I ended up becoming a pastor.

That was certainly not the plan as I began my faith journey. When I look back on my life today, I realize that I ended up going through two distinct conversion moments. The first conversion was to Jesus—being born again, raised to new life. My other conversion was to the work of the local church. When I started my walk with Christ, I didn’t want to be a pastor…

There is one thing that I love about Utahns—they are genuinely friendly people. It’s completely normal here for strangers to meet and talk to one another without pretenses, something that I believe LDS missionary culture has made more normal here than almost anywhere else in the States. Many Utahns have served on missions for the LDS Church, where they became experts at engaging in genuine conversations with complete strangers. It’s not hard to get to know people around here when so many of them are former missionaries.

In 1996, I had the opportunity to meet the University of Utah men’s basketball coach, Rick Majerus. Coach Majerus was one of the most well-known Utah residents during the 90s; he and the Utes were on an amazing run in those years, making it all the way to the NCAA national championship game in 1998. As a non-Mormon, he was very much an outsider in Utah culture. And he was also quite a character, never shying away from ‘telling it like it is.’

I began writing Keep Showing Up in 2019 and it was published in 2021. It took me much longer than expected to complete because it went through so many revisions. I finally sent a manuscript to an editor, who helped me develop a finished manuscript. The first edition of Keep Showing Up was then printed and became available on Amazon. We also bought copies and made them available here at CenterPoint.