The following was posted March 10th on the J. Reuben Clark Society website:

Sheri L. Dew: Asking Questions and Wrestling for Answers

Sheri L. Dew. Chief Executive Officer of Deseret Book, gave quite a personal and compelling talk about the importance of asking questions about gospel issues. She also encouraged each Society member to be the kind of person whom others can go to with their questions.

Dew recounted an experience when she was invited to speak at Claremont Graduate University’s Department of Mormon Studies. She hesitantly accepted, not knowing whether she would face a hostile audience. She gave her message to a group of faculty, students, and local LDS members.  At the end, the moderator handed her a few of a list of questions that members of the audience had penned, which she answered. After the lecture concluded, she asked for the remaining stack of questions. Dew read them, noting that the questions ran the gamut of gospel topics. These questions prompted Dew to start thinking about the power of questions, and how questions can then lead to powerful answers. Dew began compiling a list of questions from members of the LDS community.

But this exercise was not just a topic of recreational interest to Dew; her own niece was struggling with a testimony. So Dew encouraged her niece to ask questions, and to begin a “wrestle” with the Lord for answers. “Questions are good,” says Dew, “they lead somewhere.” Dew testified to her niece, and to Conference attendees, that questions are especially good when they are asked in an environment of faith rather than doubt. “It’s okay to say ‘I don’t understand it ‘or ‘I don’t even like it,’ but if asked to the Lord with a background of faith, it can lead to amazing spiritual growth.”

Click here to read the full article on the J. Reuben Clark Society webpage.