Olga Kovarova Campora, PhD., the author of Saint Behind Enemy Lines, published by Deseret Book, was born and reared in Czechoslovakia (now the Czechia). Olga joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints while studying at J.E. Purkyne (T.G.Masaryk) University in Brno, Czechoslovakia, where she earned a Master’s Degree in physical education and a Ph.D. in education. She worked as an educator and as a yoga teacher and lecturer in Czechoslovakia. 

 

Since the early 1990s Olga has made her home in the United States. She helped to establish the Czech language program at the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah, spoke at the Brigham Young University women’s conference in 1992, and has spoken at many church firesides and youth conferences in different parts of the US.  Her story was shared in the 2011 church-published history of the Relief Society called Daughters of My Kingdom. She has served in the past four times as Relief Society president, twice as a seminary teacher and presently has been serving as the first counselor in the Columbia Stake Young Women Presidency.

 

She is married to Randy Campora, bass trombonist for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and a faculty member at the Peabody Conservatory of Music. Olga wrote Czech for Americans, a university-level language textbook. She owns a yoga business called Yoga with Olga which offers therapeutic yoga for people suffering from chronic back pain and a variety of anxiety issues and depression. She is also currently studying to become a Certified Life Coach at Life Coach School.