My name is Martina. I was born and raised in Basel, Switzerland. My family was, like many European families, agnostic, although my dad has a Methodist background and my Mom was Catholic. At 16, I enrolled in a foreign exchange program that would send me to the United States, Michigan to be specific. My host family introduced me to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and took me to church with them every Sunday. During the course of that year, I also dated who would become my now husband. At the end of that year, right before I went home, I was baptized. When my boyfriend returned from his mission, I went back stateside, and we got engaged, and eventually married in the Nauvoo Temple, IL. It’s been 16 years, and together we have four children: two boys and two girls.
I have always been an avid writer and activist for Black and Indigenous people. I draw, sing, dance, cook, crochet and am very active on social media, especially Facebook and Twitter. I’m a firm believer in 1Nephi 3:7 and 2 Nephi 26:33. Because of my journey, I have always empathized with Nephi’s leading his family out of Jerusalem into the wilderness. I have always wondered why a woman couldn’t be called of God to lead her family into the promised land because that is exactly the position I am in, having left my home country for more freedom and better opportunities. I have always been interested in the women of the Bible, especially Esther, Judith, Ruth and the prophetess Anna. If God can call a man, he can call and ordain a woman, because I believe Nephi’s testimony that “for [she] that diligently seeketh shall find; and the mysteries of God shall be unfolded unto them, by the power of the Holy Ghost, as well in these times as in times of old, and as well in times of old as in times to come; wherefore, the course of the Lord is one eternal round.”