And, yes, to answer your next question, she does date, but not often and usually only when someone she trusts has a recommendation. The exposure she gets as a member of the LDS Church's Relief Society presidency has brought a steady stream of letters from people wanting her to date their brother, friend, son, which she declines.

"At this age, to date for dating's sake is sheer torture," she says. "I began dating in 1969, which means I have dated in the '60s, '70s, '80s and '90s, and now a new century, and I still haven't found the right guy."

Perhaps the worst side effects of her marital status are the rumors and ignorance it fosters. She has threatened to hire a man to put his arm around her during General Conference just to stop the gossip that she is dating one of the general authorities of the church. Visitors to her house at Christmastime will commend her for decorating her house and for putting up a Christmas tree, as if they are surprised she would bother — being single and all. Strangers advise her about whom she should or shouldn't date or chastise her for being "too picky" or for choosing a career instead of marriage.

"They have no idea how many times I've cried myself to sleep because of acute loneliness or the hundreds of times I've fasted and prayed to be married," she says. "If fasting and praying could get you a husband, I could pick anyone I wanted. At least let me be busy with a career and not sit around and be lonely. Would they feel better if I was checking bags at Albertson's? But the vast majority of people have been accepting and wonderful."

In public, Dew is ever the confident, independent woman, but in private she still retains part of the same insecure girl of her youth. She peppers her sentences with self-deprecating humor and painful self-evaluations — "The truth is I've never been one of those girls who guys see on the street corner and think, 'I've got to take her out.' " She still thinks she doesn't measure up.

"I still struggle; I'm still surprised if I find out that somebody thinks I'm OK," she confesses.

"One of her charms is that she just doesn't get it," says Larson. "She does not realize what it is people love so much about her. She does not see herself as wonderful. She is a pure, honest human being."

Armed with the compassion and wisdom she has learned in the trenches, she is uniquely suited in her job as a representative of her church. There have been worse ideas than turning such a keen, sensitive heart and mind loose in the world to meet diverse people, to connect with them, to learn and observe, to extract life's truths and pass along to a church at large.

In her trips to Africa, for instance, she observed poverty, abuse, disease, starvation — but not the depression that's so prevalent in the United States. The people told her they were happy because of their belief in their religion.

"And we have everything here except sometimes happiness," says Dew. "I wonder who the Lord is really worried about — us or them? I have never heard people pray or sing as the people did in Africa. When it was time to fly home, I didn't want to leave. I was wiping tears all the way home."

For all the disappointments, Dew is living a rich life and she knows it.

"I love my life," she says. "I'm happy about my life."

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E-MAIL: droby@desnews.com