Leaving the LDS Church: Faith, Hope, and Healing with Nathan Hinkley from The Bishop’s Interview!

WEBVTT

00:00:00.790 --> 00:00:01.952

Hello, beautiful humans.

00:00:02.192 --> 00:00:03.895

Welcome to the Midlife Revolution.

00:00:04.055 --> 00:00:05.397

I'm your host, Megan Conner,

00:00:05.958 --> 00:00:07.801

and today I am joined by

00:00:08.101 --> 00:00:09.483

Nathan Hinckley of The

00:00:09.523 --> 00:00:10.485

Bishop's Interview.

00:00:11.086 --> 00:00:11.627

Hey, Nathan.

00:00:12.147 --> 00:00:12.808

Hi, Megan.

00:00:12.848 --> 00:00:13.610

Thanks for having me.

00:00:14.041 --> 00:00:16.083

Of course, it's so good to have you here.

00:00:16.344 --> 00:00:18.025

I have seen you around the

00:00:18.065 --> 00:00:19.367

Internet on the different

00:00:19.387 --> 00:00:21.629

channels that we kind of all follow,

00:00:21.749 --> 00:00:23.351

and I'm so excited to be

00:00:23.391 --> 00:00:24.192

having a one on one

00:00:24.232 --> 00:00:25.413

conversation with you today.

00:00:25.893 --> 00:00:26.774

I appreciate that.

00:00:26.834 --> 00:00:27.835

You know that I was just

00:00:27.876 --> 00:00:29.798

thinking about that this morning,

00:00:29.878 --> 00:00:33.922

how how we connect a lot of

00:00:33.982 --> 00:00:36.304

us in this space like weekly.

00:00:37.287 --> 00:00:40.430

And how even when I was a

00:00:40.570 --> 00:00:42.612

full believing member, you're like,

00:00:42.652 --> 00:00:43.553

we didn't do that.

00:00:43.693 --> 00:00:46.296

You know, like you did what you had to do,

00:00:46.356 --> 00:00:49.158

but I love this community,

00:00:49.278 --> 00:00:51.120

especially in the podcast

00:00:51.140 --> 00:00:53.462

world and how we support each other.

00:00:54.483 --> 00:00:57.866

And so, um, I saw you last night, uh,

00:00:57.946 --> 00:00:58.947

for a brief moment.

00:00:59.227 --> 00:00:59.947

Um,

00:00:59.967 --> 00:01:02.349

unfortunately where I live in the I'm

00:01:02.409 --> 00:01:03.390

in east Tennessee.

00:01:03.490 --> 00:01:04.090

So, um,

00:01:04.151 --> 00:01:06.392

a lot of things end up being pretty late,

00:01:06.472 --> 00:01:09.495

you know, pretty late, uh, for us, but,

00:01:09.795 --> 00:01:09.895

uh,

00:01:10.035 --> 00:01:12.237

I do see some of the live things and

00:01:12.337 --> 00:01:12.917

stuff like that.

00:01:12.957 --> 00:01:13.678

So it's fun.

00:01:14.377 --> 00:01:14.597

Yeah,

00:01:14.617 --> 00:01:17.018

that Tuesday night show is hard for me,

00:01:17.038 --> 00:01:18.859

because Tuesday is a really long day,

00:01:19.359 --> 00:01:21.080

and that's really late at night.

00:01:21.600 --> 00:01:23.181

And we sometimes go for an hour,

00:01:23.241 --> 00:01:24.661

sometimes we go for two hours.

00:01:25.262 --> 00:01:26.502

And last night, by the end of it,

00:01:26.562 --> 00:01:28.363

I was just wiped out, so I had to go.

00:01:28.803 --> 00:01:30.124

And what I love is kind of

00:01:30.144 --> 00:01:31.284

the hangout afterwards,

00:01:31.344 --> 00:01:32.245

after we turn off the

00:01:32.265 --> 00:01:34.005

livestream and we just hang out and talk.

00:01:34.465 --> 00:01:35.646

That's my favorite part.

00:01:35.806 --> 00:01:37.427

I've gotten some really fun

00:01:37.487 --> 00:01:38.827

conversations and some fun

00:01:38.867 --> 00:01:39.608

meetups that way,

00:01:39.648 --> 00:01:41.608

but I just couldn't do it last night.

00:01:41.628 --> 00:01:42.369

It was too much.

00:01:43.129 --> 00:01:44.450

Well, I'm, I've, uh,

00:01:44.470 --> 00:01:46.371

I've caught that Tuesday show.

00:01:46.631 --> 00:01:48.372

Um, of course it's with, uh,

00:01:48.392 --> 00:01:50.093

with Jean from Latter Day Digest.

00:01:50.153 --> 00:01:52.795

I've caught it, uh, a few times now, but,

00:01:52.975 --> 00:01:53.715

uh, I'll admit it.

00:01:53.755 --> 00:01:55.456

I'm usually laying in bed and it's,

00:01:56.037 --> 00:01:57.478

you know, it's midnight or something.

00:01:57.538 --> 00:01:58.078

So I don't,

00:01:58.098 --> 00:01:59.859

I don't usually chime in all that much.

00:02:00.301 --> 00:02:00.481

Yeah.

00:02:00.501 --> 00:02:01.903

And Jean's like, come in the studio.

00:02:01.943 --> 00:02:03.345

And you're like, I'm already asleep.

00:02:03.485 --> 00:02:05.167

Okay.

00:02:05.188 --> 00:02:07.130

I'll tell him myself last night.

00:02:07.210 --> 00:02:11.836

I said, I can't, I'm naked.

00:02:11.896 --> 00:02:12.717

That's a different story.

00:02:12.737 --> 00:02:15.902

I was about to go head to the hot tub.

00:02:18.104 --> 00:02:19.685

Well, we always love the inside scoop.

00:02:19.725 --> 00:02:21.946

It's always fun to know what's going on.

00:02:22.366 --> 00:02:22.566

Well,

00:02:22.686 --> 00:02:24.307

can you just start by telling us a

00:02:24.347 --> 00:02:25.647

little bit about you,

00:02:25.807 --> 00:02:27.708

about how you got to where you are,

00:02:27.788 --> 00:02:29.429

how the Bishop's interview came to be?

00:02:29.889 --> 00:02:31.790

I'm just curious about all those details.

00:02:32.070 --> 00:02:33.070

Okay.

00:02:33.130 --> 00:02:36.631

Well, stop me whenever you need to.

00:02:38.100 --> 00:02:39.941

So I guess the beginning

00:02:39.961 --> 00:02:42.521

would be that I was born in Utah,

00:02:43.021 --> 00:02:44.982

but my parents moved us to

00:02:45.022 --> 00:02:48.423

the South when I was a little baby.

00:02:48.443 --> 00:02:49.983

So I don't remember anything about that.

00:02:52.184 --> 00:02:54.725

My parents, I was born in Layton,

00:02:54.825 --> 00:02:56.405

which consequently I have a

00:02:56.465 --> 00:02:58.506

son named Layton now, but anyway,

00:02:59.822 --> 00:03:02.823

Um, my parents came to the South, uh,

00:03:02.883 --> 00:03:04.423

chasing a music dream.

00:03:04.583 --> 00:03:06.624

So they, they, they were musicians.

00:03:06.644 --> 00:03:08.464

Um, they played, uh,

00:03:08.484 --> 00:03:11.185

mostly country music or, um,

00:03:11.305 --> 00:03:12.145

or rock and roll.

00:03:12.165 --> 00:03:15.525

Um, they ended up landing, um,

00:03:16.006 --> 00:03:17.546

in Nashville for a little while,

00:03:17.606 --> 00:03:19.046

but in Knoxville,

00:03:19.086 --> 00:03:21.367

Tennessee for most of our

00:03:21.407 --> 00:03:22.387

lives growing up.

00:03:24.020 --> 00:03:26.721

They worked at a place called Dollywood.

00:03:27.001 --> 00:03:28.321

I don't know if you've heard of that,

00:03:29.402 --> 00:03:32.263

but it's Dolly Parton's theme park.

00:03:32.303 --> 00:03:33.703

So they played music there

00:03:33.743 --> 00:03:35.204

for about twenty years,

00:03:35.804 --> 00:03:38.104

as well as in local bars

00:03:38.164 --> 00:03:39.445

and just a lot of places.

00:03:40.445 --> 00:03:42.366

They were a music duo.

00:03:42.866 --> 00:03:44.446

And I don't know, Megan,

00:03:44.506 --> 00:03:46.807

if you have the ability to

00:03:47.027 --> 00:03:48.488

let me share a screen,

00:03:48.508 --> 00:03:50.788

but I'll share this little... Yeah,

00:03:50.828 --> 00:03:51.028

absolutely.

00:03:51.148 --> 00:03:52.249

Go for it.

00:03:53.209 --> 00:03:54.250

i'll share this little this

00:03:54.270 --> 00:03:56.372

was the first time that me

00:03:56.392 --> 00:03:57.452

and my brother and my

00:03:57.513 --> 00:03:59.254

sister we appeared on my

00:03:59.754 --> 00:04:02.176

parents album they went by

00:04:02.216 --> 00:04:04.538

the name pj and greg just

00:04:04.598 --> 00:04:05.719

kidding around was this

00:04:05.779 --> 00:04:07.040

particular album where they

00:04:07.080 --> 00:04:08.741

had they had brought in

00:04:09.261 --> 00:04:11.483

their children they had

00:04:11.523 --> 00:04:12.544

brought in their children

00:04:12.684 --> 00:04:13.965

for that particular album

00:04:14.045 --> 00:04:15.466

so they they didn't country

00:04:15.626 --> 00:04:17.548

they did music country rock

00:04:17.968 --> 00:04:18.609

different things

00:04:19.409 --> 00:04:21.091

And so music has always been

00:04:21.111 --> 00:04:23.374

a really important kind of

00:04:23.414 --> 00:04:25.957

part of my life and still is.

00:04:26.137 --> 00:04:29.220

Yeah, that album cover is iconic.

00:04:30.382 --> 00:04:31.223

Can you share it again?

00:04:31.263 --> 00:04:31.803

Is it possible?

00:04:31.823 --> 00:04:33.585

Can we look at it again?

00:04:33.686 --> 00:04:36.108

Let me pull it back up here.

00:04:36.148 --> 00:04:36.849

Let's see here.

00:04:36.929 --> 00:04:37.510

Present.

00:04:37.690 --> 00:04:38.711

Okay, here we go.

00:04:39.292 --> 00:04:39.793

There it is.

00:04:42.312 --> 00:04:42.652

Yep,

00:04:42.692 --> 00:04:45.214

so that's my dad and my mom on the sides.

00:04:45.454 --> 00:04:47.135

My older brother is right

00:04:47.275 --> 00:04:48.375

there beside my dad.

00:04:48.976 --> 00:04:51.817

Then that's me and then my sister.

00:04:51.857 --> 00:04:53.198

Now we had a younger brother

00:04:53.238 --> 00:04:55.179

that came after this who is

00:04:55.279 --> 00:04:56.460

also very musical.

00:04:56.940 --> 00:04:57.861

And I'll go ahead and tell

00:04:57.881 --> 00:05:00.903

you that my two brothers and I,

00:05:02.304 --> 00:05:04.446

later in life, obviously we,

00:05:04.626 --> 00:05:07.448

we created a brother's band and we're not,

00:05:07.649 --> 00:05:09.711

we were known as the Hinkley brothers.

00:05:10.211 --> 00:05:13.034

Um, you can find us on, um, you know, on,

00:05:13.614 --> 00:05:15.436

on iTunes and different places.

00:05:15.456 --> 00:05:18.939

Um, they are both, uh,

00:05:18.959 --> 00:05:21.161

faithful LDS currently.

00:05:21.181 --> 00:05:21.221

Uh,

00:05:22.002 --> 00:05:24.084

and in the past two years I have

00:05:24.104 --> 00:05:24.725

stepped away.

00:05:25.445 --> 00:05:26.386

And so I can't,

00:05:27.407 --> 00:05:33.692

I can't minimize the, you know, the,

00:05:33.772 --> 00:05:34.132

I guess the,

00:05:34.512 --> 00:05:38.135

the weight of that whole decision from my,

00:05:38.495 --> 00:05:40.737

my brother's band to so

00:05:40.797 --> 00:05:41.757

many different things.

00:05:41.837 --> 00:05:45.920

But so, so music was a large part of our,

00:05:46.661 --> 00:05:47.962

you know, of our life.

00:05:48.202 --> 00:05:50.884

And, and my parents, even though,

00:05:51.164 --> 00:05:52.105

even though they sang in

00:05:52.165 --> 00:05:53.826

bars and things like that, they never,

00:05:54.066 --> 00:05:54.687

you know, they never,

00:05:56.376 --> 00:05:58.017

they never lived that lifestyle,

00:05:58.117 --> 00:05:58.638

if you will.

00:05:59.639 --> 00:06:02.161

They were always faithful members.

00:06:02.881 --> 00:06:04.283

We always attended church.

00:06:04.423 --> 00:06:06.264

We did all the things that

00:06:06.865 --> 00:06:08.346

good Mormon folks do.

00:06:09.707 --> 00:06:12.189

And I love my family.

00:06:13.711 --> 00:06:15.092

they're also good now my

00:06:15.192 --> 00:06:16.393

sister who you see on the

00:06:16.413 --> 00:06:18.875

bottom there uh she stepped

00:06:18.935 --> 00:06:20.757

away from the church when i

00:06:20.797 --> 00:06:22.558

was bishop and we might

00:06:22.598 --> 00:06:23.419

talk about that a little

00:06:23.439 --> 00:06:25.721

bit later so i was bishop

00:06:25.741 --> 00:06:27.382

from about two thousand and

00:06:27.602 --> 00:06:29.624

twelve or thirteen uh from

00:06:30.024 --> 00:06:31.445

till five years later so

00:06:31.485 --> 00:06:32.666

seventeen eighteen whatever

00:06:32.686 --> 00:06:35.048

it was and um that was

00:06:35.088 --> 00:06:36.489

tough that was really tough

00:06:36.509 --> 00:06:38.511

for me at that time um i'm sure

00:06:39.778 --> 00:06:40.779

I just wanted to bring this

00:06:40.799 --> 00:06:43.261

back up because I love the matching.

00:06:43.661 --> 00:06:44.943

I love the hairstyle.

00:06:46.044 --> 00:06:46.244

I mean,

00:06:46.264 --> 00:06:47.765

this reminds me a lot of my family

00:06:47.785 --> 00:06:49.486

because my mom used to make

00:06:49.527 --> 00:06:50.748

my sister and I matching

00:06:50.788 --> 00:06:52.049

dresses for Easter and

00:06:52.069 --> 00:06:53.130

Christmas and stuff.

00:06:53.570 --> 00:06:54.711

And then the boys always had

00:06:54.751 --> 00:06:55.892

to coordinate somehow.

00:06:55.952 --> 00:06:57.854

So I'm reveling in this

00:06:58.114 --> 00:07:00.216

album cover because it's

00:07:00.256 --> 00:07:01.137

nostalgia for me.

00:07:01.237 --> 00:07:01.637

I love it.

00:07:01.657 --> 00:07:02.718

It's great.

00:07:03.238 --> 00:07:04.719

it was fun and this was

00:07:04.759 --> 00:07:06.360

their attempt to kind of

00:07:06.380 --> 00:07:07.480

bring the family into it

00:07:07.520 --> 00:07:08.381

they they had a lot of

00:07:08.421 --> 00:07:10.202

their own albums which were

00:07:10.222 --> 00:07:11.502

just the two of them my

00:07:11.542 --> 00:07:12.943

dad's a great songwriter

00:07:13.263 --> 00:07:15.004

and a great person you know

00:07:15.144 --> 00:07:17.585

just uh we've had our we've

00:07:17.605 --> 00:07:19.046

had our rocky times the

00:07:19.086 --> 00:07:22.668

past two years um but uh i

00:07:22.688 --> 00:07:24.969

would just say that i love

00:07:24.989 --> 00:07:26.330

them dearly and yeah

00:07:27.471 --> 00:07:29.472

So anyways, that brought us to the South.

00:07:30.132 --> 00:07:32.153

I'll do some fast forwarding.

00:07:36.554 --> 00:07:38.555

I did all the things that a

00:07:38.815 --> 00:07:39.955

good Mormon boy does.

00:07:40.035 --> 00:07:41.236

I was an Eagle Scout.

00:07:41.516 --> 00:07:43.716

My dad was the Scoutmaster

00:07:43.736 --> 00:07:45.317

for most of our lives growing up.

00:07:45.817 --> 00:07:48.078

My older brother led the way.

00:07:48.178 --> 00:07:49.498

He was Eagle Scout.

00:07:50.799 --> 00:07:52.699

When mission time rolled around,

00:07:53.100 --> 00:07:54.740

I served a mission just

00:07:54.760 --> 00:07:55.700

like my brother did,

00:07:55.741 --> 00:07:56.721

just like my dad did.

00:07:58.106 --> 00:07:59.968

I served in Argentina,

00:08:01.009 --> 00:08:03.432

so I learned the Spanish language,

00:08:03.532 --> 00:08:05.134

and of course,

00:08:05.754 --> 00:08:07.676

I should also mention that

00:08:07.817 --> 00:08:09.438

I had a girlfriend when I

00:08:09.478 --> 00:08:11.841

was several months shy of

00:08:11.921 --> 00:08:17.106

my sixteenth birthday, and her name was-

00:08:19.035 --> 00:08:22.360

Her name was Amy and her name is Amy.

00:08:22.540 --> 00:08:25.985

And we started, we met in church at,

00:08:26.025 --> 00:08:27.527

she was about an hour away.

00:08:28.860 --> 00:08:32.642

And so we met at church activities.

00:08:32.882 --> 00:08:33.843

Back then,

00:08:34.143 --> 00:08:36.744

our state did a lot of church softball,

00:08:36.784 --> 00:08:39.666

church basketball, things like this.

00:08:39.866 --> 00:08:41.286

And so we met back then.

00:08:42.667 --> 00:08:43.608

She is my wife.

00:08:44.588 --> 00:08:47.490

So we dated until my mission.

00:08:48.010 --> 00:08:50.231

And six weeks after my mission,

00:08:51.552 --> 00:08:53.153

I know that sounds pretty quick,

00:08:53.213 --> 00:08:54.673

but six weeks after my mission,

00:08:54.773 --> 00:08:57.395

we were married in the Atlanta temple.

00:08:58.049 --> 00:08:58.429

Wow.

00:08:58.910 --> 00:08:59.210

Yeah.

00:08:59.230 --> 00:08:59.430

I mean,

00:08:59.510 --> 00:09:01.491

six weeks after your mission might

00:09:01.572 --> 00:09:03.273

sound like a lot to people

00:09:03.313 --> 00:09:04.394

who've never been Mormon.

00:09:04.454 --> 00:09:05.835

But for those of us who were

00:09:05.875 --> 00:09:07.856

raised in the faith,

00:09:07.956 --> 00:09:09.897

it's not it's not untypical.

00:09:09.957 --> 00:09:10.198

Right.

00:09:10.238 --> 00:09:11.799

For a couple who was

00:09:11.859 --> 00:09:14.641

together before the mission to, you know,

00:09:14.721 --> 00:09:16.022

to get to get married right

00:09:16.062 --> 00:09:16.782

away afterwards.

00:09:16.862 --> 00:09:17.703

I'm just glad she didn't.

00:09:18.103 --> 00:09:18.944

Dear John, you were gone.

00:09:20.905 --> 00:09:23.766

No, she, she stayed, uh, quite, quite,

00:09:23.906 --> 00:09:24.286

you know, we,

00:09:24.446 --> 00:09:25.966

we stayed faithful to each other.

00:09:26.106 --> 00:09:26.226

Uh,

00:09:26.246 --> 00:09:28.787

there was one time that I was fearing

00:09:28.827 --> 00:09:31.307

that that was happening, but honestly,

00:09:31.347 --> 00:09:33.768

it was, uh, it was a mail mix up,

00:09:33.828 --> 00:09:34.048

you know,

00:09:34.068 --> 00:09:35.508

of course we would mail letters

00:09:35.548 --> 00:09:38.069

and there went like five or six weeks.

00:09:38.129 --> 00:09:40.049

I'm like, what the heck is going on?

00:09:40.109 --> 00:09:43.910

And, and, um, but anyways, you know, Megan,

00:09:44.030 --> 00:09:45.890

I've always been a rule

00:09:45.910 --> 00:09:47.971

follower for the most part.

00:09:48.231 --> 00:09:48.291

Um,

00:09:49.593 --> 00:09:51.094

The more that I've been

00:09:51.154 --> 00:09:52.574

thinking about my life,

00:09:52.834 --> 00:09:55.576

I feel like I may have some

00:09:56.816 --> 00:10:00.858

religious OCD type traits about myself.

00:10:01.538 --> 00:10:03.939

Not to say that I was perfect, you know,

00:10:04.059 --> 00:10:05.720

but I was definitely,

00:10:07.045 --> 00:10:10.367

I was fully in, just to give you an idea,

00:10:12.708 --> 00:10:14.369

being a Mormon in the South

00:10:14.509 --> 00:10:17.131

is different than a lot of people,

00:10:17.811 --> 00:10:19.072

their experience might be

00:10:19.192 --> 00:10:22.053

out West or whatever.

00:10:23.234 --> 00:10:24.075

If you're faithful,

00:10:24.515 --> 00:10:27.296

you put yourself out there.

00:10:28.697 --> 00:10:30.478

And so I had an acapella

00:10:30.518 --> 00:10:31.439

group in high school.

00:10:31.999 --> 00:10:33.301

And we would sing, you know,

00:10:33.562 --> 00:10:35.084

a lot of doo-wop and

00:10:35.124 --> 00:10:36.466

different acapella type things.

00:10:36.526 --> 00:10:38.930

Well, we would sing at a lot of churches,

00:10:39.291 --> 00:10:40.352

Baptist churches and

00:10:40.412 --> 00:10:41.714

Methodist churches and, you know,

00:10:41.775 --> 00:10:43.177

just whatever was local.

00:10:43.537 --> 00:10:45.580

And there was one particular time

00:10:46.885 --> 00:10:48.526

We had showed up at a

00:10:48.586 --> 00:10:50.708

Baptist church as guests.

00:10:51.349 --> 00:10:52.810

I was the only Mormon, of course,

00:10:53.150 --> 00:10:54.892

in the group and anyone there.

00:10:55.312 --> 00:10:57.073

And the preacher was

00:10:57.474 --> 00:10:59.375

preaching his sermon and we

00:10:59.415 --> 00:11:00.476

were to go on after him.

00:11:01.277 --> 00:11:04.139

And he preached something about, you know,

00:11:04.419 --> 00:11:06.021

some people might say that

00:11:06.161 --> 00:11:07.962

if you're Mormon, you're going to heaven.

00:11:08.062 --> 00:11:10.184

And I want to tell you that the Bible says,

00:11:10.204 --> 00:11:10.404

you know,

00:11:10.424 --> 00:11:11.525

and he just kind of downed us

00:11:11.545 --> 00:11:12.026

for a second.

00:11:12.838 --> 00:11:13.118

Well,

00:11:13.598 --> 00:11:17.240

I stand up as a invited guest in a

00:11:17.280 --> 00:11:18.660

place that I do not know.

00:11:18.780 --> 00:11:21.762

And I said, preacher, you are dead wrong.

00:11:22.262 --> 00:11:24.223

And if you ever want to talk about this,

00:11:24.523 --> 00:11:25.683

you give me a call.

00:11:25.783 --> 00:11:26.904

And I walked out.

00:11:26.984 --> 00:11:30.205

I mean, like I lived the gospel.

00:11:30.745 --> 00:11:32.547

Now, if I were perfectly honest,

00:11:32.687 --> 00:11:34.749

I would say, you know, there were some,

00:11:35.109 --> 00:11:35.930

I had weaknesses.

00:11:36.991 --> 00:11:37.952

Word of wisdom, no.

00:11:38.212 --> 00:11:39.093

That was a strength,

00:11:39.133 --> 00:11:41.856

like to the T. You know,

00:11:42.016 --> 00:11:42.836

with my girlfriend,

00:11:44.698 --> 00:11:45.519

did we get a little too

00:11:45.539 --> 00:11:46.700

close a couple times and I

00:11:46.720 --> 00:11:47.701

had to go talk to the bishop?

00:11:47.781 --> 00:11:48.162

Yes.

00:11:48.302 --> 00:11:49.683

But for the most part,

00:11:49.963 --> 00:11:54.367

I loved and lived the gospel, you know,

00:11:54.708 --> 00:11:55.448

and so, yeah.

00:11:56.269 --> 00:11:58.590

Anyways, that takes me to, you know,

00:11:58.610 --> 00:12:00.891

we're married, we start having kids,

00:12:00.931 --> 00:12:03.453

we've had, well, five pregnancies,

00:12:03.493 --> 00:12:06.774

four kids, we had one stillborn child.

00:12:08.475 --> 00:12:15.359

But early on in our life, I was,

00:12:15.939 --> 00:12:17.360

I think I was twenty-two or

00:12:17.400 --> 00:12:19.181

maybe twenty-three, something like that,

00:12:19.341 --> 00:12:20.722

I was called into the bishopric.

00:12:21.632 --> 00:12:23.813

So I served as a counselor.

00:12:24.093 --> 00:12:24.994

Yeah, pretty young.

00:12:25.054 --> 00:12:25.854

Let's see, was that,

00:12:26.214 --> 00:12:26.835

I think that would have

00:12:26.855 --> 00:12:28.015

been about the right age.

00:12:28.736 --> 00:12:32.017

I was a first counselor to a

00:12:32.258 --> 00:12:34.719

bishop in our ward who was also a doctor.

00:12:36.097 --> 00:12:40.038

He was kind of, so our ward is made up,

00:12:40.359 --> 00:12:42.459

half of our ward is related

00:12:42.919 --> 00:12:44.060

to my wife's family,

00:12:44.560 --> 00:12:46.641

kind of like everyone is

00:12:47.381 --> 00:12:48.321

cousins and things.

00:12:48.701 --> 00:12:52.503

The other half are all associated with

00:12:53.063 --> 00:12:55.304

the college that's in our word boundaries,

00:12:55.724 --> 00:12:58.326

which there's a medical school here,

00:12:58.606 --> 00:12:59.567

which brings a lot of

00:13:00.047 --> 00:13:02.348

people from out West or different places.

00:13:02.408 --> 00:13:03.269

So anyways,

00:13:03.349 --> 00:13:04.709

that particular Bishop was a

00:13:04.769 --> 00:13:06.370

doctor and also an

00:13:06.430 --> 00:13:07.551

instructor at the college.

00:13:07.591 --> 00:13:11.153

So I was his counselor for a little while.

00:13:11.553 --> 00:13:13.734

And then I became Bishop in two thousand,

00:13:14.055 --> 00:13:15.475

I think it was twelve or thirteen,

00:13:16.336 --> 00:13:17.556

served for five years.

00:13:18.717 --> 00:13:19.858

you know, enjoyed it,

00:13:20.138 --> 00:13:23.461

never had doubts or anything like that.

00:13:24.962 --> 00:13:27.144

Never really had any members

00:13:27.164 --> 00:13:29.285

that came at me with doubts either.

00:13:30.226 --> 00:13:31.207

However,

00:13:31.607 --> 00:13:33.809

I mentioned earlier that my sister

00:13:33.929 --> 00:13:35.510

left the church during this time.

00:13:36.231 --> 00:13:37.311

And I know there were many

00:13:37.352 --> 00:13:40.494

times that I spoke about her, not by name,

00:13:40.534 --> 00:13:41.815

but in my mind, you know,

00:13:41.895 --> 00:13:43.096

I would refer to her.

00:13:43.296 --> 00:13:44.317

And I would tell people we

00:13:44.357 --> 00:13:46.398

have to stay close to the

00:13:46.479 --> 00:13:48.160

trunk of the tree and not

00:13:48.200 --> 00:13:49.241

get out in the branches.

00:13:49.341 --> 00:13:50.582

I would always talk about

00:13:51.042 --> 00:13:52.683

staying close and Joseph

00:13:52.703 --> 00:13:53.684

Smith had a quote

00:13:53.744 --> 00:13:55.025

apparently that was similar

00:13:55.065 --> 00:13:56.406

to staying close to the

00:13:56.606 --> 00:13:57.647

trunk of the tree and not

00:13:57.687 --> 00:13:58.708

getting off in the branches.

00:13:59.568 --> 00:14:00.949

So I would deal with that

00:14:01.090 --> 00:14:03.031

and I would speak about that a lot.

00:14:03.371 --> 00:14:06.774

And then I had a cousin on my wife's side.

00:14:06.914 --> 00:14:08.535

His name is also Nathan.

00:14:09.976 --> 00:14:12.018

And he and his wife left the church.

00:14:13.069 --> 00:14:15.390

And this devastated me

00:14:15.430 --> 00:14:19.111

because how sincere and

00:14:19.191 --> 00:14:21.432

just awesome this couple was.

00:14:22.152 --> 00:14:23.032

Consequently,

00:14:23.332 --> 00:14:24.653

I have done an interview on

00:14:24.713 --> 00:14:25.973

my channel with him.

00:14:26.313 --> 00:14:27.454

And it's one of the things

00:14:27.534 --> 00:14:29.755

I'm maybe most proud about.

00:14:30.235 --> 00:14:31.655

It was an in-person interview,

00:14:31.715 --> 00:14:33.256

very much like what you

00:14:33.276 --> 00:14:34.276

would think of as like a

00:14:34.356 --> 00:14:35.557

Mormon Stories type

00:14:35.597 --> 00:14:37.937

interview with actual

00:14:38.077 --> 00:14:39.738

cameras instead of webcams.

00:14:39.778 --> 00:14:41.259

And, you know, just a really...

00:14:42.799 --> 00:14:44.740

So I'm actually in the video

00:14:44.800 --> 00:14:46.361

business in my professional,

00:14:46.582 --> 00:14:48.543

I have a videography business.

00:14:48.583 --> 00:14:49.804

So I have, you know,

00:14:49.904 --> 00:14:51.325

I have gear and things like that.

00:14:51.385 --> 00:14:52.085

But anyways,

00:14:52.726 --> 00:14:55.448

this particular couple and the

00:14:55.508 --> 00:14:57.969

episode is called Mile

00:14:58.009 --> 00:14:59.390

Marker of three fifty six,

00:14:59.470 --> 00:15:00.431

I think is what it was.

00:15:00.491 --> 00:15:03.653

And basically when when

00:15:03.793 --> 00:15:06.215

Nathan as in his job,

00:15:06.235 --> 00:15:08.256

when he arrived at this mile marker,

00:15:08.276 --> 00:15:10.438

three fifty six, it hit him.

00:15:11.641 --> 00:15:13.903

simply what if it's not true

00:15:13.923 --> 00:15:16.245

and and so he he he goes

00:15:16.285 --> 00:15:17.245

through and kind of tells

00:15:17.285 --> 00:15:19.127

about how he got to that

00:15:19.167 --> 00:15:21.589

point but um the part that

00:15:21.609 --> 00:15:23.230

was so hard for me to

00:15:23.290 --> 00:15:26.753

process was how sincere and

00:15:26.813 --> 00:15:29.235

how faithful this he was

00:15:29.315 --> 00:15:31.116

actually a bishop when i we

00:15:31.256 --> 00:15:32.457

we served as bishop during

00:15:32.477 --> 00:15:33.838

the same time wow and

00:15:33.918 --> 00:15:36.860

shortly after they lost a baby as well

00:15:37.881 --> 00:15:39.983

And then shortly after that,

00:15:40.103 --> 00:15:41.344

they stepped away from the church.

00:15:41.484 --> 00:15:45.508

And so between that couple's

00:15:45.548 --> 00:15:48.390

story and my own sister's story,

00:15:49.031 --> 00:15:50.352

there was one particular

00:15:50.412 --> 00:15:53.915

time that I was not really arguing,

00:15:53.995 --> 00:15:56.217

but trying to bring my

00:15:56.277 --> 00:15:58.038

sister and her husband back

00:15:58.058 --> 00:15:58.699

to the church.

00:15:59.319 --> 00:16:01.021

We were kind of talking about polygamy.

00:16:02.822 --> 00:16:05.243

And my brother-in-law who is

00:16:05.443 --> 00:16:07.925

extremely smart, you know, Megan, I,

00:16:10.126 --> 00:16:11.147

I've never been to college.

00:16:11.267 --> 00:16:11.607

Okay.

00:16:11.847 --> 00:16:12.368

I'm, I'm a,

00:16:13.128 --> 00:16:15.470

I I'm a high school graduate who,

00:16:15.790 --> 00:16:17.771

who got his hands and still

00:16:17.791 --> 00:16:19.892

gets his hands dirty in construction,

00:16:20.373 --> 00:16:21.333

videography,

00:16:21.573 --> 00:16:23.815

whatever I can do to make a living.

00:16:24.559 --> 00:16:25.780

This guy's a smart guy.

00:16:26.641 --> 00:16:27.682

He's a business guy.

00:16:28.343 --> 00:16:29.304

He's a smart guy.

00:16:29.344 --> 00:16:31.246

But anyways, he says,

00:16:31.486 --> 00:16:32.507

we were arguing about

00:16:32.567 --> 00:16:33.749

polygamy and about

00:16:34.009 --> 00:16:35.490

specifically Joseph Smith.

00:16:35.530 --> 00:16:36.832

And I said, I don't think,

00:16:37.252 --> 00:16:37.953

I think that was more

00:16:37.993 --> 00:16:40.015

Brigham Young is what I said at the time.

00:16:40.916 --> 00:16:43.399

And he said, I don't know about that.

00:16:43.439 --> 00:16:43.699

He said,

00:16:43.719 --> 00:16:44.720

you might want to check with your

00:16:44.760 --> 00:16:45.521

church about that.

00:16:46.473 --> 00:16:49.714

And that's all he said, and I'll be honest,

00:16:52.194 --> 00:16:53.415

that planted a seed,

00:16:53.595 --> 00:16:54.355

if you know what I mean.

00:16:54.655 --> 00:16:56.035

That planted a seed because

00:16:56.175 --> 00:16:57.515

I had never heard of

00:16:58.536 --> 00:17:00.056

Joseph's polygamy at that point.

00:17:01.636 --> 00:17:01.956

So,

00:17:02.157 --> 00:17:04.297

and let me also mention one other thing.

00:17:05.277 --> 00:17:06.337

When I was bishop,

00:17:07.238 --> 00:17:09.598

I was randomly selected

00:17:10.098 --> 00:17:12.859

among bishops to take a survey.

00:17:13.811 --> 00:17:14.011

Now,

00:17:14.411 --> 00:17:17.214

now I know that the church operates

00:17:17.294 --> 00:17:18.615

not by revelation,

00:17:19.395 --> 00:17:21.797

but largely by surveys.

00:17:21.897 --> 00:17:23.038

Right, right, right.

00:17:23.058 --> 00:17:24.819

The church said, hey, Bishop Hinckley,

00:17:24.839 --> 00:17:25.840

you've been randomly

00:17:25.900 --> 00:17:27.802

selected to take this survey.

00:17:28.685 --> 00:17:30.346

I said, okay.

00:17:30.506 --> 00:17:31.887

And I kind of treated it

00:17:32.127 --> 00:17:34.128

almost like Google would do.

00:17:34.168 --> 00:17:35.569

If you bought a blender, they were like,

00:17:35.589 --> 00:17:35.829

Hey,

00:17:35.869 --> 00:17:37.350

tell us what you think about this blender,

00:17:37.370 --> 00:17:37.570

you know?

00:17:37.610 --> 00:17:39.872

And you'd like, like, oh, it's great.

00:17:40.012 --> 00:17:41.072

You know, it works.

00:17:41.293 --> 00:17:42.093

It does all.

00:17:42.133 --> 00:17:43.154

So I thought I could click

00:17:43.174 --> 00:17:44.094

through and be done with it

00:17:44.134 --> 00:17:44.835

in five minutes.

00:17:45.215 --> 00:17:45.635

Yeah.

00:17:45.715 --> 00:17:46.896

Well, I was wrong.

00:17:47.176 --> 00:17:48.937

It was very in depth and it

00:17:48.977 --> 00:17:51.839

was a survey about the

00:17:52.039 --> 00:17:53.400

gospel topic essays.

00:17:54.811 --> 00:17:58.373

which I think at this time,

00:17:58.453 --> 00:18:01.234

I'm not exactly sure year-wise,

00:18:01.314 --> 00:18:02.634

but I think they would have

00:18:02.674 --> 00:18:03.955

been out a little while.

00:18:04.615 --> 00:18:04.795

Yeah,

00:18:05.455 --> 00:18:07.716

so what year were you taking the survey?

00:18:07.896 --> 00:18:11.057

Okay, I feel like the surveys came out.

00:18:11.197 --> 00:18:12.277

I don't know if they all

00:18:12.297 --> 00:18:13.878

came out together or if they added.

00:18:13.958 --> 00:18:14.838

I feel like they might have

00:18:14.918 --> 00:18:16.099

added some over time.

00:18:17.039 --> 00:18:18.940

But I feel like this survey

00:18:19.020 --> 00:18:22.021

was more towards the end of my...

00:18:22.741 --> 00:18:24.882

time as bishop versus the beginning,

00:18:24.922 --> 00:18:27.423

but it's hard.

00:18:28.543 --> 00:18:30.364

I tried to do a search in my

00:18:30.444 --> 00:18:33.005

mail to see when I got that

00:18:34.305 --> 00:18:35.526

prompt to take the survey,

00:18:35.586 --> 00:18:36.606

but I couldn't find it.

00:18:36.866 --> 00:18:37.407

Anyways,

00:18:38.227 --> 00:18:39.928

I feel like it was a little bit

00:18:39.988 --> 00:18:40.888

more towards the end.

00:18:42.619 --> 00:18:43.339

At any rate,

00:18:43.800 --> 00:18:45.000

it was a survey about the

00:18:45.020 --> 00:18:47.101

gospel topic essays, and it said,

00:18:47.782 --> 00:18:48.002

you know,

00:18:48.082 --> 00:18:49.683

you were selected among bishops.

00:18:50.283 --> 00:18:51.164

First question,

00:18:51.324 --> 00:18:54.485

have you seen the gospel topic essay on,

00:18:54.845 --> 00:18:56.466

you know, race in the priesthood,

00:18:56.606 --> 00:18:58.067

and yes or no?

00:18:58.107 --> 00:19:00.909

And if you clicked no, I think it would...

00:19:01.968 --> 00:19:04.791

basically i don't i don't

00:19:04.831 --> 00:19:05.671

remember what it would say

00:19:05.711 --> 00:19:07.493

if you click no but if you

00:19:07.513 --> 00:19:10.736

click yes it would say okay

00:19:10.776 --> 00:19:12.377

did you is first of all did

00:19:12.397 --> 00:19:13.919

you read it what did you

00:19:13.939 --> 00:19:15.040

think about it will you

00:19:15.060 --> 00:19:16.140

give us feedback like they

00:19:16.261 --> 00:19:18.523

really were asking for more

00:19:18.543 --> 00:19:19.924

than just yes it's great

00:19:20.264 --> 00:19:21.966

you know which is what i expected

00:19:22.806 --> 00:19:24.488

And so I didn't want to seem

00:19:24.528 --> 00:19:26.491

like a dud of a bishop, like, oh,

00:19:26.511 --> 00:19:27.272

this guy does it.

00:19:27.332 --> 00:19:28.493

So, you know,

00:19:28.613 --> 00:19:29.995

a few of the things I had to

00:19:30.035 --> 00:19:31.216

go and read real quick

00:19:31.256 --> 00:19:32.257

before I could respond.

00:19:32.338 --> 00:19:33.699

And I realized that it was

00:19:33.799 --> 00:19:34.820

really in depth.

00:19:36.600 --> 00:19:37.761

To be quite honest,

00:19:37.821 --> 00:19:38.961

there were some of the

00:19:39.101 --> 00:19:40.962

questions that I didn't

00:19:41.022 --> 00:19:42.903

answer and I sort of lied.

00:19:42.963 --> 00:19:44.423

I was like, oh, it's great.

00:19:44.703 --> 00:19:45.484

I really liked the way

00:19:46.204 --> 00:19:48.125

specifically about polygamy

00:19:48.145 --> 00:19:49.485

and things because I knew

00:19:49.525 --> 00:19:50.786

that that was one of the

00:19:50.846 --> 00:19:52.566

topics that had pulled away

00:19:52.586 --> 00:19:53.767

the two people I just mentioned,

00:19:53.947 --> 00:19:56.708

my sister and Nathan from my interview.

00:19:57.088 --> 00:19:57.849

Yeah.

00:19:57.909 --> 00:19:58.789

So anyways,

00:19:58.890 --> 00:20:00.931

the church did reach out to me

00:20:01.091 --> 00:20:02.693

asking my opinion on some

00:20:02.733 --> 00:20:03.934

things that they, one,

00:20:04.094 --> 00:20:04.994

never told me about,

00:20:05.615 --> 00:20:07.056

my stake leadership never

00:20:07.096 --> 00:20:07.897

trained me about,

00:20:08.257 --> 00:20:10.359

and no one had ever mentioned to me.

00:20:10.859 --> 00:20:12.000

And I was learning about

00:20:12.060 --> 00:20:13.621

these things for the first time.

00:20:13.721 --> 00:20:17.244

So it definitely planted a seed.

00:20:17.264 --> 00:20:17.344

Yeah.

00:20:19.189 --> 00:20:21.211

so to fast forward a little

00:20:21.231 --> 00:20:23.913

bit um it didn't it didn't

00:20:23.973 --> 00:20:25.374

like i i stayed strong

00:20:25.415 --> 00:20:26.355

during that part got

00:20:26.415 --> 00:20:27.917

released after five years

00:20:28.037 --> 00:20:29.738

went into the high council

00:20:30.419 --> 00:20:31.880

went around to all the

00:20:31.940 --> 00:20:33.622

stakes in the all the

00:20:33.642 --> 00:20:35.603

awards in the stake as um

00:20:35.844 --> 00:20:37.205

first as just a regular

00:20:37.245 --> 00:20:38.786

high council then as um

00:20:39.887 --> 00:20:41.708

as the high counselor over

00:20:41.768 --> 00:20:43.929

young men then as the high

00:20:43.949 --> 00:20:45.871

counselor over music and i

00:20:45.891 --> 00:20:47.411

would take my guitar which

00:20:47.471 --> 00:20:48.332

i usually have sitting

00:20:48.352 --> 00:20:49.833

there but it's downstairs i

00:20:49.853 --> 00:20:51.133

would take my guitar and i

00:20:51.153 --> 00:20:53.395

would play a song for

00:20:53.435 --> 00:20:55.496

people and talk about how i

00:20:55.536 --> 00:20:57.677

feel about it and uh it was

00:20:57.717 --> 00:21:00.199

something that um probably

00:21:00.279 --> 00:21:01.960

is not real common for like

00:21:02.020 --> 00:21:03.981

out west but for in tennessee

00:21:04.701 --> 00:21:06.262

for in Tennessee to show up

00:21:06.443 --> 00:21:08.645

at sacrament with a acoustic guitar,

00:21:08.685 --> 00:21:10.546

not like an electric rocking out guitar,

00:21:10.586 --> 00:21:12.748

but a stringed instrument,

00:21:12.909 --> 00:21:14.130

which is what the piano is.

00:21:14.250 --> 00:21:15.471

It's a stringed instrument.

00:21:15.991 --> 00:21:16.792

I would show up with a

00:21:16.832 --> 00:21:17.573

stringed instrument.

00:21:17.633 --> 00:21:19.695

I would share a song and talk about it.

00:21:20.395 --> 00:21:21.556

So anyways, um,

00:21:22.077 --> 00:21:23.138

that's the type of thing I

00:21:23.158 --> 00:21:25.160

did stayed faithful, but, um,

00:21:28.604 --> 00:21:29.926

During this time when the

00:21:29.966 --> 00:21:31.128

two families that I just

00:21:31.168 --> 00:21:32.430

mentioned left the church,

00:21:32.670 --> 00:21:35.033

I remember specifically

00:21:36.217 --> 00:21:37.938

talking with my wife and

00:21:37.998 --> 00:21:40.099

basically promising her and

00:21:40.179 --> 00:21:41.600

asking her to promise me

00:21:42.240 --> 00:21:43.821

that we would never look at

00:21:44.101 --> 00:21:45.522

the anti-mormon literature

00:21:45.562 --> 00:21:46.643

that pulled these two

00:21:46.903 --> 00:21:47.863

awesome families away

00:21:48.424 --> 00:21:49.964

basically we we promised

00:21:49.984 --> 00:21:50.985

each other like we would

00:21:51.045 --> 00:21:52.746

stay faithful we would stay

00:21:53.426 --> 00:21:54.827

like there was nothing

00:21:55.507 --> 00:21:57.188

there was nothing that we

00:21:57.348 --> 00:21:58.849

wanted more than to stay

00:21:58.949 --> 00:22:01.110

faithful to keep our family

00:22:01.271 --> 00:22:02.671

active and that we would

00:22:02.711 --> 00:22:03.872

not look at the stuff that

00:22:03.892 --> 00:22:05.673

was pulling them away yeah

00:22:06.117 --> 00:22:08.558

Well, you know,

00:22:08.719 --> 00:22:09.759

I've thought about that a

00:22:09.819 --> 00:22:14.982

lot because ultimately, Megan,

00:22:15.142 --> 00:22:16.163

I guess I broke that

00:22:16.203 --> 00:22:20.065

promise because these things,

00:22:20.505 --> 00:22:22.366

these seeds were in my mind,

00:22:22.466 --> 00:22:25.268

and I remember having the

00:22:26.493 --> 00:22:30.416

the perspective of the church should,

00:22:30.716 --> 00:22:33.399

and I expected could stand

00:22:33.439 --> 00:22:34.399

on its own two feet,

00:22:34.459 --> 00:22:35.901

like whatever the problems

00:22:35.941 --> 00:22:36.861

that people have,

00:22:37.402 --> 00:22:38.943

I'm sure there's answers for.

00:22:39.844 --> 00:22:41.525

And so there was a time that

00:22:41.865 --> 00:22:44.067

I allowed myself the

00:22:44.147 --> 00:22:46.950

permission to look at those things.

00:22:48.090 --> 00:22:50.873

And, um, I can't put into words why,

00:22:51.093 --> 00:22:52.714

because we had promised

00:22:52.974 --> 00:22:55.797

each other that we wouldn't, um,

00:22:59.226 --> 00:23:00.087

I guess, let me,

00:23:00.368 --> 00:23:01.870

let me mention one other thing,

00:23:01.930 --> 00:23:02.971

and I don't want to mention

00:23:03.011 --> 00:23:07.056

this as a super powerful or

00:23:07.176 --> 00:23:09.700

influential player in the whole,

00:23:09.820 --> 00:23:10.961

in the whole scheme of things,

00:23:11.742 --> 00:23:13.465

but it was a player, not,

00:23:13.845 --> 00:23:14.746

not a major thing.

00:23:15.574 --> 00:23:17.295

so one of the businesses

00:23:17.335 --> 00:23:19.036

that i have i've already

00:23:19.076 --> 00:23:19.796

told you i'm i'm a

00:23:19.816 --> 00:23:21.157

self-employed guy whatever

00:23:21.177 --> 00:23:23.138

i can do yeah is

00:23:23.358 --> 00:23:24.899

videography so i have a

00:23:24.999 --> 00:23:26.660

videography business for

00:23:26.880 --> 00:23:28.061

about thirteen years now

00:23:28.121 --> 00:23:30.382

fourteen maybe and um and i

00:23:30.402 --> 00:23:31.883

do a lot of weddings so

00:23:31.943 --> 00:23:33.204

i'll do anywhere from

00:23:33.584 --> 00:23:35.105

twenty thirty even as much

00:23:35.145 --> 00:23:36.526

as fifty or sixty weddings

00:23:36.706 --> 00:23:38.247

with my one of my brothers

00:23:38.287 --> 00:23:40.108

and i we have a a business together

00:23:41.399 --> 00:23:43.280

And I attend these weddings

00:23:43.480 --> 00:23:45.861

and I see beautiful,

00:23:46.182 --> 00:23:48.083

like a moment of two

00:23:48.123 --> 00:23:50.884

families coming together, tears,

00:23:51.344 --> 00:23:54.526

father speeches that just, just,

00:23:55.634 --> 00:23:58.517

really like inspire me like

00:23:58.597 --> 00:24:00.759

these are good good people

00:24:01.239 --> 00:24:03.121

first of all you know and

00:24:03.301 --> 00:24:05.283

and i and i think about my

00:24:05.423 --> 00:24:07.365

own wedding or weddings of

00:24:07.425 --> 00:24:08.606

people that i know where

00:24:08.786 --> 00:24:09.827

certain family members

00:24:09.887 --> 00:24:11.729

aren't even invited or

00:24:11.829 --> 00:24:12.690

aren't aren't able to

00:24:12.750 --> 00:24:15.892

attend that has always sort

00:24:15.952 --> 00:24:17.354

of and matter of fact when

00:24:17.434 --> 00:24:19.476

i was bishop i wrote to my

00:24:19.516 --> 00:24:21.377

state president and i said president

00:24:22.238 --> 00:24:23.258

I want to talk about

00:24:23.598 --> 00:24:25.899

something that I see as a problem,

00:24:26.499 --> 00:24:27.680

and I was simply pointing

00:24:27.820 --> 00:24:29.620

out this whole problem in

00:24:29.640 --> 00:24:31.080

the church of not being

00:24:31.160 --> 00:24:33.761

able to do civil ceremonies

00:24:33.841 --> 00:24:34.921

or ring ceremonies,

00:24:34.962 --> 00:24:36.282

which were greatly

00:24:36.722 --> 00:24:38.282

discouraged at the time.

00:24:38.362 --> 00:24:40.023

Yeah.

00:24:41.177 --> 00:24:41.457

Of course,

00:24:41.537 --> 00:24:43.239

now we know that they've changed

00:24:43.359 --> 00:24:45.260

their policy, which, you know,

00:24:45.461 --> 00:24:46.441

that's a whole different story.

00:24:46.501 --> 00:24:49.024

But I poured my heart out to him.

00:24:49.104 --> 00:24:51.866

I told him how wrong we're getting it,

00:24:52.406 --> 00:24:54.368

how I see other religions

00:24:54.408 --> 00:24:55.409

getting it right.

00:24:56.109 --> 00:24:57.330

And I'll be honest, Megan,

00:24:58.211 --> 00:25:00.653

Part of that I saw was

00:25:00.714 --> 00:25:02.916

related to even the Word of Wisdom.

00:25:03.536 --> 00:25:05.618

The Word of Wisdom for me,

00:25:05.899 --> 00:25:07.300

not only was I never

00:25:07.420 --> 00:25:09.042

tempted to try alcohol,

00:25:09.782 --> 00:25:11.264

not only did I never try it,

00:25:11.564 --> 00:25:13.406

I was never tempted to try it.

00:25:14.066 --> 00:25:16.249

It was not even on the realm

00:25:16.349 --> 00:25:17.750

of possibilities for me.

00:25:17.770 --> 00:25:20.152

You've got to be kidding me.

00:25:20.733 --> 00:25:21.273

Alcohol?

00:25:22.500 --> 00:25:25.442

But as I started this job, I was like,

00:25:25.862 --> 00:25:27.423

for the first three or four years,

00:25:27.523 --> 00:25:29.704

I was like almost disgusted

00:25:29.744 --> 00:25:31.805

with myself that many

00:25:32.005 --> 00:25:34.086

weddings turn into kind of

00:25:34.106 --> 00:25:35.347

a party by the end of them,

00:25:35.627 --> 00:25:36.628

especially in the South.

00:25:37.548 --> 00:25:37.728

Well,

00:25:37.849 --> 00:25:40.050

I was disgusted with them and with

00:25:40.110 --> 00:25:42.891

myself for the first three or four years.

00:25:42.931 --> 00:25:44.492

For the next three or four years,

00:25:44.752 --> 00:25:45.653

I was kind of like,

00:25:48.430 --> 00:25:50.572

it does kind of allow people

00:25:50.592 --> 00:25:51.973

to loosen up a little bit

00:25:52.173 --> 00:25:54.295

and kind of enjoy themselves.

00:25:54.315 --> 00:25:56.096

So I almost was, you know,

00:25:56.176 --> 00:25:57.037

I was fine with it.

00:25:57.657 --> 00:25:58.157

Now,

00:25:58.397 --> 00:26:00.379

why were you disgusted with yourself

00:26:00.539 --> 00:26:01.119

about that?

00:26:01.280 --> 00:26:03.041

I was disgusted with myself

00:26:03.101 --> 00:26:04.722

because I felt like I was

00:26:04.782 --> 00:26:06.303

encouraging by being

00:26:06.383 --> 00:26:09.986

present and filming this event.

00:26:10.126 --> 00:26:12.047

I was encouraging people to

00:26:12.127 --> 00:26:13.408

indulge in alcohol.

00:26:14.449 --> 00:26:15.570

so in other words your

00:26:15.610 --> 00:26:16.950

participation was sort of

00:26:16.990 --> 00:26:18.391

giving tacit approval for

00:26:18.431 --> 00:26:19.291

whatever they were doing

00:26:19.311 --> 00:26:21.572

yeah yeah and i would and

00:26:21.632 --> 00:26:22.813

i'll be honest with you at

00:26:22.853 --> 00:26:24.754

the time i was i had a

00:26:24.854 --> 00:26:29.136

couple um gay weddings and

00:26:29.216 --> 00:26:30.597

i was asking myself am i

00:26:30.657 --> 00:26:34.959

okay with this like am i am i am i being

00:26:35.950 --> 00:26:36.571

At the time,

00:26:36.991 --> 00:26:39.614

am I being too supportive of this?

00:26:39.874 --> 00:26:42.316

And ultimately I was like, no,

00:26:42.336 --> 00:26:43.798

this is a job, you know,

00:26:44.178 --> 00:26:45.059

and that's the way I treat it.

00:26:45.199 --> 00:26:48.202

So for the, for the middle years,

00:26:48.282 --> 00:26:49.864

I was kind of like, okay with it,

00:26:49.944 --> 00:26:50.985

like whatever, you know?

00:26:51.645 --> 00:26:53.247

And then for the last few years,

00:26:53.447 --> 00:26:55.289

I almost started being like,

00:26:55.749 --> 00:26:56.290

you know what?

00:26:57.701 --> 00:26:59.362

this is not a terrible thing.

00:26:59.582 --> 00:27:01.403

Like these people aren't bad people.

00:27:02.403 --> 00:27:04.244

And I was almost hoping that

00:27:04.304 --> 00:27:05.665

there would be alcohol at

00:27:05.685 --> 00:27:06.626

the reception because

00:27:07.106 --> 00:27:08.607

people were loosening up

00:27:08.647 --> 00:27:10.688

and I saw grandmas dancing

00:27:10.728 --> 00:27:14.009

with grandsons and having a great time.

00:27:14.610 --> 00:27:17.171

And now let me acknowledge

00:27:17.231 --> 00:27:19.332

that I understand that this

00:27:19.532 --> 00:27:21.893

thing can be taken too far,

00:27:22.173 --> 00:27:24.194

can cause problems, can cause addictions,

00:27:24.234 --> 00:27:24.735

can cause

00:27:25.495 --> 00:27:27.477

Death, I acknowledge that,

00:27:27.777 --> 00:27:30.219

but I also acknowledge that

00:27:30.299 --> 00:27:32.601

I saw many people who were

00:27:32.621 --> 00:27:35.083

just allowing themselves to

00:27:35.124 --> 00:27:38.006

be able to loosen up, enjoy the moment,

00:27:38.987 --> 00:27:41.789

and now a bit about myself.

00:27:42.130 --> 00:27:43.391

I can stand in front of

00:27:45.401 --> 00:27:47.682

A hundred thousand people and sing a song,

00:27:48.262 --> 00:27:49.462

say a speech, give a talk.

00:27:49.702 --> 00:27:51.482

I don't care personally.

00:27:52.143 --> 00:27:53.683

Now my wife on the other

00:27:53.703 --> 00:27:58.164

hand is very reserved, very nervous.

00:27:58.184 --> 00:28:01.004

Um, there was a time we were on a,

00:28:01.084 --> 00:28:03.225

on a cruise and, uh,

00:28:03.265 --> 00:28:04.865

we were just simply walking

00:28:04.925 --> 00:28:07.446

in front of some other people at a pool.

00:28:08.387 --> 00:28:09.728

And I said, hey, let's go right over here.

00:28:10.188 --> 00:28:12.510

She grabs me and she's like, no,

00:28:12.810 --> 00:28:13.611

I can't walk that way.

00:28:13.711 --> 00:28:14.591

I'm like, why?

00:28:14.852 --> 00:28:16.473

She's like, there's people over there.

00:28:16.913 --> 00:28:17.954

She had a bathing suit on.

00:28:18.174 --> 00:28:19.015

She's gorgeous.

00:28:19.375 --> 00:28:20.196

She's gorgeous.

00:28:20.916 --> 00:28:23.078

But I was like, you know, she was so,

00:28:23.118 --> 00:28:26.220

she has always been very nervous,

00:28:26.840 --> 00:28:29.242

very self-conscious about herself,

00:28:29.282 --> 00:28:31.524

about her body, which, you know,

00:28:32.389 --> 00:28:33.729

I can share some pictures with you.

00:28:33.749 --> 00:28:35.030

I have them all right here on my computer.

00:28:35.050 --> 00:28:35.910

She's gorgeous.

00:28:36.490 --> 00:28:39.651

But, um, she's not like that way.

00:28:39.811 --> 00:28:43.652

And I realized that, uh,

00:28:43.713 --> 00:28:47.254

with her a drink or two at a party or we,

00:28:47.894 --> 00:28:49.394

you know, in the past two years,

00:28:49.434 --> 00:28:50.735

we've went off doing things

00:28:50.755 --> 00:28:52.675

that we've never done in our life,

00:28:53.015 --> 00:28:54.996

you know, go, go dancing or go,

00:28:55.376 --> 00:28:56.396

go to a concert,

00:28:56.777 --> 00:29:01.378

a drink or two for her is miraculous.

00:29:02.566 --> 00:29:04.529

And I will say maybe there's

00:29:04.549 --> 00:29:06.873

a anxiety pill or drug or

00:29:06.893 --> 00:29:07.875

something she could take

00:29:07.935 --> 00:29:10.198

that would also do a similar effect.

00:29:10.439 --> 00:29:12.362

Maybe there is, but you know what?

00:29:13.584 --> 00:29:15.547

A drink or two also for her,

00:29:16.860 --> 00:29:20.761

allows her to enjoy herself

00:29:20.841 --> 00:29:23.622

sort of like I can do without it.

00:29:23.822 --> 00:29:24.502

Does that make sense?

00:29:24.562 --> 00:29:25.723

It makes total sense.

00:29:25.843 --> 00:29:26.363

It does.

00:29:26.483 --> 00:29:28.063

And I think that not enough

00:29:28.103 --> 00:29:30.164

people realize or understand that.

00:29:30.184 --> 00:29:31.964

I'm so glad you're saying this because,

00:29:32.404 --> 00:29:33.265

okay, yes,

00:29:33.765 --> 00:29:35.825

alcohol is a level three carcinogen.

00:29:36.226 --> 00:29:37.486

None of us should be drinking it.

00:29:38.606 --> 00:29:40.288

You know, and as you mentioned,

00:29:40.428 --> 00:29:42.870

it does lead to problems, addictions,

00:29:43.350 --> 00:29:44.591

death in some cases,

00:29:45.431 --> 00:29:46.933

and it can be really problematic.

00:29:46.953 --> 00:29:47.933

But I'm so glad you're

00:29:47.973 --> 00:29:49.034

saying this part of it

00:29:49.054 --> 00:29:51.656

because things like alcohol

00:29:51.736 --> 00:29:53.878

or maybe THC or maybe Xanax

00:29:53.938 --> 00:29:55.239

or maybe some other type of

00:29:55.439 --> 00:29:56.820

prescribed drug, right,

00:29:57.520 --> 00:29:59.942

allows people to actually enjoy alcohol.

00:30:00.967 --> 00:30:02.149

a circumstance where they

00:30:02.169 --> 00:30:03.370

would otherwise be

00:30:03.630 --> 00:30:05.072

incredibly uncomfortable.

00:30:05.953 --> 00:30:08.016

And I think there's so much stigma,

00:30:08.156 --> 00:30:09.478

even behind prescribed

00:30:09.518 --> 00:30:11.340

drugs that have the same effect,

00:30:11.881 --> 00:30:14.924

that people get really sort

00:30:14.965 --> 00:30:16.587

of judgy about like, oh,

00:30:16.627 --> 00:30:18.349

you need that to have a good time.

00:30:18.689 --> 00:30:21.311

It's like, well, no, I don't need it,

00:30:21.851 --> 00:30:24.352

but it makes the time instead of,

00:30:24.613 --> 00:30:27.034

you know, ten percent enjoyable.

00:30:27.154 --> 00:30:28.875

It makes it one hundred percent enjoyable.

00:30:29.435 --> 00:30:30.496

And why would you not want

00:30:30.536 --> 00:30:31.377

that for someone?

00:30:31.677 --> 00:30:33.858

You know, if they can consume responsibly,

00:30:34.538 --> 00:30:35.959

if they can, you know,

00:30:36.560 --> 00:30:37.860

go from instead of being

00:30:37.900 --> 00:30:38.981

completely anxious the

00:30:39.001 --> 00:30:40.722

entire time to actually enjoying it,

00:30:40.762 --> 00:30:42.263

like that's a beautiful thing to me.

00:30:42.303 --> 00:30:42.983

Yeah.

00:30:43.003 --> 00:30:43.264

You know.

00:30:44.104 --> 00:30:45.785

and that's what i started to

00:30:45.805 --> 00:30:47.425

realize and i started to

00:30:47.585 --> 00:30:49.946

feel like i have been

00:30:50.106 --> 00:30:53.048

selfish with my wife

00:30:53.128 --> 00:30:55.108

because just because i

00:30:55.128 --> 00:30:57.910

didn't need something um

00:30:57.930 --> 00:30:59.970

there were many like to

00:31:00.010 --> 00:31:01.171

give a talk or something

00:31:01.211 --> 00:31:02.391

for her no she's not gonna

00:31:02.411 --> 00:31:03.552

do that you know she's just

00:31:04.052 --> 00:31:07.834

way too so um i and i'll

00:31:07.874 --> 00:31:09.934

admit like i was you just

00:31:09.954 --> 00:31:10.955

mentioned kind of being

00:31:11.015 --> 00:31:13.216

judgy i was very much that way

00:31:14.959 --> 00:31:16.642

So that was one of the

00:31:16.682 --> 00:31:18.364

things that I realized.

00:31:18.384 --> 00:31:20.888

And I remember telling my wife, you know,

00:31:21.589 --> 00:31:23.151

I feel like we might be

00:31:23.231 --> 00:31:25.615

missing out on some things

00:31:25.655 --> 00:31:26.777

that life has to offer.

00:31:27.077 --> 00:31:28.199

And she's like, well, what do you mean?

00:31:28.219 --> 00:31:28.659

What do you mean?

00:31:29.300 --> 00:31:31.983

So anyways, and I'll be honest, Megan,

00:31:32.844 --> 00:31:35.787

my wife, when she was sixteen or whatever,

00:31:35.827 --> 00:31:36.568

fifteen, sixteen,

00:31:36.608 --> 00:31:38.069

they had a little she got

00:31:38.129 --> 00:31:40.912

in trouble a little for for trying,

00:31:41.473 --> 00:31:41.693

you know,

00:31:41.853 --> 00:31:43.455

a drink of alcohol here or there.

00:31:44.095 --> 00:31:46.278

I broke up with her.

00:31:46.298 --> 00:31:47.299

I broke up and I said,

00:31:47.379 --> 00:31:49.080

You've got to be kidding me.

00:31:49.721 --> 00:31:51.243

Why would you do that?

00:31:52.141 --> 00:31:54.102

And we broke up and then we

00:31:54.122 --> 00:31:55.382

got back together shortly after.

00:31:55.402 --> 00:31:56.603

I mean, for me,

00:31:57.283 --> 00:31:59.624

I greatly looked down on this.

00:31:59.724 --> 00:32:02.685

It was never a thought, a temptation,

00:32:03.385 --> 00:32:03.785

nothing.

00:32:04.705 --> 00:32:05.586

So anyways,

00:32:06.266 --> 00:32:11.408

I felt like I was being unjust

00:32:11.448 --> 00:32:14.189

with her and demanding.

00:32:15.593 --> 00:32:17.414

I just did an interview the other day,

00:32:17.714 --> 00:32:18.434

a couple days ago,

00:32:18.454 --> 00:32:20.335

with a friend of mine who

00:32:20.375 --> 00:32:21.436

is a current bishop.

00:32:22.356 --> 00:32:23.697

And I said, Bishop,

00:32:23.737 --> 00:32:25.077

let me ask you a question.

00:32:25.257 --> 00:32:27.658

Would you deny a recommend

00:32:28.319 --> 00:32:30.239

to a couple that comes in and says,

00:32:30.760 --> 00:32:31.040

listen,

00:32:31.920 --> 00:32:33.522

Every now and then my wife

00:32:33.562 --> 00:32:35.224

and I have a drink together

00:32:35.425 --> 00:32:37.107

and I feel like it we

00:32:37.147 --> 00:32:39.830

loosen up We have a better evening.

00:32:40.090 --> 00:32:41.692

Maybe our sex life is even

00:32:41.732 --> 00:32:42.974

better that particular

00:32:43.034 --> 00:32:44.576

night like would you have a

00:32:44.636 --> 00:32:45.577

problem with that and

00:32:46.467 --> 00:32:48.708

And he basically said, well,

00:32:48.969 --> 00:32:50.069

I might need to know a

00:32:50.209 --> 00:32:54.652

little bit more information, but honestly,

00:32:54.832 --> 00:32:55.833

no, I wouldn't.

00:32:55.873 --> 00:32:58.474

And I've kind of seen that from a... Now,

00:32:58.754 --> 00:32:59.995

that's not the way I was.

00:33:00.476 --> 00:33:02.717

I was very black and white as a bishop.

00:33:03.998 --> 00:33:05.499

I was very black and white.

00:33:06.679 --> 00:33:07.420

I say that...

00:33:08.427 --> 00:33:10.490

Let me give myself a little bit of credit.

00:33:10.670 --> 00:33:15.856

I never held a disciplinary court,

00:33:16.096 --> 00:33:18.259

as we called it in the time, on anyone.

00:33:19.200 --> 00:33:22.063

And I never told anyone to

00:33:22.164 --> 00:33:24.006

not partake of the sacrament.

00:33:24.827 --> 00:33:26.649

And so I give myself credit

00:33:26.669 --> 00:33:27.730

for those two things.

00:33:28.531 --> 00:33:30.273

Someone would come in, Bishop,

00:33:30.313 --> 00:33:31.334

I've got a problem with

00:33:31.394 --> 00:33:33.276

masturbation or pornography.

00:33:33.777 --> 00:33:35.739

We would talk about it and I would say,

00:33:35.759 --> 00:33:36.880

you know what I want you to do?

00:33:37.240 --> 00:33:38.282

I want you to take the

00:33:38.322 --> 00:33:40.003

sacrament because at the

00:33:40.044 --> 00:33:42.186

time I thought that will help you, right?

00:33:43.216 --> 00:33:44.777

So I give myself a little

00:33:44.797 --> 00:33:46.577

bit of credit on stuff like that.

00:33:47.117 --> 00:33:48.658

But for the most part,

00:33:49.218 --> 00:33:50.859

I was very black and white

00:33:51.099 --> 00:33:51.919

right or wrong.

00:33:52.259 --> 00:33:54.360

The prophet said it, that's what goes.

00:33:54.880 --> 00:33:55.840

I didn't have a lot of

00:33:55.900 --> 00:33:58.882

nuance in me as this friend

00:33:58.902 --> 00:34:01.262

that I just told you about, um, as he has,

00:34:01.362 --> 00:34:02.743

he has a lot of nuance.

00:34:04.209 --> 00:34:05.450

So anyways, um,

00:34:05.670 --> 00:34:08.112

I pretty much took you through, um,

00:34:08.192 --> 00:34:10.534

growing up, did all the things, uh,

00:34:10.614 --> 00:34:13.175

mission Bishop, having kids,

00:34:13.496 --> 00:34:14.596

everything's great.

00:34:15.077 --> 00:34:16.278

And then giving myself

00:34:16.338 --> 00:34:18.239

permission to start to look

00:34:18.619 --> 00:34:20.801

and expecting that the

00:34:20.841 --> 00:34:22.002

church could stand on its

00:34:22.042 --> 00:34:25.264

own two feet and being devastated.

00:34:26.629 --> 00:34:28.651

devastated to find out that

00:34:28.711 --> 00:34:31.194

it couldn't and I've shared

00:34:31.234 --> 00:34:33.256

this picture a few times in

00:34:33.276 --> 00:34:35.479

a few different places and

00:34:35.539 --> 00:34:37.321

I'm I think I probably

00:34:37.341 --> 00:34:38.602

should share it right now

00:34:39.803 --> 00:34:44.148

but there was a time I'm so

00:34:44.609 --> 00:34:46.350

I'm so almost embarrassed

00:34:46.410 --> 00:34:47.452

of this picture Megan

00:34:48.538 --> 00:34:52.141

But there was a time when my daughter,

00:34:52.502 --> 00:34:54.583

who was the perfect daughter,

00:34:54.824 --> 00:34:56.905

did everything right.

00:34:57.786 --> 00:34:59.428

Seminary, all the stuff.

00:34:59.628 --> 00:35:02.490

She's our oldest child.

00:35:03.191 --> 00:35:04.672

She did all the things.

00:35:05.573 --> 00:35:07.314

She had a fiancee.

00:35:08.558 --> 00:35:11.801

who, um, she was engaged to who were,

00:35:11.821 --> 00:35:14.483

she was to be married in like six weeks.

00:35:15.163 --> 00:35:16.925

And they were planning a temple marriage.

00:35:17.005 --> 00:35:20.788

Now our, our temple was in this time was,

00:35:20.988 --> 00:35:22.769

uh, closed for renovation.

00:35:23.810 --> 00:35:25.431

So they were going to put it

00:35:25.531 --> 00:35:26.712

off a short time.

00:35:26.852 --> 00:35:27.793

They were going to get married,

00:35:27.853 --> 00:35:29.334

but the church had changed

00:35:29.374 --> 00:35:31.436

their policy that you could

00:35:31.476 --> 00:35:36.380

get sealed after a, um, civil civil.

00:35:36.400 --> 00:35:36.540

Yeah.

00:35:36.560 --> 00:35:37.481

Yeah.

00:35:37.887 --> 00:35:42.514

So my daughter was just weeks away,

00:35:42.854 --> 00:35:43.956

a couple months away from

00:35:44.036 --> 00:35:47.581

getting married and subsequently sealed.

00:35:48.943 --> 00:35:50.626

And I started to see...

00:35:51.829 --> 00:35:53.149

And this is the phrase that

00:35:54.290 --> 00:35:56.610

I repeated a thousand times

00:35:56.730 --> 00:35:58.450

over in my mind and in

00:35:58.490 --> 00:35:59.831

communications with my wife.

00:36:00.271 --> 00:36:02.211

And let me just say that my wife and I,

00:36:02.251 --> 00:36:03.291

through all of this,

00:36:04.031 --> 00:36:07.312

we have been on the exact same page.

00:36:07.972 --> 00:36:09.913

And I acknowledge that that

00:36:09.993 --> 00:36:12.293

is not the case for a lot of people.

00:36:12.473 --> 00:36:16.034

And I am heartbroken over that fact.

00:36:17.664 --> 00:36:19.305

that some people are dealing

00:36:19.325 --> 00:36:20.386

with this alone.

00:36:20.586 --> 00:36:21.367

But anyways,

00:36:23.148 --> 00:36:26.050

the phrase that I told myself

00:36:26.110 --> 00:36:30.354

and my wife over and over is, oh my gosh,

00:36:30.774 --> 00:36:35.658

the church is not what I thought it was.

00:36:35.878 --> 00:36:39.901

And just coming to that conclusion, now,

00:36:40.261 --> 00:36:40.782

of course,

00:36:41.862 --> 00:36:43.263

now I have a podcast and I've

00:36:43.283 --> 00:36:44.745

been talking for months

00:36:44.885 --> 00:36:46.466

about what I meant by that.

00:36:47.548 --> 00:36:51.089

But in short, what did I mean?

00:36:51.809 --> 00:36:53.210

I meant that I thought that

00:36:53.270 --> 00:36:56.191

it was the only true church

00:36:56.511 --> 00:36:59.372

on the face of the earth,

00:36:59.592 --> 00:37:00.932

that it was the only place

00:37:00.952 --> 00:37:03.273

to find the truth and the

00:37:03.433 --> 00:37:06.494

actual priesthood, the authority of God,

00:37:06.554 --> 00:37:07.915

and that our prophets

00:37:08.435 --> 00:37:10.235

literally spoke to God and

00:37:10.255 --> 00:37:11.956

then told us what he wanted.

00:37:12.496 --> 00:37:14.537

I was fully believing

00:37:15.097 --> 00:37:16.358

All of those things that

00:37:16.518 --> 00:37:17.719

anyone that knows anything

00:37:17.759 --> 00:37:19.099

about Mormonism knows.

00:37:19.960 --> 00:37:24.142

I've put my reputation on

00:37:24.182 --> 00:37:25.183

the line growing up.

00:37:25.243 --> 00:37:26.923

I've stood up and stood out

00:37:27.404 --> 00:37:28.784

and preached on my mission,

00:37:28.845 --> 00:37:30.625

and now I'm like, it's not.

00:37:31.106 --> 00:37:32.386

It is not those things.

00:37:33.107 --> 00:37:33.987

What is it?

00:37:34.788 --> 00:37:36.789

We can have a debate about what it is,

00:37:36.849 --> 00:37:38.690

but it's not what I thought it was.

00:37:39.812 --> 00:37:43.753

And so there's a video on my

00:37:43.793 --> 00:37:46.994

channel that is called Why I Left.

00:37:47.955 --> 00:37:49.315

And I think it's got about

00:37:49.375 --> 00:37:51.776

thirteen thousand views at this point.

00:37:52.716 --> 00:37:57.538

And it's not a complete, you know,

00:37:57.998 --> 00:37:58.698

explanation,

00:37:58.818 --> 00:38:01.039

but I hit on a few of the high points.

00:38:02.511 --> 00:38:04.453

And to be perfectly honest,

00:38:05.354 --> 00:38:07.015

I personally have not left.

00:38:07.335 --> 00:38:09.117

My name is still on the records.

00:38:09.577 --> 00:38:09.998

However,

00:38:10.078 --> 00:38:12.760

my wife did remove her name and

00:38:12.820 --> 00:38:14.782

many of my children removed their names.

00:38:14.962 --> 00:38:17.945

So in a sense, I actually haven't left.

00:38:18.245 --> 00:38:19.986

However, for the past two years,

00:38:20.107 --> 00:38:21.207

I've not attended.

00:38:22.008 --> 00:38:24.151

So for me, I've left.

00:38:24.391 --> 00:38:25.532

There's never been a time in

00:38:25.572 --> 00:38:27.414

my life where I didn't attend church.

00:38:28.576 --> 00:38:30.198

Even if we were on vacation,

00:38:31.379 --> 00:38:32.520

we went to the local ward.

00:38:32.580 --> 00:38:33.261

Matter of fact,

00:38:33.942 --> 00:38:36.164

I believe that I attended

00:38:36.245 --> 00:38:39.368

Bill Rill's ward in Ohio

00:38:39.528 --> 00:38:41.270

when we were visiting some families.

00:38:41.951 --> 00:38:42.472

Oh, wow.

00:38:42.492 --> 00:38:43.473

That's pretty cool.

00:38:43.493 --> 00:38:45.955

He and I have spoken briefly about that.

00:38:46.055 --> 00:38:48.138

But anyways, so, yeah,

00:38:48.158 --> 00:38:49.759

I haven't attended in two years.

00:38:49.779 --> 00:38:51.881

So in a sense, yes, I have left.

00:38:52.001 --> 00:38:57.327

But so I determined the

00:38:57.367 --> 00:38:59.249

church was not what I thought it was.

00:38:59.990 --> 00:39:01.531

The major factors were

00:39:01.952 --> 00:39:03.553

obviously the polygamy stuff.

00:39:04.870 --> 00:39:08.154

For my wife, that was a huge, you know,

00:39:08.614 --> 00:39:11.017

a huge... One reason it was

00:39:11.077 --> 00:39:13.179

so hard for her to find out

00:39:13.259 --> 00:39:14.680

about Joseph's polygamy

00:39:15.796 --> 00:39:18.617

was she actually came across

00:39:18.957 --> 00:39:21.217

the information with Fannie

00:39:21.297 --> 00:39:24.038

Alger a long time ago.

00:39:24.658 --> 00:39:26.398

Either I was on my mission

00:39:26.858 --> 00:39:28.659

or even maybe before that.

00:39:29.479 --> 00:39:31.079

And she went to some of her

00:39:31.119 --> 00:39:32.219

leaders at the time,

00:39:32.619 --> 00:39:33.420

and I don't remember

00:39:33.460 --> 00:39:34.780

exactly how she came across it.

00:39:34.900 --> 00:39:35.460

In this time,

00:39:35.500 --> 00:39:37.981

there was no internet or it was very new.

00:39:38.701 --> 00:39:40.021

But she came across it and

00:39:40.041 --> 00:39:41.481

she went to her leaders.

00:39:41.501 --> 00:39:43.082

She's like, oh my gosh, what is this?

00:39:43.142 --> 00:39:44.522

And she was assured

00:39:45.142 --> 00:39:49.206

that this was anti-Mormon lies.

00:39:49.226 --> 00:39:52.690

There was nothing to it.

00:39:52.750 --> 00:39:52.931

Now,

00:39:52.971 --> 00:39:55.293

so for my viewers who've never been

00:39:55.353 --> 00:39:55.794

Mormon,

00:39:56.034 --> 00:39:57.616

can you give just a brief rundown

00:39:57.676 --> 00:39:58.977

on who Fanny Alger is?

00:39:59.297 --> 00:39:59.518

Okay.

00:40:01.086 --> 00:40:05.027

So Fanny Alger was basically

00:40:06.928 --> 00:40:10.249

either like a maid or like a hired hand,

00:40:10.369 --> 00:40:13.591

or in this time they had farms and things,

00:40:13.631 --> 00:40:15.411

so I don't know exactly

00:40:15.451 --> 00:40:16.392

what her duties were,

00:40:16.412 --> 00:40:17.672

but she lived in the house,

00:40:17.752 --> 00:40:19.893

in Joseph's house, and helped.

00:40:21.343 --> 00:40:24.624

And when you get into the

00:40:24.684 --> 00:40:27.985

details of the timeline of

00:40:28.065 --> 00:40:30.626

when she would have been in the house,

00:40:31.706 --> 00:40:33.346

it would have corresponded

00:40:33.467 --> 00:40:36.687

to before Joseph claimed to

00:40:36.747 --> 00:40:40.108

have been told or received information.

00:40:40.669 --> 00:40:41.669

And matter of fact,

00:40:41.689 --> 00:40:43.349

Joseph claims that an angel

00:40:43.389 --> 00:40:45.570

appeared with a drawn sword

00:40:45.690 --> 00:40:48.591

and demanded that he begin polygamy.

00:40:49.371 --> 00:40:53.355

which, you know, has an angel ever,

00:40:54.375 --> 00:40:59.440

is that the method God chooses, you know,

00:40:59.600 --> 00:41:02.302

with his children, you know,

00:41:02.362 --> 00:41:04.164

to send an angel to demand things?

00:41:04.224 --> 00:41:06.046

Did we see that with, you know,

00:41:06.086 --> 00:41:07.847

with Hitler or with, you know,

00:41:07.867 --> 00:41:11.090

with anything in our past?

00:41:11.350 --> 00:41:13.052

Does God, no, God does not

00:41:13.632 --> 00:41:14.112

do that.

00:41:14.172 --> 00:41:14.773

However,

00:41:15.313 --> 00:41:17.395

for some reason in this particular

00:41:17.875 --> 00:41:19.356

church and situation,

00:41:19.916 --> 00:41:21.537

this was the only time God

00:41:21.577 --> 00:41:22.918

has demanded and forced

00:41:22.938 --> 00:41:23.879

something essentially.

00:41:24.760 --> 00:41:28.882

So anyways, Fannie Alger, what was it?

00:41:29.683 --> 00:41:30.684

I think a lot of people,

00:41:30.844 --> 00:41:32.084

even faithful people,

00:41:32.285 --> 00:41:33.445

will admit that it was

00:41:33.525 --> 00:41:35.587

probably more like an affair.

00:41:36.496 --> 00:41:39.278

It was a dirty, nasty, filthy rape.

00:41:39.498 --> 00:41:40.018

Yes.

00:41:40.678 --> 00:41:41.979

And so, you know,

00:41:42.179 --> 00:41:43.960

there's there's testimony

00:41:44.000 --> 00:41:45.601

that they were caught in the barn.

00:41:45.721 --> 00:41:47.782

There's testimony that Emma

00:41:47.822 --> 00:41:49.723

kicked Fannie out after this.

00:41:52.088 --> 00:41:53.288

let's see she's not the one

00:41:53.308 --> 00:41:54.429

we say testimony we're

00:41:54.469 --> 00:41:55.609

talking about written

00:41:56.229 --> 00:41:57.870

journal entries of people

00:41:57.890 --> 00:41:59.331

who were actually there

00:41:59.491 --> 00:42:00.731

what i call what i would

00:42:00.751 --> 00:42:02.232

call a primary source

00:42:02.272 --> 00:42:04.112

document where it's in the

00:42:04.172 --> 00:42:05.633

person the person was there

00:42:05.733 --> 00:42:06.493

and it's in their own

00:42:06.553 --> 00:42:07.513

handwriting in their own

00:42:07.553 --> 00:42:09.094

journal and this is their

00:42:09.114 --> 00:42:10.374

description of the events

00:42:10.875 --> 00:42:12.435

and so what we have is

00:42:12.475 --> 00:42:13.675

someone who is a servant in

00:42:13.716 --> 00:42:15.436

joseph smith's house living

00:42:15.556 --> 00:42:16.797

in the house they were

00:42:16.837 --> 00:42:18.237

caught in the barn together

00:42:18.437 --> 00:42:20.338

in a compromising situation

00:42:21.118 --> 00:42:22.679

And firsthand accounts were

00:42:22.719 --> 00:42:25.861

given that it was basically

00:42:25.881 --> 00:42:27.062

an affair between the two

00:42:27.102 --> 00:42:27.742

of these people.

00:42:27.782 --> 00:42:31.124

And Fanny was at the time, I want to say,

00:42:31.645 --> 00:42:35.367

and Joseph was something like that.

00:42:35.928 --> 00:42:37.589

And this was prior to the

00:42:37.629 --> 00:42:39.310

revelation of Doctrine and

00:42:39.350 --> 00:42:41.011

Covenants section where

00:42:41.071 --> 00:42:42.712

Joseph Smith claims that an

00:42:42.812 --> 00:42:43.773

angel with a drawn sword

00:42:43.793 --> 00:42:45.814

appeared to him and told him that he must

00:42:46.354 --> 00:42:49.237

practice polygamy right so

00:42:49.898 --> 00:42:52.020

my wife came across some of

00:42:52.060 --> 00:42:54.423

this stuff early on and was

00:42:54.463 --> 00:42:55.404

assured that it was

00:42:55.624 --> 00:42:57.706

anti-mormon lies no need to

00:42:57.767 --> 00:43:01.290

worry and so she put it away well

00:43:02.309 --> 00:43:04.510

Her and I were sitting in

00:43:04.550 --> 00:43:07.351

the hot tub one day, and I said, honey,

00:43:07.371 --> 00:43:08.751

I want to tell you about something.

00:43:08.831 --> 00:43:10.472

And I start to tell her this story,

00:43:11.132 --> 00:43:12.713

and I see it on her face.

00:43:12.853 --> 00:43:14.393

It just goes like blank.

00:43:14.933 --> 00:43:16.954

She's like, I already know this story.

00:43:17.634 --> 00:43:20.475

This is what I struggled with years ago.

00:43:20.555 --> 00:43:22.476

And I said, well,

00:43:22.496 --> 00:43:24.217

I'm sorry to say that it's

00:43:24.257 --> 00:43:25.537

now on the church website,

00:43:26.177 --> 00:43:28.158

and it's apparently true.

00:43:29.704 --> 00:43:32.526

And so this brings us to

00:43:32.586 --> 00:43:34.127

those gospel topic essays

00:43:34.167 --> 00:43:35.528

that I was talking about,

00:43:35.568 --> 00:43:38.510

that the church now, to their credit,

00:43:40.252 --> 00:43:43.074

has owned up to some things.

00:43:43.760 --> 00:43:44.981

They've owned up to some

00:43:45.021 --> 00:43:47.183

things regarding Joseph and his polygamy,

00:43:47.243 --> 00:43:49.504

which was never talked about.

00:43:49.624 --> 00:43:51.766

We were always, we,

00:43:52.246 --> 00:43:53.727

I and we were always led to

00:43:53.767 --> 00:43:54.988

believe that this was more

00:43:55.008 --> 00:43:57.430

of a Brigham thing, which, you know,

00:43:57.550 --> 00:43:59.011

why did that even make it better?

00:43:59.091 --> 00:43:59.551

I don't know,

00:43:59.611 --> 00:44:02.073

but it sort of did for a lot of us.

00:44:04.155 --> 00:44:06.116

They owned up to Joseph's polygamy.

00:44:06.316 --> 00:44:09.339

They owned up to Brigham's racism.

00:44:10.359 --> 00:44:13.801

Basically, the church says that, in short,

00:44:13.861 --> 00:44:15.581

that Brigham was a racist

00:44:15.661 --> 00:44:16.882

or that he gave in to the

00:44:16.922 --> 00:44:18.242

racist teachings of the day.

00:44:18.662 --> 00:44:19.223

Right.

00:44:19.323 --> 00:44:21.364

And so not only,

00:44:21.484 --> 00:44:23.084

so the way that I've put it

00:44:23.184 --> 00:44:25.285

recently was the church now

00:44:25.405 --> 00:44:26.866

in their essays admits that

00:44:26.906 --> 00:44:28.206

Joseph was a liar and

00:44:28.246 --> 00:44:29.447

Brigham was a racist.

00:44:29.867 --> 00:44:31.528

And what I mean by liar is

00:44:32.328 --> 00:44:33.408

there's many times where

00:44:33.448 --> 00:44:35.729

Joseph was preaching even a

00:44:35.809 --> 00:44:37.270

month before his martyrdom.

00:44:38.524 --> 00:44:42.186

Um, you know, what, um, what, um,

00:44:42.226 --> 00:44:43.586

people say that I have, you know,

00:44:43.686 --> 00:44:44.687

seven wives when,

00:44:44.867 --> 00:44:46.487

when I can only find one or

00:44:46.527 --> 00:44:48.168

whatever that quote is, you know,

00:44:48.188 --> 00:44:49.068

he's basically saying,

00:44:49.328 --> 00:44:50.869

everyone's saying that I have, you know,

00:44:51.029 --> 00:44:51.529

I'm doing this.

00:44:51.709 --> 00:44:52.870

I can only find one.

00:44:53.570 --> 00:44:55.611

And he, he's essentially right.

00:44:56.553 --> 00:44:59.254

Um, he's essentially denying that,

00:44:59.974 --> 00:45:00.895

you know, that he,

00:45:01.415 --> 00:45:03.715

and now we know that many of the people,

00:45:03.896 --> 00:45:05.616

even in that were listening

00:45:05.656 --> 00:45:07.817

to that sermon were

00:45:07.957 --> 00:45:09.257

actually married to him.

00:45:09.417 --> 00:45:11.978

His plural wives were in the congregation,

00:45:12.138 --> 00:45:13.759

in the meeting when he's up

00:45:13.799 --> 00:45:15.900

on the pulpit saying, you know, oh,

00:45:15.940 --> 00:45:17.260

it's crazy that people say

00:45:17.340 --> 00:45:18.660

I have multiple wives.

00:45:18.741 --> 00:45:20.001

I can only keep one happy.

00:45:20.081 --> 00:45:21.822

And how must those women

00:45:21.882 --> 00:45:24.482

have felt the ones who were

00:45:24.522 --> 00:45:25.583

his plural wives?

00:45:26.283 --> 00:45:27.785

And can you imagine how

00:45:27.865 --> 00:45:29.527

devastating that would be?

00:45:30.428 --> 00:45:30.648

I mean,

00:45:30.968 --> 00:45:32.610

because they knew their

00:45:32.650 --> 00:45:33.831

relationship was secret.

00:45:34.212 --> 00:45:35.813

I think Joseph probably told them,

00:45:35.994 --> 00:45:37.415

you have to keep this private.

00:45:37.876 --> 00:45:38.997

You can't tell anyone that

00:45:39.017 --> 00:45:40.258

we've been sealed together.

00:45:41.119 --> 00:45:43.382

And this is the reason why.

00:45:44.852 --> 00:45:46.952

Whenever apologists say, oh,

00:45:46.972 --> 00:45:48.313

but he never had sex with

00:45:48.373 --> 00:45:50.773

any of his plural wives or he never,

00:45:52.054 --> 00:45:52.294

you know,

00:45:52.354 --> 00:45:54.934

consummated the ceilings or the marriages,

00:45:55.014 --> 00:45:56.394

especially with the younger kids.

00:45:57.175 --> 00:45:58.675

My contention, though,

00:45:59.535 --> 00:46:00.635

is that especially in the

00:46:00.655 --> 00:46:05.176

case of Fanny Alger, in the case of shoot,

00:46:05.236 --> 00:46:07.017

who's the one who who broke my shelf?

00:46:07.037 --> 00:46:11.498

Oh, it's probably the youngest one.

00:46:11.538 --> 00:46:12.798

What's his name's daughter?

00:46:12.878 --> 00:46:13.178

Yeah.

00:46:13.673 --> 00:46:16.436

I'll think of it in just a second.

00:46:16.456 --> 00:46:16.996

Yeah, I mean,

00:46:17.056 --> 00:46:19.477

we'll think of it after we wrap it up.

00:46:19.537 --> 00:46:20.678

It's so frustrating because

00:46:20.718 --> 00:46:21.678

I talk about this all the

00:46:21.718 --> 00:46:22.558

time and then to not be

00:46:22.599 --> 00:46:24.559

able to remember her name.

00:46:24.599 --> 00:46:26.100

It's so important to say her name.

00:46:27.561 --> 00:46:29.862

But reading her diary and

00:46:29.902 --> 00:46:32.123

how conflicted she was about...

00:46:33.003 --> 00:46:34.744

the prophet coming to her and saying,

00:46:34.984 --> 00:46:37.345

your family's salvation is guaranteed.

00:46:37.725 --> 00:46:38.986

Putting myself into that

00:46:39.026 --> 00:46:39.866

position as a

00:46:39.926 --> 00:46:41.087

fourteen-year-old kid with

00:46:41.147 --> 00:46:43.168

as devout as I was at that time,

00:46:43.588 --> 00:46:46.229

wanting so badly to do everything right.

00:46:47.329 --> 00:46:49.450

If a church leader had come to me and said,

00:46:49.931 --> 00:46:50.211

Megan,

00:46:50.311 --> 00:46:52.352

you can guarantee your salvation

00:46:52.492 --> 00:46:53.312

and the salvation of

00:46:53.452 --> 00:46:54.473

everyone that you love and

00:46:54.493 --> 00:46:57.614

care about if you will have

00:46:58.114 --> 00:47:01.056

an extramarital relationship with this

00:47:01.896 --> 00:47:02.416

twenty seven,

00:47:02.456 --> 00:47:04.898

twenty eight year old prophet or whatever,

00:47:05.278 --> 00:47:06.259

I would have done it.

00:47:06.279 --> 00:47:10.521

Was that Helen Mark Kimball?

00:47:10.541 --> 00:47:11.221

Helen Mark Kimball.

00:47:11.281 --> 00:47:12.302

So, you know,

00:47:12.462 --> 00:47:13.683

reading what she wrote in her

00:47:13.723 --> 00:47:15.544

diary about the conflict in

00:47:15.604 --> 00:47:17.625

her in her heart about that

00:47:18.105 --> 00:47:19.826

situation just gutted me.

00:47:20.246 --> 00:47:21.847

And thinking about how she

00:47:22.488 --> 00:47:23.488

had to stay home from

00:47:23.548 --> 00:47:25.029

dances when the rest of her

00:47:25.089 --> 00:47:25.910

friends were out

00:47:25.990 --> 00:47:27.330

socializing and she was at

00:47:27.390 --> 00:47:29.572

home probably crying herself to sleep.

00:47:30.312 --> 00:47:33.153

And so to me, it doesn't, okay,

00:47:33.193 --> 00:47:34.034

it matters.

00:47:34.634 --> 00:47:36.575

But even if somebody could

00:47:36.615 --> 00:47:38.236

definitively prove to me

00:47:38.276 --> 00:47:39.656

that Joseph Smith never had

00:47:39.716 --> 00:47:41.477

sex with any of those teenage girls,

00:47:41.857 --> 00:47:44.419

he still took their lives.

00:47:44.699 --> 00:47:46.540

He took their lives.

00:47:47.020 --> 00:47:48.360

He took their ability to

00:47:48.421 --> 00:47:49.321

have a normal life,

00:47:49.341 --> 00:47:50.662

to have normal relationships,

00:47:51.102 --> 00:47:52.683

to sit in a congregation

00:47:53.223 --> 00:47:54.503

and have the person who

00:47:54.543 --> 00:47:56.424

took your life up at the podium saying,

00:47:56.504 --> 00:47:57.685

no, but I actually didn't.

00:47:59.070 --> 00:48:00.171

I cannot imagine how

00:48:00.231 --> 00:48:01.452

devastated I would feel.

00:48:01.792 --> 00:48:03.353

I would want to die, honestly.

00:48:05.014 --> 00:48:05.595

I agree.

00:48:05.955 --> 00:48:08.217

And as far as the question

00:48:08.277 --> 00:48:11.099

about whether or not sex was involved,

00:48:12.180 --> 00:48:15.262

I will just say that the church,

00:48:16.122 --> 00:48:16.963

in my view,

00:48:17.103 --> 00:48:19.825

has acknowledged that there

00:48:19.905 --> 00:48:22.747

was simply by the wording

00:48:22.927 --> 00:48:23.988

of their little cartoon

00:48:24.008 --> 00:48:24.729

that they put out.

00:48:25.588 --> 00:48:26.468

Now, consequently,

00:48:26.548 --> 00:48:27.749

right before you and I

00:48:27.789 --> 00:48:28.769

started this interview,

00:48:29.649 --> 00:48:31.430

I read online that they

00:48:31.450 --> 00:48:32.730

have now changed that.

00:48:32.850 --> 00:48:34.250

And I don't know,

00:48:34.290 --> 00:48:35.531

I haven't had time to look

00:48:35.611 --> 00:48:36.811

into what's been changed.

00:48:37.471 --> 00:48:39.572

But the wording that they

00:48:39.612 --> 00:48:41.652

had on there was they talked about how,

00:48:41.672 --> 00:48:44.073

you know, I know this word is going to...

00:48:45.301 --> 00:48:47.082

This word is going to set

00:48:47.122 --> 00:48:48.383

off some bells for some people,

00:48:48.423 --> 00:48:51.166

but how hard it was for

00:48:51.206 --> 00:48:53.267

Joseph to practice this polygamy.

00:48:53.928 --> 00:48:55.549

Well, why was it hard?

00:48:56.169 --> 00:48:58.091

So it was hard, Megan,

00:48:58.151 --> 00:49:02.754

because if it was only like in name or,

00:49:02.774 --> 00:49:04.876

you know, in the eternities or something,

00:49:04.976 --> 00:49:05.737

it wouldn't be hard.

00:49:07.124 --> 00:49:09.945

He was sealed to even men, we're told.

00:49:09.965 --> 00:49:11.885

So that's not hard to just

00:49:11.905 --> 00:49:14.866

be sealed in some spiritual

00:49:15.086 --> 00:49:18.287

or some heavenly method.

00:49:18.627 --> 00:49:21.388

It would be hard if, as you pointed out,

00:49:22.228 --> 00:49:24.228

you are expected to not do

00:49:24.308 --> 00:49:26.449

some things that a normal...

00:49:27.289 --> 00:49:29.430

you know, young, younger child or,

00:49:29.831 --> 00:49:30.071

you know,

00:49:30.131 --> 00:49:31.151

young adults should be able to

00:49:31.191 --> 00:49:33.013

do like go to dances.

00:49:33.673 --> 00:49:36.094

And it would be hard because

00:49:36.114 --> 00:49:37.055

you know that you are

00:49:37.095 --> 00:49:38.856

having these interactions

00:49:38.896 --> 00:49:41.498

with sexual interactions as

00:49:41.518 --> 00:49:42.378

a married couple.

00:49:42.458 --> 00:49:42.939

So yeah, yeah.

00:49:43.999 --> 00:49:46.782

So I'll go to, because I saw this too,

00:49:46.822 --> 00:49:47.764

right before we went on,

00:49:48.524 --> 00:49:49.766

this is breaking news.

00:49:50.927 --> 00:49:52.409

You know, it's Wednesday, February, it's,

00:49:52.489 --> 00:49:53.430

it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's,

00:49:53.450 --> 00:49:53.530

it's,

00:49:58.836 --> 00:49:59.716

Take a moment today and

00:49:59.756 --> 00:50:00.836

notice what changed.

00:50:00.997 --> 00:50:02.617

Every unhealthy part that

00:50:02.657 --> 00:50:03.817

was criticized has been

00:50:03.877 --> 00:50:05.298

removed with the exception

00:50:05.338 --> 00:50:06.438

of plural marriage itself.

00:50:06.478 --> 00:50:09.038

This is a cartoon that the church,

00:50:09.058 --> 00:50:10.419

the LDS church put out to

00:50:10.499 --> 00:50:13.500

teach children about the

00:50:13.540 --> 00:50:14.840

concept of polygamy.

00:50:15.340 --> 00:50:16.500

And I felt like, you know,

00:50:16.660 --> 00:50:17.981

I wanted to comment on it,

00:50:18.021 --> 00:50:18.981

but it was it was being

00:50:19.001 --> 00:50:20.041

done on so many different

00:50:20.081 --> 00:50:23.042

spaces and done so well that I didn't.

00:50:24.042 --> 00:50:26.263

um but now i regret not

00:50:26.323 --> 00:50:28.064

doing it you know because

00:50:28.565 --> 00:50:30.386

this is it's sick i i feel

00:50:30.406 --> 00:50:31.966

like it's grooming um

00:50:32.107 --> 00:50:33.227

mormon stories is doing an

00:50:33.287 --> 00:50:34.288

episode in a couple of

00:50:34.348 --> 00:50:35.849

hours on this you know i

00:50:36.229 --> 00:50:37.249

this is this is so

00:50:37.309 --> 00:50:38.430

important and it's it's

00:50:38.870 --> 00:50:39.891

what you've been talking

00:50:39.911 --> 00:50:41.111

about all along with the

00:50:41.131 --> 00:50:43.152

gospel topics essays where

00:50:43.513 --> 00:50:44.473

your wife literally

00:50:44.513 --> 00:50:45.754

believed those were

00:50:45.834 --> 00:50:47.775

anti-mormon lies and now

00:50:47.815 --> 00:50:48.956

the church has published

00:50:48.996 --> 00:50:50.176

them on their website in

00:50:50.196 --> 00:50:53.058

the form of the gospel topic essays and

00:50:54.726 --> 00:50:57.128

And now, so what was anti-Mormon lies,

00:50:57.168 --> 00:50:58.789

they're now confirming as true.

00:50:59.530 --> 00:51:00.050

And to me,

00:51:00.110 --> 00:51:01.912

if I hadn't already been out at

00:51:01.932 --> 00:51:02.412

that point,

00:51:02.452 --> 00:51:03.453

this would have done it for me

00:51:03.493 --> 00:51:06.615

because they literally lied to us.

00:51:07.056 --> 00:51:09.077

They told us, oh, this is not true.

00:51:09.237 --> 00:51:10.718

And now they're saying that it is true.

00:51:10.759 --> 00:51:12.080

I don't know how more clear

00:51:12.120 --> 00:51:13.341

you could get than this.

00:51:13.921 --> 00:51:15.042

And I'm a little sad that...

00:51:16.623 --> 00:51:18.124

because the time that the

00:51:18.164 --> 00:51:19.945

gospel topic essays came

00:51:19.985 --> 00:51:21.626

out was a real foggy time for me.

00:51:22.207 --> 00:51:23.127

I separated from,

00:51:23.347 --> 00:51:25.088

from my husband of years in

00:51:25.148 --> 00:51:25.929

February of and, um,

00:51:31.043 --> 00:51:33.044

I think it was at that time when I just,

00:51:33.364 --> 00:51:35.485

I had to back away from all my callings.

00:51:35.565 --> 00:51:37.146

I told my bishop, I was like, look,

00:51:37.546 --> 00:51:38.567

I'm drowning over here.

00:51:38.607 --> 00:51:39.567

Can you please just give me

00:51:39.607 --> 00:51:40.728

something easy to do?

00:51:41.308 --> 00:51:42.709

At the time I was teaching

00:51:43.189 --> 00:51:45.550

gospel doctrine and I was

00:51:45.630 --> 00:51:47.591

also a ministering sister,

00:51:47.631 --> 00:51:48.652

whatever they call now.

00:51:48.812 --> 00:51:50.673

I was the ward music chairman,

00:51:50.713 --> 00:51:52.094

which I had been for ten years.

00:51:52.134 --> 00:51:53.554

I was like, please, can you release me?

00:51:53.674 --> 00:51:54.815

Anybody can do that job.

00:51:54.875 --> 00:51:56.096

Doesn't have to be a musician.

00:51:57.236 --> 00:51:59.998

So they put me as ward organist.

00:52:01.163 --> 00:52:02.465

And even that I told the bishop,

00:52:02.525 --> 00:52:02.985

I was like,

00:52:03.726 --> 00:52:04.847

I could wake up on a Sunday

00:52:04.867 --> 00:52:05.869

morning and be in a black

00:52:05.909 --> 00:52:08.031

hole and not be able to get out of bed.

00:52:08.191 --> 00:52:09.793

So you're going to have to have a backup,

00:52:09.853 --> 00:52:10.134

you know.

00:52:10.614 --> 00:52:12.156

So then I went down to once a month.

00:52:12.196 --> 00:52:13.317

And I think this is about

00:52:13.358 --> 00:52:14.659

the time the gospel topic

00:52:14.719 --> 00:52:16.421

essays came out because I

00:52:16.441 --> 00:52:17.462

didn't know about them

00:52:17.623 --> 00:52:19.325

until after I resigned my

00:52:19.365 --> 00:52:20.987

membership two years ago.

00:52:21.187 --> 00:52:21.327

Right.

00:52:21.547 --> 00:52:23.689

So I feel like, and I don't know,

00:52:23.789 --> 00:52:25.751

so maybe you can speak to this more.

00:52:25.912 --> 00:52:26.933

I feel like they sort of

00:52:27.073 --> 00:52:29.215

snuck those things onto the website,

00:52:29.916 --> 00:52:31.117

never told anyone about

00:52:31.177 --> 00:52:33.579

them until you took your survey,

00:52:33.819 --> 00:52:34.480

it seems like.

00:52:35.141 --> 00:52:36.562

There was never an announcement.

00:52:37.303 --> 00:52:38.644

And this is the other thing

00:52:38.664 --> 00:52:39.385

that bothers me.

00:52:39.805 --> 00:52:41.948

They didn't publish the essays and say,

00:52:43.549 --> 00:52:45.690

we're sorry that we

00:52:46.550 --> 00:52:48.150

dismissed these stories as

00:52:48.230 --> 00:52:50.071

anti-Mormon lies in the past.

00:52:50.711 --> 00:52:52.832

Now we've found evidence

00:52:52.852 --> 00:52:53.932

that they're actually true

00:52:54.032 --> 00:52:55.393

and we want to be transparent.

00:52:55.893 --> 00:52:57.413

They didn't do that.

00:52:57.934 --> 00:52:59.674

It's sort of like when

00:52:59.774 --> 00:53:02.455

someone apologizes and they say, well,

00:53:02.475 --> 00:53:03.415

I'm sorry I did that,

00:53:03.455 --> 00:53:04.376

but the reason I did is

00:53:04.416 --> 00:53:05.736

because you made me so angry.

00:53:05.796 --> 00:53:06.916

If you hadn't made me angry,

00:53:07.196 --> 00:53:08.597

I never would have yelled at you, right?

00:53:09.277 --> 00:53:11.639

So I feel like the church is saying, like,

00:53:11.679 --> 00:53:12.700

we're going to just quietly

00:53:12.740 --> 00:53:14.802

put this here and hope nobody notices.

00:53:14.842 --> 00:53:15.683

And then when they do,

00:53:15.703 --> 00:53:16.944

we're going to gaslight them and say,

00:53:16.964 --> 00:53:18.385

well, this has been true all along.

00:53:18.925 --> 00:53:21.388

Yeah, you are so right, Megan.

00:53:22.188 --> 00:53:26.732

Let me put it into one sentence.

00:53:27.813 --> 00:53:32.477

The anti-Mormon literature

00:53:32.617 --> 00:53:34.999

from the nineties is now

00:53:35.059 --> 00:53:36.641

found on the church website.

00:53:37.612 --> 00:53:39.420

If I were to put it in one sentence,

00:53:39.520 --> 00:53:40.264

I would say that.

00:53:41.120 --> 00:53:42.761

The anti-Mormon literature

00:53:42.801 --> 00:53:44.161

from the nineties is now

00:53:44.221 --> 00:53:47.482

found as true on the church website.

00:53:47.642 --> 00:53:48.882

And you are absolutely

00:53:48.922 --> 00:53:51.643

correct that they slipped

00:53:51.663 --> 00:53:54.384

this in overnight at some point.

00:53:55.545 --> 00:53:56.905

At some point they asked me,

00:53:56.945 --> 00:53:58.305

but they didn't ask all bishops.

00:53:59.466 --> 00:54:00.626

This was a random,

00:54:01.046 --> 00:54:02.327

I was randomly selected.

00:54:02.387 --> 00:54:05.488

So many bishops, I was never given any,

00:54:05.988 --> 00:54:07.588

hey, heads up, you know,

00:54:07.628 --> 00:54:09.309

we have this out there, nothing.

00:54:10.467 --> 00:54:13.388

Um, not only that, I never had any member,

00:54:13.669 --> 00:54:15.149

Hey Bishop, what the heck is this?

00:54:15.229 --> 00:54:16.170

I just read nothing.

00:54:17.110 --> 00:54:21.072

And let me just say that when I finally,

00:54:21.232 --> 00:54:21.572

and I'm,

00:54:21.812 --> 00:54:23.073

I'm getting there on my story

00:54:23.093 --> 00:54:24.854

when I became vocal, uh,

00:54:25.014 --> 00:54:26.915

online about the issues.

00:54:28.015 --> 00:54:29.756

There is a sister in our

00:54:29.816 --> 00:54:32.317

stake and I will not name her,

00:54:32.717 --> 00:54:34.538

but anyone in my stake

00:54:34.558 --> 00:54:37.759

knows exactly who I'm talking about.

00:54:38.379 --> 00:54:40.300

She is very vocal.

00:54:40.420 --> 00:54:42.181

She is very abrasive.

00:54:42.401 --> 00:54:45.222

She's very, um, you either,

00:54:45.422 --> 00:54:46.923

you either love her or hate

00:54:46.963 --> 00:54:47.863

her because she's,

00:54:48.223 --> 00:54:50.284

she's a strong personality

00:54:50.584 --> 00:54:54.806

and wife of a leadership

00:54:55.266 --> 00:54:56.807

position in our stake.

00:54:56.907 --> 00:54:57.107

Okay.

00:54:58.188 --> 00:54:59.629

When I started coming out

00:54:59.889 --> 00:55:02.811

with some information on my Facebook page,

00:55:03.471 --> 00:55:06.733

she contacts me in a Facebook message,

00:55:07.254 --> 00:55:10.776

and her and I used to be great friends,

00:55:10.836 --> 00:55:11.456

and she says,

00:55:12.297 --> 00:55:13.958

where are these gospel topic

00:55:14.038 --> 00:55:15.319

essays you keep talking about?

00:55:15.747 --> 00:55:15.887

Now,

00:55:15.927 --> 00:55:17.968

this lady is the lady that would teach

00:55:18.008 --> 00:55:18.928

gospel doctrine.

00:55:19.008 --> 00:55:20.388

When I attended their ward,

00:55:20.729 --> 00:55:22.069

when I would visit around

00:55:22.109 --> 00:55:23.009

on the high council,

00:55:23.729 --> 00:55:24.850

I would sit there and listen.

00:55:24.870 --> 00:55:26.250

She knows everything.

00:55:26.270 --> 00:55:27.551

She's know-it-all.

00:55:28.071 --> 00:55:29.771

She's very seasoned.

00:55:30.151 --> 00:55:32.192

She's very... Matter of fact,

00:55:32.372 --> 00:55:35.953

I watched her repu... What's the word?

00:55:36.313 --> 00:55:38.734

Rebuke this guy in her

00:55:40.034 --> 00:55:42.335

gospel doctrine class for

00:55:42.495 --> 00:55:43.455

speaking out of line.

00:55:43.475 --> 00:55:44.976

She's like, how dare you?

00:55:45.016 --> 00:55:45.516

And I'm like...

00:55:45.696 --> 00:55:47.377

heck yeah, you go, girl.

00:55:47.758 --> 00:55:47.998

I mean,

00:55:48.098 --> 00:55:50.019

a very strong personality where

00:55:50.039 --> 00:55:50.600

she's like,

00:55:51.120 --> 00:55:53.062

where are these gospel topic essays?

00:55:53.522 --> 00:55:55.203

She couldn't even find them

00:55:55.744 --> 00:55:57.925

as a very seasoned.

00:55:58.486 --> 00:56:01.308

And so I responded to her, listen, sister,

00:56:01.328 --> 00:56:03.229

I won't say her name.

00:56:04.210 --> 00:56:06.032

Listen, that's my point.

00:56:06.752 --> 00:56:10.297

My point is that even you in our stake,

00:56:10.697 --> 00:56:12.900

and there's no woman that would say, well,

00:56:13.020 --> 00:56:13.841

I know more than her.

00:56:13.981 --> 00:56:14.582

There's none.

00:56:15.904 --> 00:56:16.925

She would say, oh,

00:56:17.045 --> 00:56:18.247

I know more than everyone in this.

00:56:18.587 --> 00:56:21.050

She did not know where they are.

00:56:22.071 --> 00:56:23.592

and i explained to her i

00:56:23.632 --> 00:56:24.933

will walk you through where

00:56:24.973 --> 00:56:26.194

to get to where how you get

00:56:26.214 --> 00:56:28.455

to them but let me point

00:56:28.615 --> 00:56:29.976

out and i'm telling her in

00:56:30.076 --> 00:56:32.198

our messages let me point

00:56:32.338 --> 00:56:34.619

out that the the fact that

00:56:34.819 --> 00:56:35.980

i have to walk you through

00:56:36.020 --> 00:56:39.102

this is an illustration of

00:56:39.302 --> 00:56:41.403

the problem yeah now

00:56:41.724 --> 00:56:42.884

they're not hard to find

00:56:43.525 --> 00:56:45.206

and matter of fact now you

00:56:45.226 --> 00:56:46.487

can just google gospel

00:56:46.507 --> 00:56:48.228

topic essays and it'll come up but

00:56:50.482 --> 00:56:52.484

People don't understand this part, Megan.

00:56:53.405 --> 00:56:57.748

And it's so hard to explain.

00:56:57.888 --> 00:56:59.089

I just now said that people

00:56:59.109 --> 00:57:00.490

can find it if you Google

00:57:00.630 --> 00:57:01.651

gospel topic essays.

00:57:02.312 --> 00:57:03.773

We didn't do that.

00:57:04.914 --> 00:57:09.057

We were fucking told not to do that.

00:57:09.277 --> 00:57:09.597

Yes.

00:57:09.858 --> 00:57:12.079

Not to Google things that we

00:57:12.119 --> 00:57:13.140

should not Google.

00:57:14.021 --> 00:57:14.141

Right.

00:57:14.341 --> 00:57:16.343

And I never did that.

00:57:17.980 --> 00:57:20.063

didn't do it i was trained

00:57:20.403 --> 00:57:24.207

not to look at unapproved

00:57:24.628 --> 00:57:26.971

sources and so i never did

00:57:27.011 --> 00:57:29.714

it right we were told if

00:57:29.754 --> 00:57:30.735

you want to know something

00:57:30.755 --> 00:57:32.717

about the church you go to lds.org

00:57:33.558 --> 00:57:34.779

You search their database.

00:57:34.819 --> 00:57:36.760

You search their archives.

00:57:38.040 --> 00:57:39.401

I never even would have gone

00:57:39.641 --> 00:57:43.143

to BYU's website to look at things.

00:57:44.323 --> 00:57:46.264

I went to general conference talks.

00:57:46.364 --> 00:57:47.425

I went to the scriptures.

00:57:47.985 --> 00:57:50.126

I went to LDS.org only to

00:57:50.166 --> 00:57:52.087

find which manual did I read that in,

00:57:52.367 --> 00:57:53.188

you know, kind of thing.

00:57:53.908 --> 00:57:55.308

And I would, you know,

00:57:55.328 --> 00:57:56.429

when I was teaching gospel

00:57:56.449 --> 00:57:58.049

doctrine or Relief Society,

00:57:58.289 --> 00:57:59.510

I would go to the footnotes

00:57:59.590 --> 00:58:00.250

and I would read.

00:58:00.350 --> 00:58:01.390

I'd read the whole lesson

00:58:01.470 --> 00:58:02.370

and then I'd read all the

00:58:02.410 --> 00:58:03.631

reference material that was

00:58:03.671 --> 00:58:04.191

in the lesson.

00:58:04.211 --> 00:58:06.551

And if it if it told me to

00:58:06.631 --> 00:58:08.992

read only verses seventeen

00:58:09.012 --> 00:58:09.912

through twenty one of

00:58:09.972 --> 00:58:10.972

section one thirty two,

00:58:11.173 --> 00:58:12.933

I would read the entire one thirty two.

00:58:12.973 --> 00:58:13.993

But I read it with that

00:58:14.053 --> 00:58:16.354

faithful perspective of like.

00:58:16.894 --> 00:58:18.196

Joseph Smith was a prophet.

00:58:18.556 --> 00:58:19.637

The church is true.

00:58:20.158 --> 00:58:21.479

If I come across something

00:58:21.499 --> 00:58:23.001

that doesn't align with that,

00:58:23.261 --> 00:58:24.563

I'm going to set it aside

00:58:25.043 --> 00:58:26.405

because I just don't know yet.

00:58:27.066 --> 00:58:29.168

And so I was very much like you as well,

00:58:29.328 --> 00:58:30.890

even as a gospel doctrine teacher.

00:58:32.031 --> 00:58:33.051

I would stand up on those

00:58:33.091 --> 00:58:34.012

Sundays where we were going

00:58:34.032 --> 00:58:35.512

to talk about something

00:58:35.552 --> 00:58:36.893

controversial that could go

00:58:36.953 --> 00:58:39.214

into left field, like the end of times,

00:58:40.234 --> 00:58:41.955

anything having to do with

00:58:42.055 --> 00:58:43.355

near-death experiences,

00:58:44.315 --> 00:58:45.716

anything having to do

00:58:45.756 --> 00:58:47.516

with... I had a guy in my

00:58:47.556 --> 00:58:48.757

gospel doctor in class one

00:58:48.797 --> 00:58:50.237

time raise his hand and say

00:58:50.357 --> 00:58:52.558

that he could credibly tell

00:58:52.658 --> 00:58:54.719

us the actual location of Kolob.

00:58:54.959 --> 00:58:56.861

And I was like, shut up, sit down.

00:58:57.201 --> 00:58:59.083

I never said I never said those words.

00:58:59.143 --> 00:59:00.824

But but I was like, brother,

00:59:00.844 --> 00:59:01.305

we're not going to

00:59:01.385 --> 00:59:02.786

entertain that during this

00:59:02.866 --> 00:59:03.727

particular lesson.

00:59:03.747 --> 00:59:06.009

But let's you and I talk.

00:59:06.069 --> 00:59:07.230

Tell him to reach out to me.

00:59:07.290 --> 00:59:08.831

I want to have him on my podcast.

00:59:08.851 --> 00:59:09.011

Well,

00:59:10.072 --> 00:59:12.114

I'm pretty sure he's like one hundred

00:59:12.154 --> 00:59:12.775

percent in.

00:59:12.935 --> 00:59:13.696

So I don't know.

00:59:13.756 --> 00:59:14.096

It's possible.

00:59:15.537 --> 00:59:17.138

but i like you i was the

00:59:17.178 --> 00:59:19.640

same exact way i refused to

00:59:19.680 --> 00:59:21.621

look at anything that i was

00:59:21.761 --> 00:59:23.462

not supposed to look at

00:59:23.582 --> 00:59:25.343

because i was told not to

00:59:25.843 --> 00:59:28.125

and also because there's so

00:59:28.585 --> 00:59:30.646

much if you're only looking

00:59:30.686 --> 00:59:32.287

at faithful sources and and

00:59:32.347 --> 00:59:33.628

deseret book and the

00:59:33.668 --> 00:59:34.949

teachings of previous

00:59:35.009 --> 00:59:36.610

prophets those were the

00:59:36.650 --> 00:59:38.090

things i was i was spending

00:59:38.150 --> 00:59:39.471

my time on and i spent a

00:59:39.631 --> 00:59:41.853

lot of time on it i took my calling

00:59:42.673 --> 00:59:44.034

as a gospel doctrine teacher

00:59:44.074 --> 00:59:45.334

very seriously because I

00:59:45.354 --> 00:59:47.015

didn't ever want to be in a

00:59:47.055 --> 00:59:48.175

class where someone raised

00:59:48.195 --> 00:59:48.836

their hand and had a

00:59:48.876 --> 00:59:50.396

question I couldn't answer for them.

00:59:51.117 --> 00:59:52.597

I wanted to be able to be

00:59:52.637 --> 00:59:54.438

there with the answers so

00:59:54.478 --> 00:59:55.358

that they wouldn't go

00:59:55.398 --> 00:59:57.299

looking in other places, you know?

00:59:58.019 --> 01:00:01.141

And so I, like you,

01:00:01.381 --> 01:00:04.782

was devastated when I read

01:00:04.822 --> 01:00:06.503

these gospel topic essays.

01:00:06.923 --> 01:00:08.664

I was devastated when I saw

01:00:08.744 --> 01:00:10.545

President Nelson

01:00:11.603 --> 01:00:13.264

demonstrate the rock and the hat.

01:00:13.724 --> 01:00:15.745

I had never heard that as

01:00:15.785 --> 01:00:17.385

being real or true before.

01:00:18.105 --> 01:00:20.506

I was devastated when even

01:00:20.606 --> 01:00:22.087

in the gospel topic essays,

01:00:22.587 --> 01:00:23.887

if you want to really know

01:00:23.907 --> 01:00:25.268

what happened with polygamy,

01:00:25.308 --> 01:00:26.248

you have to click through

01:00:26.328 --> 01:00:27.589

all the footnotes before

01:00:27.609 --> 01:00:28.589

you finally get to the

01:00:28.629 --> 01:00:29.689

fourteen year old girl.

01:00:29.710 --> 01:00:29.810

Right.

01:00:30.790 --> 01:00:32.811

So they're still hiding.

01:00:32.951 --> 01:00:34.151

They're still denying.

01:00:34.191 --> 01:00:35.812

They're still not being transparent.

01:00:36.212 --> 01:00:36.912

They still haven't

01:00:36.932 --> 01:00:38.213

apologized and they never will.

01:00:38.233 --> 01:00:39.213

Right.

01:00:40.477 --> 01:00:43.759

So let me back up just a little bit.

01:00:44.420 --> 01:00:45.080

A second ago,

01:00:45.180 --> 01:00:46.261

I showed you that picture of

01:00:46.301 --> 01:00:47.162

me in the hospital.

01:00:48.162 --> 01:00:49.183

I realized that I never

01:00:49.263 --> 01:00:50.644

really got to what was going on.

01:00:51.224 --> 01:00:54.727

So what was going on is I

01:00:54.807 --> 01:00:57.449

was playing in my mind all

01:00:57.509 --> 01:00:59.110

of these spiritual

01:00:59.370 --> 01:01:00.591

experiences that I had.

01:01:01.376 --> 01:01:02.376

well, what about this?

01:01:02.436 --> 01:01:02.716

You know,

01:01:02.776 --> 01:01:04.116

what about this time when you

01:01:04.156 --> 01:01:05.617

were as Bishop and you felt this,

01:01:06.117 --> 01:01:07.897

what about this time when, you know,

01:01:07.977 --> 01:01:09.497

on a youth conference, you felt this,

01:01:09.517 --> 01:01:11.338

what about this time on your mission?

01:01:11.738 --> 01:01:12.778

But then I would go to the

01:01:12.818 --> 01:01:14.018

other side and I'm like, yeah,

01:01:14.058 --> 01:01:15.898

but that's just elevated emotion.

01:01:16.419 --> 01:01:17.579

And that's just this.

01:01:17.639 --> 01:01:18.939

And you know, um,

01:01:19.339 --> 01:01:20.359

there's no way that that

01:01:20.379 --> 01:01:21.499

could have been true.

01:01:22.000 --> 01:01:23.140

And it's just the way that I

01:01:23.160 --> 01:01:24.140

was in doctrine, you know,

01:01:24.460 --> 01:01:27.941

I was having this mental breakdown.

01:01:28.661 --> 01:01:30.381

Now, Megan, I,

01:01:31.635 --> 01:01:34.398

me just let me be very blunt

01:01:36.120 --> 01:01:38.542

i i'm a construction worker

01:01:39.143 --> 01:01:41.445

i am a whitewater kayaker

01:01:41.645 --> 01:01:42.926

you know class four class

01:01:42.967 --> 01:01:45.089

five rapids i could show

01:01:45.109 --> 01:01:46.250

you some pictures here but

01:01:46.470 --> 01:01:49.033

i'm a outdoors guy matter

01:01:49.053 --> 01:01:51.155

of fact i don't even have a doctor

01:01:52.633 --> 01:01:55.335

And so I've never been to the doctor.

01:01:55.495 --> 01:01:57.176

I don't, you know, I've never been,

01:01:57.296 --> 01:02:00.078

I've never had stress or anxiety.

01:02:00.558 --> 01:02:01.159

Matter of fact,

01:02:01.199 --> 01:02:03.660

when I was in the church a couple years,

01:02:04.141 --> 01:02:04.861

a few years ago,

01:02:05.602 --> 01:02:06.783

I would have probably said

01:02:06.823 --> 01:02:07.943

that those things are just

01:02:08.003 --> 01:02:09.685

made up and they don't exist.

01:02:09.745 --> 01:02:11.226

Like I was a very like,

01:02:11.806 --> 01:02:12.867

pull your fricking

01:02:13.987 --> 01:02:15.889

bootstraps up and just get

01:02:15.929 --> 01:02:17.090

to work and get it done.

01:02:17.270 --> 01:02:18.591

That's the kind of guy I was.

01:02:19.431 --> 01:02:25.596

And so I had an absolute mental breakdown.

01:02:26.336 --> 01:02:27.397

I wasn't eating.

01:02:27.678 --> 01:02:28.798

I wasn't sleeping.

01:02:29.679 --> 01:02:31.941

I was constantly going through, well,

01:02:32.181 --> 01:02:32.902

what about this?

01:02:32.922 --> 01:02:35.123

Well, what about this in my mind?

01:02:35.424 --> 01:02:38.046

And I could talk about this

01:02:38.066 --> 01:02:38.966

for a long time,

01:02:39.066 --> 01:02:40.507

and I've done some podcasts about it,

01:02:40.628 --> 01:02:42.329

but I was losing my mind,

01:02:42.529 --> 01:02:43.670

to put it simply.

01:02:43.890 --> 01:02:45.911

just as clear as i can i was

01:02:46.051 --> 01:02:47.852

losing my mind and i was

01:02:47.932 --> 01:02:50.813

having what now i recognize

01:02:51.093 --> 01:02:52.573

as either a mental

01:02:52.613 --> 01:02:57.515

breakdown or a um what's

01:02:57.595 --> 01:03:00.156

the word a um something

01:03:00.216 --> 01:03:02.577

stress panic attack panic

01:03:02.617 --> 01:03:04.838

attack yes thank you you

01:03:04.858 --> 01:03:06.059

know something like that i

01:03:06.099 --> 01:03:08.199

was i was feeling i felt

01:03:08.219 --> 01:03:09.340

like i was about to die

01:03:10.344 --> 01:03:11.365

And matter of fact,

01:03:12.125 --> 01:03:14.367

I went out one night during

01:03:14.427 --> 01:03:15.228

this and just started

01:03:15.268 --> 01:03:17.449

cleaning out my truck because I was like,

01:03:17.590 --> 01:03:18.450

I don't want to leave my

01:03:18.570 --> 01:03:20.592

wife a dirty truck to have to deal with.

01:03:21.152 --> 01:03:22.934

I mean, I was losing it.

01:03:23.994 --> 01:03:25.916

I was absolutely losing it.

01:03:26.016 --> 01:03:27.777

And finally, I was like, listen, honey,

01:03:27.917 --> 01:03:28.538

you're going to have to

01:03:28.578 --> 01:03:30.539

take me to the hospital.

01:03:30.699 --> 01:03:32.120

And I actually went twice.

01:03:32.581 --> 01:03:34.022

The second time I didn't go in,

01:03:34.142 --> 01:03:35.283

I paced out front.

01:03:36.023 --> 01:03:37.424

But the first time I went in...

01:03:38.901 --> 01:03:40.442

The doctor did a bunch of tests.

01:03:41.043 --> 01:03:43.524

He assumed that I had

01:03:43.684 --> 01:03:44.945

overdosed on something.

01:03:45.666 --> 01:03:46.586

Well, here's the thing.

01:03:46.987 --> 01:03:49.708

I had never even tried anything,

01:03:50.109 --> 01:03:51.550

even alcohol or anything.

01:03:51.650 --> 01:03:53.231

So he does all these tests

01:03:53.271 --> 01:03:54.371

and he comes back and he says,

01:03:55.112 --> 01:03:57.754

Mr. Hinckley, you're clean.

01:03:57.774 --> 01:03:59.775

And I said, I know I'm clean.

01:03:59.855 --> 01:04:00.876

What do you mean I'm clean?

01:04:01.376 --> 01:04:02.237

I know I'm clean.

01:04:03.350 --> 01:04:05.532

I said, I'm just, I'm freaking out.

01:04:05.932 --> 01:04:08.033

And I didn't, you know, he's not a member.

01:04:08.293 --> 01:04:09.474

He would not have understood.

01:04:09.914 --> 01:04:11.075

He gave me some drug.

01:04:11.235 --> 01:04:12.556

I have no idea what it was.

01:04:12.616 --> 01:04:13.577

It was a pill.

01:04:13.837 --> 01:04:15.198

He told my wife, give him this.

01:04:15.278 --> 01:04:15.898

He'll be fine.

01:04:16.339 --> 01:04:16.979

So she did.

01:04:17.579 --> 01:04:18.100

We go home.

01:04:18.240 --> 01:04:19.821

I go to sleep and it's fine.

01:04:21.222 --> 01:04:23.583

Um, it, that did happen another time.

01:04:23.623 --> 01:04:25.925

I didn't go in because, um, well,

01:04:26.045 --> 01:04:27.106

I don't know why I didn't go in,

01:04:27.166 --> 01:04:28.287

but luckily, uh,

01:04:29.317 --> 01:04:30.137

I probably couldn't afford

01:04:30.157 --> 01:04:31.478

to go in because I got the

01:04:31.518 --> 01:04:33.459

bill from the first trip.

01:04:33.919 --> 01:04:36.700

But finally, I accepted.

01:04:37.200 --> 01:04:42.122

I accepted the fact that the

01:04:42.182 --> 01:04:43.703

church wasn't what I thought it was.

01:04:44.323 --> 01:04:48.125

So I was at work one day.

01:04:48.185 --> 01:04:49.065

My wife was with me.

01:04:49.305 --> 01:04:52.306

And I said, Kaylee, my daughter, I said,

01:04:52.326 --> 01:04:53.086

I want you to come by.

01:04:53.347 --> 01:04:54.227

I have something to tell you.

01:04:55.468 --> 01:04:56.209

So she comes by,

01:04:56.229 --> 01:04:58.290

she's with her fiance who

01:04:58.350 --> 01:05:00.312

was a member of only about a year.

01:05:01.292 --> 01:05:02.634

I sat through all the discussions.

01:05:02.694 --> 01:05:04.515

Matter of fact, I taught the discussions.

01:05:04.815 --> 01:05:05.676

The missionaries would come

01:05:05.736 --> 01:05:06.256

over and they'd say,

01:05:06.436 --> 01:05:08.038

let's just let Bishop Hinkley teach this.

01:05:08.098 --> 01:05:08.698

He knows all this.

01:05:09.098 --> 01:05:10.860

And I would rattle it all off.

01:05:12.515 --> 01:05:13.796

And I'll say again,

01:05:13.916 --> 01:05:17.178

my daughter is brilliant.

01:05:17.438 --> 01:05:19.220

She is a brilliant mind.

01:05:19.240 --> 01:05:21.782

She's never made even a B in her life.

01:05:22.082 --> 01:05:23.683

She's an English major.

01:05:25.124 --> 01:05:26.906

And I'm gonna be even more

01:05:26.946 --> 01:05:29.167

frank with you right now.

01:05:30.549 --> 01:05:34.472

I, even politically at the time,

01:05:35.332 --> 01:05:38.655

was very much in one direction

01:05:39.925 --> 01:05:42.113

which now I'm not,

01:05:42.595 --> 01:05:46.248

but I was very much on the right.

01:05:47.545 --> 01:05:51.527

My daughter who was growing

01:05:51.607 --> 01:05:52.867

up in a time where

01:05:53.148 --> 01:05:55.689

especially social media and things,

01:05:56.309 --> 01:05:57.870

she was much more in the

01:05:57.930 --> 01:06:00.731

center or on the left on some things.

01:06:01.031 --> 01:06:02.532

And I was starting to see

01:06:03.272 --> 01:06:05.333

that she was gaining a

01:06:05.493 --> 01:06:07.854

voice of her own and she

01:06:07.874 --> 01:06:09.114

was speaking out.

01:06:09.875 --> 01:06:12.276

And we had some times of

01:06:12.436 --> 01:06:14.597

contention in our house at this time.

01:06:16.057 --> 01:06:17.538

Let me just say, Megan,

01:06:17.778 --> 01:06:20.680

that if there's anything I

01:06:20.740 --> 01:06:23.581

know of a hundred percent surety,

01:06:24.142 --> 01:06:26.023

it's this.

01:06:26.123 --> 01:06:28.544

Had I not went through a

01:06:28.845 --> 01:06:32.427

deconstruction when I did,

01:06:32.847 --> 01:06:36.109

I know that my daughter would have.

01:06:36.489 --> 01:06:38.390

She was on the path of

01:06:38.790 --> 01:06:40.331

finding her voice and

01:06:40.451 --> 01:06:42.252

speaking out against the

01:06:42.313 --> 01:06:44.614

injustice that she observed.

01:06:45.970 --> 01:06:47.571

I know for a fact that the

01:06:47.611 --> 01:06:52.052

way that I was as a true believing member,

01:06:53.352 --> 01:06:55.173

that I would have treated

01:06:55.213 --> 01:06:58.294

her in a lot of ways like I did my sister,

01:06:58.654 --> 01:07:02.475

and that I was, I'm ashamed to say it,

01:07:02.695 --> 01:07:04.156

almost ready to just wash

01:07:04.196 --> 01:07:04.916

my hands of her.

01:07:06.517 --> 01:07:10.158

And so I, if God exists,

01:07:11.129 --> 01:07:13.290

I thank the Lord, I thank God,

01:07:13.730 --> 01:07:16.212

I thank whoever that I was

01:07:16.392 --> 01:07:18.553

able to deconstruct before

01:07:18.613 --> 01:07:22.295

her because I'm ashamed to

01:07:22.335 --> 01:07:23.875

say that I would have

01:07:24.636 --> 01:07:26.517

basically cut her out.

01:07:27.097 --> 01:07:29.518

That's the way I was so far

01:07:29.778 --> 01:07:32.580

in and so far indoctrinated.

01:07:34.945 --> 01:07:37.667

that I would have put church

01:07:37.707 --> 01:07:38.988

and those things before

01:07:39.088 --> 01:07:40.009

even my own family.

01:07:40.129 --> 01:07:41.230

I recognize that now.

01:07:41.450 --> 01:07:43.932

But anyways, so I called her over.

01:07:44.072 --> 01:07:44.893

I said, Kaylee,

01:07:45.333 --> 01:07:46.454

I want to talk to you about something.

01:07:47.775 --> 01:07:48.936

And so we call her over.

01:07:48.996 --> 01:07:49.617

She comes over.

01:07:49.657 --> 01:07:50.798

I said, let's go sit in the truck.

01:07:51.098 --> 01:07:52.119

So we go out to my truck.

01:07:52.259 --> 01:07:53.160

I'm in the driver's seat.

01:07:53.180 --> 01:07:54.821

My wife's the passenger seat.

01:07:55.161 --> 01:07:56.442

My daughter and her fiance

01:07:56.462 --> 01:07:56.983

are in the back.

01:07:58.276 --> 01:07:59.177

I start bawling.

01:07:59.737 --> 01:08:00.538

I'm crying.

01:08:01.699 --> 01:08:04.281

I couldn't speak for more

01:08:04.321 --> 01:08:05.181

than ten minutes.

01:08:06.803 --> 01:08:08.504

And she's like, what is it, dad?

01:08:09.425 --> 01:08:10.325

What's going on?

01:08:11.086 --> 01:08:12.207

And finally, she's like,

01:08:12.667 --> 01:08:14.509

are you and mom getting a divorce?

01:08:15.730 --> 01:08:19.392

And I'm like, no, no,

01:08:19.572 --> 01:08:20.994

me and your mom are not

01:08:21.034 --> 01:08:21.914

getting a divorce.

01:08:22.535 --> 01:08:26.998

And finally, I say, Kaylee,

01:08:27.078 --> 01:08:27.899

it's about church.

01:08:29.211 --> 01:08:31.271

She's like, well, what?

01:08:32.712 --> 01:08:34.532

I said, there's some problems.

01:08:35.492 --> 01:08:36.192

And I said,

01:08:36.653 --> 01:08:39.913

the church is not what we thought it was.

01:08:40.933 --> 01:08:42.014

And she starts crying.

01:08:42.974 --> 01:08:44.474

And her first thing that she

01:08:44.534 --> 01:08:47.215

says when she composes

01:08:47.255 --> 01:08:48.455

herself is she says,

01:08:49.055 --> 01:08:50.215

I just know that in the

01:08:50.255 --> 01:08:51.676

last days that even the

01:08:51.736 --> 01:08:56.096

elect are going to be deceived.

01:08:56.216 --> 01:08:57.977

And I'm afraid that's what's

01:08:57.997 --> 01:08:58.857

happening right now.

01:09:01.242 --> 01:09:04.224

And so I said, let me explain myself.

01:09:04.764 --> 01:09:06.666

And so I walked through some

01:09:06.706 --> 01:09:07.947

things and I've tried to

01:09:07.987 --> 01:09:09.208

address many of these

01:09:09.248 --> 01:09:10.689

things on my own podcast.

01:09:12.510 --> 01:09:14.252

And after, I don't know,

01:09:14.272 --> 01:09:18.015

fifteen or twenty minutes, she said, oh,

01:09:18.095 --> 01:09:19.956

so he just made it all up.

01:09:21.837 --> 01:09:25.520

And in a relatively short amount of time,

01:09:25.620 --> 01:09:28.463

and I don't want to minimize her pain.

01:09:29.487 --> 01:09:31.048

and her deconstruction,

01:09:31.128 --> 01:09:33.009

because I think that I have

01:09:33.049 --> 01:09:34.190

done that in the past.

01:09:34.771 --> 01:09:35.351

Matter of fact,

01:09:35.391 --> 01:09:37.172

at one time she called me on it.

01:09:37.192 --> 01:09:38.994

She's like, dad, she's like,

01:09:39.314 --> 01:09:40.234

you made it sound like I

01:09:40.254 --> 01:09:42.416

was ready to just jump ship immediately.

01:09:42.456 --> 01:09:43.817

She's like, no,

01:09:43.857 --> 01:09:46.519

she went through her own grieving process,

01:09:46.679 --> 01:09:47.739

but I'll be honest.

01:09:48.500 --> 01:09:53.083

I was so far in my own that

01:09:53.303 --> 01:09:55.605

I was not able to really

01:09:56.185 --> 01:09:57.626

acknowledge her and her pain.

01:09:59.129 --> 01:10:00.270

And I acknowledge that now.

01:10:00.430 --> 01:10:01.971

And they'll come a day.

01:10:02.871 --> 01:10:04.332

She's got some poems and

01:10:04.372 --> 01:10:09.075

stuff that absolutely tear me apart.

01:10:09.576 --> 01:10:11.157

And if anyone wants to hear,

01:10:11.297 --> 01:10:13.438

I read one of them on one of my videos.

01:10:13.498 --> 01:10:14.739

It's called Inheritance.

01:10:15.219 --> 01:10:15.880

I was talking about

01:10:16.160 --> 01:10:17.201

something totally separate,

01:10:17.261 --> 01:10:18.622

but it's called Inheritance.

01:10:19.282 --> 01:10:21.443

And I was talking about how

01:10:21.483 --> 01:10:23.665

the church gets involved in

01:10:23.705 --> 01:10:24.345

this whole thing.

01:10:24.705 --> 01:10:25.906

It's kind of an interesting thing.

01:10:25.926 --> 01:10:27.827

But at the end, I read one of her poems.

01:10:28.868 --> 01:10:33.555

And the poem was basically about how,

01:10:35.918 --> 01:10:36.679

so there's,

01:10:36.699 --> 01:10:39.162

you remember the church videos

01:10:39.202 --> 01:10:40.544

that the church used to put out,

01:10:40.584 --> 01:10:41.866

like the Mormon messages?

01:10:42.947 --> 01:10:44.329

There was one about,

01:10:46.947 --> 01:10:48.728

the gardener and how he cuts

01:10:48.768 --> 01:10:51.809

down his plant to be in his own,

01:10:52.429 --> 01:10:54.350

what he wants it to be.

01:10:54.430 --> 01:10:54.570

Well,

01:10:54.610 --> 01:10:58.531

she wrote a poem about how it should

01:10:58.571 --> 01:10:58.991

have been.

01:10:59.451 --> 01:11:01.412

And it should have been that the gardener

01:11:02.312 --> 01:11:04.374

loves this plant because it

01:11:04.454 --> 01:11:07.496

is blossoming and becoming

01:11:07.556 --> 01:11:10.259

what who it is instead of

01:11:10.319 --> 01:11:12.160

what the gardener wants it

01:11:12.200 --> 01:11:14.702

to be and it's a beautiful

01:11:14.722 --> 01:11:16.664

poem and I read it and it's

01:11:16.704 --> 01:11:18.345

something my wife and and

01:11:18.405 --> 01:11:20.407

it's it's so beautiful and

01:11:20.647 --> 01:11:23.990

it's basically she's pointing out how how

01:11:25.071 --> 01:11:26.492

we we don't need to become

01:11:26.552 --> 01:11:27.513

what someone else wants it

01:11:27.553 --> 01:11:29.294

to be we need to become our

01:11:29.454 --> 01:11:32.116

authentic selves and people

01:11:32.156 --> 01:11:33.537

need to find joy and

01:11:33.577 --> 01:11:35.678

happiness and the beauty in

01:11:35.698 --> 01:11:37.540

that and as i was reading

01:11:37.580 --> 01:11:39.301

that i'm just i'm just in

01:11:39.441 --> 01:11:41.643

tears about it she's very

01:11:41.683 --> 01:11:43.003

talented um she's an

01:11:43.084 --> 01:11:44.665

english major and yeah just

01:11:44.725 --> 01:11:46.426

very good with words so anyways

01:11:47.849 --> 01:11:49.471

I would love for you to

01:11:49.511 --> 01:11:50.752

share that poem with me at

01:11:50.812 --> 01:11:52.473

some point because it

01:11:52.573 --> 01:11:54.755

resonates so deeply with

01:11:54.795 --> 01:11:57.938

what I feel about not only the church,

01:11:57.978 --> 01:12:00.401

but about parenting in general as well.

01:12:00.941 --> 01:12:03.003

I think there are so many of us parents,

01:12:03.043 --> 01:12:05.145

especially when we first start out,

01:12:05.185 --> 01:12:06.927

that we think it's our job

01:12:07.327 --> 01:12:10.150

to mold this child, right?

01:12:10.190 --> 01:12:10.350

Yes.

01:12:11.330 --> 01:12:12.892

You know, in my young parenting life,

01:12:12.972 --> 01:12:14.313

I very much felt that way.

01:12:15.454 --> 01:12:16.676

It wasn't until I had a

01:12:16.736 --> 01:12:18.978

child that was difficult

01:12:18.998 --> 01:12:21.821

for me that I was like, oh,

01:12:23.282 --> 01:12:24.722

they are their own person

01:12:25.123 --> 01:12:26.903

right they came with this

01:12:26.963 --> 01:12:28.523

personality that is

01:12:28.603 --> 01:12:30.264

different than anything

01:12:30.324 --> 01:12:32.724

i've experienced before and

01:12:32.784 --> 01:12:34.125

they have every right to

01:12:34.185 --> 01:12:35.685

have the life that they

01:12:35.725 --> 01:12:38.046

want yeah and to and to

01:12:38.106 --> 01:12:39.306

make their life whatever it

01:12:39.346 --> 01:12:40.346

is that they want and i

01:12:40.406 --> 01:12:42.487

remember i remember that the

01:12:43.245 --> 01:12:44.366

I don't remember the video

01:12:44.386 --> 01:12:45.167

that you're talking about,

01:12:45.187 --> 01:12:46.188

but I remember the talk

01:12:46.208 --> 01:12:47.008

that it was based on.

01:12:47.048 --> 01:12:48.029

It was Hubie Brown.

01:12:48.289 --> 01:12:49.070

The current bush.

01:12:49.090 --> 01:12:51.012

The current bush, exactly.

01:12:51.092 --> 01:12:51.412

Yes.

01:12:51.552 --> 01:12:51.732

Yes.

01:12:51.992 --> 01:12:54.014

And so the bush gets cut

01:12:54.054 --> 01:12:55.736

down and is devastated

01:12:55.756 --> 01:12:56.596

because it was just

01:12:56.616 --> 01:12:58.298

starting to grow and blossom and bloom.

01:12:58.738 --> 01:13:00.520

And a gardener comes and says, you know,

01:13:00.580 --> 01:13:01.681

don't you think I know better?

01:13:03.201 --> 01:13:04.682

what you could become or

01:13:04.722 --> 01:13:05.782

what you should be or where

01:13:05.822 --> 01:13:07.482

your place is in the garden.

01:13:08.162 --> 01:13:10.163

And I think that's what got me too,

01:13:10.183 --> 01:13:11.523

because it was like, okay,

01:13:11.783 --> 01:13:13.544

I could stay in this little

01:13:13.564 --> 01:13:16.284

box of Mormonism and try to

01:13:16.304 --> 01:13:18.365

be acceptable to my parents,

01:13:18.405 --> 01:13:20.045

to the church, to my church leaders,

01:13:20.085 --> 01:13:21.805

whatever, to God, really.

01:13:22.726 --> 01:13:24.506

Or I could be

01:13:25.338 --> 01:13:26.119

who I am,

01:13:26.559 --> 01:13:28.840

I could embrace all the parts of

01:13:28.900 --> 01:13:29.761

myself that are not

01:13:29.821 --> 01:13:31.021

acceptable in Mormonism.

01:13:31.502 --> 01:13:32.082

And I could be,

01:13:32.362 --> 01:13:33.083

I could be my true

01:13:33.143 --> 01:13:34.323

authentic self and which,

01:13:34.544 --> 01:13:36.185

which am I going to choose, you know?

01:13:36.965 --> 01:13:39.226

And that was sort of the time when,

01:13:39.767 --> 01:13:40.027

I don't know,

01:13:40.067 --> 01:13:40.887

you mentioned something

01:13:40.947 --> 01:13:42.068

earlier before that made me

01:13:42.108 --> 01:13:43.029

think about this, that,

01:13:43.489 --> 01:13:45.650

that there can't possibly

01:13:45.790 --> 01:13:47.451

just be one path to God

01:13:47.992 --> 01:13:49.833

because we as individual

01:13:49.893 --> 01:13:51.774

human beings are so different from,

01:13:52.929 --> 01:13:53.169

You know,

01:13:53.189 --> 01:13:56.091

we all have just such a different

01:13:56.131 --> 01:13:58.332

perspective and different experiences.

01:13:59.013 --> 01:14:01.234

And why is it that God

01:14:01.294 --> 01:14:02.395

expects us to all be the

01:14:02.455 --> 01:14:04.736

same if he created us all differently?

01:14:05.276 --> 01:14:06.277

Why is it that there's only

01:14:06.417 --> 01:14:07.698

one path and only one way

01:14:07.738 --> 01:14:08.879

to be acceptable to God,

01:14:08.939 --> 01:14:10.400

only one way to be spiritual?

01:14:11.180 --> 01:14:12.441

that doesn't make room for

01:14:12.481 --> 01:14:14.121

the fact that we've all had

01:14:14.161 --> 01:14:15.922

these different experiences

01:14:15.962 --> 01:14:17.763

and perspectives and i

01:14:17.803 --> 01:14:19.824

would think that god who

01:14:19.864 --> 01:14:21.664

created this diversity

01:14:21.684 --> 01:14:23.905

would want to honor that by

01:14:23.965 --> 01:14:25.906

saying you know for you

01:14:26.266 --> 01:14:27.347

maybe your path looks a

01:14:27.387 --> 01:14:28.527

little differently than the

01:14:28.567 --> 01:14:29.928

other person there's all of

01:14:29.968 --> 01:14:31.389

this all these cognitive

01:14:31.429 --> 01:14:32.929

dissonant ideas swimming

01:14:32.969 --> 01:14:34.250

around in my brain the

01:14:34.330 --> 01:14:36.551

whole time that i was mormon

01:14:37.591 --> 01:14:38.811

And I was like you.

01:14:40.472 --> 01:14:41.132

I looked at all those

01:14:41.172 --> 01:14:42.792

spiritual experiences and I was like,

01:14:42.852 --> 01:14:43.813

how can I deny that?

01:14:43.833 --> 01:14:46.433

That was the Holy Ghost speaking to me.

01:14:46.533 --> 01:14:47.773

It took me a long time

01:14:48.374 --> 01:14:50.394

before I was able to talk about that.

01:14:50.734 --> 01:14:51.834

So sorry to interrupt you.

01:14:51.854 --> 01:14:52.795

No, no, no.

01:14:52.815 --> 01:14:53.875

You're perfectly fine.

01:14:54.155 --> 01:14:55.495

You gave me a second to

01:14:55.595 --> 01:14:57.516

actually find that poem.

01:14:57.636 --> 01:14:58.496

Oh, yay.

01:14:58.976 --> 01:15:02.058

Now, I also read this on the video,

01:15:02.479 --> 01:15:03.840

and it's on my channel called,

01:15:04.520 --> 01:15:05.981

it's called Inheritance, I think.

01:15:06.081 --> 01:15:07.542

And so you can check it out.

01:15:07.602 --> 01:15:08.483

But would you like for me to

01:15:08.503 --> 01:15:09.384

share this for a second?

01:15:09.784 --> 01:15:10.425

Yes, please.

01:15:10.505 --> 01:15:11.185

It's pretty short.

01:15:11.605 --> 01:15:13.307

It's called The Mighty Current Bush.

01:15:14.027 --> 01:15:15.468

And this is by my daughter,

01:15:15.528 --> 01:15:17.009

Kaylee Jean Daniels.

01:15:18.030 --> 01:15:19.231

And I'll try to get through this.

01:15:19.911 --> 01:15:21.733

And this is what she

01:15:21.793 --> 01:15:23.654

envisions how this story

01:15:23.694 --> 01:15:24.375

should have been.

01:15:25.642 --> 01:15:26.102

She says,

01:15:26.302 --> 01:15:27.783

I found myself in a garden

01:15:28.404 --> 01:15:35.608

blooming exactly where I was planted.

01:15:35.648 --> 01:15:38.429

As small as a mustard seed I began,

01:15:38.730 --> 01:15:40.971

and then something greater

01:15:41.151 --> 01:15:43.272

branching up and up toward the heavens.

01:15:44.093 --> 01:15:46.294

I bore no berries, no blossoms.

01:15:46.814 --> 01:15:48.435

My purpose was different,

01:15:49.016 --> 01:15:51.317

but just as great as those

01:15:51.377 --> 01:15:52.678

fruit-filled flowering

01:15:52.718 --> 01:15:54.719

trees soaking in all the sun around me.

01:15:55.827 --> 01:15:57.168

The day the gardener came,

01:15:57.688 --> 01:15:59.790

I stretched myself tall and wide,

01:16:00.671 --> 01:16:02.192

proud of what I had

01:16:02.332 --> 01:16:04.534

achieved and all that I had become.

01:16:05.474 --> 01:16:07.436

In the time he left me alone to grow,

01:16:08.296 --> 01:16:09.597

but his sad eyes looked

01:16:09.637 --> 01:16:11.439

upon me and he sighed and

01:16:11.479 --> 01:16:13.040

he set to cutting me down

01:16:13.440 --> 01:16:15.542

till I was nothing but a stump.

01:16:16.242 --> 01:16:18.444

I was too tall, he grumbled, too bold.

01:16:19.184 --> 01:16:20.986

My leaves cast shadows upon

01:16:21.046 --> 01:16:22.247

his other creations,

01:16:22.807 --> 01:16:24.629

those that better fit his mold.

01:16:25.807 --> 01:16:28.150

I did not conform to his grand design,

01:16:28.291 --> 01:16:29.432

so he cut me down.

01:16:30.193 --> 01:16:32.677

My aims were too loud for

01:16:32.697 --> 01:16:35.080

the quiet purpose he had planned,

01:16:35.561 --> 01:16:36.682

so he destroyed me.

01:16:37.758 --> 01:16:39.800

But that was years ago and

01:16:39.840 --> 01:16:41.902

his garden is in ruin now

01:16:42.583 --> 01:16:44.225

and I'm growing unchained

01:16:44.445 --> 01:16:46.507

free of those rigid rules

01:16:46.627 --> 01:16:47.809

and expectations.

01:16:48.810 --> 01:16:50.371

I'm making such wonderful

01:16:50.411 --> 01:16:52.954

progress amid the chaos and

01:16:53.054 --> 01:16:54.676

I patiently await the day

01:16:54.696 --> 01:16:56.177

that I'll see my gardener

01:16:56.338 --> 01:16:59.921

again and he'll accept me as I am.

01:17:00.858 --> 01:17:02.619

not as his sharp shears

01:17:02.779 --> 01:17:04.681

force me to be he'll look

01:17:04.721 --> 01:17:06.662

at me towering above him

01:17:07.022 --> 01:17:08.483

with a smile on his face

01:17:08.523 --> 01:17:14.748

and he'll say you my mighty

01:17:14.788 --> 01:17:17.629

current bush are perfect

01:17:18.090 --> 01:17:21.432

just as you are what a

01:17:21.472 --> 01:17:24.014

glorious day that will be

01:17:29.496 --> 01:17:31.057

that's gorgeous thank you

01:17:32.739 --> 01:17:33.620

thank you so much for

01:17:33.640 --> 01:17:37.183

sharing that so that's the

01:17:37.223 --> 01:17:43.369

type of daughter we raised

01:17:43.509 --> 01:17:46.752

and she is uh glorious she

01:17:46.792 --> 01:17:49.275

has her own thoughts her own opinions

01:17:50.851 --> 01:17:51.832

She stepped away from the

01:17:51.872 --> 01:17:54.494

church considerably early

01:17:54.714 --> 01:17:56.335

compared to my wife or

01:17:56.555 --> 01:17:58.016

myself who is still on the rolls.

01:17:59.397 --> 01:18:00.398

Why am I on the rolls?

01:18:00.598 --> 01:18:02.580

I'm on the rolls because I

01:18:02.660 --> 01:18:05.902

wanted to speak out as a member.

01:18:06.742 --> 01:18:08.544

I've given my life to this church.

01:18:08.664 --> 01:18:10.465

I've given my money, my time,

01:18:11.106 --> 01:18:11.986

all that I have.

01:18:12.787 --> 01:18:15.188

And I felt like I at least

01:18:15.228 --> 01:18:17.750

deserve to speak out as a member.

01:18:19.792 --> 01:18:20.012

Now,

01:18:21.257 --> 01:18:23.259

finish the story um i

01:18:23.299 --> 01:18:24.560

started speaking out on

01:18:24.600 --> 01:18:27.143

facebook and uh i started

01:18:27.223 --> 01:18:30.806

writing and um i i never

01:18:30.846 --> 01:18:33.268

considered myself a writer

01:18:34.530 --> 01:18:37.072

um my dad was a songwriter

01:18:37.552 --> 01:18:38.954

my brother was a songwriter

01:18:39.554 --> 01:18:42.137

um i was always just um i

01:18:42.157 --> 01:18:43.939

did other things but i was never a writer

01:18:44.991 --> 01:18:47.894

And I found a, I found a voice.

01:18:48.014 --> 01:18:49.436

I found, um, you know,

01:18:49.476 --> 01:18:50.717

you talked about little

01:18:50.737 --> 01:18:52.439

things in our life that we,

01:18:52.579 --> 01:18:53.820

that we do that make,

01:18:54.161 --> 01:18:55.682

that make a change or, you know,

01:18:55.722 --> 01:18:57.284

how did you, how did you, um,

01:18:57.324 --> 01:18:58.025

vocalize that?

01:18:58.552 --> 01:18:59.913

small changes that end up

01:18:59.953 --> 01:19:02.254

being revolutionary yes so

01:19:02.334 --> 01:19:04.835

for me early on in my

01:19:04.875 --> 01:19:06.696

deconstruction one small

01:19:06.736 --> 01:19:09.878

change was i and i began to

01:19:10.218 --> 01:19:13.279

love to write and to sit in

01:19:13.319 --> 01:19:14.580

my thoughts for a minute

01:19:14.640 --> 01:19:16.501

and and and give myself

01:19:16.581 --> 01:19:18.182

permission to just say

01:19:19.613 --> 01:19:21.954

forget what the brethren say

01:19:22.054 --> 01:19:23.354

about any topic.

01:19:23.994 --> 01:19:25.574

What do you think about it?

01:19:26.395 --> 01:19:29.595

I gave myself permission to

01:19:30.495 --> 01:19:31.856

look inside myself,

01:19:31.896 --> 01:19:34.016

to think introspectively and to say,

01:19:34.156 --> 01:19:35.857

what do I feel about this?

01:19:36.117 --> 01:19:38.157

Regardless of what has been said.

01:19:38.797 --> 01:19:41.138

And so I started taking each topic

01:19:41.939 --> 01:19:42.300

you know,

01:19:42.360 --> 01:19:46.745

from heaven to priesthood blessings,

01:19:46.805 --> 01:19:50.009

to alcohol, as I talked about earlier, to,

01:19:50.109 --> 01:19:50.330

you know,

01:19:50.550 --> 01:19:52.813

all aspects of either the church,

01:19:52.873 --> 01:19:54.755

the gospel, or just life in general.

01:19:55.396 --> 01:19:57.899

And I started to write about them and

01:19:58.640 --> 01:20:01.162

I started to see people

01:20:02.103 --> 01:20:04.905

commenting and reposting and sharing,

01:20:05.045 --> 01:20:07.067

oh my gosh, I loved what this guy said.

01:20:07.107 --> 01:20:10.390

And I was like, wow, this is different.

01:20:10.490 --> 01:20:12.892

I've never considered myself a writer.

01:20:14.765 --> 01:20:16.246

I have writers in my family,

01:20:16.286 --> 01:20:17.707

a daughter who's a writer.

01:20:18.868 --> 01:20:19.889

And so I, you know,

01:20:20.230 --> 01:20:22.011

even though my punctuation,

01:20:22.352 --> 01:20:25.915

it might not have been quite correct.

01:20:25.995 --> 01:20:27.156

And my daughter has called

01:20:27.196 --> 01:20:29.278

me many times on that.

01:20:30.222 --> 01:20:30.302

Um,

01:20:30.702 --> 01:20:33.864

I found that I could not worry about

01:20:33.904 --> 01:20:34.905

that as much, you know,

01:20:35.005 --> 01:20:36.266

like I'm going to put my

01:20:36.306 --> 01:20:37.567

feelings out there and it

01:20:37.627 --> 01:20:38.887

resonated with people.

01:20:39.208 --> 01:20:39.708

Yeah.

01:20:39.848 --> 01:20:42.550

And, um, and so that's how I started, um,

01:20:42.610 --> 01:20:44.591

my kind of my speaking out.

01:20:44.691 --> 01:20:47.933

Well, my stake president said, um,

01:20:47.973 --> 01:20:49.033

you know, brother Hinkley,

01:20:49.294 --> 01:20:51.635

I'd like to talk to you about, you know,

01:20:51.755 --> 01:20:52.836

about your Facebook posts.

01:20:53.577 --> 01:20:54.277

And I said, okay,

01:20:55.098 --> 01:20:55.999

I'll come in and talk to

01:20:56.039 --> 01:20:57.920

you under one condition.

01:20:58.160 --> 01:21:00.261

I want you to read the posts.

01:21:00.562 --> 01:21:02.463

I said, have you read them?

01:21:02.523 --> 01:21:04.444

He says, well, some of them.

01:21:04.524 --> 01:21:05.185

I said, okay, well,

01:21:05.205 --> 01:21:06.345

I'm going to send you all of them.

01:21:06.405 --> 01:21:08.507

I send him all of them in an email file.

01:21:08.547 --> 01:21:09.387

I said, I want you to read them.

01:21:09.668 --> 01:21:10.388

And if you read them,

01:21:10.488 --> 01:21:11.329

I'll come in and talk to you.

01:21:11.409 --> 01:21:13.310

And I did.

01:21:13.670 --> 01:21:16.392

And I'd made a post on the

01:21:16.452 --> 01:21:18.533

Mormon Stories community page.

01:21:18.834 --> 01:21:20.975

And I said, it was a picture of me.

01:21:21.255 --> 01:21:21.756

And I said...

01:21:23.083 --> 01:21:24.524

said i'm on my way to talk

01:21:24.564 --> 01:21:27.006

to uh talk to the stake

01:21:27.467 --> 01:21:29.268

president about my facebook

01:21:29.328 --> 01:21:31.811

posts um can i share this

01:21:31.831 --> 01:21:34.253

yeah absolutely so i said i

01:21:34.273 --> 01:21:36.815

was on my way to um this

01:21:36.875 --> 01:21:38.256

isn't my this isn't my

01:21:38.276 --> 01:21:39.717

facebook post but this is

01:21:39.877 --> 01:21:41.579

um immediately after i made

01:21:41.599 --> 01:21:42.960

that post john reached out

01:21:43.000 --> 01:21:43.801

and said hey brother

01:21:43.841 --> 01:21:45.923

hinkley or hey nathan would

01:21:45.943 --> 01:21:47.324

you like to come on mormon stories

01:21:48.563 --> 01:21:51.444

And I was like, oh my gosh.

01:21:52.184 --> 01:21:54.425

Sure, yeah, I'll come on Mormon Stories.

01:21:55.025 --> 01:21:55.565

Why not?

01:21:55.865 --> 01:21:58.786

And so that happened just a

01:21:58.826 --> 01:21:59.886

couple hours after.

01:22:00.146 --> 01:22:01.967

And I shared my experience.

01:22:02.007 --> 01:22:03.467

Well, what was my experience?

01:22:03.647 --> 01:22:05.048

I'll go ahead and take that off.

01:22:05.908 --> 01:22:07.089

What was my experience?

01:22:07.569 --> 01:22:12.710

My experience was I was treated amazingly.

01:22:13.430 --> 01:22:15.011

Like this stake president...

01:22:16.378 --> 01:22:17.178

It has changed now.

01:22:17.639 --> 01:22:18.339

His time was up.

01:22:19.459 --> 01:22:20.119

He was golden.

01:22:20.399 --> 01:22:21.340

I mean, I'll just say it.

01:22:22.080 --> 01:22:22.700

Golden.

01:22:22.980 --> 01:22:25.181

Just a gem of a guy.

01:22:25.641 --> 01:22:26.921

I'm talking about, you know,

01:22:26.961 --> 01:22:29.082

this guy has four adopted

01:22:29.122 --> 01:22:30.562

children with special needs.

01:22:30.842 --> 01:22:33.623

You know, he is a great guy.

01:22:33.743 --> 01:22:34.603

Yeah.

01:22:34.743 --> 01:22:35.503

And we talked.

01:22:35.744 --> 01:22:37.304

And at the end of our meeting,

01:22:38.124 --> 01:22:39.004

this is what he said.

01:22:40.065 --> 01:22:40.985

And I've talked about this a

01:22:41.045 --> 01:22:42.085

lot on my podcast.

01:22:42.805 --> 01:22:44.406

He said, Brother Hinckley,

01:22:46.103 --> 01:22:49.165

It's my opinion that you are

01:22:49.445 --> 01:22:51.286

a better person and you are

01:22:51.326 --> 01:22:53.047

in a better place now than

01:22:53.087 --> 01:22:54.447

you were as an active member.

01:22:54.748 --> 01:22:55.748

So I can't,

01:22:56.068 --> 01:22:57.609

I can't shame you or change you

01:22:58.369 --> 01:22:59.130

or ask you to change.

01:22:59.470 --> 01:23:01.111

He didn't say stop posting.

01:23:01.491 --> 01:23:02.992

He didn't say you,

01:23:03.152 --> 01:23:05.433

you misspoke here or you were wrong here.

01:23:05.993 --> 01:23:08.155

He just, and what he meant by that,

01:23:08.275 --> 01:23:10.336

in my opinion, Megan is.

01:23:12.656 --> 01:23:14.257

I was very black and white

01:23:14.657 --> 01:23:16.878

with very little nuance before.

01:23:17.298 --> 01:23:18.599

It was either right or wrong,

01:23:18.699 --> 01:23:22.081

the prophet said it, and so it is.

01:23:22.481 --> 01:23:23.401

That's how I was.

01:23:24.922 --> 01:23:26.383

And he isn't,

01:23:27.143 --> 01:23:29.505

and he recognized that where

01:23:29.645 --> 01:23:34.027

I am now is in a lot more nuanced place

01:23:34.931 --> 01:23:36.072

Now, when I say now,

01:23:36.432 --> 01:23:37.452

that was two years ago.

01:23:37.772 --> 01:23:39.313

And I would say now I'm in

01:23:39.353 --> 01:23:41.354

an even more nuanced place.

01:23:41.434 --> 01:23:42.735

But at the time,

01:23:43.355 --> 01:23:45.236

I was in a place where I

01:23:45.256 --> 01:23:47.277

was allowing people to be themselves,

01:23:47.437 --> 01:23:49.558

not being rigid in

01:23:51.499 --> 01:23:53.460

following what I thought we

01:23:53.500 --> 01:23:54.120

were supposed to do,

01:23:54.160 --> 01:23:55.701

which was follow the prophet, right?

01:23:56.721 --> 01:23:58.683

So he recognized that I was

01:23:58.723 --> 01:23:59.324

in a better place.

01:23:59.444 --> 01:24:02.027

And so I went back on the Mormon Stories,

01:24:02.187 --> 01:24:04.269

you know, community page and I was like,

01:24:04.329 --> 01:24:06.011

hey, my it was actually great.

01:24:06.111 --> 01:24:07.572

And so John wanted to talk about it.

01:24:07.673 --> 01:24:09.695

And that's what we did.

01:24:09.755 --> 01:24:11.957

That episode has been viewed

01:24:11.977 --> 01:24:13.979

one hundred and fifty thousand times,

01:24:14.019 --> 01:24:14.560

I think now.

01:24:15.927 --> 01:24:18.889

And however, my family,

01:24:19.130 --> 01:24:21.231

my parents have never said, hey,

01:24:21.351 --> 01:24:22.332

by the way, good job on that.

01:24:22.372 --> 01:24:22.872

You know, nothing.

01:24:23.193 --> 01:24:24.654

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:24:25.354 --> 01:24:26.575

My best friend,

01:24:27.216 --> 01:24:28.557

who was the guy that I just

01:24:28.597 --> 01:24:29.418

told you about,

01:24:29.618 --> 01:24:31.519

was a current bishop in Florida.

01:24:32.480 --> 01:24:33.761

He was the one that reached

01:24:33.821 --> 01:24:36.143

out to me and said, hey, good job.

01:24:36.883 --> 01:24:37.904

You should post that because

01:24:37.964 --> 01:24:38.885

I wasn't even going to post

01:24:38.925 --> 01:24:40.026

it on my own page.

01:24:40.466 --> 01:24:42.147

yeah because i was you know

01:24:42.167 --> 01:24:42.827

i didn't want to offend

01:24:42.867 --> 01:24:44.207

people he said you should

01:24:44.247 --> 01:24:46.708

post that he says you you

01:24:46.768 --> 01:24:49.529

sounded more more real more

01:24:49.589 --> 01:24:53.130

authentic more um less mean

01:24:53.170 --> 01:24:54.570

and less mad he says

01:24:54.630 --> 01:24:55.831

sometimes your writings

01:24:55.931 --> 01:24:56.991

might come across a little

01:24:57.031 --> 01:24:58.792

mean or mad he says you

01:24:58.832 --> 01:25:00.432

sounded you you came across

01:25:00.472 --> 01:25:01.452

better he said you should

01:25:01.512 --> 01:25:03.253

post it so i said okay i'll post it

01:25:04.132 --> 01:25:05.413

And so, you know,

01:25:05.493 --> 01:25:06.715

he was actually the one

01:25:06.735 --> 01:25:09.297

that encouraged me early on to post that.

01:25:10.078 --> 01:25:11.980

Of course, I got a lot of support.

01:25:13.441 --> 01:25:18.006

So my writings, my writings ended up,

01:25:18.506 --> 01:25:19.027

basically,

01:25:19.107 --> 01:25:21.669

I have a file of about a hundred,

01:25:22.090 --> 01:25:22.830

I don't know how many,

01:25:23.351 --> 01:25:24.532

fifty or a hundred different,

01:25:24.632 --> 01:25:27.975

just short little Facebook posts that now

01:25:29.016 --> 01:25:31.218

i am turning into podcast

01:25:31.258 --> 01:25:32.979

episodes essentially is

01:25:32.999 --> 01:25:34.140

what's going on so there's

01:25:34.180 --> 01:25:36.742

that there is interviews

01:25:36.762 --> 01:25:37.742

that i've been able to do

01:25:37.762 --> 01:25:40.364

um i don't know if um would

01:25:40.404 --> 01:25:42.105

it be okay if i just shared

01:25:42.146 --> 01:25:43.426

this quick little thing

01:25:43.446 --> 01:25:44.487

that i shared on on

01:25:44.547 --> 01:25:46.589

facebook of course this is

01:25:46.729 --> 01:25:48.630

a this is an example of the

01:25:48.670 --> 01:25:50.972

type of things that i would write um

01:25:52.833 --> 01:25:56.115

you can see that it's not really abrasive.

01:25:56.335 --> 01:25:58.737

It's not like attacking the church.

01:25:59.157 --> 01:26:00.318

I see some people that I

01:26:00.358 --> 01:26:02.580

follow who they come out

01:26:02.600 --> 01:26:03.860

with their guns blazing and

01:26:04.201 --> 01:26:05.121

more power to them.

01:26:05.181 --> 01:26:07.563

You know, they're showing the, you know,

01:26:07.643 --> 01:26:09.844

temple clothes and temple, you know,

01:26:10.205 --> 01:26:12.887

just things that I, you know,

01:26:12.987 --> 01:26:14.047

I support them in that.

01:26:14.167 --> 01:26:16.609

But I also recognize that

01:26:16.649 --> 01:26:20.812

it's going to be very met with, you know,

01:26:20.992 --> 01:26:21.252

some

01:26:23.264 --> 01:26:27.486

uh, met with, uh, people, the,

01:26:27.506 --> 01:26:28.706

the people who are faithful

01:26:28.766 --> 01:26:29.806

are going to either shut

01:26:29.826 --> 01:26:30.847

down or they're going to

01:26:30.867 --> 01:26:32.027

unfollow or whatever.

01:26:32.067 --> 01:26:33.008

And, and, you know,

01:26:33.068 --> 01:26:34.368

people have done that to me as well,

01:26:34.428 --> 01:26:35.809

but this is the type of

01:26:35.889 --> 01:26:36.909

thing that I would write.

01:26:37.789 --> 01:26:39.590

So this is what I called eight versus.

01:26:39.710 --> 01:26:42.071

And it says in my church,

01:26:42.231 --> 01:26:43.891

an eight year old who still

01:26:43.931 --> 01:26:44.792

believes in Santa

01:26:45.412 --> 01:26:46.253

wets the bed,

01:26:46.453 --> 01:26:48.274

and probably can't say his R's,

01:26:48.834 --> 01:26:50.435

can make an eternal

01:26:50.455 --> 01:26:51.616

covenant that will be

01:26:51.676 --> 01:26:53.157

binding and beneficial,

01:26:53.537 --> 01:26:55.779

not for a few years or a hundred years,

01:26:56.219 --> 01:26:58.741

but for all time and eternity.

01:26:59.401 --> 01:27:00.702

There is no objection to

01:27:00.742 --> 01:27:01.983

this eternal ordinance,

01:27:02.043 --> 01:27:03.824

but rather it is expected

01:27:04.245 --> 01:27:05.125

that this will happen

01:27:05.165 --> 01:27:06.346

during his eighth year.

01:27:06.986 --> 01:27:08.648

If it does not happen while eight,

01:27:08.688 --> 01:27:10.649

the family is punished by

01:27:10.669 --> 01:27:11.910

making the child go through

01:27:11.930 --> 01:27:13.271

the missionary lessons as a

01:27:13.351 --> 01:27:14.872

typical investigator would.

01:27:15.672 --> 01:27:17.473

the eight-year-old is fully

01:27:17.533 --> 01:27:19.413

capable of making this decision.

01:27:20.674 --> 01:27:21.474

On the other hand,

01:27:21.854 --> 01:27:23.254

a forty-five-year-old man

01:27:23.394 --> 01:27:25.335

who has spent a year or two

01:27:25.395 --> 01:27:27.976

in deep study cross-referencing,

01:27:28.076 --> 01:27:29.376

searching, verifying,

01:27:29.456 --> 01:27:32.617

and weighing the evidence is misled,

01:27:32.977 --> 01:27:33.677

misguided,

01:27:33.857 --> 01:27:35.998

or deceived if he comes to a

01:27:36.038 --> 01:27:37.058

different conclusion

01:27:37.578 --> 01:27:39.759

regarding the truth claims of the church.

01:27:40.727 --> 01:27:41.808

The eight-year-old will

01:27:41.848 --> 01:27:43.369

likely share his testimony

01:27:43.469 --> 01:27:45.211

soon after his baptism in

01:27:45.251 --> 01:27:46.712

church while repeating the

01:27:46.732 --> 01:27:49.074

words his parents whispers in his ears,

01:27:49.755 --> 01:27:52.538

I know the church is true.

01:27:52.818 --> 01:27:53.979

The forty-five-year-old

01:27:53.999 --> 01:27:55.140

would likely be asked to

01:27:55.200 --> 01:27:57.642

sit down or escorted out if

01:27:57.702 --> 01:27:59.984

he shares what he believes to be true,

01:28:00.645 --> 01:28:03.147

so he starts a Facebook page instead.

01:28:03.981 --> 01:28:05.022

I love it.

01:28:05.042 --> 01:28:05.603

So, you know,

01:28:05.923 --> 01:28:07.845

just kind of just pointing out,

01:28:08.465 --> 01:28:11.348

pointing out things that I see as this is,

01:28:11.729 --> 01:28:13.931

this is kind of a problem in my church.

01:28:14.591 --> 01:28:15.773

And some people call me out.

01:28:15.813 --> 01:28:16.113

They're like,

01:28:16.153 --> 01:28:17.514

why do you keep saying my church?

01:28:17.975 --> 01:28:20.137

Megan, it is, you know,

01:28:20.197 --> 01:28:21.778

like I don't go anymore,

01:28:22.339 --> 01:28:25.722

but if I wanted to go to church, honestly,

01:28:25.962 --> 01:28:27.364

I'd probably go to the Mormon church.

01:28:27.946 --> 01:28:29.828

yeah i mean that's where my

01:28:29.868 --> 01:28:31.049

family is that's where my

01:28:31.089 --> 01:28:32.270

friends are that's where

01:28:32.430 --> 01:28:33.791

you know some good great

01:28:33.811 --> 01:28:36.153

people are um i don't have

01:28:36.173 --> 01:28:37.334

a problem with going to

01:28:37.354 --> 01:28:38.495

another church or something

01:28:38.535 --> 01:28:39.576

and i have attended some

01:28:39.636 --> 01:28:41.658

others but um you know

01:28:41.758 --> 01:28:42.819

where would i go if i

01:28:42.859 --> 01:28:43.920

wanted to go to church i'd

01:28:43.960 --> 01:28:46.862

probably go to my church

01:28:46.882 --> 01:28:47.843

but i don't want to go yeah

01:28:47.863 --> 01:28:51.326

yeah yeah so so anyways my

01:28:51.366 --> 01:28:53.248

facebook post led to my

01:28:54.607 --> 01:28:55.748

Mormon Stories interview,

01:28:56.509 --> 01:28:59.651

which led eventually to my podcast,

01:28:59.711 --> 01:29:01.633

which I initially called

01:29:02.133 --> 01:29:04.656

The Mormon Moron.

01:29:04.716 --> 01:29:06.657

So why did I call it that?

01:29:07.958 --> 01:29:09.900

For a play on words, obviously.

01:29:10.761 --> 01:29:11.281

Also,

01:29:11.481 --> 01:29:13.783

I wanted to try to keep it lighthearted.

01:29:14.780 --> 01:29:16.001

and just kind of talk about

01:29:16.381 --> 01:29:17.642

sort of like what I just read,

01:29:17.702 --> 01:29:20.024

just kind of the lighthearted things.

01:29:20.884 --> 01:29:22.586

But the reason I started to

01:29:22.626 --> 01:29:24.987

not like the name Mormon

01:29:25.307 --> 01:29:27.169

Moron when I started

01:29:27.589 --> 01:29:29.791

inviting guests to come on my podcast.

01:29:29.811 --> 01:29:31.932

Hey, you know, and it's like, oh,

01:29:31.992 --> 01:29:33.313

I'm going on a podcast tonight.

01:29:33.333 --> 01:29:34.314

Well, who are you talking to?

01:29:34.414 --> 01:29:35.815

I'm talking to the Mormon Moron.

01:29:35.895 --> 01:29:37.976

You know, it just felt weird.

01:29:38.597 --> 01:29:40.718

And one of my viewers had said,

01:29:40.758 --> 01:29:41.619

you should name your

01:29:41.659 --> 01:29:44.161

podcast An Interview with the Bishop.

01:29:45.113 --> 01:29:47.716

And I was like, I kind of like that.

01:29:48.657 --> 01:29:50.139

And so I changed it to the

01:29:50.179 --> 01:29:50.880

Bishop's interview.

01:29:50.940 --> 01:29:54.283

Now I have had some pushback,

01:29:54.524 --> 01:29:55.505

people that would say,

01:29:57.246 --> 01:29:57.886

People that would say,

01:29:57.966 --> 01:29:59.807

I can't believe you're

01:30:00.868 --> 01:30:03.049

trying to capitalize on the

01:30:03.149 --> 01:30:04.670

calling of a bishop or whatever.

01:30:04.810 --> 01:30:06.471

And to that, I would just say,

01:30:07.011 --> 01:30:09.032

how many times have we been told,

01:30:09.213 --> 01:30:10.733

once a bishop, always a bishop?

01:30:12.754 --> 01:30:15.016

And I even remember a couple

01:30:15.076 --> 01:30:16.977

Sundays after I was released,

01:30:17.037 --> 01:30:18.237

walking down the hall,

01:30:18.498 --> 01:30:20.038

and the current bishop was

01:30:20.158 --> 01:30:20.879

right beside me.

01:30:22.294 --> 01:30:23.715

but we weren't walking together,

01:30:24.195 --> 01:30:26.077

and I was the previous bishop,

01:30:26.197 --> 01:30:28.959

and people walking up and saying, hey,

01:30:28.999 --> 01:30:30.880

bishop, you know, and it's like,

01:30:31.945 --> 01:30:33.246

if i was good enough to

01:30:33.326 --> 01:30:34.928

still be called bishop then

01:30:35.108 --> 01:30:36.129

then i guess i'm still

01:30:36.169 --> 01:30:39.031

bishop now and no i'm not

01:30:39.071 --> 01:30:40.552

trying to capitalize on

01:30:40.592 --> 01:30:42.174

that no i don't go around

01:30:42.214 --> 01:30:44.296

considering myself but it

01:30:44.336 --> 01:30:45.917

was something that i

01:30:45.977 --> 01:30:47.899

dedicated you know five

01:30:47.919 --> 01:30:50.221

years of my life to i did

01:30:50.261 --> 01:30:53.063

it with all my heart i feel

01:30:53.103 --> 01:30:56.046

like um during the time that i was

01:30:56.996 --> 01:30:59.077

you know, appreciated, liked, loved,

01:30:59.137 --> 01:31:00.078

whatever you want to call it.

01:31:00.138 --> 01:31:01.338

I didn't make a lot of enemies.

01:31:01.838 --> 01:31:02.799

I did the best I could.

01:31:04.740 --> 01:31:06.060

I was the same guy that I'm

01:31:06.300 --> 01:31:07.261

right now with you.

01:31:07.581 --> 01:31:09.502

I was animated and singing

01:31:09.562 --> 01:31:12.944

songs and palling around with the youth.

01:31:13.004 --> 01:31:14.665

I mean, that's the kind of guy I was.

01:31:15.285 --> 01:31:16.766

And so I made a lot of friends.

01:31:17.106 --> 01:31:20.167

And so, you know, yeah,

01:31:20.367 --> 01:31:22.268

I do call my podcast now

01:31:22.328 --> 01:31:23.289

The Bishop's Interview.

01:31:24.550 --> 01:31:27.773

And so what kind of podcast is it?

01:31:28.413 --> 01:31:30.375

I like to talk about some of

01:31:31.176 --> 01:31:32.457

my topics like I just

01:31:32.637 --> 01:31:34.338

discussed that I've written about.

01:31:35.479 --> 01:31:39.322

I like to do interviews with

01:31:39.382 --> 01:31:41.284

people like you're doing

01:31:41.324 --> 01:31:42.285

with me right now.

01:31:42.805 --> 01:31:44.907

I've had some really cool people on.

01:31:46.048 --> 01:31:49.591

What I probably like to do maybe the most,

01:31:49.851 --> 01:31:50.912

and my wife says,

01:31:51.092 --> 01:31:52.153

I love it when you do that.

01:31:53.230 --> 01:31:54.251

And it's kind of,

01:31:54.791 --> 01:31:56.392

I learned that you could go live.

01:31:56.632 --> 01:32:00.555

And I realized that right now we're being,

01:32:00.735 --> 01:32:00.936

you know,

01:32:00.956 --> 01:32:02.517

we're prerecorded and that's fine,

01:32:02.557 --> 01:32:04.598

but I realized that I could