The Sunday Blessings Podcast is hosted by Jay Hildebrandt and features stories of faith, hope, and inspiration. You'll hear extended interviews, musician & artist spotlights, and more. Sunday Blessings can be heard weekly on Sundays from 5am-5pm mountain standard time on Classy 97, Sunny 97, and Classy 97 Lite.
Sharing stories of faith, hope, and inspiration. This is the Sunday Blessings podcast. Welcome to the Sunday Blessings podcast. I'm Jay Hildebrand here with Yahosh Bonner, who's an entertainer, recording artist, and, and an inspirational speaker, motivational speaker as well. Welcome.
Thank you for joining us. Thank you, Jay. I I appreciate you. It's a it's a blessing to be here with you and as I know, you are a legend. Oh, thank you.
Well, you are too. So, just for the next few minutes, I want us to talk about your music and and your faith and how those two things combine. So probably just start how how it began for you. Yeah. I don't have my music without my faith.
My mom it all started with well, for our family, my mom came to know Jesus through gospel music. Mhmm. She went to church with her friend one day, and her friend had a solo with her choir. And the girl sang, and my mom said that's when she said her first prayer. She said, lord, if you give me a voice like that, I will use it to serve you forever.
And she has. And she's taught us, you know, gospel music and taught us how to sing through praise music. And then on my dad's side, my aunt, was a trailblazer for gospel music. Her name was Grace Bonner, and she had a singing group with her siblings called the Bonner Singers. So it's been a family thing.
It's been a faith thing, and it's it's been amazing for us. So how does music build your faith and speak to you? Gosh, man. I think with music, I'm I connect, most closely with my father in heaven. I mean, I I really believe in that scripture that talks about how the the song of the righteous is a prayer unto me.
You know? And as we're striving, we're striving every day. We're not perfect, but as we sing praises to our father in heaven, I feel his love. I feel I feel the love of my savior, and I feel like I can convey my feelings, more fully, when I'm praising through through through praise music. And your family is a big part of this too.
It brings your family closer together. Tell me about that It does. Group and where you perform and what you do. So we are there's 8 children, and then we sing with my parents and my niece. So there's 11 singers in the Bonner family singing group, and we're hoping to to add more.
You know? As as the nieces and nephews get older, we want them to come and to sing with us because, it is something that connects us. We're all very different. We live in different parts of the country. But one thing that we are unified is on is our love for for for God, our love for the savior, and our love for each other.
And, seeing this music and is is a way for us to get together to praise together and remember to put first things first. Yeah. And as you do this, you're inspiring other people. Tell me how rewarding that is. It's great.
It's great because I feel sometimes I feel selfish. Like, oh, I get to beat my family. Oh, we get to praise the God that I love. You know? But then to know that I can praise and other, brothers and sisters mother brothers and sisters in Christ can come and enjoy the love of our God through music with us.
It's amazing. It's an amazing feeling. You know? Wish I could do it full time. Yeah.
So what else do you do with your life? So I'm an athletic director at a private school in American Fork, Utah called American Heritage School. So I'm the athletic director there. I've done some online, teaching for science, and and it's it's been amazing. Yeah.
Yeah. And you do motivational speaking. I do. Tell me about that and how music is is, integrated. I'm so glad you asked that because, like, yeah, motivational speaking, but I don't really consider myself a motivational speaker.
I I consider myself a motivational singer. Okay. You know? Because I'll share a message, and then I'll use a song to amplify that message. Yeah.
Because you could there's that quote that says, people wanna always remember what you said, but they'll always remember how you made them feel. And music makes me feel. And I feel like as a member of the human race, music is something that connects us, that that that we remember. We remember songs, we remember, rhythms and melodies. And and many times, if we have those rhythms and melodies, we'll remember the words too.
Yeah. There are songs that I remember listening to early Sunday morning in in my house growing up. And throughout my life, a chorus will come in my mind and preach to me in a time that I need it. Yeah. And that's a song that I heard 20 years ago, you know, but the spirit brought that music and and and those melodies and those words to my remembrance.
And I think music allows, allows that to happen. And just fine, maybe you could share your a little bit of your witness or testimony or whatever you wanna call about your your faith in in God and Jesus Christ. Oh, my goodness. So my parents were very, intentional about teaching us how to have an, personal relationship with the savior, because we can't get to the father if we don't know his son, Jesus Christ. And so every day, we're striving to look like Jesus Christ in the way that we speak, in the way that we we teach, the way that we serve one another.
Mhmm. A lot of times, I I especially, being in athletics, you attach yourself and your worth to how well did I perform? How did I do you know? Did I score these points? Did did I get scored on?
And in reality, that's just a game. Yeah. Our our life and our worth is so much greater knowing that I am a son of God. I walk like a son of God. I know my potential.
Knowing that that's my sister and that's my brother, I'm going to speak to them more intentionally and more with love, have more patience. And so knowing what my divine heritage is has been huge in developing my character because I know who I'm trying to be like and whose I am. There's it makes me think of that story where there's those 2 people who die, and they go to heaven. Right? And then the interviewer is like, okay.
Tell me what you know about Jesus Christ. And the one person's like, oh, he's the savior of the world. He turned water to wine. He died for for all mankind. And then the interviewer was, okay.
Sounds like you know a lot about Jesus Christ. And that's the next person. And the next person just falls crying and praising at the interviewer's feet because he recognized the savior. There's a difference between knowing the stories and then knowing him personally. And so every day, I'm striving to know the savior more personal.
I'm I'm having conversations with him, you know, and I think my life is so much better, and so much more full because I know, who I'm striving to be like and who my best friend is. And no matter everybody in the world could hate me. I don't care what anybody else thinks about me. But what does the savory think about me? He thinks enough about me to have died for me, to have to never leave me.
In the scriptures, it talks about how there's well, it says says, nothing can separate us from the love of of of of our God, you know, and of our savior. And so I truly believe that. And because of that, I think that helps my mental health. It helps helps my my perception of self, and and my my testimony is just is is deeply rooted in in the savior. Alright.
Beautiful. Thank you so much. Hey. Thank you for having me. Thanks for listening to the Sunday Blessings podcast.
If you enjoy the show, please share, subscribe, and rate the podcast. Sunday Blessings is hosted by Jay Hildebrand and is a production of Riverbend Media Group. For more information or to contact the show, visit riverbendmediagroup.com.