Friendship comes first
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Diane Naylor remembers her first encounter with Shirley like it was yesterday. A knock on her door last year brought Sister Naylor face-to-face with a woman she occasionally saw but had never talked to during the two years they'd lived as neighbors on adjoining properties in Sandy, Utah.
"Shirley had been drinking," Sister Naylor recalls. "I had briefly seen her here in the neighborhood but had no idea who she was. She wanted to use my phone. My first impression was thinking, 'Ooh, you're kind of scary. Maybe you could use the phone out here on the porch.'
"But then I had this distinct, beautiful impression of seeing her the way the Lord sees her. It was really sweet. I saw her potential and that the Lord loved her. I invited her in and, even though she was drunk, we ended up talking for a while. I asked her about her background. That's when she mentioned that she'd been baptized many years ago.
"When I was taking her into the den to use the phone, she saw my married children's wedding photographs on the wall and said, 'That was me once. I was happy.' "
Recognizing Shirley's need, Sister Naylor began befriending her. Soon, she persuaded Shirley to attend Church one Sunday so that, even though she had been inactive for many years, she could get a referral from the bishop for the employment development program at Deseret Industries.
"I said, 'You know, Shirley, I certainly can't fix your life, but I have access to a lot of wonderful resources that might help.'
"Our wonderful bishop at the time was actually very familiar with [Deseret Industries]. So he knew what to help her with and got her a referral [to go] down there. And you know what? It's been a wonderful experience!"
Deseret Industries was formed by the First Presidency in 1938. Throughout seven decades of existence, it has had at its core the principles of work, thrift, giving and sharing. Today, Deseret Industries operates 43 thrift stores throughout seven Western states and provides work and training opportunities for more than 6,000 associates each year.
"What we do," says Rich McKenna, director of Deseret Industries, "is provide an environment of work, encouragement and growth that is designed to complement and support associates as they work towards their life goals. Although people often think of us as a thrift store, in reality we are in the business of transforming lives.
"In recent years, we have discovered that people in our training programs do better when they have a trusted mentor who sustains and supports them as they progress. These mentors are assigned by the bishop and become an ally, working with the associate as he progresses towards his dreams."
When Shirley started work at Deseret Industries it became apparent that she had no reliable form of transportation, so Sister Naylor – who had been asked by their bishop to be Shirley's mentor – offered to drive Shirley to and from her job. It was around that time the friendship between the two women really began to blossom.
"I think she was really fearful I would lead her to a place where I would then just dump her," Sister Naylor said. "I really was trying to help her, and I don't think she's ever had anybody do that for her.
"It took me a while to gain her trust. When she finally knew that I loved her, she began to truly trust me. I don't know exactly when that was, but she just knew I wasn't going to let her down [and] that I meant what I said."
Mentoring is nothing new
The helping hand of a trusted friend is necessary to make it through some of life's toughest journeys. For many associates at Deseret Industries those proverbial helping hands of friendship come from their mentors, dedicated men and women who are at their side to encourage them in their pursuit of meaningful goals like education, employment and personal providence.
Mentoring is not a new Church program — in fact, far from it. The Church Handbook of Instructions enumerates the principles of Deseret Industries mentoring to a "T" under the nomenclature of "welfare specialist." The bishopric may call welfare specialists who can assist other members in such things as finding employment, improving nutrition and sanitation, storing food, obtaining health care, improving literacy, managing finances, and helping meet other welfare needs. (Church Handbook of Instructions, Book 2: Priesthood and Auxiliary Leaders [1998], 259).
In addition to blessing the lives of those whom they serve, mentors also benefit the Church as a whole. Given that their assignments come straight from local priesthood leadership, their role is shifting the responsibility for individual member welfare back to the grass-roots level of wards and stakes, much as it was in the 1930s when a then-stake president by the name of Harold B. Lee presided over the inception of modern Church Welfare programs.
When associates arrive at Deseret Industries, they receive training that helps them with the basic skills for getting and keeping a job and also assists them with the vocational and educational aspects of getting into a better job. The first, immediate goal of any mentor is earning the mentee's trust by cultivating a relationship of mutual respect, because without trust and mutual respect a mentor cannot hope to supplement the Deseret Industries training in any kind of enduring or lasting way. Over time, mentors undertake all kinds of ancillary tasks to help their charges move closer to self-reliance because the ultimate emphasis at Deseret Industries isn't just training for the sake of training, but rather important inner changes like personal transformation, independence and self-discovery.
"Many of the things we do are just like what you would think," said Bob Ward who, along with his wife, Gail, mentors several non-LDS political refugees from Asia who live in the boundaries of the South Salt Lake Stake.
"We support them with finding a job out in the community because often they have no idea where to start. We encourage them to learn English by following through with their English classes. We make sure they have bedding, clothing and especially food — because sometimes food stamps run a little short depending on what happens.
"We show them how to do things that would be obvious to you and me, like working a thermostat. For example, we have a family of eight we mentor, and they took cold showers and baths for what must have been three weeks because they didn't know how to turn on the water heater."
The associates at Deseret Industries get assigned a mentor by their home ward bishops. The only bare-minimum requirements for mentors are involvement in the initial development of a self-reliance plan and attendance at quarterly progress meetings at Deseret Industries between the associate, a job coach and a development specialist. But more common than an uninspired mentor slipping by with bare minimums are mentors who find a seemingly unending variety of ways to make themselves as useful as possible.
"Often employers don't have time to mentor every employee who needs some additional assistance," said Amy Wylie, assistant director of the Inner City Project in Salt Lake City as well as a Deseret Industries mentor. "So the mentoring program works because it gives that employer somebody he can call and say, 'We just need a little bit of help on this issue. Could you come in and meet with us?' "
Opposites attract
In a society where unsolicited kindness is often met with skepticism, the Deseret Industries mentoring program is tearing down social walls in a good way. The axiom "opposites attract" comes to mind upon seeing the lasting bonds that can rapidly form between mentors (people sufficiently established in their own lives to have the opportunity of allocating large chunks of time for service) and associates (men and women willing to work hard but for whom some kind of need exists for developmental training).
"The most rewarding thing is just the bond and friendship that you develop with the families," Brother Ward said. "You're basically adopted. [We] become family, both ways, because of the way we feel about them and vice versa. It's something that lasts forever."
Betsy Stoddard of the Sandy Utah Mount Jordan Stake mentors Anissa, a 23-year-old Deseret Industries associate who is studying to become a pharmacy technician. Their relationship is such that Sister Stoddard feels like a second mother to her mentee, an Iranian immigrant.
"She's probably about my youngest daughter's age," Sister Stoddard said. "When I go over and I check on her at [her job], I try and let her see the positive things. … I'm very proud of how she's achieving and learning. More or less, I'm just like her mother [without really being] her mother."
'We're a funny pair'
The tale of Shirley and Sister Naylor remains unfinished, but a happy ending seems in the works. The former sobered up and applied herself to her personal development plan at Deseret Industries. She is considering moving away from Sister Naylor's neighborhood and now drives her own car. However, the bond between Shirley and Sister Naylor endures as they see each other not only for the quarterly meetings with supervisors at Deseret Industries, but for purely social engagements as well.
"We've become really good friends," Sister Naylor said. "We're a funny pair – I'm a former stake Relief Society president, was raised in the Church, have been married 35 years, and have had just a totally different life from hers. But we're great pals, and our friendship has enriched us both. It's a neat success story."
