Motivational speaker and inspirational Church leader Sheri Dew will be making an appearance in Temple Square to speak about who Ezra Taft Benson was and how he served the Church and the country.
Dew will be speaking as part of the Men and Women of Faith Lecture Series Nov. 13. The lecture series consists of speakers who deliver messages about how faith enabled people from Church history to overcome trials in their lives. Dew will be the last speaker in the series.
“The series has been going on for three years and is there to give us more information on how faith played a part in the lives of people we know and love,” said Debora Xavier, communications director at the Church History Library.
Dew graduated from BYU, where she received a bachelor’s degree in history with an emphasis is American religious study. Dew later became the second counselor in the General Relief Society presidency and then the chief executive officer of Deseret Book Company. She now is a publisher and motivational speaker.
Dew has delivered many motivational speeches across the world. She has been a bestselling author of many books, which includes her biography on Ezra Taft Benson. Dew feels she can help enlighten people about who President Benson was when he was not at the pulpit.
“My experience with President Benson personally revealed a much different person than the stern, unbending image many projected of him,” Dew said in a press release. “He was kind, thoughtful and compassionate in so many ways. His strong statements about freedom perhaps at times obscured the greatness of the inner man.”
President Benson’s accomplishments included being president of the Church as well as working as the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture. Dew will speak on how his young life would prepare Benson for this responsibility. She will expand on the hardships Benson experienced and how he used those to fuel his faith in his later years.
Dew recently spoke at BYU during women’s conference and was able to touch the attendees with her words of encouragement.
“She was a very insightful person.” said Michelle Lodwick, a BYU graduate and YSA relief society president. “She was aware of concerns of others and addressed them appropriately; she demonstrated proper compassion while also being assertive in her advice. I felt she truly cared and was an excellent example to all she spoke to.”
Dew will speak at 7:00 p.m in the Assembly Hall at Temple Square. More information regarding the lecture can be found at history.lds.org.
