new book, Faith to Stay. This book is filled with inspiring stories, powerful discoveries, and even fresh insights to help strengthen your faith during the storms of life. So, if you're looking to be inspired, uplifted, and spiritually recharged, just visit faithtostay.com. Now, let's get back to the

Meet Faye And Her Story

Scott Brandley 0:28

show. Hey everyone, I'm Scott Brandley.

Darla Brandley 0:31

And I'm Darla Brandley. Every member of the church has a story to share. One that can instill faith, invite hope, and inspire others.

Scott Brandley 0:40

On today's episode, we're going to hear how one woman has learned how to identify and use the gifts that Heavenly Father has given us. Welcome to Latter Day Lights. Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Latter Day Lights. So glad you're with us today. We're really excited to introduce our special guest, Fay Klinger, to the show. Welcome, Fay.

Fay Klingler 1:08

Thank you. I'm really happy to be here.

Scott Brandley 1:11

Yeah, we're happy you're here too. Thanks for coming and joining us and uh being willing to share some of your experiences and your story with us today. So before we jump in, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Fay Klingler 1:24

All right, my name is Fay Klingler. I am a recent widow. My husband was a saint, but I'm still struggling with his loss. We were a blended family. I brought six children into the family, and he brought six children into the family. So yes, it was a large group. It was 12 children, and um, we've been married for over 30 years. We have uh 40 grandchildren and 42 great-grandchildren. So I that's amazing. Um, I was a professional illustrator and writer. Currently I am still writing, but I'm otherwise retired.

Scott Brandley 2:13

Okay. Wow, that's I mean, you're probably pretty busy with a family that big.

Fay Klingler 2:20

Yes, uh, by the time we married, many of them were married, or I should say a few of them were married. Um, but we did have kind of two uh of the same age all the way through. So you end up with, you know, a lot of people all the same age, like we have in our family between the children and the now spouses. We have about three or four that are uh 30 all of the same age, you know, or 50 all the same age, or you know, so people go on missions at the same time, people get married at the same time. Yes, except we've had two different groups, like um the older kids, they've all of our grandkids have been on missions and home and married, so now we've got all these great grandchildren, and now the younger kids are leaving on missions. So we have a an older group and a younger group. So it's great. It's easy.

Scott Brandley 3:20

Yeah, yeah. Wow, that's a that's great. We're really excited to hear more about your story. And why don't we turn the time over to you and tell us where your story begins?

Why Everyone Has A Gift

Fay Klingler 3:32

All right, and thank you for the opportunity. I'm grateful that the two of you are doing this for people and sending out messages like this that are hopefully very helpful to families to inspire them and help them. For me, um let me just say that I'll start out with Heavenly Father, as we know through the scriptures, has given everyone a gift. Um, there isn't anyone that doesn't have a gift, and some of those gifts are to bless ourselves, and some of them are to bless other people. Um and sometimes it goes both ways. I mean, it may be at one season in our life it's there to help someone else, and in another season of life to help ourselves, and and that's kind of what I want to talk about. You know, um, I'm not necessarily talking about spiritual gifts, I'm talking about creative gifts. And often spiritual gifts and creative gifts go together. I mean, they may one may work with the other. But Heavenly Father and His Son were extremely creative, and nobody can deny that if they look at the earth and see a sunset or the flowers, or um go on YouTube and watch what is happening in some other part of the country and see how different that country is, the variety, the the colors, the vibrancy. Heavenly Father must have had a marvelous time putting this earth together for us. And that was creative. That was all creative work, and and creativity is work, it is a lot of work. We even learned in the last couple of weeks as we studied Come Follow Me, we learned about the two gentlemen. Um, I'm gonna mispronounce their names, but one of them is Bezliel, and the other one is Aulib. I don't know if I can say those at all, right? But they were given the gifts to be able to build the tabernacle in Moses' day. And we've learned about that through the scriptures that we were studying in the last couple of weeks. Those gifts were given to them. I have identified in a lot of people gifts that I'm not sure they would necessarily classify as creative, but they are. There's so many different gifts. Some people say I'm not creative at all. But goodness, they just don't recognize it. My one of my sisters, for example, she's very creative in the way that she shares her passion of going to the temple, doing temple work, doing it uh getting the names, the research, getting that all together, and then sharing that. That's a very great deal of creativity in how she's doing that. Another sister, um, her passion is was art, and she would do a painting for each of her siblings as her Christmas gifts. And and you know, art and music and writing, when you say creativity, most people can think of that. They can think of those three things easily, but so many things they don't think of and don't realize that it is a creative gift. One of my dear friends, her gift is consistency of coming to visit. And when she comes to visit, it's different every time. She'll either bring a gift or she'll start the conversation, she'll be looking for wanting to know something about me. Um, but she's very consistent. She never misses coming every month to see me. And a gentleman that I know. For him, the gift is being observant and noticing people, noticing what they're wearing, noticing how they're feeling. And then he always pushes that back in the conversation as a compliment, and that he noticed them, and it makes those people feel um needed and wanted and loved because somebody really paid attention to notice what they were feeling or doing or how they were dressed. One of my daughters has a real gift of being able to make a room look great. She knows just the right thing to put on the table, just the right thing, you know, to just make everything just look like it fits beautifully. And another daughter has the gift of listening. We don't think of that as a creative gift, but it is. She knows what questions to ask so that she can then sit and listen and she remembers what I say. So she has that gift of listening and communication and conversation. Another daughter has the gift of color and texture in fabric, and she can blend colors and textures together to make the most beautiful quilts you ever saw. Just wonderful. One of my boys has the gift of woodworking and repairing, and he can repair anything, anything. But his real gift is his willingness to share those things he can do and be of help. That's his real gift. And another one of my sons has the gift of financial management. Now I know he went to school, he's a CPA, but it's beyond that. It's a gift of giving when you have any of these skills and any of these gifts Heavenly Father gave you.

A Poem That Appears Late

Fay Klingler 9:41

My husband never was a poet, never seemed to rhyme anything. But as his health declined, one day he was laying on the bed in the bedroom, looking out the window, and saw these leaves blowing in the breeze out there, and he made up a poem. And he came in and told me about this poem, and it was so cute. I'm gonna read it to you. It was so cute. Little leaf up in the tree seems to wink and smile to me at me. And when the gentle breezes blow, it seems to wave and say hello. And you know, for the next two weeks to a month, everything he did rhymed. He could come up with a rhyme at the drop of the hat. We he'd never rhymed anything before. We ended up taking all of his little poems and making them into a book for the family, and we gave it to all the grandchildren. So that's awesome. It is it was darling, and everybody just loved that. Loved that book. So it was a creative gift he didn't even know he had until that time in his life. Some people have so many gifts that they get confused on how to even use them because there are it every gift takes so much time. You know, if you're gonna use your creative gifts, it's going to take a lot of thought, it's gonna take a lot of time, um, it's just downright work. And so a lot of people try to figure out what am I supposed to do? I've got, I can do all these things. What am I supposed to do? Well, sometimes there's a season in your life to do it, and sometimes you just have to use it right now.

The Prompting To Write Fast

Fay Klingler 11:41

I wrote a number of nonfiction books. One of them was the LDS Grandparents Idea Book. Maybe you've seen it before, it's an older book. It was a bestseller for Deseret Book. Um and after I finished writing about uh six books that were published, um, I figured my gift of writing was done. I I should be through. I could now relax and work on my family, um, take care of my church callings. Um, I didn't have to expend quite so much energy and time on my writing. Um then I got that nagging thought, and that kind of reminds me of what some people say. I just had this thought I should do this. No, it was a nagging thought. It was like you've got to write another book. And I thought, I don't want to. I don't want, I don't want to. And at the time, uh, my husband and I were serving at Temple Square as hosts. We served there for nine years, and um, I was in the Relief Society building. My husband was in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. Um one more one morning, my missionary companion and I were at a leadership conference, and as we were leaving the conference, I mentioned to her that I had this nagging, nagging feeling that I needed to write another book and that I didn't want to do it. And she said, Fay, you've been there before. You know that when Heavenly Father prompts you to do something, you need to follow through and do it. So from that thought, I went to prayer and I said to Heavenly Father, I don't want to do this. I've got a lot on my plate. I feel like something really important is coming that I'm gonna have to use all my time for. So I don't have time to write another book. And I still felt prompted to write another book. So I said to Heavenly Father, all right, I'll write this book if you will really help me to write it fast. Writing a book usually takes quite a while.

Darla Brandley 14:16

Uh-huh.

Fay Klingler 14:16

Yeah. But I decided, okay, I will devote every day to this book if we can just get it done fast. Well, I had the book written in three months, it was all finished. Wow. It was a pure miracle, and that was because I was really given the words to what to put in that book. So I it was a book called Woman's Power. And um it was a really good book. What happened was after I got it finished, I turned it into a publisher, and I thought at the time, well, it's gonna take a long time because usually you don't get an answer back right away. But I did, I got an answer immediately. They wanted the book. And then I thought, well, it's gonna take a long time to see it in print, but no, only a few months, and it was in print on the shelf. It was really to me a pure miracle and answer from Heavenly Father that I did follow the prompting correctly. And as soon as I was through writing that book, I was called as Relief Society president for a branch. Um, and it did take every bit of my time. It was a care center branch. And then um, well, let me just say though, before that, not before that, but before I go to the next thing, this is what it brought to my mind was this poster. Don't stay in the boat when God's calling you to step out on the water. Heavenly Father was calling me to step out on the water. I really pulled my feet, but but he pulled through when I got got into the water and carried me. So I really felt like my testimony had grown because of that. After that, my uh my husband's health continued to decline, and we both had uh pretty heavy church callings. But and I thought I was through again, but then that nagging thought came again that I needed to write another book, but this time I needed to write uh a children's book.

Writing Children's Books With Values

Fay Klingler 16:43

You know, I've I've read so many children's books where the main characters are uh they're just disrespectful, they are disrespectful to people and property, but in the story, it's made out to look like they're cute and it's made out to look like they're funny. And then we wonder, as parents and grandparents, when we have kids reading that kind of material, we wonder why their behavior matches that book. You know, so yeah, I I want my stories to be where they're going to really feel the need or the desire or the spirit to live by some values. I ended up reading uh books by um Patricia McLaughlin. Have you read books by her before?

Darla Brandley 17:47

It sounds very familiar. Can you give me a title, maybe, that she wrote?

Fay Klingler 17:52

Um my goodness, I can't even think of the name. Standing. Oh, I can't think of the name. But the her one of her books was made into, several of her books were made into movies, and they all they all have the characters where they are kind, where they are respectful. Um she doesn't preach, but she does make that spirit in the book that children feel calm. They feel calm and they want to behave well. Um, that's the kind of book that I wanted to write. So I decided that I better make use of my own stories, um, my own life, um, in writing my children's books. And so every one of my children's books has my story in it. I'm just going to tell you about one of them because it has everything to do with gifts.

Finding Her Voice In Music

Fay Klingler 18:56

My patriarchal blessing says, you will be blessed with the gift of music, and if you will cultivate the gift, it will be a great asset and a benefit to you throughout your life. Notice that that patriarchal blessing doesn't say you will have the gift of art. I was a professional illustrator. You will have the it doesn't say you'll have the gift of writing. I was a professional writer. I was a professional technical writer too. I mean, I wrote, I wrote books for Wells Fargo, I wrote books for the oil refineries, for the railroads, all the technical manuals. But it doesn't say that. It says music, and music has always been very difficult for me. Well, when I was a little girl, my mother wanted me to sing at a church function. She made me the cutest little dress. And we practiced and practiced and practiced, and we thought we had it right down. We go to this function, and at this function, yeah, I'm as my as I recall, this was a ward function, but the entire cultural hall was clear full. Um, so I'm I'm not sure on that. But I got up there to sing. Mother played the prelude. I opened my mouth and nothing came out. So she sat there for a minute and played the prelude again. I opened my mouth and nothing came out. A third time mother tried to play the prelude. Nothing came out. My voice was completely frozen with fear. I was horribly frightened by this big crowd and trying to and have anyone hear my voice. And as I grew up, when my mother would play the piano, and us kids would sing around the piano with her, I would always hear from my siblings, Fay, you're off tune. Fey, you're off tune. So I kind of grew up with this phobia of letting anybody hear my voice. Um, I loved to sing and I loved music, but I was always afraid to let anybody hear that. As I aged, and I'm very well aged now.

Scott Brandley 21:47

You look amazing.

Fay Klingler 21:52

As I aged, I went to sacrament meeting in um to visit with my parents. I was in their ward one day. And we were singing and I wasn't paying attention. And after the meeting, my dad leaned over to me and he said, Fay, you have a beautiful voice. And I thought, wow, I've I've never heard that from my dad or my mom or my siblings. Um, it meant a great deal to me. And I thought somehow I've got to get over this fear that I have of letting anybody hear my voice. And so there I am, um, almost 80 years old. Now I am 80 years old, but I would go on my walks in the morning, and on my phone, I would have the music for I Am a Child of God and um at some other one, another church song. I would have two different ones. Always, always I am a child of God. And I would go along singing as I'm walking, singing out loud until somebody walked up. If somebody came up on this, you know, the same street, my voice would just get like this because I would be so afraid they would be able to hear what I was singing. It almost signed. And then after a couple of years of doing that, I got to the point where I didn't care anymore if somebody heard while I was outside singing. And I just someone came along, they're gonna hear me sing. It's okay. Maybe not, maybe I'm not real loud, but I'm singing and they're gonna know it. And I did that. I got to the point where at one point I was speaking at an eight-stake fireside, and I was able to close my talk as the guest speaker with a friend of mine singing a song to the congregation. To me, it was a great accomplishment. And then I was able to sing with my siblings at my father's funeral. So I felt like I had really done a big deal for me. Yeah. But that was just working at it. That was working at it and wanting very much to do what that patriarchal blessing said. I wanted to work at it and share that voice. I was determined to get over that fear. And that was the nagging feeling I had about writing a book for children. Although my book, none of my children's books are just for children. They're multi-generational, and most uh reviewers will say that my books are as valuable to the older population as they are to the younger population. This book, it's called Finding Rena's voice, and it is about getting over fear, and little Rena ends up doing that in this story. It's not exactly my story in that story, but it's very similar to the idea of overcoming that fear, of being able to break out of your comfort zone and what Heavenly Father gives to you. And it's not just music, all these other gifts that I've already talked about. It's it's sharing with other people and giving to other people.

Deafness And Cochlear Implant Reality

Fay Klingler 25:48

Now, last summer um I found out by diagnosis that I um I'm almost totally deaf. I I'm profoundly hard of hearing, and I I don't know to this day how much my heart of hearing had anything to do with my music, uh with not being able to do music. But um it has been very, very difficult for me. Most people didn't know how deaf I was because I became a good lip reader, and so they didn't know I wasn't hearing them, I was just understanding what they were saying. A lot of people don't understand how much they say with their eyes or their hands or their facial things that they do with their smiles or whatever. So um I ended up making a choice to get a cochlear implant. Now, with a cochlear implant, you lose music. Um the cochlear implant is um everything that that ear hears is a digital sound, and your brain doesn't know what to do with that digital sound unless it is uh trained. So you go through a lot of rehabilitation to train your brain to understand that sound and that it's going to mean the word, whatever word. And so you do a you do a lot of books while you're listening to books, so that what your eye is seeing or your your brain is hearing and you're connected to the two together. And so I did a lot of that, and it's been a little over six months now, seven months now, and I can understand words again with that ear. But I will get the other implant on the other ear in just a few weeks, and I will have no music because what little music I have here now will be gone, and I will be all digital. When I asked my audiologist on Monday, uh, why does my brain not hear the tones of music? Why can I not get music? And she said, your brain is hearing it, it just can't identify it without being taught. So after I go through about six months with this ear of getting it so I can understand words, then I will begin uh music rehabilitation and begin teaching my brain to understand music. My goal is, as you can guess, my patriarchal blessing is saying that, let's see, how did that go? If you will cultivate this gift, it will be a great asset and benefit to you. I plan on cultivating this gift. I will work very hard with the rehabilitation for my music to get it back. Um, it's possible, it's just going to be very hard. I plan on singing again, and I'm hoping that I will be able to accomplish that in a not too distant future. It will take some time, but I plan on doing it. Wow.

Learning To Trust Quiet Promptings

Fay Klingler 29:28

So you see, there are gifts that are sometimes for us and sometimes for others. We just need to not be afraid of those gifts and not be afraid to take the time to cultivate them and then to share them and give them away.

Scott Brandley 29:49

Yeah.

Fay Klingler 29:49

I love that.

Scott Brandley 29:51

Well, one gift that I that I can see that you have is recognizing gifts. Have you thought of that as a gift?

Fay Klingler 29:58

I had not thought of that as a gift. But everything people do, you know, if especially these people that you know are in tune with our Heavenly Father, and you can feel their spirit. Um, just like those books when I was reading the Patricia McLaughlin books, I thought, wow, this is the feeling I want to have from my books. This is what I want to give with my books. And, you know, I I think I'm accomplishing that. At least that's what the reviews say. But that's important to me. Um, people, everybody. We have to remember because Heavenly Father told us this everybody has a gift. Everybody and uh we need to be sure to appreciate what Heavenly Father gave to us and gave to others, and not be afraid of them.

Scott Brandley 31:04

Yeah. Do you have any advice on how people can can work on their gifts or or hone their gifts?

Fay Klingler 31:15

Um, you know, it's like um I have I've always had a passion for art, and I've always had a passion for writing. More so art than the writing. Um, but that's part of how you identify your gifts, is if you have a passion for something. Otherwise, sometimes it happens when you don't have a passion for it, and Heavenly Father wants you to do something, and He will give you that gift, just like those two men that I talked about who helped build the tabernacle. Scriptures very clearly say Heavenly Father gave them the gifts to be able to do that work, and I think a lot of people end up with that, where they have a thought. Maybe mine was the nagging, maybe it's a casual thought, oh, maybe you ought to do this, and somehow it drives you. There's it's like a um, you can't deny it, it drives you to be able to move forward in either looking into something or actually doing something, looking into how to do something, perhaps like um one of my daughters very much is into herbal medicine, and she's just been drawn into doing that, but she's helping other people with it. It's a gift because she has listened and she has followed through.

Scott Brandley 33:01

Wow. So when you look at your life, um obviously you you you've been able to cultivate some of these gifts. Do you see Heavenly Father's hand in those things as you look back?

Fay Klingler 33:17

I see Heavenly Father's hand in everything good that I do. Um one of my books that I wrote, it was called Shattered. Um it was How to Recover from Betrayal, and not just spousal betrayal, but any kind of betrayal. At the time that I was writing that book, um I had a co-author, and she was having some troubles and not able to write one of the chapters she was supposed to write. I remember distinctly that I went to Heavenly Father and said, What I don't know what to put in this chapter. Um, and I got I was on my knees and I had this thought come to me, and I thought, that doesn't make any sense with anything else. I don't know why I would put that in the book. I got up, I sat down at the computer again, I waited for a little while, got back on my knees again and said, I don't know what to put in this in this chapter. Same thought came to my mind again. I got up and sat at the computer, and I thought, Phil, this really doesn't make sense. And as I recall, I knelt down a third time and said, Heavenly Father, I need to know what to put in this chapter. And the thought that was given to me was, if you're going to ask for revelation, don't you think you ought to write it down?

Scott Brandley 35:01

Oh, wow.

Fay Klingler 35:02

So I got back up and sat down and wrote down what he had said, and then the rest of the chapter just flowed. It just flowed. I was able to just get the rest of the chapter all put together. I knew what needed to go in there, and I just remember sitting in awe about wow, I just needed to follow what he said, and everything else would come together. It's not like it always turns out that way in life, you know, it's a lot of bumps. Um, but it does I have had his hand in everything good that I've done.

Darla Brandley 35:46

When it does work out that way, it's such a special moment. It's just uh a re uh, what is the word I'm looking for? Like a recommitment, like a aha. People are just touching you and saying, see what I mean? You know it, you you know, you know this.

Fay Klingler 36:04

Yes, yeah. It's like an aha moment. Oh yeah, oh yeah, I should have been thinking that everything was right. I should have written that down before. But yeah, that's happened multiple times, where um even uh, you know, something so simple as here I am now by myself, and I get scared at night why making sure that that I'm safe. And so I go around locking all the doors and everything. But one night um I thought I had all the doors locked, and I remember getting ready to walk down the hall, and Heavenly Father said, You need to go lock the door. And I thought, I already locked the door, and I thought, okay, all right, I'll go look. And I go to the door and it's unlocked. And I thought, oh, I missed that door. So it's it's simple, it and and we're not always in tune like that. I wish we were, I wish we were always in tune like that. But those times when we are in tune, it is an aha moment because we know Heavenly Father is aware of not just what we're doing, but what we're thinking and how we're feeling. He's gonna help us. It's up to us if it's our choice.

Darla Brandley 37:32

To turn to him, to listen to him.

Fay Klingler 37:36

Yes, it's totally up to us because he's willing, he's always there. And sometimes we're gonna get that answer really quick, and sometimes we're not, because that's not to our benefit or to our advantage. There may be something we have to learn by not getting that answer so quick. But we will get the answer.

Darla Brandley 38:01

There's always an answer, always. Yeah. Sometimes it's no, sometimes it's be patient, sometimes it's you know.

Scott Brandley 38:09

It works the same with promptings, right? If you get a prompting and you ignore it, I mean, you're gonna miss out on that opportunity and that blessing.

Fay Klingler 38:19

Yeah. The thing is it is, Scott, um those promptings sometimes are so they're so quiet. I bet you I've missed out on an awful lot of promptings. I know, I know I've heard a lot, but I bet I've missed out on an awfully lot of promptings because they are so they are so quiet and so soft and so subtle. And you get busy, you get busy and you think, okay, I'm not, you know, you know, you set it aside. But you've got to be listening, you've got to be keeping Jesus Christ in your thoughts. You've got to be thinking Heavenly Father is gonna be there for helping you, and you've got to trust that. I've had I've had a really hard time with that over the last few months. Grief of losing my husband has been extremely painful for me. And being able to step back and trust Heavenly Father is something I'm having to force myself to do because I'm having to overcome the emotions to that point.

Darla Brandley 39:39

Yeah, grief is very hard.

Fay Klingler 39:41

It is very hard. It's very hard. I had no idea how grief could take you over. So yeah, true.

Scott Brandley 39:50

The nice the blessing is that you have a huge family to support you through through the grief.

Fay Klingler 39:56

Yes, that's true. That's very true, and I'm blessed. I'm blessed with those children that support me in every way. Just um a month ago, one of my boys contacted me and said that they would like me to go with them on their family vacation. And I said, Well, where are we going? And they said, We're going to New Zealand. And I oh wow, I will go. So I'm gonna take that opportunity, please. Yeah, so I've had a fantastic, um, incredible several couple of weeks with his family on this magnificent vacation, camping in New Zealand and traveling and seeing everything on the North Island and the South Island. It was magnificent.

Scott Brandley 40:58

Wow.

Darla Brandley 40:59

That is wonderful. That would be a dream of mine. That's beautiful.

Scott Brandley 41:03

That is super fun.

Darla Brandley 41:04

Well, I hope you get there.

Scott Brandley 41:07

One day. So you said you turned 80.

Legacy And Writing Her Funeral

Scott Brandley 41:12

Um, you obviously have a lot of creativity um still and a lot of things that you want to do. How how important is legacy as you start to you know look at your life and see this amazing family and and posterity that you've created? What does that look like? What do you ever think about legacy?

Fay Klingler 41:35

I do. I think about that a lot. Um with Larry being having passed away, and even prior to his death, I wanted very much, like my mother did, I wanted to plan my own funeral. And so I have written my funeral out and told my son, I want him to follow this. The only speaker is myself, and that is, I have written my life story very brief. It's very, very brief, but I want him to read that because in that it tells my testimony, and I want my family to know that I have a very strong testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and that I know Heavenly Father loves them and loves me, and I tell them in this life story at the conclusion of it, I tell them that every book I have written has my testimony in it, and I just want them to be aware that my testimony is strong, that I hope that through my stories and my books and my care of the family, that they will know Heavenly Father, because of my testimony.

Darla Brandley 43:08

Wow, that is beautiful. That is a beautiful legacy.

Scott Brandley 43:13

That's amazing. I'm glad I asked that question. That's so good. I I want to do that. I'm gonna write my own funeral. That's a that's a brilliant idea. Yep, yeah, because that's true. Like when I think about my legacy, that's what I want people to know. I want them to know that same thing, but what a brilliant way to do it. The last words that they ever hear from you is your testimony.

Fay Klingler 43:42

Yes, that's right.

Scott Brandley 43:44

Yeah, you are a genius, Fay. You're a genius.

Fay Klingler 43:48

Well, they don't have to have any other speaker, it's just gonna be me. I think that's perfect. That's perfect.

Scott Brandley 43:55

Love it. So, what what do you have? Do you have any prompts?

New Books And Using ChatGPT

Fay Klingler 44:00

Inspires you to do something or well I I have I have this book coming out next month. This book will be released next month. And I have the next book. This these are a series. The The Finding Rena's Voice is book one. This is book two. Book three is already written and is already illustrated. It's just not formatted yet for printing. And then I have another book which is already written and illustrated that I haven't um set for the printer yet either. And it's probably the most important book I will have ever written. It's a children's book about the Holy Ghost and the importance of the Holy Ghost. And I I love this story. And about a year ago, about almost exactly a year ago, I pulled it out of the file, and I don't know why I did that, though, though you have to say it's a property. I pulled it out of the file and sat down to read it. And I sat down to read it and I thought, oh my goodness, I need to have I need to do something with this. So I hired an editor. At first I went through it to make sure that it was what I thought ought to be there. And then I hired an editor to go through it. Um and she had a couple of suggestions. The illustrator is the same illustrator that illustrated this children's book that I did. Um, and it has it's uh been given two awards so far. Um, but she really outdid herself on this book that's coming up. Her illustrations are absolutely gorgeous. But it is again a story about a grandmother and a and a granddaughter. All of these children's books are bring generations together, they connect generations, and this story about the Holy Ghost will connect generations.

Darla Brandley 46:36

Oh, I love that. I love that.

Fay Klingler 46:38

Yeah, I'm very excited about it. It's it's a beautiful story.

Scott Brandley 46:44

Yeah, wow. You are an inspiration, Fay. I don't know where you get the time or the energy, but I hope to bottle some of that for myself.

Fay Klingler 46:59

Well, I I've been asking Heavenly Father, why am I doing this? Yeah, you know, you just do, you just say, Why am I doing it? It's taking so much time, and why am I doing it? And then you just get the feeling, the nudge, I've still got to do it. And then and then my thought is as long as I feel like that's what I'm supposed to be doing, that's what I'm going to be doing. And when I feel like I need to do that, I won't be doing it.

Scott Brandley 47:32

Yeah.

Fay Klingler 47:32

Yeah.

Scott Brandley 47:33

Wow. Well, Fay, this has been a treat, honestly, to get to meet you and hear about some of your stories and and some of your ideas about gifts, which are very insightful. So and and about your legacy. So so many gold nuggets that you've shared in in such a short amount of time. So we really appreciate it. Thank you. Um so as we kind of wrap things up, is there anything you'd like to share? Any final thoughts before before we go?

Fay Klingler 48:08

Oh my again, let's not be afraid of our gifts. And let's not be afraid of the promptings we receive to use those gifts, whether it's for ourselves or whether it's to share with someone else. Let's not be afraid of that and let's step forward and fulfill the jobs, if you want to call it that, fulfill the things that Heavenly Father has expected us to do. He's given us all the tools, or he will give us the tools if we don't feel like we have them. Um, even like the technical tools for me, being as old as I am, technology is not an easy thing for me. It's very difficult. But I have gone to Heavenly Father and asked for help to understand what I am supposed to do? How am I supposed to make this work? One of my boys is a travels worldwide, and he is a highly trained technical person. He's one of the AI experts of the world. And he came and put chat GPT on my computer. And when he put it on, he said, now I've got to explain to Chat GPT who you are so that he will respond to you correctly. So he says, now, mom, don't be uh don't be upset. This is what I have to do. And he says to ChatGPT, okay, she's old, she's hard of hearing, you may have to repeat several times. She may ask you a lot of times for the same thing, but it's okay. Just keep answering her. Well, over the last couple of years, I've trained my chat GPT so that it knows my values, it knows what I need, and it will teach me how to do technical things. If I can't figure out how to make my some app work, I can go to chat GPT and say, I'm trying to figure out this app. How do I make it work? Give me instructions. It gives me instructions, and then I say, okay, number seven on there, I don't understand. Where do I find that? And it will break that down a little bit more. So we're in a time where so much is possible for us to be able to make use of the gifts we are given, even when we're old, and we need to do it young and old.

Darla Brandley 51:03

Yeah.

Scott Brandley 51:05

Well, thanks, Fay. You like I said, you this has been a treat for us to be on here and get to know you and learn from you.

Fay Klingler 51:13

Thank you.

Scott Brandley 51:14

Um, so if people want to learn more about your books, um, where do they go to find those?

Fay Klingler 51:21

I have a wonderful website. It is www.klinglerauthor.com. Now there's two L's in Klingler, otherwise it doesn't go anywhere. A L I-N-G-L-E-R Author.com.

Scott Brandley 51:41

Okay. Yeah, uh well, now that you say that, I think I said Klinger at the beginning, so now I feel silly, but I yeah, it totally says Klingler on there.

Fay Klingler 51:52

That is just fine. I have a lot of people who don't put that second L in. And that's why sometimes my emails don't come through or or they don't see my website, is because they don't put two L's in.

Scott Brandley 52:06

Gotcha. Okay, so people watching this, Klingler L E R. Instead of Klinger. Okay, KlinglerAuthor.com. And we'll put that in the we'll put that in the show notes too, Fay, so they can see the links.

Fay Klingler 52:20

Okay, thank you. That would be great.

Where To Find Her Work

Scott Brandley 52:23

Well, Fay, um, thanks again, and thanks everyone for tuning in to another episode of Latter Day Lights. Let's help Fay to share her story and her light with the world. Go hit that share button, do your five-second missionary work, and let's get Fay's story out there so that we can help her get these amazing stories that she's put out into the world into the hands of people that need them. And if you have a story that you'd like to share, like Fay, go to latterdaylights.com and fill out the form, and we'll have you on the show too. So thanks again, Fay, for being on.

Fay Klingler 53:01

Thank you. Thank you, Scott, and thank you, Darla. Thank you very much.

Scott Brandley 53:05

That and thanks everyone for tuning in, and we'll see you next week with another episode of Latterday Lights. Till then, take care. Bye bye.