Al Fox Carraway is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. She is a public speaker and travels the world speaking to everyone about her story of conversion to her church. In her first published book, “More Than The Tattooed Mormon,” she addresses the struggles she went through to get to where she is now. In just 165 pages, Carraway manages to teach countless lessons and give advice to persevere through hard times and have faith.

Carraway was born and raised in New York with her two sisters. As a young adult, she was helping a friend move one day and two missionaries from the LDS church were walking by and asked if they could meet with her to talk about the church. She agreed, and she started meeting with them regularly and learning more. She finally came to the conclusion that she wanted to be baptized in the LDS church. After she was baptized, she had a feeling that she needed to move to Utah by herself—no family, no friends there. Just her. Her move ended up causing her family to disown her, but while this was a hard decision for her, she knew that if she had faith, everything would be okay.

After days of traveling, Carraway finally arrived in Utah. When she got there, she stopped at a Mexican restaurant for lunch with her Book of Mormon (the LDS book of scripture). As she was waiting in line, a man behind her saw her tattoos and her Book of Mormon and made a rude comment about how ironic it was that a woman with many tattoos was holding that kind of book because the LDS church has rules against tattoos. What this man didn’t know was the sacrifice she had made to come all the way to Utah and that she had just recently come to know of the truthfulness of the church and gotten baptized. She goes on to tell the rest of her story and lessons she has learned since then.

As Carraway tells her story, the main point that readers can take away from her book is that we should not judge a book by its’ cover. We see someone and may think one thing of them, when actually the opposite is true. We do not know everyone’s background story, and we should treat everyone with kindness. Carraway shares her story with thousands of people and is a great example to all—not just those of the LDS church. So the next time you start to think negatively of someone, remember Carraway’s story and change your mindset to be positive.