Interview: Heather Brenda Montjoie Cantrell

Heather Brenda Montjoie Cantrell says that you can never spoil a baby with too much love.  You can spoil babies with other things, but not too much love. Love is a theme in her life. She has a lot to love.

For one, she loves her garden and many members of the ward have shared their love of gardens with her. She wants to be a gardener in heaven where even the weeds will be flowers. In her garden, Heather loves everything, except the roses and things with thorns. She loves her fruit trees (even if the birds do peck at the fruit) and her flowers, especially the hydrangeas. She’s filled her window wells with the flowers she loves. One of her favorite activities is to be in her garden listening to the bees and watching the hummingbirds. However, she doesn’t like cockroaches, spiders, and snakes.

For exercise, she loves to walk.

Other things that she loves include knitting, crocheting, and cake decorating. These are creative activities that give her ways to make things for people she loves, like the afghans she makes for her children and the crocheted edges she works on for baby burp cloths given to young mothers.

Heather’s knitting, crocheting, and gardening remind her of people she loves, especially her grandmother who taught her to knit and crochet and garden when Heather was only six years old in Johannesburg, South Africa, where Heather was born in the Queen Vic Hospital. She lived there until May 31, 1961 when her father got a job in Mulfulira, Northern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Heather’s grandmother was a very important person in her life and made her feel like she was her grandmother’s favorite granddaughter. Heather wears hats to church because of she made a pact to do so with her mother and grandmother.

She’s lived many places in her life and done many things. She was runner-up to Miss Copper Belt in Africa, did professional modeling, was a flight attendant for South African Airlines. With her husband, Ted, who was in the U.S. Army, she also lived in Germany and various states. She was able to come to Brigham Young University after she joined the Church and has become a huge fan of BYU football. She even loves the Salt Lake City Jazz.

Family is very important to Heather. She loves her children (8, although she lost one baby) and grandchildren (3). She thinks it’s fun to have grandchildren. She also loves the gospel and her friends in the ward. So, you can see that Heather has a lot to love.