LDS Podcast "Latter-Day Lights" - Inspirational LDS Stories

Hit Head On by a Drunk Driver, Protected by Angels: Tracy Jo Rollins' Story - Latter-Day Lights

• Scott Brandley and Alisha Coakley

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What if the worst day of your life was actually part of a divine plan to save someone else?

In this powerful episode of Latter-day Lights, Tracy Jo Rollins returns to share the miraculous story of her near-fatal car crash, the traveling angels who protected her, and the unexpected calling that followed. From life-threatening injuries to divine protection, her story will leave you breathless and believing in miracles.

As a former jockey, educator, mindset coach, and now pageant titleholder, Tracy Jo has lived a life of resilience and purpose. But nothing could have prepared her for what happened on January 14th.

Through vivid memories of the crash, the kindness of strangers, and the unmistakable presence of God, Tracy walks us through how that one moment became a turning point that redefined her faith and mission.

This episode isn’t just about surviving tragedy. It’s about choosing joy, finding purpose in pain, and remembering that God is in the details—even when the road takes a turn you never expected.

Don’t miss this incredible story of light, love, and second chances.

*** Please SHARE Tracy Jo's story and help us spread hope and light to others. ***

To WATCH this episode on YouTube, visit: https://youtu.be/lHGLZRO7p3w

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To learn more about the Genius Bootcamp, visit: https://www.schooloflifemastery.com/genius-bootcamp

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Also, if you have a faith-promoting or inspiring story, or know someone who does, please let us know by going to https://www.latterdaylights.com and reaching out to us.

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Scott Brandley:

Hey everyone, I'm Scott Brandley.

Alisha Coakley:

And I'm Alisha Coakley. Every member of the church has a story to share, one that can instill faith, invite growth and inspire others.

Scott Brandley:

On today's episode, we're going to hear how a horrific accident and miraculous recovery taught one woman to trust in the Lord with all of her heart. Welcome to Latter-day Lights. Hey everyone, welcome back to Latter-day Lights. We're so glad you're here with us today. And before we jump into our episode, we mentioned last week that we were going to do a little mini-series about the launch of my new book, faith to Stay. It's not quite ready yet, so it might be a few weeks out, so stay tuned for that. But I just wanted to let you know about that change, but it's coming. In the meantime, we have some more great episodes to be able to share with you, and our episode today is Tracy Jo Rollins. Welcome back to the show, tracy.

Alisha Coakley:

Thank you, so good to be back. I know I'm so excited to have you. I'm literally so happy that you are here, because your story today may not have even existed. You may not be here on this earth at this point with everything that happened. What? Was it it about a year ago, maybe not that long, it was in January. Was it that? Was it that short ago? Oh, my gosh yeah.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

It was just 15 months ago, wow.

Alisha Coakley:

Okay, it was just insane to me. Well, you know what. I'm looking at you and you look. Okay, I'm not going to spoil it. Anyway, I'm so glad you're here. I'm so glad that you're here to tell your story, that everything worked out the way that it did, um, and just to have you back on the show, cause we just loved you and my, my cheeks were hurting last time you're here and I'm sure that they're hurting again and my makeup's going to be smeared from crying. But but, before we get into your story, tracy, do you want to remind listeners just a little bit about yourself? You know where you're from, what you do, all those things, yeah, sure.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

I have been between Arizona and Utah for the last 40 years. I am a mom of seven and a grandma of four and that's the best thing about life is my kids, my grandkids. I've been able to do some really amazing things in my life and one of those was being a professional jockey for about seven years. And I have taught school and I'm an artist, and not right now. I'm a certified mindset coach and a certified mental wellness coach, and I love it. I'm in the middle of doing a three-day bootcamp for Leslie Householders, rare Faith, so today was day one and we'll finish up in two days. I love teaching genius boot camps they're so amazing.

Alisha Coakley:

Oh my gosh. The genius boot camp was the first one that I did with Leslie Householder and I'm not going to spoil anything but holy cow Like that day three. It changed my you know, what I'm talking about. Yeah, of course you do.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

It was like this is my 29th genius bootcamp.

Alisha Coakley:

What that was like everything came to this beautiful little like fruition at the very end, where it clicked and I was like, oh my gosh, it was. I can't even praise enough of the genius bootcamp Like it.

Scott Brandley:

Just it was just phenomenal, scott praise enough of the genius bootcamp like it just.

Alisha Coakley:

It was just phenomenal, scott, you'd love it, just do it.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

Probably I'm always making scott do stuff sometimes it's hey I read.

Scott Brandley:

Since our last podcast, I did read one of her books, the jackrabbit okay you gotta go read hidden treasures.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

That's the one that I like, love the most yes, hidden treasures and dredgers is about the seven universal laws. The Jackrabbit factor is about a family and how they learn about the laws. And then she portal to genius is the sequel, and it really does talk about your portal to your genius. It's really amazing.

Alisha Coakley:

Yeah, yeah. I'm sure, and miss Tracy, side note, did you just participate in a pageant of some kind? I thought I saw something like that on Facebook. What was that?

Tracy Jo Rollins:

It's so funny. It's like life can change on a dime, like one minute you're in the hospital and the next minute you are winning a title. So yeah, I it was so it. It was um Ms Utah is the title that I have.

Alisha Coakley:

Okay, wow.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

I had no idea that was in my uh coming up in my life and I actually had the former miss uh Mrs USA speaking at my genius bootcamp and she said you should come do this with me and I had no idea that.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

But I really feel impressed that their, their platform is pretty amazing. It's you Now I am a spokesperson and I will be a national spokesperson, uh for violence against women and children, just advocating for helping with those kinds of things, and I'm excited to see what I get to do, um, for this next year. And also I'm really excited because I feel like I'm going to have a platform to promote my book.

Alisha Coakley:

Oh, I love that. That's amazing. Well, congratulations on all of it. All right, well, I I think we should get right into it. Tracy, just a few months ago. I don't know if that's where we're starting or if you want to start back a little further, but go ahead and take it away.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

Okay, I am really excited to share this with you. The things that I've learned in this past five years have kind of culminated up to what happened January 14th, and my life will never be the same again. So I I have been writing a book called on a dime. I think it's important for you to know that in this book it's about seven people whose lives change on a dime. They're all true stories of different people, and one of them that I'm working on right now. His name is Jeff Olson, and Jeff Olson, he had a near-death experience after a horrific accident that he had back in 1997, where he lost his wife and his baby 97, where he lost his wife and his, his baby, and I remember, like just in, in his experience, he was able to go to the other side and he has an experience with the divine, with God, and he is told that everything's by divine design and that there are no mistakes. And we're here to learn. We're here to learn to love each other and ourselves. So, with that little preface of you know the things that I've been reading and studying and learning about, let's go to January 14th, 2025.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

I am heading to Arizona because I want to help my son with his rugby team and I want to do a fundraiser where I was going to go pick citrus in Arizona. They just moved from Arizona and have lots of friends with citrus trees, and then I was going to sell the citrus in Utah and by the time I left for my trip I had 40 orders, so I was pretty excited. Then I was going to head on to Dallas to see my other two kids and my grandkids and then head back home. I was very excited about the trip. I'd been praying about it. If I should fly or drive, I felt like I should drive to Arizona and do the citrus thing and head to Dallas and then head home, so I felt really good about that. Now, on the day that I was to leave, I had packed up a lot of Christmas presents for my Dallas kids, cause I knew I was going to head that direction. In January I have a convention for my business out there, so I knew I was going to head there. So I had all their presents packed up in the car and I also had the car full of apple boxes so I could put the oranges and grapefruits and lemons in.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

So here I am, I'm just loaded down and I remember going to get in the car and I looked up and I said, god, am I forgetting anything? And I had the feeling to go back in my house and so I did. I looked around and I thought there's nothing here, what you know, why am I back here in my house? And then I had the feeling you forgot to pray and I said, oh shoot, I didn't. So I went to kneel down to say a prayer and I heard this voice say ask for traveling angels. And I said that's pretty amazing, traveling angels, I like that. So I said, well, god, thank you for the traveling angels, like, bring them on. And I, I was really, god, thank you for the traveling angels, Like, bring them on. I was really excited that I got to have traveling angels with me and I really didn't think anything else about it.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

I remember I got to page, arizona, and after page there's a long stretch of highway that goes through the reservation and I was thinking to myself oh, I have enough gas to make it to my favorite gas station, speedy, on the reservation, because it's a dollar cheaper. So I thought I'll make it Land the spelling, go back to Page and get gas. I didn't want to get stranded out. It's so dark on the strip of land in the night. So I thought, well, okay, I went back, I gassed up.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

There were a couple of things I did that I don't normally do. I wear my purse cross body and I got out and I filled up, and then I get back in the car and normally take off my purse and put it in passenger seat. I left it on, so I had my purse on. And then the other thing that I don't normally do is I kicked off my shoes. They were hot and they were hurting my feet and I just kicked my shoes off and pushed them to the side. So now it's just my little stocking feet.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

I drive in my car and I'm on my way and I'm just minding my own business and I'm about an hour out of page heading towards Cameron, if you want. Any of you know where that is. And I I just remember like I was listening to a book on audible and I, all of a sudden, I just noticed in front of me there were headlights and I thought that's really strange and that's all I could really think. And then I was hit and I was spinning and I thought, wait a minute. I, this is not the plan. So I was having this conversation with God and I said, excuse me, I think you made a mistake because this is not the plan. I remember I'm going to Arizona to pick citrus to do the help my son, you know, with rugby and now I'm not going to get my car fixed. And then Jeff Olson's voice, because I've listened to over 50 hours of different interviews with Jeff and interviewed him myself, so I heard I hear Jeff's voice saying there are no mistakes. And I thought, oh my gosh, if there are no mistakes and everything's by divine design, then this is the plan.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

I was meant to get hit and I'm spinning in the desert. And so at that point I I just let it go and I said, okay, god, just hold me, just hold me. And I completely had forgotten about traveling angels. But I can tell you, I literally was. Everything was spinning around and I felt like I was. I was bouncing up and down like boom, boom, boom, but my head did not go back and forth like this. I didn't feel like my body was moving. I felt completely calm and still watching things spinning around me.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

And then I stopped and I I took a deep breath and I thought, oh my gosh, I think I'm okay. And I I started to move my fingers and my toes and I moved my head, my shoulders and my back and I said, okay, I'm not paralyzed. And, gosh, I was just thinking about the person that you know, who I've been reading about, and all the horrific accident that he had. And I thought I'm okay, I don't think I have any internal injuries. And I looked in the rear view mirror to see if I was bleeding and I realized there wasn't a rear view mirror.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

And I started looking around my car and I was in shock because the front end it was just a mangled bunch of metal pushed up to me and I was trying to make sense of where's the door, where where's the dashboard. And then I looked down and the steering wheel was literally in my pelvis, on my purse, and I thought, oh my gosh, I'm so glad that purse was there. And I thought, oh my gosh, I'm so glad that purse was there. And I don't know exactly why, I kicked my shoes off, but I really felt like there was a purpose for that. So we'll get to that later, but at this point I'm sitting there and I can't move because everything is literally pushed up to my legs and to my chest and I'm thinking okay, I'm okay, but and then, all of a sudden, I hear voices and I thought, well, that's fast.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

And I? I look in front of me, the windshield's just smashed, but it's not. It's still intact. Except right in front of my face there's a piece pulled up about, this big, and then I see a face looking in that little piece of the window and it was a man and he looked in and he said are you okay? And I said I think so. Now, I wasn't't talking like that. This is how I was talking, I think so. Everything was in slow motion and I could barely talk.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

And he looked at me and he said you were just hit by a drunk driver. And I said no, because people don't live through that. And he said I know. And he said what can I do for you right now? And I said and I don't know this man from any, I mean, I don't know anything about him. I just said will you pray for me? Thing about him. I just said will you pray for me? And he said I would love to pray for you.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

I'm a pastor and I said what If there's anybody that I would have standing at my window?

Scott Brandley:

it would be an off-duty.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

EMT or a pastor, and he reached his hand through the shards of glass and grabbed my hand and he held it. It was my right hand, because I realized I couldn't really move my left hand, in fact my whole left side. I knew something was wrong with my left side, so he held my hand and he prayed and he said I'm not letting go of you until you're safe in an ambulance. Or he said there's actually a helicopter coming from Flagstaff and an ambulance coming from Tuba city. Whichever one gets here first is going to take you. If it's the ambulance, they'll stabilize you and get you, like lighted, to Flagstaff. And I said okay.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

And then this other person, who I later found out was his 15 year old son, comes to the window and he's holding something and he said is this yours? And I didn't realize what a miracle this was until a couple of weeks later. I was just writing down the whole experience in my journal. And he said is this yours? And it was my phone. And I said yes, that's my phone. Where was it? And he said just out on the desert. And I said oh my gosh, thank you for finding it. And he said and is this your credit card? And I said, wow, yes. So he handed me my phone and I called my mom and later I thought about it and I thought you know what, my phone could have flown to the back of the car and I wouldn't have been able to call my mom, who called my kids that live in Arizona.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

I have three children that live in Arizona and they immediately started to drive out to Tubi city hospital. We found out that's that's where I was going to go was the ambulance was almost there, so they had already started their drive out there. And my mom I was able to keep talking to her and she just kept saying don't leave me, don't leave me, because all I could say, keep saying to her is mom, I'm broken, I'm broken. And then I had the preacher said can I talk to your mom? And he explained what had happened. And so the next thing that happened was, um, the ambulance came and they wanted to come into the passenger side and I, like I said, I knew there was something wrong with my left side and I don't remember getting hit by airbags.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

But when I started to look around I saw all these strange looking pieces of material all over my car and I later realized that those were broken airbags and I just remember the headlights and boom and then spinning. So I don't remember at all being hit by airbags. But later in the hospital I looked at my face and I look like I got punched in the face by an airbag and I was. It was burned and and all that. So the, the ambulance was trying to get me out. The ambulance people wanted to get me out the passenger side and I looked at the preacher and I said please don't let them get me out the driver's side, because I can just slide out like this. I don't think that they're going to rip me apart by trying to pull me across the. So he said well, the good news is and I'm also a mechanic and I know that this vehicle has some clips on the door and I can take the door off. They didn't have to jaws of life get me out or anything, cause he found the clips on the door.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

I got the door off, wow. And then they pulled me out. I had to lay backwards and put my feet out like this. And then they said, okay, I had sweatpants on. And they said, okay, we're going to grab your sweatpants and pull, pull you out. And I said, you guys are going to give me the biggest wedgie.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

And they all started laughing because they're like, oh my gosh, here's this woman. So I was making jokes and it was that was good Cause they were. They were like, okay, I think she's okay, but I was in shock and I had asked them to take a picture of the car, which I think I can give you guys a picture and you can put it on here somewhere, right, yes, yeah. So I was able to get out and they, they took me to Tuba city hospital where I I found out that I didn't have to be life flighted to Flagstaff because I had zero life threatening injuries and if you saw my car you would hardly believe it, because the whole front end is gone and it's just a little bubble around the seat that I was sitting in.

Alisha Coakley:

Yeah, I remember the pictures. I was like what?

Scott Brandley:

the hell.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

Yeah. When my insurance guy saw it, he said wait a minute, this is the vehicle you were in. And I said yes, and he said I do this all day, every day. I do not talk to people who were in the car like this. He said I I can't believe I'm talking to you, but you know, it's like when I was, when, when I was spinning in the car, it was almost like ingratitude. Uh, because I had that vision of this is meant to be. This is, this is the plan for me. This is what I came to experience. But the other thing that you need to know is, later on, my former state president was able to give me a blessing shortly after the accident and in that blessing he said this was his very first words were Tracy, tracy, joe. This was not a coincidence, this was by divine design. And the end of that blessing he said you are an angel on earth who saved a family.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

And he didn't even know that there was a family behind me that had pulled over and they they came up to preach her and they passed her and they said is she okay? And he said I think she's going to be okay. She's going to be okay. And the man said I just want to tell you see the car I'm driving, my wife and my three kids are. It was a small car and he said we wouldn't have made it. We wouldn't have made it. I don't wish anything on her but I'm glad she was in front of us.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

And you know there's a couple of things that happened prior to this accident. This pastor had been following the drunk driver for 10 miles and they were trying to get him off the road and at one point he slammed into a parked diesel and they thought, okay, he's going to stop. And they were getting out of their car to go see if he was okay and the bumper had fallen off of his vehicle. He backed it up and went and that's when he went down um, the roundabout, the wrong way and entered the freeway, this piece of highway, the wrong way and they said, oh no, he's going to hit someone. It's not if it's when and the pastor Brandon is his name. Brandon looked at his son and he said let's pray right now for whoever he hits. And so Brandon told me. The next day at the hospital, brandon and his son came and they told me the backstory. They said, tracy, jo, we prayed for you before it even happened and we asked God, whoever he hits, that not only will they live, but they'll be fine.

Alisha Coakley:

Wow so, oh my gosh.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

I feel so grateful. I had 10 broken bones and it just took a while, you know, to for all of that heal and um, a couple of other minor things. But when he told me that story I just felt like God is in the details, he knows what's going on, he knows what's going to happen. What's going on, he knows what's going to happen and it was perfectly timed for me to go back to page and get that gas so that I would be right there to take that hit. And you know, I I don't know exactly what happened to the other driver is 25 years old and he rolled and rolled and he was ended up upside down and I said pastor, let's pray for him and pastor's like um. He didn't want to because he was very upset at this person. So my mom later told me she said you were on, I could hear you on the phone and she said you prayed for this, you prayed for him and still pray for him. They told me that when he got got out of the hospital he would immediately be arrested, because the FBI takes over, because when it's on the reservation it's not. You can't have local police, it's now federal. So the FBI took over that whole situation and um, um, what I know is that God was literally there holding me. I have no doubt in my mind that he knew what was going to happen and I was there for a reason and my life was spared, you know. But I do want to say this I had one woman say to me oh my gosh, god sure does love you.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

He saved your life. And I said well, let me ask you this question If I would have died, would God have not loved me, or would he have loved me any less? And she said oh my gosh, I'm so sorry, like you're right. She said oh my gosh, I'm so sorry, like you're right, because I think about sometimes we're. I remember being in church and and this woman is talking about how God loved her baby so much that she, he healed her child, and that's the love of God. And I'm sitting next to a woman who lost her child. Yeah, so that's just. I just wanted to bring that up because if I was a mangled mess, he would have loved me the same. If I would have died, he would. It's not because he didn't love me.

Scott Brandley:

He loves me, just the same.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

It's just that this was my mission is to now share the miracle. And really I asked God my purpose and he said to help people remember that miracles still exist. And you're the example, exist and like and you're the example you know, and I love that that I'm writing this book about these seven people who they're true stories to real life people who've had they're all different scenarios. One was uh one was parents of a suicide. Um. One was a man who was married for 30 years and his wife walked in and said guess what I'm leaving you? And he lost his wife and his house and his job, everything within two weeks. And how these people? In fact, I don't know if you know Meg Johnson, but she just gave me permission to be one of the people in my book.

Alisha Coakley:

Um, do you know who Meg Johnson is? I do, yep, yeah.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

So if there's people out there listening that don't know, meg Johnson, look her up. But she was hiking Zions and was jumping from rock to rock to rock and when she went to jump for the last one, it was actually a mirage. It was across a ravine and she had just jumped off a cliff and she became a paraplegic.

Scott Brandley:

So oh, I know her yeah.

Alisha Coakley:

She works with our turtle house and yeah, yeah, yeah.

Scott Brandley:

I've been to a conference she would that she spoke at. Yeah, I didn't, I didn't get the name, but I know the story so yeah, that's awesome.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

Yeah, one thing that I took from I'm just looking at our time here how are we doing? You're good, okay. One thing that I remember the most from Meg Johnson's experience was that she was saying why me, why, why, why did this happen? She was laying in bed and waiting for somebody to come turn her and just tears, you know, coming down her face, and she said that she had, she had, a vision of herself sitting at this beautiful desk I'm thinking it was probably cherry wood, it was just this beautiful, gorgeous desk and she's in white and there are people standing around in white and there is a pen and paper and she grabs that pen and starts signing papers and she thought can I sign up for this? I think she did, wow.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

So that's one thing that I've really been pondering about is are the things that we experience here on this planet things that we agreed to? I think so. I think we agreed to have these experiences so that we could learn and grow from them and then we can help other people. So is there any questions that you have for me?

Alisha Coakley:

Oh, my goodness. Well, let me go back to to your recovery. So you had 10 broken bones. How long like was that? The only thing? That? Just 10 broken bones, and, of course, like the bruises on your face and swelling and stuff but how long did it? Take you to get through recovery, like to get kind of back to feeling normal, or are you still healing?

Tracy Jo Rollins:

yeah, I, I was told to give it a year. Really, I had a broken clavicle, I had a plate and screws here and a broken sternum. I had broken hand and fingers and a broken tibia and five broken ribs. So I was, I was in the hospital for five days and then I stayed in Arizona at a friend's house, my very good friend's house, my three kids that lived there. So my friend, her son, just married my daughter. So that happened while I was there in Arizona. We had a wedding and then we had my mother-in-law's funeral while I was there. So, um it I w.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

I stayed there for a month and then I went for my follow-up and while I was recovering. You know, I really believe that our thoughts, that we can heal. For me, I thought I can heal faster if I continually tell myself I'm healed. So I did use a lot of my rare fake tools in my healing to stay positive, to stay in gratitude, and that was a big one for me. It was just journaling everything and staying in gratitude. My son he's 23 years old I was so concerned about all the people who had ordered fruit from me. So many had already Venmo'd me and I told my son I go, I have to get this fruit, and they're like mom you can't get the fruit.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

My son went and picked the fruit with his friends and fulfilled the orders.

Scott Brandley:

Isn't that so?

Tracy Jo Rollins:

sweet so. So when I went back for the follow-up it was it was my six week follow-up the two surgeons that had worked on me said they had pins in my hand. They took the pins out and they said you are good to go, like you're healed, your bones are all good. They said we can't really look at your ribs, but everything else is good. Now this is as far as I can bend these fingers, so there's still work. You know just these little things like that, but I'm gosh. I didn't have to learn how to walk, talk, breathe, eat again.

Alisha Coakley:

Wow.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

So I'm very grateful for those 10 broken bones. Yeah, um, in one month they in the six weeks. No, it wasn't one, but six weeks. Uh, I left Arizona and went back home to Utah and my mom came, my sister came, but they really didn't have to stay very long. I just tried to keep going on with my life.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

But I realized there are things, there's some aftermath that I'm working with the nerve damage and things like that that I had to just have my foot x-rayed two days ago because I kept telling them my feet were broken at the hospital and they kept telling me my feet were not broken.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

My feet were black and blue and just swollen, so huge. I called about three weeks ago to the hospital and I said I would like to have the radiologist look at my x-rays of my feet again because my left foot still I can sometimes I can barely walk on it. And then she came back and she goes I am really sorry, mrs Rollins, they did not x-ray your feet Really. Really, they did not x-ray my feet. So I did just have my left foot x-rayed just a couple of days ago and they're sending it out to the radiologist and there is some kind of weird looking thing on it on the left foot. So there might be something else, but you know those are just minor things compared to all of the huge, amazing miracles you know that happened with this whole accident.

Alisha Coakley:

Oh my gosh Wow.

Scott Brandley:

I love. I love how positive you are, even like in the last podcast we did with you, like you've just you're. I do think that the lessons you've learned from Leslie Householder have had a huge impact on you. I mean so much so that you guys convinced me to read that book, which was a really good book. But yeah, I love the idea of just living your life in gratitude. That's very empowering. It changes the way you look at the world.

Alisha Coakley:

Yeah Well, so let me ask you, tracy, because you mentioned that you wanted to take control of your healing. You knew that you could, you could heal faster through the things that you know that we out there who maybe have no idea, how do you, how do you, how do you, I guess, manifest your own healing in gratitude, what, what would you say? What would you do you know like, was it just journaling, was it like in prayer, you know, kind of give us an example of some of the things that you would write or say to like that's a really good question and it for me it's.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

It's there's a little, a lot of different modalities that you can use to heal. One of one thing that happened was a dear friend. Her father-in-law does Reiki and long distance and he said do you mind if I work on you? And I said I will take anything. So he did six sessions on me and then he messaged my friend and he said she's doing, and the day he messaged is true, I was getting up and walking and making my own breakfast that day, my own breakfast that day. So here's some of the things that I that I do and I can. I do them all the time, because to me, every day there are things to heal from. Every day you can get shot down and in fact my 17 year old he goes mom, you just get shot down and then you say a prayer and you get back up again and then you get shot down, and then you say a prayer and you get back up again, and then you get shot down and then you say a prayer and you get back up again.

Scott Brandley:

He's like mom, something's got to change.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

I said to him. I said I think the point is that I get back up again and not everybody does. Yeah, so what what I do is I I do meditation, where I might turn on something on YouTube. I like Joe Dispenza, and I might listen to a short meditation and follow what they do. I do breath work. I love breath work. Breath work, I feel, is the antidote to anxiety. I like Wim Hof, I like somatic breath work, kriya yoga, all of those things that I could do when I couldn't really get up and move and do my yoga, I could well let me. Let me say I learned a lot from a book called man's search for meaning by Viktor Frankl.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

Yeah, I don't read that book. I highly suggest it because Viktor Frankl was a survivor of Auschwitz concentration camps.

Alisha Coakley:

I just have to say have you read it Scott.

Scott Brandley:

Yeah, oh yeah.

Alisha Coakley:

Yeah, so any listener go right now and download it on Apple.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

It was oh my gosh you need to like.

Alisha Coakley:

I should never, ever complain about anything that I ever go through, ever again. Yeah, that was a great book.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

You know, it's true, you know I really so. So breath, work, um, meditation, and I also envision light coming in and healing every single like. There were nights when I didn't like the pain medication, so I got off of that as quick as possible, and so sometimes at night I would just be in a lot of pain and I would imagine close my eyes and just imagine this beautiful white light just coming through the top of my head and feeling and going into every area of my body and surrounding it and just healing light and I was just like thank you, god, for the healing light, thank you for for everything. I am whole and I am. There were just some, some phrases that I'm not going to say here because they're very private, but there were some phrases that were coming into my mind of things I needed to say about my healing. But I kept saying I am whole, I am clean, I am forgiven, and that was interesting and I am healed.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

And that was interesting and I am healed and I I envision myself when I went for my six week checkup, I just envisioned that my doctors were going to look at me and say you can go like you're good, you can walk on that leg again. And that's exactly what they said to me. They're like you can walk on that leg, go ahead, start, you can go back to the gym. Yeah, now, granted, it didn't happen like that because I was like, okay, and then I found out, oh, I take things a little bit slower, all right, but I also my daughter asked me to make her wedding cake and that was in February. So this happened in January 14th and her wedding was February 14th. So one month later I knew I was making that wedding cake and I still think about it. That's only four weeks. But I was able to get up and stand on one leg and I had a couple of friends that helped me and we got all of the layers. I made a naked cake, which is a lot easier than most cakes.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

But I got all the layers made, froze them. The next day my daughter that's a chef she flew in and I made all the frosting, the buttercream and the raspberry filling. We had all that made and she came and helped me decorate the whole thing. But that was if you have something to live for. If you have, and that's what really what man's search for, meaning he talks about that a lot is having a purpose. If you don't have a purpose, it's easy to give up. So, and that's what what I've been teaching for the last five years in the genius bootcamp is.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

Here's my mantra is don't die with your music and you don't die with your music and you find you might be. You might be a person that's a violinist and you're over there playing the drums and you hate it. So find what your passion is, find what you love and do that. You know so many people, people. There's a thing about artists like starving artists like you can't make any money. You know doing art.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

I disagree. I feel like when you find your passion you're going to, you can create wealth doing what you love you should. I think that's the purpose is to come here, use our gifts and talents to make the world a better place, to make the world a better place, fill a need that is needed in the world, and everybody has, and I think of that song Glorious. Everyone plays a piece. It's like a symphony. Everybody plays a piece, right, and when they do, it's like this beautiful harmony, this beautiful symphony, and we're all doing our part and making beautiful music. So that's what I love to teach people is what their next right step is how to find it, how to get unstuck and find the music that you were born with and that you are meant to play. I love that I love that.

Scott Brandley:

so are you to add your story to your book On a dime? Okay?

Tracy Jo Rollins:

Everyone that knows about the book is like you're number eight. You have eight people now. So here's how I see it going is me writing my story, introducing myself and writing my story, and maybe I'm writing about each person and filling in some of those gaps, leading to like I might give a little prelude or, at the end, like I don't know is that the epilogue?

Scott Brandley:

or at the?

Tracy Jo Rollins:

end like I don't know. Is that the epilogue? Yeah, so just giving a little something at the end about how these, how this has affected my life, why I even started writing the book and interesting how this happened right in the middle of me writing the book so I could have an on the dime experience.

Alisha Coakley:

Isn't it funny? I think we were talking about um Scott's book last week and just how you know he's, he's written other books and he's written them in relatively short periods of time, but this, this book that he has coming out soon faith to stay is a nine year process coming out soon. Faith to Stay is a nine-year process. Nine years, that's such a long time. I'm on six years for my book right now and I feel the same way that you just mentioned where it's like you know, it's almost like Heavenly Father's like okay, well, we're just going to put that book down for a minute because you've got some more stuff to learn before you can continue on to the next chapters.

Alisha Coakley:

You know, it's almost like he's giving us little pieces at a time and he's kind of like let's see what you do with this. Are you actually going to keep writing when I give you these lessons? Are you going to recognize them? Are you going to tailor them to your life? What are you going to learn about? What are you going to do, and are you willing to adjust and trust me? You know, I think for me, that's one of the things that I have really had to to learn, especially the last six years. Um is to adjust and trust. You know, like, just constantly in this cycle of adjusting, trusting, adjusting, trusting, just keep going on and on with it and I love that so much.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

adjust and trust.

Alisha Coakley:

Yeah, I'm like I sometimes I just can't, I'm like I don't, I put the grapes. No, I worked so hard and I'm doing this, and it was like I'm not trusting, I'm not adjusting, so I'm not moving. So we just sit and, heavenly Father, just like, okay, well, when you're ready we'll move forward. You know, and I, I love that, like your perspective has just been so positive the whole time, even in the middle of spinning around. You know, getting hit in the dark of the night, you're just like okay, just hold me, just hold me. God, like how I won't even. You're like a unicorn.

Alisha Coakley:

I don't know how anyone could do that I spiral in the darkness of life all the time and it's never like, okay, you got me. It's like you sure you got me. I'm just like freaking out over here. So I love, I love that you're just so positive about it and that you just really I don't know, I guess is it one of those things where it's like the more you do it, the easier it is to do you know, I can tell you that I was I, I was I.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

I teach about one genius boot camp a month. Okay, and the genius boot camp is a three-day, like you start with a foundation and it builds on itself, teaching these principles. And then day three, like you said, is this culmination of oh, like you, you get it. It's just like you walk away understanding a process of how to get spark ideas on demand and how to problem solve so quickly. Um, so I had three months pushed back. I had one in January, january, february and March. That all got pushed into me. So January, february and March, I can tell you I was literally going through withdrawals. I'm like, oh, I need to do the work. So please don't anybody think that I'm a unicorn. I am not. I will tell you I have done the work.

Scott Brandley:

That's it.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

I haven't done the work and it's not over. It's a work in progress, but I remember being such an angry person. Ask my kids and they're like oh, I had. You know, 25 years ago we weren't talking about anxiety, depression and hormones and all that stuff. I am grateful for what we are learning in today. I mean there's a lot of people going back and healing childhood trauma. Everyone's talking about breath work. It's amazing the shift that's happening on our planet and I love the fact that somebody said this to me the other day. They said you know, there can never be more dark than there is light. So, even though a lot of people feel like there's a lot of dark things happening on the planet, guess what? There can never be more dark than there is light. And when you think about opposition in all things, there has to be as much opposition and dark for the light of Christ that's coming. Yeah, it's true about that, yeah.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

So we're just preparing for that right. So embrace it, because opposition equals creation. And if you would have known me 20 years ago, I'm such a different person, I'm such a different person. I'm such a different person. I'm grateful for that person that I was and I'm grateful that I always wanted to. My whole life I kept saying God, change me, help me to change. I want to be different. I want to be calm in the storm. Help me to be calm in the storm. Seven kids, that's a storm. You know there's always something going on, right, yes, but how can I be calm in the storm? Do you know how good that feels? And I'm not always calm in the storm. I love know how good that feels, and I'm not always calm in the storm. I love Sherry Dew.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

Sherry Dew, I remember it was something that she said when she was in the Relief Society presidency over the church and she got upset with her counselors. And she got upset with her counselors and went home and they're like Whoa, that's not like Sherry. So they went to her house and knocked on the door and she apologized and she said oh, there's still rats in the attic. And they're like what do you mean? And she said well, you think that you're that you don't have any rats in the attic because you know when you go up and you open the attic door you don't see any because they ran. But if you snuck up to the attic and just like peek open in there and watch, you would find out there's still rats in the attic, which what she meant was.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

A lot of times we think we've arrived and we find out that someone can still push our buttons. I have a 17 year old still, he knows buttons. I didn't even know Amen, so right. So I love that, because what she's saying is we're human, we are human. What she's saying is we're human, we are human. And I think the key for me is I get knocked down and I get back up again. I get knocked down and I get back up again, and I'm always going to get back up again. Yeah, I, when I say those things, I I always go okay, here it comes. Because when we speak out things like that, we get tested to see, to know that we are truly going to do that. So be careful with your words. I remember when I joined the church. I'm reading the scriptures and I'm like oh, there's this thing called the refiner's fire. I want that, I want to be gold. I said Lord, take all the dross off of me and take me through the refiner's fire, wow.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

Be, careful what you pray for.

Scott Brandley:

I'm not going to pray for that.

Alisha Coakley:

I'm not praying for that one. I don't want that. I don't want patience. I don't want that. I don't want patience. I don't want humility.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

Right. But the truth of the matter is is, honestly, I do want to be the gold, I do want the dross taken off of me. I do want to stand tall in the joy of being made whole and clean, the joy of being made whole and clean, and I just feel like I told God I go. If I ever tell you to stop refining meat, don't listen to me, don't listen, keep going, keep refining meat. I'll be on here again sometime, I'm sure, with a new story. Oh for sure. Hey, I got another one, I'm sure with the new story.

Alisha Coakley:

Oh for sure, hey got another one. I'm like, okay, let's shoot. That's so neat.

Scott Brandley:

I like what you said about putting in. You have to put in the work because I even think as members of the church it's so easy to get uh, you know, to lose sight of the simple things. And I, I mean I, I'm a victim of it. I, you know it's hard to do the simple things. Sometimes you just get caught up in life. But you got to keep putting in that work and when you don't, you start to see that things are harder. Life is harder.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

Yeah, you know things are harder, life is harder, yeah, you know can I tell you something, Scott, that has helped me so much. It's taking, do you?

Scott Brandley:

ever get up and just you just get out of bed and just start going.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

I don't, I cannot live my life like that anymore, like I, literally, if I do that and get up and start going, I stop and I go no, no, no, no. This day is not going to be like that, because I can't. I can't do days like that. When I get up in the morning, it's hey, heavenly Father, hi, heavenly Mother I believe we are Heavenly Mothers. I'm like Hi, heavenly Father, hi Heavenly Mother, I'm here, what can I do for you today? And we have a conversation and I might get out my book and start writing it. And then I sit and vision and I don't do this perfectly all the time, don't get me wrong, but these are some of the things that I do, and I do it in the morning because I believe we can create our day every day, or it's going to create us, right. So then, okay, what is my intention for this day, heavenly Father? It's like co-creating your day with God. What would you have me to do? What can I do for you today? And I get answers and I'm like okay, so we start writing, and some of them are about my business. Okay, um, go, look for your, for your next person that you know that you're going to help with you, know this or that next person that you know that you're going to help with you, know this or that? Okay, this is talk to this person today. Um, I know that you've been wanting to. You know, do X, y, z, because I believe that God respects my free will and my agency and the desires of my heart too. Some people think, oh, it's all God's will. What if I'm not doing his will right? What if I'm going the wrong direction? Guess what? What I've realized is he wants me to have hopes and dreams and live them. And if you don't believe that, there are so many prophets out there who have said those things, go start looking for that that God wants you to dream big and he wants you to be fabulous and he wants you remember maybe we can just kind of end with this Remember the story about the guy on the cruise and he had saved all of his money to go on this cruise and finally he gets to go on the cruise and he's so excited and whenever people are, like at lunchtime, at dinnertime, he goes back to his cabin, opens his suitcase and he has cans of tuna, beans, crackers, peanut butter that he brought with him and he walks through the cruise looking at the delicious foods and, oh man, oh, I wish I could like go have fun with these people and these activities.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

The last day the porter comes up to him and says hey, mr Jones, the captain would like you to sit at the table and dine with him tonight. He usually likes to try to get everybody at his table at some point and he said oh, I'm so sorry, I could only afford the cruise. I couldn't afford to pay for all the food. And the porter looked at him funny and he goes what do you mean? All the foods included? And the poor man is like it's the last day of the cruise. I want every juicy drop of life that I get to have. So I'm going to, I'm going to just soak it in. And oh, we're on a ride book. I won't want to ride horses, I want to plant a garden. Oh, I want to ride a roller coaster. Oh, I want to go to the beach. Let's do it. I think God wants us to have joy. I's do it. I think God wants us to have joy. I think so too.

Scott Brandley:

I think God wants us to be friends, because those are things that I think would be great to do.

Alisha Coakley:

I love that, oh gosh. Well, miss Tracy Jo, as usual, you just left us smiling. My cheeks are hurting a little bit right here. My eyes are super squinty. I cried Check, check, check, good job. But we really appreciate you coming on and just sharing your story. We're so glad that you're okay. We're so glad that you're still continuing to live life to be an example to others, to be a light to the world, and so please just keep us updated on all the beautiful things that you still are doing and let us know for sure, when you are getting to the tail end of wrapping up your book and you're ready to start pushing it for publishing and stuff, we would love to have you come on, share a little bit more about it.

Alisha Coakley:

You know we can share links and stuff like that for you too.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

I just think that that would be super cool, so thank you Awesome I will Thank you so much for letting me be on and share the story. I feel so grateful to be here and I am grateful for what you guys are doing and sharing all of these amazing stories with people.

Scott Brandley:

I love what you're doing.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

Any last thoughts before we wrap things up Find joy in the journey, choose joy. It's really important to know that you have the power to choose how you feel about your experiences. You get to choose if you want to be angry about it or you get to choose if you want to turn it over to God and let him have all that. You can sit and I believe that we need to feel our emotions, feel our feelings, but you get to choose how long you stay there. Yeah, oh, I just like to, when I'm in a really tough situation, pause, take a deep breath and say what would I learn instead? How do I want to feel about this? Those are two really good questions.

Alisha Coakley:

That's super helpful. Yeah, all right. Well, thank you again, tracy, jo, we appreciate it, and thank you to all of our listeners. Guys, we just love being able to do this podcast. We love having stories like Tracy's that really do inspire, and we are always looking for other guests who want to come on the show, who want to share their own stories, ways that their testimonies have grown and and perspectives that they've gained throughout life that's brought them closer to Christ and closer to their purpose, and so if that's you, or if you know someone who has a story that would really need to be shared on this podcast, we want to hear from you. Please, please, please, be sure to reach out to us. You can either email us at latterdaylightsgmailcom or you can head to our website, latterdaylightscom, and you can fill out the contact form at the bottom of the first page there. So don't be shy. Make sure that you guys reach out to us, just like Tracy did. She said I think I did it the first time and then now you did it the second time.

Scott Brandley:

So well, good luck with the next couple of days of of your seminar.

Alisha Coakley:

That sounds amazing.

Scott Brandley:

And thanks for taking out some time to tell us your story and share that with us. That's very inspiring.

Tracy Jo Rollins:

Thanks for having me on, no problem.

Scott Brandley:

Well, thanks. Thanks everyone having me on, no problem. Thanks everyone for joining us on the show again and we will talk to you next week with another episode. Until then, take care, bye-bye.

Alisha Coakley:

Bye guys.

People on this episode

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Scott Brandley

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Alisha Coakley

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