Aimee K
Updated: 16 Nov 2025. Jump to blog-post additions: A Living Parable
Common Ground
I believe at the root of many of our disagreements is a fundamental misunderstanding of the words we are using. Language is the common field upon which we meet, but even if a person speaks the same language as their neighbor there may be different meanings understood for the same words.
A good example of this I will draw from my Spanish speaking mission. In the Canary Islands, where I served, the word “guagua” means bus. “Coger” means to catch.
However, in Argentina where my mission president was from, the word “guagua” means baby and “coger” is vulgar slang that is used like the F-word. It’s so offensive, that in South America it’s never uttered in polite company.
I heard a story from some fellow sister missionaries: They were bidding goodbye to the mission president and his wife but also in a rush explaining they had to “coger la guagua” …and the mission presidents wife looked visibly wounded. In that situation, there was an awareness of what the words meant locally, but it didn’t take away the shock value from the meaning to them personally. Did the sisters mean what was initially understood? NO! Not even close.
A more difficult scenario is the one in which we are immersed on a regular basis. Where we have a general understanding of what a word means, but culture has misused it for so long that there has been a shift in the actual definition. Subtle differences are lost and words are used as cudgels rather than as surgical tools.
The Lord is very precise and consistent when He uses language. He is, after all, the author of the original spoken language as well as the designer and architect of natural laws that are discovered rather than invented by mere mortals.
Standard
I don’t get to decide the definitions of words. You don’t get to decide the definition of words. But we can come to a unity of understanding if we agree upon an external standard that transcends the both of us.
My preferred resource is the Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary, which was contemporary to Joseph Smith. I often use this dictionary as part of my scripture study so that I have a better understanding of the precise language that the Lord uses. I also like it because it uses scriptural examples out of the KJV Bible for nearly every definition.
There has been some lively discussion on the definition of the words “time” and “place” as they were used by the Lord in the June 20th revelation.
Let the women call a conference at a suitable time and place convenient to allow interested women to attend.
TIME, noun
[Latin tempus; tempora, the falls of the head, also tempest, etc. See Tempest. time is primarily equivalent to season; to the Gr.wpa in its original sense, opportunity, occasion, a fall, an event, that which comes.]
1. A particular portion or part of duration, whether past, present or future. The time was; the time has been; the time is; the time will be.
Lost time is never found again.
God, who at sundry times, and in divers manners, spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets. Hebrews 1:1.
2. A proper time; a season.
There is a time to every purpose. Ecclesiastes 3:1.
The time of figs was not yet. Mark 11:13.
3. Duration.
The equal and uniform flux of time does not affect our senses.
TIME is absolute or relative; absolute time is considered without any relation to bodies or their motions. Relative time is the sensible measure of any portion of duration, by means of motion. Thus the diurnal revolution of the sun measures a space of time or duration. Hence,
4. A space or measured portion of duration.
We were in Paris two months, and all that time enjoyed good health.
5. Life or duration, in reference to occupation. One man spends his time in idleness; another devotes all his time to useful purposes.
Believe me, your time is not your own; it belongs to God, to religion, to mankind.
6. Age; a part of duration distinct from other parts; as ancient times; modern times. The Spanish armada was defeated in the time of Queen Elizabeth.
7. Hour of travail.
She was within one month of her time
8. Repetition; repeated performance, or mention with reference to repetition. The physician visits his patient three times in a day.
9. Repetition; doubling; addition of a number to itself; as, to double cloth four times; four times four amount to sixteen.
10. Measure of sounds in music; as common time and treble time In concerts, it is all important, that the performers keep time or exact time
11. The state of things at a particular period; as when we say, good times, or bad times, hard times, dull times for trade, etc. In this sense, the plural is generally used.
12. In grammar, tense.
In time in good season; sufficiently early.
He arrived in time to see the exhibition.
1. A considerable space of duration; process or continuation of duration. You must wait patiently; you will in time recover your health and strength.
At times, at distinct intervals of duration. At times he reads; at other times, he rides.
The spirit began to move him at times. Judges 13:23.
TIME enough, in season; early enough.
Stanley at Bosworth-field, came time enough to save his life.
To lose time to delay.
1. To go too slow; as, a watch or clock loses time
Apparent time in astronomy, true solar time regulated by the apparent motions of the sun.
Mean time equated time a mean or average of apparent time
Siderial time is that which is shown by the diurnal revolutions of the stars.
TIME, verb transitive To adapt to the time or occasion; to bring, begin or perform at the proper season or time; as, the measure is well timed, or ill timed. No small part of political wisdom consists in knowing how to time propositions and measures.
Mercy is good, but kings mistake its timing.
1. To regulate as to time; as, he timed the stroke.
2. To measure; as in music or harmony.
Local time is measured by our relative position to the sun. When the sun is immediately overhead the time is noon, wherever in the world one happens to be. And even then there is a wide longitude in which the clocks within that zone have been standardized. One foot to the west over that line of demarcation and technically your clocks are an hour earlier.
Time can mean season, it can mean the hour of travail but it can also mean a specific hour and minute in a particular time zone.
With the innovations in cross continental communication we understand that 9 am on the East Coast is not 9 am on the West Coast, it’s 6am. Objective time is not relative to our position under the sun, it is relative to our position to one another, wherever we may be on the planet. Time can be translated, like language, so that everyone knew when to tune in to watch the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton live as the event was happening.
PLACE, noun
1. A particular portion of space of indefinite extent, occupied or intended to be occupied by any person or thing, and considered as the space where a person or thing does or may rest or has rested, as distinct from space in general.
Look from the place where thou art. Genesis 13:3.
The place where thou standest is holy ground. Exodus 3:5.
Every place whereon the soles of your feet shall tread shall be yours. .11.
David’s place was empty. 1 Samuel 20:19.
2. Any portion of space, as distinct from space in general.
Enlargement and deliverance shall arise to the Jews from another place Esther 4:14.
3. Local existence.
From whose face the earth and the heaven fled away, and there was found no place for them. Revelation 20:11.
4. Separate room or apartment.
His catalogue had an especial place for sequestered divines.
5. Seat; residence; mansion.
The Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation. John 11:6.
6. A portion or passage of writing or of a book.
The place of the Scripture which he read was this. Acts 8:32.
7. Point or degree in order of proceeding; as in the first place; in the second place; in the last place Hence,
8. Rank; order of priority, dignity or importance. He holds the first place in society, or in the affections of the people.
9. Office, employment; official station. The man has a place under the government.
Do you your office, or give up your place
10. Ground; room.
There is no place of doubting but that it is the very same.
11. Station in life; calling; occupation; condition. All, in their several places, perform their duty.
12. A city, a town; a village. In what place does he reside? He arrived at this place in the mail coach. Genesis 18:24.
13. In military affairs, a fortified town or post; a fortress; a fort; as a strong place; a place easily defended. The place was taken by assault.
14. A country; a kingdom. England is the place of his birth.
15. Space in general.
But she all place within herself confines.
16. Room; stead; with the sense of substitution.
And Joseph said unto them, fear not; for am I in the place of God? Gen 1.
17. Room; kind reception.
My word hath no place in you. John 8:37.
18. The place of the moon, in astronomy, is the part of its orbit where it is found at any given time. The place of the sun or a star, is the sign and degree of the zodiac, in which it is at any given time, or the degree of the ecliptic, reckoning from the beginning of Aries, which the star’s circle of longitude cuts, and therefore coincides with the longitude of the sun or star.
To take place to come; to happen; to come into actual existence or operation; as when we say, this or that event will or will not take place The perfect exemption of man from calamity can never take place in this state of existence.
Place sometimes has specific geographical coordinates (#1). Sometimes it refers to an entire country (#14). Sometimes place can mean social position, role, or elected seat, all of which are abstract (#8, #9).
The place of the moon is wherever it happens to be at that given time (#18). It is never in a fixed astronomical position, but it is exactly where God placed it in the heavens with movements so predictable that we know where it was 2000 years ago and where it will be a hundred years from now. Her place is fixed and yet always changing.
And I, God, set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, and the sun to rule over the day, and the moon to rule over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness.
“Place” in scriptures (#6) refers to the modern convention of chapters and versification. Two different bibles might have the same “place” on totally different pages depending on the publisher. Given the recent versification of Covenant Christian scriptures, the same place in Genesis would additionally have to be converted from the traditional versification convention to the Restoration one.
Although the technological tools we now have at our disposal did not exist in 1828, the linguists have applied “place” to an abstract or virtual location. Getting into the technical details, the servers that provide a virtual meeting place are themselves in a tangible geographical place. The virtual place cannot exist without there first being a tangible, physical place that houses the servers.
If “place” must be applied to a geographical location, but we have shown that it can include a vast expanse of actual landmass, one could designate Earth as a place and still meet the literal and not abstract definition.
Therefore, I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of the Lord of Hosts and in the day of his fierce anger.
How does one meet on the whole of the Earth and still be in close enough proximity to hear?
King Benjamin built a tower. Robert Hooke (1665) invented the “lover’s telephone” which is commonly recognized as two cups at either end of a taut wire. Samuel Morse (1832) invented the electrical telegraph. Local AM radio stations broadcast from a central location and can be heard with the proper equipment at distances up to 100 miles away. In each case, proximity limits connection based on the technology in use. And in our day, on this planet, people connect the world over through the gift of technology. We are still limited to this place we call Earth. We haven’t reached beyond our plane to provide internet access to outer planets.
If the definition of “place” is limited to the space in which one can hug one another at the end of the conference, then I will concede that technology does not have the ability to overcome that obstacle. But we should not delude ourselves that distance in this time and place cannot be overcome to both see and hear one another in real time.
Consistent Position
Something I’ve noticed…Some women advocating strongly for allowing Zoom to be an option during women’s conferences do not take advantage of the regular Zoom meetings held throughout the month. These meetings were created as a natural extension of the conversation surrounding women’s conferences and councils.
Ironically, some of the women who have voiced their preference to NOT have a Zoom option as part of the formal women’s conference are the ones attending the regular Zoom meetings.
This is an observation for particular people specifically and not for the movement in general.
There are two sets of regularly occurring virtual meetings. The first follow the new and full moon cycle. The second set occurs every other week on Sundays. Not everyone who participates in the first set also joins the second, nor visa versa.
Some, however, join both sets of meetings. I too have made it a point to join all of the above, even if I’ve been late to a few of the morning moon meetings. They are each two hours at a time with at least four per month.
Even though these ongoing meeting may externally seem tedious, they are respectful and important conversations are happening.
If you are not already attending the Zoom meetings there is no moral high ground you can claim, no precedent standard you can point to, justifying a women’s conference Zoom meeting for the sake of the vote.
There was not a lot of interest in November 2024. There was significant interest in April 2025, but ultimately conference organizers made the decision to not officially broadcast the proceedings live.
The women’s conference ought to be the culmination of all the groundwork laid; the discussions worked through and sacrifices of time and attention already placed on the altar.
If the majority sentiment is that the women’s conference vote ought to be conducted remotely but the majority will not participate in the gentle persuasion Zoom meetings that are already happening in the meantime, I would prefer that voting rights are limited to those at the time and address who will be within hug-able distance of one another.
Persuasion
You may have heard about the Federalist Papers, but don’t appreciate the context in which these essays were written.
The Articles of Confederation were the first governing document of the independent states after the Revolutionary War with England. It provided limited social structure in the early days of independence but lacked the power to tax, coordinate state interests or defend the nation from foreign attack.
The Constitution of the United States had been drafted over 116 days in a hot room full of opinionated, wise, yet determined men all seeking protection and justice for their posterity. They wrestled against one another from their unique vantage points and forged a document that has preserved this Nation longer than any other written constitution in the history of the world.
But those who did not have part in it’s creation feared it.
The Federalist Papers sought to persuade the public to support the ratification of the Constitution by expounding upon the principles of American government.
Likewise, may I introduce you to an idea personified:
Susan Stalwart is fiercely faithful to the Lord and takes her scripture study very seriously. Unlike other women she is also outspoken and opinionated, which has the power to persuade her peers in the days and weeks leading up to the next women’s conference. Distance and resources make it impossible for her to attend the women’s conference from central Timbuktu on the coast of Antarctica. But that doesn’t mean that her influence will not be present. She attends every Zoom meeting, reads every email on the women’s Gaggle and engages when and how she can. She has a voice of reason and the power of persuasion when she speaks. So while Susan Stalwart cannot attend the women’s conference in person, she has personally opened the minds and hearts of twenty women who are local to the venue and who will be voting.
Do not discount your own ability to sway the vote through your voice of reason that may be offered to your sisters. Please engage. Please attend the Zoom meetings that are available. There’s nothing to fear. Everyone has been so nice and the pace is easy going and accommodating. It might surprise you.
Playing in the Sandbox
There are worse things we could be haggling over. I mean, think about the horrific atrocities present in this world that we are otherwise insulated from. But the Lord cares about how we proceed and has given us something to work through. The process develops the skills that are necessary for weightier matters later on. I don’t mind it. I’d rather stay engaged and develop the skills than avoid the process and find myself lacking later on.
Update: 16 Nov 2025
A Living Parable
If anything I am sincere. And am willing to correct myself when I discover that I have made an error in my conclusions. This original post went out and must have raised the Lord’s eyebrows because He decided to drop a living parable in my lap.
About the time I wrote and originally published this blog-post my daughter met a boy.
She is my only daughter among six sons.
One Thursday evening about a month later, my daughter decided to tell me about some boy she met ONLINE 
and they had been talking for about a month and were pretty serious….like let’s get married, serious . He isn’t a member of the LDS church, which doesn’t bother me but would break both her grandmother’s hearts. However, she’s still all in with the church so considering marriage with a man who doesn’t share her core religious beliefs is problematic. Also, she was planning on going down to San Diego to meet him for the first time in Nov without an escort and without HIS ever having introduced himself to HER family FIRST.
I didn’t tell my side of the family, but I rallied the women on my husband’s side of the family to support him while he navigated the rest of the situation. I also enlisted two married cousins who live in that SoCal area and could play bodyguard if she did decide to go meet up with him.
She’s cooled off from where we were two months ago. No more talk of marriage. No trips planned.
The lesson in this Living Parable was that I ought not try to participate in the women’s conference unless I could be there with boots on the ground, in person at the address and in the time zone with everyone else. In the same room with hearts (hopefully) beating in unison. I decided not to attend even with the Zoom remote viewing option. I decided not to vote, even with the remote casting option. Instead, I attended church with my LDS family and sat in the pews next to my husband and children because they need me and this is where they are at the moment.
This Post Has 2 Comments
Hi Aimée,
Please allow me NVC this post. From what you wrote I understand that you feel comfortable allowing those who have participated in all the meetings prior to the upcoming Women’s Conference to vote in person because it fills your need for engagement prior to that meeting.
In this NVC process I have endeavoured to empathize with what you are feeing and needing and to understand what you are requesting to have to meet that need.
By the way, I do not assume I have understood you correctly or that continued compassionate communication is complete. In my experience becoming of one heart takes time and multiple exchanges of using empathy until the two hearts come to a pure resonance with each other. This effort is foundational to the process. As a result a solution can then be found that meets all parties needs.
Now for my part. I’ll cut to the chase. You bring up a point that for me distills to the essence your whole article, “If the majority sentiment is that the women’s conference vote ought to be conducted remotely but the majority will not participate in the gentle persuasion Zoom meetings that are already happening in the meantime, I would prefer that voting rights are limited to those at the time and address who will be within hug-able distance of one another.”
May I focus on the term voice of reason also illustrated in your article? What I have observed in the different venues of communication amongst the women is a lot of sharpened swords of logic and word smithing. And as a result I have observed many women describing that their hearts have been wounded by the “war of words” weapons used.
I feel wary and disinclined to engage in the so called meeting of the minds (what you state as gentle persuasion) because of the lack of wisdom in the process of endeavouring to become of one mind BEFORE becoming of one heart. Call it putting the cart before the horse.
What do I mean by this? Emma Smith spoke words of wisdom, imo, in what persuasion looks like when it starts by coming through heart centred connection. I would like to share a brief excerpt from her Voice of Innocence:
“The corruption of wickedness which manifested itself in such horrible deformity on the trial of O. F. last week for slandering President Hyrum Smith and the widows of the city of Nauvoo, has awakened all the kindly feelings of female benevolence, compassion and pity, for the softer sex to spread forth the mantle of charity to shield the characters of the virtuous mothers, wives, and daughters
of Nauvoo from the blasting breath and poisonous touch of debauchers, vagabonds and takers, who have jammed themselves into our city to offer strange fire at the shrine of infamy, disgrace, and
degradation: as they and their kindred spirits have done in all the great cities throughout the world, corrupting their ways on the earth, and bringing women, poor defenceless women, in wretchedness and ruin.
How interesting that she brings up the awakening of “all the kindly feelings of female benevolence, compassion and pity”. These do not sound like “logic” and “reasoning” that I have heard as being the benchmark for our discussions. There was much focus on these termed “skills” since preparations started for the April 12th Women’s Conference and are still continuing today. What Emma describes instead, appears to me as wholly counter indicative, and sounds like (gasp) she is appealing to the feelings that inform the body of believers to take action to protect others, most notably women against their victimization. Imagine that…feelings are useful tools to sound the alarm. Hmmm…something to ponder on.
What I have experienced in our recent events is the divide between us as Covenant Christian Sisters, and the lack of natural womanly empathy that Emma builds upon in her paper. It is my assertion, that this Divine Feminine quality is being gagged, held hostage, or disparaged, take your pick of describing the shaming I see used to cut sisters off from their intuition and feelings. It’s these tools of charity that Emma asserts, are required to recognize the abused, broken, and vulnerable. And then to courageously defend them.
Today, what I see inevitably happening is we are being asked to instead run around as mini-men. Resulting in us doing more harm than good to each other because we are SO disconnected from each others hearts. It is our inability to hold space for feelings and needs that renders us unjust and cruel.
What is Emma doing that we are not? I find the answers to be simple and succinct. Emma like Christ are calling us, the women, to awaken and arise to our inheritance and be the Balm of Gilead for each other and ultimately all of humanity. This balm is to have charity, the pure love of Christ, for ourselves and each other. It can, and has elevated a people to live a terrestrial law, the one necessary for Zion to be established. But it cannot be built using Babylonian weapons, and instead requires us to resonate with each others pain and suffering along the spectrum to joy and success. Scripturally speaking it is to be able to have our bowels moved with compassion for each other.
Here is a scriptural account of when charity is lacking in the people of God and God himself laments:
Jeremiah 4:9 RE
When I would comfort myself against sorrow, my heart is faint in me. Behold the voice of the cry of the daughter of my people because of them that dwell in a far country: Is not the Lord in Zion? Is not her king in her? Why have they provoked me to anger with their engraved images and with strange vanities? The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved. For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt; I am black, astonishment has taken hold on me. Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?
From all this I am suggesting we need different tools. For the past 3 years I have been engaged in the slow uncomfortable process of studying NVC or Compasionate Communication. But within the process of these principles I have observed the wisdom that allows individuals to turn swords into plowshares. I am still very weak and still endeavouring to be skilled in this type of heart centred communication.
As Marshal Rosenberg states, “If we stay…motivated solely to give and receive compassionately and do everything we can to let others know this is our only motive, they will join us in the process, and eventually we will be able to respond compassionately to one another. I am not saying that this always happens quickly. I do maintain, however, that compassion inevitably blooms when we stay true to the principles and process (of compassionate communication). ~ Nonviolent Communication, A Language of Life. Pages 5 & 6
My personal boundary is to engage with compassion and respectfully decline when the communication cannot maintain a heart centred exchange.
Another quote within the NVC 3rd edition, “Instead of offering empathy, we tend instead to give advice or reassurance to explain our own position or feeling. Empathy, on the other hand, requires us to focus attention on the other persons message. We give to others the time and space they need to express themselves fully and to feel understood.“
Oh I lament in myself that Zion is not come. I wish that we all could listen to Wisdom and become of one heart. I’m afraid that the Lord’s only command after loving God above all else is to “Love one another as I have loved you.” ~ (T&C 157:51) is more than most of us are willing to do. I myself am also unable to do this well and am far from doing it perfectly. So I must rely upon Grace.
And isn’t that the whole point. We need God’s grace. And he requires that we learn to have his grace for each other.
Spirit of Christ
You pray each time you partake of the sacrament to always have my spirit to be with you. And what is my spirit? It is to love one another as I have loved you. ~ Glossary
To end I would like to NVC all of this: I feel disconnected with the currents tools for communication. They do not fill my need for empathy and heart centred connection. So what I am requesting is for safety in communication that is based in non-violent principles and processes which will support my need for true connection.
Thank you Aimee for taking the time to hear my heart.
TammyJo, thank you for taking the time to comment. I have tried to hear your heart, because I know you and love you. My preferences for how the upcoming Women’s Conferences are organized for attendance, live viewing and voting rights are ultimately irrelevant.
The ongoing conversations seems to suggest that the designated deliberator (SS) is reading explicit instruction from the Lord in how He used “time and place”. Therefore, there will most likely not be voting rights extended to women who are not present at the address of the venue. Even though I have participated in all the Zooms for reasoning that would exclude me as well. Is it wasted time I’m spending every month? I may not be as outspoken on the Zoom meetings, but I am listening. And I can write.
My experiences with the Zoom meetings have been mostly positive. I understand that not everyone feels comfortable with the format. What does concern me is that when efforts are made to meet (both in person and online) and come to be of one heart, people are reticent to participate in either. Yet those who decline to engage are still holding onto their bad impressions. There’s no path for hearts to knit or heal.
Even if people did not attend any of the Zooms and still attended the women’s conference in person, they would be allowed to vote. That’s totally fine. There’s a level of sacrifice still required to attend in person, and as you’ve pointed out it is easier to connect heart-to-heart.
My concern is having people who don’t attend the Zoom meetings, as they are offered now, and who would not be attending the women’s conference in person — voting in an online format. None of the benefit of advance persuasion or in-person presence would be reflected in their vote. So, I am at peace with how the vote will likely be conducted. I’m OK to forfeit my one vote, understanding that my own power of persuasion is still on the table.