About the Contributors

 

Joy Bischoff, Writer

Joy Bischoff is the mother of six, with five boys and one daughter. She was raised by an anti-Mormon father and not allowed to participate in the Church until age 18. Her mother secretly taught the children the gospel and at age five, Joy was kicked out of her first church for insisting their doctrine was wrong. By the age of fifteen, after being asked to leave two other churches and labeled an anti-Christ in her small Oregon town, she learned not to Bible bash. Interviewing ministers of various religions about their beliefs was a favorite hobby from childhood in what she jokingly refers to now as fieldwork for comparative religious studies. She served three missions in one due to nine months of visa problems stemming from a top-secret government clearance after working on a classified project at Lockheed in Santa Clara, California. Those missions were: Downey, California, Las Vegas, Nevada, then Maracaibo, Venezuela.

From 1996 to 2000, she returned to school at BYU majoring in Middle Eastern Studies with a Hebrew emphasis. She has a lifelong interest in religion and since 1992 has focused on ancient mythology. She is an unabashed fan of Dr. Hugh Nibley and hopes to one day completely understand all of his writings. Presently, she is working on a Science Fiction trilogy and has had some short stories published. Also, she has written the manuscript and music for a play produced in Provo, UT , in 1998 entitled: "Zion is Fled." At various times in her life she has been a professional singer including studio demo work in Nashville, Tennessee.

Among her various callings, Joy has served as an Institute teacher, Relief Society president, first counselor and teacher, ward music leader and choir director, Young Women's counselor, Teacher Development instructor, and Ward Gospel Doctrine Teacher. Her favorite calling is as Grandma to her fifteen beautiful granchildren. She and her husband currently live near the Grand Canyon in Arizona.

Roy Bischoff, Writer

Roy Bischoff was raised in Las Vegas, Nevada but he did not meet his wife when she served eight months of her mission in his home ward. Roy served a mission in Venezuela at the same time as his wife but they did not meet there since he was in the Caracas Mission. Before making it to Caracas, he served in San Angelo, TX for three months since for a time everyone going to Venezuela after his wife's security clearance debacle, became a visa waiter. Six months after returning from Venezuela, his future wife moved to Las Vegas where they immediately fell in love and were married 3 ½ months later.

After selling a home and business, he moved with five small children, and one on the way, to Tennessee where he attended school and received a degree in International Relations from Middle Tennessee State University . The family then moved to Provo where he earned two degrees from BYU, a Masters of Public Administration, and a Juris Doctorate. At the end of his work day, Roy enjoys gardening, singing in two choirs, reading, and helping his wife with writing projects.

Among his various callings, Roy has served as a Bishop's counselor, ward executive secretary, ward mission leader, Young Men's President, Sunday School President, ward Teacher Development instructor.

Terrie Soberg - Writer, Webmaster and Business Manager

Terrie Soberg is married to her wonderful husband, Dave, and is the mother of nine children and twenty-five grandchildren. After living for twenty years just outside of Nashville, Tennessee she now lives in Minnesota once again. Terrie has been blessed with many talents and an entrepreneurial mindset. She owns her own videography and web design business called Digital Teardrops. She specializes in preserving family history information digitally. She also creates beautiful Personalized Fine Art Family Trees and Priesthood Line of Authority certificates and cards.

Terrie graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1985 with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Speech and Hearing Science. She has done interpreting for the deaf, and also has experience in the German, Norwegian and Spanish languages. In 2024, Terrie graduated from Liberty University with a Master's Degree in Human Services Counseling - Life Coaching and is currently developing a Dialectical Behavior Therapy-informed coaching program to work with individuals and families who struggle with mental health issues in life. Learning is as important as breathing to Terrie and she studies whatever she can in her "spare" time.

Among Terrie's church callings over the years, she has been a teacher, secretary, and counselor in the Primary and Young Women's programs, Relief Society and Primary pianist, adult Institute teacher, Cub Scout den leader, Sunday School teacher, Seminary teacher and her favorite callings of all, Ward and Stake Emergency Preparedness Specialist.

Sharon Anderson, Poetry Editor

Sharon Price Anderson, author of Praising the Prophet: Joseph Smith and the Restoration in History and Verse, is our gifted poet. She was born in California and lived in Washington, Alabama, New York, Colorado and Germany before attending Brigham Young University where she met her husband Peter. After they were married, they spent a year on the Omaha Indian Reservation in Nebraska and then lived in Ventura County, California. Sharon graduated Magna Cum Laude from BYU in 1970.

The first and last of Peter and Sharon’s nine children were born 27 ½ years apart, so they had ten grandchildren when the youngest was born. Life is full of surprises! They now have 25 grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

The Andersons lived in the California Mojave Desert from 1969 to1995 and then moved back to Utah Valley. Here, doing business as Time Lines Etc., Sharon began writing and illustrating history curriculum materials for home-schooled children and other students of all ages.

Sharon has won numerous awards, and a number of her poems have appeared in the Ensign, BYU Studies, Poetry Panorama, Encore, 9-11— Poems for September 11th and in the 2005 edition of Utah Sings, published every ten years by the Utah State Poetry Society. She has read her poetry at BYU Women’s Conferences and in many church and community programs. A readers’ theater program based on Praising the Prophet has been selected by the Cultural Arts Evaluation Committee of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to receive the Deseret Dramatic Recognition Award. Information about her book and some excerpts can be found at www.praisingtheprophet.com.

Sharon has learned much from studying the gospel and from serving in the Church. Her callings have included ward and stake Primary president, seminary teacher, Cub Scout den leader, Relief Society counselor and teacher, teacher improvement coordinator, and temple preparation instructor. She currently teaches gospel doctrine in her ward in Orem, Utah.