Meanwhile, Perry plays in pain — just as she once did in softball — to churn out more songs. She writes the words as well as the music for the vast majority of her songs; she also collaborates with Lundberg and Hatch, among others. When she needs long, uninterrupted hours to write, she flees to a cabin near Springville.

Her songs are intentionally written with child-like simplicity, lyrically and musically. There are few complex chords or extreme keys or long stretches covering several octaves.

"People thank me all the time because they can play it," she says. "That's because it's what I can play."

"There is beauty in simplicity," says Lundberg.

She is most comfortable sitting alone in her back office writing songs. When the requests for public speaking began, that was another story. Doug had to coax her to do those. For years, she refused to sing in public even though her voice is good enough to have earned a spot in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir for several years. After a speaking engagement in Hawaii, a woman scolded Perry for refusing to sing in public, claiming it was a form of pride and vanity.

"I didn't appreciate it at the time," says Perry, "but I decided to try it."

She now sings her songs regularly as part of her many speaking engagements and firesides.

"She's the most unassuming, humble, quiet, modest person you'll ever meet," says Jessop.

"She's a remarkable human being," says Hatch. "Everyone who knows her loves her. She's just a kind person."

Predictably, she has a soft spot for kids. Even with their tight finances, she and Doug opened their home to 11 foster children over the years — teens and pre-schoolers, kids from China, Argentina, Nigeria, Indiana, Indian reservations — ranging in age from preschool to teens and staying anywhere from a few months to many years.

"They still call my parents, and they call them Mom and Dad," says John.

They even took in a man they befriended while he was in prison who came to live with the family after his release.

Perry says she doesn't work as hard as she once did, "I just work when I want to, when something moves me," she says. Her current project: The translation of her songs into Spanish. "During our mission (in Chile), I realized there is a real desire and need for music there," she says.

She still delights in touching people with her music. One woman wrote to her to say that after her husband died unexpectedly, she played Perry's "The Test," repeatedly. "That's how I got through it," she wrote.

It is for moments like these that drive the Perrys. Doug, who likes to introduce himself as "Mr. Janice Kapp Perry," takes care of all the details so that his wife can concentrate solely on writing her songs.

"We feel a sense of mission," he says.

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E-mail: drob@desnews.com