A Conversation with Samuel Bennett

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Hello and welcome to a very special episode of Inside Out because usually I say I'm here with Ian Will but this time I'm here with Ian Wilkes.
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Ian is sitting how many inches away from me?
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About 30
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inches.
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Is it 30 inches?
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That's a bit too close.
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It's a little bit too close because we're huddled around one computer, so we're trying to make this work.
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And there's also a third person that we're going to be introducing to you in just a moment.
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But Ian is down here for a missionary reunion.
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I am.
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We are going tomorrow to visit...
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Ben B.
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Banks, our mission president at his home.
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He's 92 years old.
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And just this evening, Ian was here having dinner with us and looking at old mission pictures.
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And we pulled up a picture and I said, hey, I know her.
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She lives about a block and a half away from me.
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And so he walked down and saw an old friend.
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Ian, you hadn't seen her in what?
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36 years.
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So
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Sister Lopseger.
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Yes.
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Her and I were in the Edinburgh zone.
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Yes.
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Back in 88, I think it was.
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Yeah.
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And I'd not seen her for ages.
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And you said, she's like two bucks.
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So I'm like, prove it.
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And you did.
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I did.
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We went over there.
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And it was
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amazing to catch up all those members.
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Yeah, it was a lot of fun.
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So we thought we'd talk about missions, but we have a very special guest here.
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He's smiling like, oh, geez, I'm about to be put on the spot.
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His name is Samuel Bennett.
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He and I are related.
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He is actually my, I think you are my oldest son.
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I am your oldest son.
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You are my oldest son, but by what, two minutes?
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Two minutes.
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Yes, Samuel Bennett and Jetty Bennett were born two minutes apart.
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They are identical twins.
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And right before COVID, they were both called on missions twice.
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in Argentina, two different missions in Argentina.
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Jetty, Sam's brother, was called to the Buenos Aires South mission, and I went to the Neokim mission.
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There you go, Buenos Aires South and Neokim.
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And Sam, can you just kind of give us a brief overview of your mission experience?
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Because in talking about your mission, so you went on your mission, I'm just going to give a thumbnail here, you went on your mission, you came home Seven months later because of COVID.
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Yes.
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I mean, you hadn't done anything wrong.
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No.
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But you came home and you were home for how long?
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Five months.
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For five months.
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And then you were reassigned to?
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Cincinnati, Ohio.
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Cincinnati, Ohio.
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And you finished your mission there.
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Yes.
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Jetty came home.
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He was reassigned to Tampa Bay, Florida, but he was able to go back to Argentina.
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That is
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correct.
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And finish his mission.
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So you talk about your mission with great affection, but it's also with great frustration.
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Yeah, that's a good way to put it.
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And you have sort of become, I think, since your mission, I describe you as a mental health advocate, particularly with regard to missions.
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Can you sort of elaborate on that a little bit and lean into the microphone?
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Because I'm not sure how much this is recording, but I think it's there.
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Meaning elaborate on why I started advocating for mental health or just the mission experience in general?
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Why
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not both?
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Okay.
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Start with the mission experience.
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I'll give you some context.
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Okay.
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Because on a mission, you know, like when we were serving together in Scotland, knocking doors down today, that was grueling mentally, right?
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Yeah.
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You know, that was, you know, mental health challenges back then and things have changed, missions have changed.
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You went out to Argentina just recently, really, within the last few years, and again, a very different missionary environment, different experience.
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So if you give us some missionary experience context and then how that relates to mental health would be great.
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What do you think?
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Okay, sounds good.
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So I went to Argentina, like was said, and there we first went to the Mexico MTC, and in there there's these little houses And so you're staying with two different districts, which is just like groups of missionaries that work together.
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And we're learning the language, learning how to be a missionary.
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And in that, we were just, you know, we're all, most of us were 18 years old, 18 to 20.
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So just these teenage kids trying to have fun because it's our first, most of us, it's our first time away from our family.
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What year was this?
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This was 2019.
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2019, okay.
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Yeah.
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And because of that, we just started having fun.
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So one night we decided to roll up our shorts and turn our suit coats inside out and take funny pictures.
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One night before we went to bed, we went to bed, we thought nothing of it.
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And we got to the mission field.
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And all of a sudden, we all started, all the missionaries in our district started getting interviews with a mission president early on.
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And the mission president started asking questions.
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Like, were you involved in these certain things that other groups did, and they thought we were because we took these silly photos?
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Okay, can you get specific about what these other groups were doing, or is that just too off-color?
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I mean, it's kind of graphic.
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Well, you know, when we were back home hearing about this, they wouldn't tell us what they'd found.
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They would just sort of give us, oh, it was too graphic, but...
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To me, it sounded like it was just kind of silly.
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They were taking pictures of themselves without any clothes on, and then they were sort of measuring themselves.
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Yeah, they were measuring penises.
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There you go.
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And then streaking through the halls, apparently.
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I never saw any of this.
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Yeah.
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They, I think, put poop under another missionary's bed once.
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There was like a list
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of like...
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Okay, so these were kind of...
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Gross and childish and silly.
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Yeah.
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And you weren't involved in any of it.
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No.
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But you had taken some silly pictures that were entirely good natured.
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We saw those pictures.
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I saw the picture with you with your suit jacket inside out.
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And I thought, oh, they're having fun.
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They're being silly.
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And, you know, I didn't see anything wrong with that.
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And so when Jetty got out on his mission, his mission president said, looked at that and said, hey, this was silly and who cares and get to work and don't worry about it.
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That was not the reaction of your mission president.
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Nope.
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My mission president said you will be lucky to stay on the mission, which as an 18-year-old is pretty scarring because getting sent home is not a pretty thing in the LDS culture.
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Most people ask why and they're not very accepting of people getting sent home early for different reasons.
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And so he was threatening to send me home.
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He said, there's most likely you're going to be sent home.
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And then he had me do a repentance study.
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And so he gave me this big list of scriptures and stories to read of just ideas focused on repentance.
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And he said, read through the whole Book of Mormon with a focus on just repentance.
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And so as a good missionary, I did that.
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I read through all those scriptures.
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I read through the entire Book of Mormon, highlighting every single idea that had to do with repentance.
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And that set off a cycle, an obsessive compulsive cycle called scrupulosity or religious OCD, as I now know it.
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But I didn't know it at that point.
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And so I began my unhealthy cycles on my mission.
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So I say the first two weeks in Argentina were really good.
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I had an amazing trainer.
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He was really nice to me.
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And we were having lots of fun.
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And then the mission president called and everything started.
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And then I would wake up In the middle of the night, if I have to go to the bathroom, I just go pee, regular things, and I just have these blaring headaches.
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It hurts so badly.
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I just want to fall back asleep.
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I then would get up, and I'm learning a new language.
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I could never really get the accent down.
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If somebody didn't understand me, I would blame it on not being worthy enough.
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I wasn't doing something correct.
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If I was tired, it's because I wasn't keeping my missionary promise so I wasn't getting renewed spiritual energy um and so if I was doing really if anything bad happened it was had to be the reason I wasn't worthy enough to be there because that's what it felt like I would replay everything I'd done in my life and just go over and over and over again and it just couldn't seem to figure out what I had done like I ultimately felt like I shouldn't be there and at one point even my mission president because you have to do these weekly email reports and say how you're doing, what's going on, who you're teaching.
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And I emailed him and said, I wanted to talk to you.
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But luckily, he didn't reply.
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He just sent the normal copy and paste.
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He's like, good job, Elder.
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You're doing great work out there.
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He didn't actually read that message, luckily.
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And so I spent the next six months in Argentina going through these cycles.
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And if I wasn't working hard enough, It's like it was my fault.
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There was always something else I could be doing.
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And it became just mentally draining.
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Like I remember one time in my second area, I woke up in the middle of the night just to go to the bathroom and cry because I just wanted to be alone and didn't want to be there anymore.
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And then it got worse with my third companion.
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Third?
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Fourth.
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Fourth companion.
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I moved areas.
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And at first, he was really nice.
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We seemed to get along.
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He liked sports as well.
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And then he started, like, I considered bullying.
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Remember during lessons, he'd kick me to start talking.
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You know, the other person, like, people who were teaching were talking to us.
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I'm like, I don't want to interrupt them.
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And then, like, for instance, one time on preparation day, which is like our one day of relaxation, we get ready to go.
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And we like do our laundry.
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We speak to our families and he wanted to get up early and run.
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I'm like, sure.
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Okay.
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I like running, but I wasn't sleeping very well because stress was causing really bad acne and I was having headaches.
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And so I just couldn't sleep.
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So every little bit of sleep I could get was good.
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And then all of a sudden at 530, he pokes me.
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He's like, Elder, are you ready to go run?
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I'm like, Elder, no.
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We said 6 a.m.
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I'm not getting up till 6 a.m.
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And then we got up and ran.
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And then he wouldn't let me take naps like on P-Day because he wanted to go do stuff.
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And so I was pretty much just exhausted the whole time.
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And then we got a call saying, we're going home.
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And I'm like, please.
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But the thing is, they were trying to send all the missionaries home.
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They started with like the Philippine missionaries.
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And then they...
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And because...
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Different countries had different regulations on how they manage COVID.
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It became very strict.
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Argentina was first, we couldn't shake their hands.
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Then we couldn't knock on doors as missionaries.
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And then we just had to stay in our apartments and couldn't go out in two pairs, which is a big deal as missionaries.
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You're always with a companion.
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So we had to go out by ourselves to buy groceries.
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And then at first, Jetty's mission got sent home first, my brother's.
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He was in Buenos Aires, which is right by the airport.
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And we couldn't get on that first plane.
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And so at one point, our mission president called and said, you're going to be here for another three to four months waiting.
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And I just said, I can't be here for three to four months.
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Like, I cannot do that.
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Two weeks later, though, they snuck us out of the country on a bus.
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We hid out in a church for 30 hours and then eventually got on the plane and I got home.
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And then that's when...
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They started reassigning really fast.
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I was hoping to get like two or three months.
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I'm like, I'm going to confess everything to my bishop and tell him everything I've done.
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Maybe I'll have to stay home for a couple of months.
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See what happens.
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You haven't done anything.
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No, but I felt like I had.
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Yeah, that was my OCD saying that.
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And then they started reassigning people really fast.
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And I just started having panic attacks saying, I cannot do this.
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Jetty got sent out and I had an assignment to go to Ohio.
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And I was...
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Like acting excited because I knew a couple of missionaries that had gone reassigned there that I had served with.
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And the day before I got sent out, well, two days before, I had gone and talked to the bishop and told him everything, like how I was feeling.
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And he turns to me and he's like, Sam, because he had known me growing up.
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And he's like, you're a really good kid.
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Like you were working hard.
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You were helping people.
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You are perfectly fine.
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Like you've done nothing wrong.
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You're perfectly worthy to go on a mission.
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The next day, I told my parents and broke down to them just how I was feeling.
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My dad gave me a blessing, and I'm just like, I'm just going to stay home.
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And so we emailed our stake president, and at that point, he said, okay, just let me know when you're ready to go back out.
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Yeah, I called him that day.
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Yeah.
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And he just said, absolutely, he should stay home for as long as he feels like he needs to.
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Yeah.
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I mean, I think our bishop and stake president.
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Did a good job on that.
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Yeah.
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We're very sensitive to the reality here.
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But I think that what you're seeing here to some degree is leadership roulette.
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Yeah.
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You know, your mission president and Jetty's mission president really set very different tones for what your missions were going to be like.
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And if we hadn't had, I think, a very thoughtful bishop and thoughtful stake president, the outcome might not have been- As desired.
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As desired, even though the outcome was really kind of frustrating.
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So you were diagnosed with scrupulosity- A couple months after that, like a month after I decided to stay home.
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So after you decided to stay home,
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there had been no diagnosis on your missions.
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At that point, I was just like, I'm going to go to therapy.
00:14:48.035 --> 00:14:50.399
It can treat me for depression and anxiety.
00:14:50.418 --> 00:14:54.745
And then my mom listened to a podcast, and she said, this sounds like you, Sam.
00:14:54.784 --> 00:15:01.615
And I listened to it, and it went through just symptoms of what this person was experiencing.
00:15:01.695 --> 00:15:04.999
I said, oh, wow, this is exactly what is happening to me.
00:15:05.038 --> 00:15:06.942
And so we began talking.
00:15:07.330 --> 00:15:12.758
doing treatment specifically for OCD and that's when things started to go way up for me.
00:15:12.778 --> 00:15:14.880
I stopped having the headaches.
00:15:15.682 --> 00:15:27.259
I stopped like crying in my bedroom and I was just able to like function again rather than just breaking down every other day because it just sucked.
00:15:28.221 --> 00:15:29.001
Put it mildly.
00:15:29.042 --> 00:15:36.253
Can I go back to something what you were saying earlier because it's an important change point.
00:15:36.332 --> 00:15:50.719
So These missionaries, other missionaries that had behaved inappropriately and done those things that you had nothing to do with, did you communicate that to your mission president?
00:15:51.158 --> 00:15:55.724
Did he think that you were involved in that?
00:15:55.923 --> 00:15:57.565
And then what was your response?
00:15:57.605 --> 00:16:04.711
Did you make it clear that you were not and tell him what you, you know, like the jacket inside out and stuff?
00:16:04.772 --> 00:16:06.193
And so what was his...
00:16:06.754 --> 00:16:08.657
So how did that conversation go?
00:16:09.057 --> 00:16:13.222
And was he not clear about your involvement or lack of involvement in that?
00:16:13.783 --> 00:16:16.628
So with that, he only spoke Spanish.
00:16:17.730 --> 00:16:18.770
I didn't know Spanish.
00:16:19.052 --> 00:16:20.214
So he had a translator.
00:16:20.254 --> 00:16:29.888
And because there's a language barrier and pretty much all he said was, he said, there's this list of 12 things that these missionaries did.
00:16:29.908 --> 00:16:34.333
And if you were involved in any one of them, then you could be sent home.
00:16:34.529 --> 00:16:36.211
So we listed all 12 of them.
00:16:36.673 --> 00:16:43.240
And I said, yes, I took silly photos with these missionaries, like these other missionaries, but I didn't do any of the other 11 things.
00:16:44.121 --> 00:16:45.403
And he said, okay, you're going to get sent home.
00:16:45.423 --> 00:16:46.264
I'm like, what?
00:16:46.725 --> 00:16:47.885
I didn't do anything else.
00:16:48.927 --> 00:16:53.432
And Jetty's mission president spoke English, and so they could actually talk about it.
00:16:53.533 --> 00:16:55.916
Mine just said, well, you'll be lucky to stay here.
00:16:56.616 --> 00:16:58.038
So there was a communication barrier.
00:16:58.198 --> 00:16:58.399
Yes.
00:16:58.820 --> 00:17:00.302
And he bundled...
00:17:00.642 --> 00:17:05.188
You know, that one thing of the 11 things that you did, which is the mind, I think, really.
00:17:05.208 --> 00:17:05.448
Yeah.
00:17:05.669 --> 00:17:07.270
And it doesn't warrant in my opinion at all.
00:17:07.611 --> 00:17:08.352
You know, I've been a bishop.
00:17:08.571 --> 00:17:08.992
Sure.
00:17:09.534 --> 00:17:10.474
There's no way that warrants.
00:17:10.954 --> 00:17:11.056
No.
00:17:11.977 --> 00:17:13.439
But things like that all the time.
00:17:13.459 --> 00:17:14.460
All the time, yeah.
00:17:14.599 --> 00:17:15.381
I mean, yeah.
00:17:15.520 --> 00:17:17.042
And so it bundled the whole thing.
00:17:17.544 --> 00:17:17.884
Yeah.
00:17:18.005 --> 00:17:20.627
And the communication was a barrier as well.
00:17:20.667 --> 00:17:20.969
Yes.
00:17:21.509 --> 00:17:22.089
Okay, right.
00:17:22.530 --> 00:17:23.392
Yeah, that's how that went.
00:17:23.811 --> 00:17:23.932
Right.
00:17:25.114 --> 00:17:28.038
And so where are we now?
00:17:28.642 --> 00:17:31.445
Well, so you've been diagnosed with scrupulosity.
00:17:31.486 --> 00:17:33.729
So you eventually decided to go back out.
00:17:34.069 --> 00:17:34.650
I did decide.
00:17:34.690 --> 00:17:34.750
And
00:17:34.770 --> 00:17:35.832
we told you.
00:17:36.313 --> 00:17:36.933
You didn't need to.
00:17:37.074 --> 00:17:38.375
You didn't need to go back out.
00:17:38.476 --> 00:17:40.558
There's probably some scrupulosity in that decision.
00:17:40.919 --> 00:17:45.144
Because what scrupulosity is, if you don't know, it's religious OCD.
00:17:45.685 --> 00:17:51.473
So my obsessions were about around worthiness, like sexual purity.
00:17:51.574 --> 00:17:52.976
Did I see something wrong?
00:17:53.016 --> 00:17:54.838
Did I think something wrong?
00:17:54.878 --> 00:17:57.102
And then the compulsions.
00:17:57.569 --> 00:18:11.431
were like confessing to an authority figure or saying a prayer in my head for forgiveness or reading the scriptures or like quoting scripture in my head to block out what I considered an inappropriate thought.
00:18:12.752 --> 00:18:17.800
And so those were my compulsions and that was my obsession, kind of what that cycled around.
00:18:17.861 --> 00:18:19.644
So then I decided to go back out.
00:18:20.104 --> 00:18:22.188
It was still Cincinnati, Ohio.
00:18:22.248 --> 00:18:26.114
I got sent out around late September, went back out there.
00:18:26.817 --> 00:18:37.952
And it was okay at first, but eventually I reverted back to the same obsessions and compulsions, but I could deal with it in a way.
00:18:38.113 --> 00:18:39.335
I could handle it more.
00:18:39.454 --> 00:18:39.535
Well,
00:18:39.615 --> 00:18:41.878
they assigned you a therapist, didn't they?
00:18:41.898 --> 00:18:42.819
I asked for the therapy.
00:18:42.839 --> 00:18:43.601
You asked for the therapy.
00:18:43.721 --> 00:18:43.981
Yeah.
00:18:44.082 --> 00:18:49.628
So at first I went and confessed to my mission president again, the same things I confessed to the bishop when I got home.
00:18:49.648 --> 00:18:51.672
He's like, Elder Bennett, you are fine.
00:18:51.692 --> 00:18:54.175
I think you should talk to a therapist.
00:18:54.296 --> 00:18:55.738
I'm like, yes, that would be amazing.
00:18:56.354 --> 00:19:05.326
But the problem is it's like the LDS family therapy, they have to say very specific things in therapy.
00:19:05.385 --> 00:19:12.976
Like they aren't allowed to just say like, sometimes it's okay to not believe this thing in the church.
00:19:13.557 --> 00:19:18.583
They have to like be a hundred percent like, no Elder Bennett, you have to keep doing all these things, you're doing good.
00:19:18.603 --> 00:19:26.874
And so in the first meeting, my therapist cried and I'm like, I'm not giving you therapy.
00:19:26.953 --> 00:19:28.536
You're giving me therapy.
00:19:30.337 --> 00:19:35.826
And so she didn't actually know what scrupulosity was or religious OCD.
00:19:35.846 --> 00:19:37.667
So I was explaining that to her.
00:19:37.728 --> 00:19:42.034
Well, also, you really don't have confidentiality with this therapist, right?
00:19:42.875 --> 00:19:43.415
I think I did.
00:19:43.696 --> 00:19:44.096
Oh, did you?
00:19:44.196 --> 00:19:44.657
Yeah, I did.
00:19:45.089 --> 00:19:51.838
I thought the arrangement was that they have to be able to give their notes to the mission pressure.
00:19:51.878 --> 00:19:52.119
Maybe.
00:19:52.359 --> 00:19:52.901
If it's the same
00:19:52.961 --> 00:19:56.965
on the ward and the stake level, the stake has access.
00:19:57.086 --> 00:20:01.092
If it's a stake counselor, then that information is disclosed.
00:20:01.112 --> 00:20:02.554
I think that's the pattern across the church.
00:20:03.074 --> 00:20:16.388
Because the reason being is that, if I understand it from professional counseling, yeah, there is a level of confidentiality, but if they feel that you could be at risk, or they might need some more support or additional professional advice to help you.
00:20:16.808 --> 00:20:22.377
By disclosing that and opening that up to the church, they might be able to help a little bit more.
00:20:22.698 --> 00:20:26.784
So there's a gray area, in my opinion, in regards to confidentiality.
00:20:27.224 --> 00:20:38.601
There's some black and white areas, but there's some gray area where it can spill over and leaders might end up reading about it and may not, it's hard to say.
00:20:39.201 --> 00:20:43.586
And then scrupulosity, you know, you talked a little bit earlier about the obsessive behavior.
00:20:43.625 --> 00:20:44.686
How frequent was that?
00:20:45.948 --> 00:20:47.670
For the obsessions and compulsions?
00:20:47.910 --> 00:20:50.492
Like your prayers and your thoughts and your scripture reading in your head, all this
00:20:50.553 --> 00:20:50.653
stuff.
00:20:51.073 --> 00:20:54.276
So the compulsions, those ones happen pretty frequently.
00:20:54.355 --> 00:20:59.760
Like the prayers in the head is like every, at first, probably every 10 minutes.
00:21:00.402 --> 00:21:02.384
So they got down to maybe once every hour.
00:21:02.423 --> 00:21:03.144
Right.
00:21:03.384 --> 00:21:05.987
But like most people aren't thinking about that.
00:21:06.007 --> 00:21:08.730
They aren't saying prayers in their head constantly throughout the day.
00:21:09.346 --> 00:21:13.452
Most people I would say, say one prayer in the morning, one prayer at night, or sometimes none at all.
00:21:13.553 --> 00:21:15.656
Like the multiple I was doing.
00:21:15.676 --> 00:21:18.461
And as a missionary, you're told pray all the time.
00:21:18.481 --> 00:21:24.191
So it's just these mission habits that turned into obsessions that became unhealthy.
00:21:24.230 --> 00:21:34.829
And the mission culture fuels it because they want you to be obsessive about working, obsessive about constantly studying if you have break time.
00:21:35.458 --> 00:21:38.903
figuring out ways to share the gospel, share the message about Jesus.
00:21:38.943 --> 00:21:44.734
And so they reinforced a lot of these obsessions and these compulsions that I had.
00:21:44.755 --> 00:21:49.784
And so the mission environment just wasn't a healthy one for me, I felt.
00:21:49.844 --> 00:21:52.528
But luckily, my second mission president was really understanding.
00:21:52.568 --> 00:21:59.119
His wife had struggled with depression, so she always was like, Elder Bennett, you don't have to say this is okay.
00:21:59.220 --> 00:21:59.760
It sucks.
00:22:00.321 --> 00:22:02.223
To be frank, this sucks, okay?
00:22:02.805 --> 00:22:03.746
She said, this sucks?
00:22:03.766 --> 00:22:05.208
She says, depression sucks.
00:22:05.268 --> 00:22:06.750
Mental health is you suck.
00:22:07.391 --> 00:22:09.073
She said that to me, which was very nice.
00:22:09.133 --> 00:22:11.115
She's like, you don't have to say this is fine.
00:22:11.855 --> 00:22:13.858
And then the mission president was very understanding.
00:22:13.898 --> 00:22:15.861
Like I would go to him.
00:22:15.881 --> 00:22:18.664
I went to him a couple of times saying, I still don't feel worthy.
00:22:18.684 --> 00:22:22.328
He's like, I had a couple of missionaries like you, but you're doing good, Elder Bennett.
00:22:22.429 --> 00:22:25.313
And it's very like, go forth tone.
00:22:25.333 --> 00:22:25.993
He was very nice.
00:22:26.013 --> 00:22:28.237
He's like, you're doing so good, Elder Bennett.
00:22:28.257 --> 00:22:29.038
I love you.
00:22:29.569 --> 00:22:33.996
in this very calm but almost patriotic tone.
00:22:34.056 --> 00:22:34.737
Patriotic?
00:22:35.317 --> 00:22:36.259
How do you describe
00:22:36.278 --> 00:22:36.919
that?
00:22:36.939 --> 00:22:37.119
I don't
00:22:38.141 --> 00:22:38.221
know.
00:22:38.260 --> 00:22:51.057
But it's worse than you were thinking, having these intense thoughts and feelings every 10 minutes, which was reinforced by the doctrine, the push to do missionary work, follow the rules.
00:22:51.096 --> 00:22:51.178
Yeah.
00:22:51.617 --> 00:22:55.501
And the other question I have for you is, by the way, I think you're incredibly brave doing this.
00:22:55.602 --> 00:22:57.023
It's really helped so many people.
00:22:57.423 --> 00:22:58.384
I'm sat here with you right now.
00:22:58.444 --> 00:22:59.145
I think you're amazing.
00:22:59.306 --> 00:22:59.567
Thank you.
00:22:59.586 --> 00:23:00.027
I mean that.
00:23:00.887 --> 00:23:15.002
And so how, you know, when you're going through this, when there was undoubtedly there were times on missions, we've all experienced it, where things didn't work out with an investigator or it wasn't going as well.
00:23:15.022 --> 00:23:17.145
The mission work wasn't going as well at certain points.
00:23:17.705 --> 00:23:19.669
Did you connect the two?
00:23:19.689 --> 00:23:20.789
Did you connect your...
00:23:21.153 --> 00:23:28.103
how you were feeling and thinking, you know, with your, you know, your mental health.
00:23:28.222 --> 00:23:33.128
And did you, if something didn't work out, did you blame yourself because it wasn't working out?
00:23:33.308 --> 00:23:34.109
Oh, absolutely.
00:23:34.349 --> 00:23:35.551
Can you tell us a bit about that?
00:23:35.771 --> 00:23:36.113
Yeah.
00:23:36.432 --> 00:23:44.202
Or a specific example where something didn't work out and, you know, we teach them, you know, they dropped you or whatever and it wasn't progressing.
00:23:44.603 --> 00:23:46.305
Did you blame yourself in that situation?
00:23:46.405 --> 00:23:46.925
Oh, absolutely.
00:23:48.228 --> 00:23:57.970
Like I mentioned in the beginning, Learning a language in Argentina, if somebody didn't understand me, they said, preach my gospel.
00:23:58.009 --> 00:24:07.838
The little booklet that missionaries have that teaches them how to be a missionary said that there is one language that everyone understands, which is the language of the Spirit.
00:24:08.599 --> 00:24:12.303
But the thing is, they don't know what they're feeling if they don't know what you're saying.
00:24:13.424 --> 00:24:18.869
But I would say if no one understood me while I was learning the language, it was because I was unworthy.
00:24:19.842 --> 00:24:27.730
Or in Ohio, when I was actually speaking English there, I felt like I wasn't feeling the spirit.
00:24:27.769 --> 00:24:35.817
That means that I was the one inhibiting the conversation, discussion, progression of this person.
00:24:35.837 --> 00:24:40.623
And if they decided not to listen to us, it was never, they just weren't interested.
00:24:40.663 --> 00:24:42.924
It was never, it was just a different time of life.
00:24:43.445 --> 00:24:44.186
It was always your fault.
00:24:44.207 --> 00:24:45.147
It was always my fault.
00:24:45.188 --> 00:24:46.308
Never my companion's fault either.
00:24:46.328 --> 00:24:47.309
It was always my fault.
00:24:48.642 --> 00:24:56.452
Well, I remember telling you about coming home from my mission and breaking all my Rolling Stones records.
00:24:57.093 --> 00:24:59.977
And that's when you said to me, geez, I didn't know you had scrupulosity.
00:25:00.017 --> 00:25:09.309
And I mean, as I listened to you talk, Ian, I don't know if you feel this, but there's just so many flashes of recognition.
00:25:09.857 --> 00:25:17.310
I mean, I felt, I always felt like, jeez, if they're not accepting the gospel, if we're not baptizing, it's because I'm not righteous enough.
00:25:17.551 --> 00:25:18.653
I'm not doing enough.
00:25:19.515 --> 00:25:31.938
And as we talked tonight, as we were talking to Sister Lobsucker, all three of us were saying, we worked, I mean, if I woke up at 635, I can't remember ever waking up at 635.
00:25:32.546 --> 00:25:36.510
Because I would have been in sackcloth and ashes for the rest of the day.
00:25:36.530 --> 00:25:46.182
I would have been punishing myself for being wicked and for being, you know, I just, my entire mission ran on guilt and shame.
00:25:46.624 --> 00:25:48.465
Yes, Ian.
00:25:48.645 --> 00:25:51.869
Ian, did your mission run on guilt and
00:25:51.931 --> 00:25:52.211
shame?
00:25:53.152 --> 00:25:57.657
Before I went on a mission, I already had self-esteem, self-worth issues.
00:25:57.778 --> 00:26:04.851
And I can't imagine now that what you went through impacted how you felt about yourself, you know, like confidence and self-esteem.
00:26:05.151 --> 00:26:06.073
Don't believe in yourself.
00:26:06.173 --> 00:26:07.894
I had those before I went out.
00:26:07.934 --> 00:26:11.820
So I kind of was fighting my own, you know, thing before I went out.
00:26:11.901 --> 00:26:19.231
And I saw my mission as a, you know, as some kind of rescue of me, right?
00:26:19.451 --> 00:26:22.876
You know, give me something that I never had, some structure, some meaning, purpose in my life.
00:26:23.377 --> 00:26:28.987
So I came to the mission probably a little bit, you know, Quite different background and probably a different perspective.
00:26:29.407 --> 00:26:41.334
But the doctrine, the teachings, and the culture, I was already fully embracing of all that before I came out and was the first Christian president we had.
00:26:41.354 --> 00:26:42.737
He had this...
00:26:43.425 --> 00:26:46.932
phrase he used to use all the time called live with exactness.
00:26:47.795 --> 00:26:48.877
Live with exactness, right?
00:26:48.917 --> 00:26:51.061
Did you hear live with exactness?
00:26:51.082 --> 00:26:52.484
It was obey with exactness for us.
00:26:52.865 --> 00:26:53.287
Earl Carr.
00:26:53.366 --> 00:26:57.516
We had live with exactness, and that meant you have to follow every single rule to the letter.
00:26:57.556 --> 00:27:02.487
We had the conventional mission rules, right, in the White Handbook of History, et cetera.
00:27:03.048 --> 00:27:04.029
Is it still a White Handbook?
00:27:04.193 --> 00:27:05.999
They have a handbook still.
00:27:06.019 --> 00:27:07.241
It's not the white handbook.
00:27:07.281 --> 00:27:09.709
We have the little white handbook.
00:27:09.749 --> 00:27:11.192
We had to read from it every day.
00:27:11.594 --> 00:27:14.059
I did have one of those at the beginning, but they redid
00:27:14.141 --> 00:27:14.181
it.
00:27:14.622 --> 00:27:17.911
So I had a handbook that I had to read through.
00:27:18.050 --> 00:27:18.953
So our day was structured.
00:27:19.394 --> 00:27:27.386
and we had half an hour's companion study together, and there were a few minutes in there where one of you had to read from the little white handbook, right?
00:27:27.968 --> 00:27:35.480
And so you had these traditional mission rules, and with the first mission present, and I think with present banks as well to some extent, we had a whole set of other layers as well.
00:27:35.500 --> 00:27:40.228
We had to take off, you know, go up on time and did this, did this, pray, et cetera, have a scripture.
00:27:40.807 --> 00:27:48.347
We were told to live with exactness, have a scripture in your heart and your mind, constantly always thinking about the gospel serving, et cetera.
00:27:48.367 --> 00:27:49.509
It was just drilled into me.
00:27:50.009 --> 00:28:00.042
And so I became a, as I was talking with you, Jim, and Sister Lobsiger earlier, it just reminded me that there were periods of time on a mission where I felt like a robot.
00:28:00.482 --> 00:28:00.683
Yeah.
00:28:00.943 --> 00:28:02.326
I mean, I was just going through the motions.
00:28:03.126 --> 00:28:04.749
I was a bit numb at times.
00:28:04.949 --> 00:28:05.650
I'm just doing it.
00:28:05.750 --> 00:28:08.413
I'm just existing.
00:28:08.834 --> 00:28:12.604
In my mind, if I was having fun, I must be doing something wrong.
00:28:12.624 --> 00:28:13.866
Must be doing something wrong.
00:28:13.987 --> 00:28:22.449
But the thing that kept me out there, for different reasons, probably for what you guys were, was I couldn't go back home.
00:28:23.105 --> 00:28:27.634
Not because of, I wasn't worried about what people thought of me, you know, because I didn't come from the church.
00:28:27.693 --> 00:28:28.515
I didn't grow up in the church.
00:28:28.875 --> 00:28:31.299
But it was, I'd made a commitment.
00:28:31.760 --> 00:28:32.321
I'm going to do this.
00:28:32.422 --> 00:28:35.948
You know, hell or high water, I'm staying out.
00:28:36.048 --> 00:28:36.808
I'll die first.
00:28:37.490 --> 00:28:40.154
It wasn't shame that kept me out.
00:28:41.036 --> 00:28:46.685
It was a lack of, the thought of me failing personally.
00:28:46.882 --> 00:28:47.423
But
00:28:47.442 --> 00:29:03.704
the shame bit for me was on other things like if I broke any of those rules, you know, like not reading the scripture or not following the strict structure of the day, then I was a disobedient missionary and I was told by President Dunn.
00:29:04.450 --> 00:29:09.536
And this is really, I want to highlight it because it really bothered me because I was out there for the right reasons.
00:29:09.616 --> 00:29:10.478
I wanted to help people.
00:29:11.138 --> 00:29:13.201
It was part of saving myself as well.
00:29:13.240 --> 00:29:13.682
I get that.
00:29:14.041 --> 00:29:17.527
But it was also to share the gospel and bring people to the Lord Jesus Christ.
00:29:17.586 --> 00:29:22.813
I really believe that and knew that in every fiber of my being.
00:29:23.914 --> 00:29:38.691
And President Dunn said, look, if you break a rule, if you make a mistake, or if you deviate one iota, one slip, no matter how big it is, That will impact the ability or the interest of someone joining the church.
00:29:38.770 --> 00:29:43.116
And if they don't join the church because you've not been worthy enough, it's on you.
00:29:43.458 --> 00:29:45.520
That hit me like a ton of bricks.
00:29:45.681 --> 00:29:47.143
I'd never heard that before.
00:29:47.824 --> 00:29:48.925
I was thinking, oh my God.
00:29:48.965 --> 00:29:54.653
I remember in my entire mission, Sam, I slept in once in my entire mission.
00:29:55.095 --> 00:29:57.898
I got up at 6.43, something like that, right?
00:29:58.400 --> 00:29:59.561
I have never felt so...
00:30:00.066 --> 00:30:00.586
guilty.
00:30:01.027 --> 00:30:05.211
I remember calling the mission home because it wasn't enough with my companion.
00:30:05.231 --> 00:30:06.493
They said, Elder Wilkes, don't worry about it.
00:30:06.513 --> 00:30:06.913
I said, no, no.
00:30:07.394 --> 00:30:11.058
I have to tell the AP to tell President Banks.
00:30:11.138 --> 00:30:11.720
I slept in.
00:30:11.880 --> 00:30:13.402
I felt absolutely...
00:30:14.403 --> 00:30:14.923
It was awful.
00:30:15.344 --> 00:30:19.229
And I called them and I told them what was going on and they said, just don't do it again.
00:30:19.269 --> 00:30:20.671
And they were fine.
00:30:20.730 --> 00:30:22.192
And it was me kind of beating myself up.
00:30:22.532 --> 00:30:29.320
But I had this thing drilled in by President Dunn that if I slept one thing, somebody wasn't going to join the church.
00:30:29.442 --> 00:30:29.682
Right.
00:30:29.953 --> 00:30:35.501
And, you know, that scripture, how great shall be your joy, that we read in the scriptures.
00:30:35.521 --> 00:30:36.202
Remember that one?
00:30:36.522 --> 00:30:37.744
How great shall be your guilt.
00:30:37.845 --> 00:30:38.806
How great shall be your guilt.
00:30:38.885 --> 00:30:40.909
And I'm like, all this responsibility.
00:30:40.949 --> 00:30:43.512
I just thought, you know, I felt awful.
00:30:43.593 --> 00:30:48.078
And so I vowed and I lived with that much exactness.
00:30:48.940 --> 00:30:53.165
And what it did to me, Jim, is that it turned me at times into a robot.
00:30:53.826 --> 00:30:59.113
There was no room for deviation, no room for being a human, no room for having fun and being flexible.
00:30:59.153 --> 00:31:00.193
I had a little bit of fun, which you did.
00:31:00.555 --> 00:31:01.215
You did nothing wrong.
00:31:01.817 --> 00:31:02.557
We had a little bit of fun.
00:31:02.637 --> 00:31:03.739
You were being frivolous.
00:31:03.798 --> 00:31:04.901
I thought Joe Smith was frivolous.
00:31:05.340 --> 00:31:07.584
He was accused of being frivolous and jovial.
00:31:07.663 --> 00:31:08.365
They're the words, right?
00:31:08.826 --> 00:31:12.431
And he was rebuked, I think, for being frivolous, right?
00:31:12.490 --> 00:31:13.051
He was having fun.
00:31:13.432 --> 00:31:15.974
Well, I didn't have enough fun, I think, in my mission.
00:31:16.035 --> 00:31:17.577
I was like a robot a lot of the time.
00:31:18.082 --> 00:31:25.781
And I think that was down to the teaching, the doctrine, live with exactness, follow every single thing to preciseness, right?
00:31:26.242 --> 00:31:31.596
And then if I mess up, then, oh my goodness, people are going to lose their souls.
00:31:32.193 --> 00:31:33.474
Can you relate to that?
00:31:33.715 --> 00:31:36.558
Is that scrupulosity, do you think?
00:31:36.618 --> 00:31:37.660
Have I got scrupulosity?
00:31:37.819 --> 00:31:39.142
Have we just diagnosed
00:31:39.162 --> 00:31:40.063
with scrupulosity?
00:31:41.163 --> 00:31:42.465
You probably don't have it anymore.
00:31:42.486 --> 00:31:45.088
I think the mission environment...
00:31:45.368 --> 00:31:47.711
I'm not in the church, so I don't give a crap anymore.
00:31:47.971 --> 00:31:48.633
I've healed myself.
00:31:49.513 --> 00:31:50.835
I have saved myself.
00:31:51.836 --> 00:31:53.278
There you go.
00:31:53.698 --> 00:31:56.480
But yeah, I very much relate to all of that.
00:31:56.500 --> 00:31:57.021
If somebody...
00:31:57.602 --> 00:31:58.522
Didn't want to listen to you.
00:31:58.563 --> 00:32:01.086
It was because you weren't doing something correct.
00:32:01.548 --> 00:32:07.876
It's not just because, I mean, it's these 18-year-olds at your door trying to tell you, this is how you need to live correctly.
00:32:07.896 --> 00:32:11.101
90% of people just don't want to listen to you.
00:32:11.121 --> 00:32:16.328
I mean, a lot of people are like, how good of a salesman you are is what you really learn.
00:32:17.190 --> 00:32:23.317
Are the really good missionaries, there's these personal people that can go up and they can be very good salesmen.
00:32:23.358 --> 00:32:25.561
And that's what...
00:32:25.953 --> 00:32:29.297
You don't accept though, as a missionary, you're like, no, anybody can do this.
00:32:29.397 --> 00:32:33.402
But really a lot of the time it just becomes the people who are the best salesmen.
00:32:35.564 --> 00:32:38.165
And so, yeah, I relate to everything you just said.
00:32:39.448 --> 00:32:44.732
Eventually I made it home and then my mission ended.
00:32:44.772 --> 00:32:48.896
And now my dad calls me a mental health advocate.
00:32:50.098 --> 00:32:53.241
And I believe that started in between the two missions.
00:32:54.369 --> 00:32:55.551
And do we want to go there now?
00:32:55.592 --> 00:32:56.894
Well, sure.
00:32:57.434 --> 00:33:02.442
Well, the thing is, you made a decision to be very open about this.
00:33:02.682 --> 00:33:02.923
Yes.
00:33:03.404 --> 00:33:13.119
I mean, at one point, for instance, I was talking about you sort of obliquely on the podcast and somebody said, does your son know you're talking about him like this?
00:33:13.160 --> 00:33:16.265
And I came to you and I said, do you know what I'm talking about?
00:33:16.285 --> 00:33:17.768
And you said, yeah, please do it.
00:33:17.827 --> 00:33:20.070
In fact, I'd love to go on your podcast and talk about it.
00:33:20.632 --> 00:33:21.534
I mean, you decided...
00:33:22.114 --> 00:33:24.537
You mentioned it in your homecoming talk.
00:33:24.817 --> 00:33:25.076
Yes.
00:33:25.337 --> 00:33:26.077
You discussed this.
00:33:26.499 --> 00:33:31.243
You made several social media posts where you talked about the importance of good mental health.
00:33:31.545 --> 00:33:31.724
Yeah.
00:33:32.526 --> 00:33:33.666
And the importance of, yeah.
00:33:33.747 --> 00:33:35.449
So just explore that a little bit.
00:33:36.170 --> 00:33:39.874
So I got home the first time and I didn't know I had mental health issues.
00:33:40.515 --> 00:33:42.297
I didn't want to accept I had mental health issues.
00:33:43.238 --> 00:33:59.259
And then when I got diagnosed starting treatment, I started looking back and I'm like, there's a lot of people that I can't remember why I started sharing it out loud, but I'm like, I want to be somebody that shares it out loud so that other people don't feel like they're alone.
00:33:59.319 --> 00:34:04.606
Because a lot of the times with mental health issues, you feel like maybe yours is worse, so you shouldn't complain about it.
00:34:04.646 --> 00:34:06.209
There's other people going through worse things.
00:34:07.111 --> 00:34:08.612
But mental health is very important.
00:34:09.713 --> 00:34:15.201
And that's when I started posting about it online.
00:34:15.221 --> 00:34:17.925
It was probably in between the missions.
00:34:18.045 --> 00:34:21.449
I started talking about how it's not actually bad if people come home early.
00:34:21.954 --> 00:34:24.557
because their priority has been mental health.
00:34:24.677 --> 00:34:26.099
It's not a healthy place for them.
00:34:26.141 --> 00:34:32.831
People say a full and complete mission, but in reality, that's whatever your mission is to you.
00:34:33.431 --> 00:34:35.956
Whenever you decide to be done, you're done.
00:34:35.996 --> 00:34:43.847
And then when I went back out, I knew there was a bunch of missionaries who had struggled with mental health.
00:34:44.849 --> 00:35:01.219
I had met a couple growing up that had come home and they were my friends and they And I decided I wanted to share it so if there were missionaries struggling, they could come to me and talk about it with me and I could sympathize with them and empathize for them.
00:35:01.239 --> 00:35:07.449
And so in Ohio, we started using more Facebook in there.
00:35:07.489 --> 00:35:13.438
And I decided sometimes on Sundays, I would just post something about mental health and the gospel.
00:35:13.478 --> 00:35:15.440
While you were on your mission?
00:35:15.601 --> 00:35:26.150
While I was on my mission and talking about how For instance, one of my favorite posts was how the word repentance itself gave me anxiety.
00:35:26.851 --> 00:35:28.954
And I was teaching repentance, it's one of the main things we focus on.
00:35:28.974 --> 00:35:29.875
It's like a trigger word.
00:35:30.036 --> 00:35:30.615
It's like a trigger.
00:35:30.635 --> 00:35:31.376
A trigger word, right.
00:35:31.958 --> 00:35:32.157
Would
00:35:32.177 --> 00:35:33.519
conjure these feelings and thoughts.
00:35:33.599 --> 00:35:36.764
Yeah, and so I decided saying, this is how I look at it now.
00:35:36.804 --> 00:35:41.731
Rather than saying I've done something wrong, all it is is I'm coming closer to Christ.
00:35:41.751 --> 00:35:45.615
If I have Christ more in my life, if I find a way to put it in my life, that is repentance to me.
00:35:45.655 --> 00:35:46.838
It's change.
00:35:47.266 --> 00:35:49.650
I'm not going to really say the word repentance that much.
00:35:49.710 --> 00:35:51.233
I'm just saying all it is is change.
00:35:52.474 --> 00:35:56.440
And then I had a couple of missionaries come up to me, and they're like, have you gone to therapy?
00:35:56.460 --> 00:35:57.141
I'm like, yeah.
00:35:57.643 --> 00:35:58.483
I was thinking about it.
00:35:58.523 --> 00:36:00.007
I'm like, it's an amazing experience.
00:36:00.027 --> 00:36:01.048
Therapy is very good.
00:36:01.088 --> 00:36:04.634
One of my companions asked me, do you think this therapist is good?
00:36:04.655 --> 00:36:08.800
I told him, I think she's very good for generalized anxiety and depression.
00:36:08.840 --> 00:36:14.110
I don't think she knows very much about the specifics of more niche therapies.
00:36:14.690 --> 00:36:18.215
um, branches of anxiety and depression.
00:36:18.375 --> 00:36:19.757
Scrupulosity specifically.
00:36:19.797 --> 00:36:24.322
Scrupulosity specifically, but like other forms of OCD or maybe eating disorders.
00:36:25.525 --> 00:36:29.170
Um, but he decided to go in and he said it was a really good experience.
00:36:29.250 --> 00:36:32.594
And then I had a district leader then decided to go in and he opened about it.
00:36:32.614 --> 00:36:43.289
And so I started meeting all these missionaries who started to open up to me about how they just were struggling and I would give them talks.
00:36:43.389 --> 00:36:51.822
I helped me, um, and I would give them scriptures, or I would just say, like, just relax, let yourself relax, which was hypocritical.
00:36:51.862 --> 00:36:57.548
I wouldn't let myself relax, but I would be okay with other missionaries relaxing or sleeping in or taking a nap.
00:36:57.789 --> 00:37:02.134
I was perfectly okay with anybody else doing it, but I would let myself live that standard for some reason.
00:37:03.556 --> 00:37:14.260
But I think one of the biggest things that really showed that I was working was at the very end of my mission, I had one missionary come up to me, like, text me, says, you have scrupulosity, Elder Bennett.
00:37:14.380 --> 00:37:14.900
I'm like, yeah.
00:37:15.541 --> 00:37:18.244
I didn't know anybody else had that ever.
00:37:18.543 --> 00:37:19.085
I have it.
00:37:19.105 --> 00:37:21.648
I've had it since I was probably 15 years old.
00:37:21.688 --> 00:37:24.490
And we just started chatting over Facebook about it.
00:37:24.510 --> 00:37:27.653
And probably till like 1030 at night, we were chatting about it.
00:37:27.673 --> 00:37:32.498
And he's like, it just feels so good to talk to somebody else about it and not feel weird.
00:37:32.539 --> 00:37:42.469
And he had mentioned this missionary said he had struggled with the obsessive that he had committed the unforgivable sin somehow.
00:37:42.914 --> 00:37:44.335
And that he couldn't be forgiven.
00:37:44.376 --> 00:37:47.440
And this guy was, he was so fun to be around.
00:37:47.501 --> 00:37:48.623
Everybody loved being around him.
00:37:48.643 --> 00:37:50.204
And he loved having fun.
00:37:50.246 --> 00:37:51.987
And people loved teaching.
00:37:52.027 --> 00:37:54.172
Like, the people he was teaching loved him, too.
00:37:54.211 --> 00:37:55.954
Like, he was an awesome missionary.
00:37:55.974 --> 00:37:59.079
But he felt like he could not be forgiven.
00:37:59.099 --> 00:37:59.159
And...
00:38:00.722 --> 00:38:00.802
Whoa.
00:38:01.402 --> 00:38:02.545
Yeah, exactly.
00:38:02.585 --> 00:38:04.027
And you just don't know why.
00:38:04.047 --> 00:38:06.150
And he couldn't know why.
00:38:06.170 --> 00:38:07.052
And then I got home.
00:38:07.072 --> 00:38:10.317
That's when I'm like, I'm going to just start talking about it with everybody.
00:38:10.376 --> 00:38:10.617
Like...
00:38:11.266 --> 00:38:12.568
I'm going to post about it.
00:38:12.588 --> 00:38:14.751
So I started posting suicide awareness posts.
00:38:16.052 --> 00:38:19.277
By first May, I was home, which is Mental Health Awareness Month.
00:38:19.817 --> 00:38:25.684
Every single day, I posted about different mental health issue from OCD.
00:38:25.965 --> 00:38:26.827
I remember that.
00:38:26.867 --> 00:38:29.190
Yeah, post-traumatic anxiety to eating disorders.
00:38:30.150 --> 00:38:32.494
I remember one time my aunt texted my dad.
00:38:32.514 --> 00:38:34.797
I was like, Sam had this eating disorder.
00:38:34.838 --> 00:38:36.900
I'm like, no, I don't have that eating disorder.
00:38:36.940 --> 00:38:37.280
Don't worry.
00:38:37.460 --> 00:38:38.742
Which aunt?
00:38:38.842 --> 00:38:39.623
I think it was Heather.
00:38:39.903 --> 00:38:40.204
Oh, yeah.
00:38:40.324 --> 00:38:41.085
Heather Heineken.
00:38:41.730 --> 00:38:46.635
texted and said, no, I don't have this one fully.
00:38:47.498 --> 00:38:59.032
But it was just really, I wanted everybody to know, like, it's okay to have mental health problems because honestly, everybody, almost everyone goes through one mental health challenge over the course of their life.
00:38:59.052 --> 00:39:08.784
Like there's these pretty huge statistics that I think at least, it's like at least a quarter or half of adults go through like major depressive disorder at least one point in their life.
00:39:09.634 --> 00:39:13.918
And so just speaking openly about it, I think, opens doors to other people.
00:39:13.998 --> 00:39:16.282
And so I had friends come to me, like, should I go therapy?
00:39:16.302 --> 00:39:17.322
I'm like, it's amazing.
00:39:17.784 --> 00:39:18.784
Find the right therapist.
00:39:19.967 --> 00:39:22.929
And, like, I gave my homecoming talk.
00:39:23.170 --> 00:39:26.735
A lot of it was about mental health, how I asked to come home a couple of times.
00:39:27.335 --> 00:39:30.800
I wish the president wanted me to just go out another week so I stayed out.
00:39:31.400 --> 00:39:37.288
But I did ask to come home probably two or three times in Ohio because I was perfectly okay with it now.
00:39:37.367 --> 00:39:38.809
I was like, it's okay to go home.
00:39:39.362 --> 00:39:41.003
and prioritize their mental health.
00:39:41.525 --> 00:39:45.952
Because in reality, you can't help anybody if you can't help yourself.
00:39:47.153 --> 00:39:49.396
If you're not okay, how are you going to go help somebody else be
00:39:49.476 --> 00:39:50.559
okay?
00:39:50.679 --> 00:39:56.807
You cannot lift anyone higher until you yourself are on higher ground.
00:39:58.070 --> 00:39:58.431
Yeah.
00:39:59.331 --> 00:39:59.693
That's
00:39:59.813 --> 00:40:01.155
the same thing, is it?
00:40:01.976 --> 00:40:04.719
You can't lift somebody up if you're not strong enough to do that.
00:40:04.739 --> 00:40:05.641
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:40:06.222 --> 00:40:08.365
And so I mentioned in my homecoming talk, I had...
00:40:08.833 --> 00:40:10.135
Other members come up crying.
00:40:10.315 --> 00:40:13.159
I think a bunch of them needed it.
00:40:13.318 --> 00:40:16.362
They're like, I'm so glad you opened up about this.
00:40:16.922 --> 00:40:30.217
It just kind of reinforced the idea that people just need somebody to open up about mental health so that they feel comfortable opening about it or just getting help and knowing that there are resources out there or suicide awareness.
00:40:30.717 --> 00:40:34.963
Sometimes people have a stigma about suicide.
00:40:34.983 --> 00:40:37.425
I remember this is a very...
00:40:38.626 --> 00:40:46.574
The story that I feel like I need to tell, it's I was teaching with a missionary and we were teaching this really funny guy in this area.
00:40:46.653 --> 00:40:49.737
I stayed there for like six months and he had been taught there for like 10 months.
00:40:50.237 --> 00:40:53.019
And the missionary just kind of went to him because they couldn't find anybody else.
00:40:54.021 --> 00:40:59.045
And he was a very interesting fellow, to put it lightly, put it gently.
00:40:59.806 --> 00:41:04.550
But he talked, he's like, well, he was depressed.
00:41:05.030 --> 00:41:07.793
He's like, but I can't die because I'll go to hell.
00:41:09.057 --> 00:41:14.405
And apparently a missionary before him had tried to say, no, you don't go to hell if you commit suicide.
00:41:14.885 --> 00:41:16.768
And my companion at that time said, but I wasn't so.
00:41:17.248 --> 00:41:21.755
My companion at that time turned to the guy and said, but I don't agree with him.
00:41:21.815 --> 00:41:26.461
I think we don't actually know because you're killing yourself, which is like murder.
00:41:26.862 --> 00:41:31.509
Right after the last time I turned to him and said, no, suicide is so complicated.
00:41:31.548 --> 00:41:33.050
You do not go to hell.
00:41:33.090 --> 00:41:34.393
They are in so much pain.
00:41:34.432 --> 00:41:37.898
Like that was just an awful thing to say to somebody.
00:41:38.210 --> 00:41:40.733
It said, you're going to hell if you commit suicide.
00:41:40.793 --> 00:41:42.094
It's just not true.
00:41:42.135 --> 00:41:44.878
You can't convince me otherwise.
00:41:45.099 --> 00:41:46.742
It's just, I had to tell him that.
00:41:47.021 --> 00:41:49.105
Well, we had a missionary friend, actually.
00:41:49.364 --> 00:41:51.568
I went to their funeral.
00:41:51.608 --> 00:41:52.869
Ian, you watched the funeral.
00:41:52.949 --> 00:41:54.092
I did, online, yes.
00:41:54.992 --> 00:41:56.074
Knew this person quite well.
00:41:56.094 --> 00:41:57.076
We knew him quite well.
00:41:57.096 --> 00:41:58.237
He was an AP.
00:41:59.659 --> 00:42:00.721
Very successful missionary.
00:42:01.001 --> 00:42:02.202
Very successful missionary.
00:42:02.242 --> 00:42:07.070
And Matt Holland, who's now a general authority, was his companion there.
00:42:07.425 --> 00:42:09.750
They were the APs when I arrived in Scotland.
00:42:10.570 --> 00:42:13.516
And Matt Holland spoke, and he talked about suicide.
00:42:13.735 --> 00:42:20.266
And he did sort of mention what you just said, which I think is 100% correct.
00:42:20.827 --> 00:42:22.530
But he felt like he had to couch it.
00:42:22.590 --> 00:42:24.052
We did a whole episode on this.
00:42:24.132 --> 00:42:28.739
But he felt like he had to couch it in the idea that, well, the church is very clear.
00:42:28.778 --> 00:42:30.402
Suicide is a sin.
00:42:30.442 --> 00:42:32.726
And I just thought, you know...
00:42:34.594 --> 00:42:38.938
That isn't helpful to anybody and it's nothing but hurtful.
00:42:39.498 --> 00:42:45.666
Because exactly what you're saying, the idea that suicide is murder in the way that we consider murder.
00:42:45.726 --> 00:42:52.552
When you murder somebody, we talk in the scriptures about the great secret is that I can murder and get gain.
00:42:52.914 --> 00:42:54.235
You're trying to get something.
00:42:54.695 --> 00:42:57.539
You're doing something evil to take somebody from something.
00:42:57.639 --> 00:43:06.887
And when you kill yourself, it is because exactly as you say, Sam, that you're in so much pain that you don't see any other way out.
00:43:07.568 --> 00:43:13.655
And so I am so grateful for you being willing to say that publicly because that's such an important message.
00:43:13.715 --> 00:43:15.117
And I sit here and listen to this.
00:43:15.918 --> 00:43:22.626
Ian, can you imagine having any kind of these resources or any kind of these discussions when we were missionaries?
00:43:23.126 --> 00:43:24.288
Because I can't.
00:43:24.728 --> 00:43:41.275
The idea of even vocalizing any of that, even to the mission president, even in my most, I mean, I remember when I first got out there, I had an experience where we were teaching an evangelical Christian, and he said, okay, I'll read and pray about the Book of Mormon.
00:43:41.795 --> 00:43:43.998
I was with Elder Hansen, who was also your companion.
00:43:44.038 --> 00:43:44.659
He was my trainer.
00:43:44.699 --> 00:43:45.780
Wonderful, wonderful guy.
00:43:45.800 --> 00:43:49.664
I put him to hell because I was such a difficult missionary.
00:43:50.605 --> 00:43:54.650
And I can remember, so we were in this guy's house, and he says, I'll read and pray about the Book of Mormon.
00:43:54.710 --> 00:44:02.217
He was this young, handsome guy, and he had this very pretty wife, and he was just, it was like, yeah, the Lord wants him.
00:44:02.978 --> 00:44:04.039
to be a member of the church.
00:44:04.199 --> 00:44:05.760
I was absolutely convinced of that.
00:44:06.722 --> 00:44:13.791
And so we went back and he said, I've read and prayed about your Book of Mormon and it isn't true.
00:44:13.831 --> 00:44:23.402
And it's getting, and he could see, I just collapsed.
00:44:23.463 --> 00:44:25.646
I mean, this was like within the first two weeks of my mission.
00:44:26.347 --> 00:44:27.909
So I didn't have any other frame of reference.
00:44:27.949 --> 00:44:30.811
And I'm like, what do you mean you read and prayed about it and it isn't true?
00:44:30.851 --> 00:44:32.114
Of course it's true.
00:44:32.737 --> 00:44:35.961
And I was like, well, I don't know what to do here.
00:44:36.063 --> 00:44:37.664
And Elder Hansen just panicked.
00:44:37.985 --> 00:44:41.550
I mean, when a missionary is like, oh, jeez, maybe the church isn't true.
00:44:41.630 --> 00:44:43.753
I'm sitting here in this investigator's room.
00:44:44.514 --> 00:44:55.590
And this guy looks at me, and he's got this very piercing gaze, and he says to me, this book is interfering with your relationship with Christ.
00:44:56.931 --> 00:44:59.594
And I was like, wow, maybe it is.
00:44:59.614 --> 00:45:01.297
And I said so.
00:45:01.793 --> 00:45:04.115
In front of, you know, you're not supposed to say so.
00:45:04.135 --> 00:45:08.981
And Elder Hansen got me out of there as fast as he could.
00:45:09.021 --> 00:45:11.483
We got home and I was just a mess.
00:45:12.344 --> 00:45:17.349
And I called President Banks and he, I was in Livingston, Scotland, which is what?
00:45:17.389 --> 00:45:19.753
It's about 20 minutes or half hour from Edinburgh?
00:45:19.873 --> 00:45:20.733
Yeah, west.
00:45:21.094 --> 00:45:22.516
And he says, I'll be there in 45 minutes.
00:45:23.617 --> 00:45:24.998
And he was there in 45 minutes.
00:45:25.177 --> 00:45:37.836
And I start talking to him about this and he gave me a blessing and it was, But it's the only time on my mission where I felt like I could be vulnerable because I was like, I may have to leave.
00:45:37.856 --> 00:45:39.358
I can't believe that.
00:45:39.498 --> 00:45:40.780
I don't know that this is true.
00:45:40.800 --> 00:45:41.521
I don't know what to...
00:45:42.123 --> 00:45:43.525
And I just felt lost.
00:45:43.744 --> 00:45:46.407
And President Banks, I can't even remember what he said.
00:45:46.427 --> 00:45:48.570
I can't remember.
00:45:48.610 --> 00:45:55.179
There wasn't any kind of magic counsel to it, but there was patience and understanding, and that was enough.
00:45:55.340 --> 00:45:56.782
That was enough to say, okay, well...
00:45:57.217 --> 00:46:07.032
If I'm pinning my testimony on this guy, this handsome young evangelical guy, his name was Mike Mason, by the way, who was also the name of our home teacher forever.
00:46:08.193 --> 00:46:10.836
Yeah, but I can remember when we met Mike Mason.
00:46:10.856 --> 00:46:14.081
I'm like, oh, that's the same guy that almost got me to go home.
00:46:14.121 --> 00:46:17.646
And he gave me a blessing.
00:46:17.666 --> 00:46:18.829
It was a very sweet blessing.
00:46:18.849 --> 00:46:22.653
I remember he said, the tears that you cried today will turn to tears of joy forever.
00:46:22.849 --> 00:46:27.215
And I remember when that was fulfilled on my mission and I thought this is a direct fulfillment of the blessing.
00:46:28.077 --> 00:46:38.432
But the thing is, even though I was vulnerable and I was willing to talk about it, the idea of talking about this in mental health terms, saying all of these rules.
00:46:38.452 --> 00:46:52.514
I mean, we were talking tonight, Sam, about we had a rule in our mission that if you stood up in your suit, you had to make sure your suit coat was buttoned or you couldn't have the spirit with you.
00:46:52.865 --> 00:46:53.706
I mean, that was a rule.
00:46:54.166 --> 00:46:56.590
You talk about every single stinking rule.
00:46:56.949 --> 00:46:57.670
That was a rule.
00:46:58.190 --> 00:47:07.900
And I remember after President Banks left, when President McConkie came, he stood up in his own conference and he very purposely unbuttoned his suit coat and just let it fall open.
00:47:08.360 --> 00:47:11.985
And there was an audible gasp from this whole conference.
00:47:12.045 --> 00:47:14.246
It was like, whoa.
00:47:14.286 --> 00:47:15.588
You can do that.
00:47:16.088 --> 00:47:30.731
You know, the kind of scrupulosity that you're describing was built into the system 35 years ago in a way that hopefully is trying to be dismantled today, but it's still there.
00:47:30.771 --> 00:47:32.153
Oh, it's still very much there.
00:47:32.193 --> 00:47:32.914
It's still there.
00:47:33.195 --> 00:47:45.728
And I just think, I mean, the idea of talking to a therapist, the idea of saying, you know, I'm frustrated with this, it was just unthinkable.
00:47:45.748 --> 00:47:46.730
I mean, it wasn't...
00:47:47.489 --> 00:47:47.990
Am I
00:47:48.050 --> 00:47:48.311
right?
00:47:48.510 --> 00:47:50.052
Yeah, you are.
00:47:50.112 --> 00:47:51.054
And that was your experience.
00:47:51.295 --> 00:47:53.097
What you went through, Sam, was awful.
00:47:53.277 --> 00:47:54.458
I'm so sorry you went through that.
00:47:54.858 --> 00:48:00.065
I think as I listen to you and you're talking about it, I get the feeling it helps to talk about it.
00:48:00.286 --> 00:48:00.606
Oh, yeah.
00:48:00.847 --> 00:48:07.275
You know, when you start talking about it and you speak, you've got amazing courage to be able to speak so openly about it.
00:48:07.454 --> 00:48:09.918
And, you know, I mean, we've got listeners here who are going to.
00:48:10.081 --> 00:48:10.623
Listen to this.
00:48:10.722 --> 00:48:15.471
And I know I guarantee it's going to be helped tremendously because of what you're sharing.
00:48:15.530 --> 00:48:16.753
That must make you feel good.
00:48:17.934 --> 00:48:18.775
And good will come from this.
00:48:18.835 --> 00:48:19.556
More good will come from this.
00:48:19.577 --> 00:48:20.838
Even though it's all this difficult time.
00:48:21.239 --> 00:48:25.385
And so I think the church has made, what do I say, it goes by as leaps and bounds.
00:48:25.487 --> 00:48:27.208
I don't know because I've not served the mission.
00:48:27.690 --> 00:48:29.472
But I think it has made some progress.
00:48:29.592 --> 00:48:31.876
I can't speak to that definitively like what you can.
00:48:31.896 --> 00:48:39.606
You know, I think there's some, you know, when you came, you went back to Ohio and It came back on when you went to Ohio and you had a different experience, a little bit more support, et cetera.
00:48:40.106 --> 00:48:44.510
So when I hear that, I think, well, the church is making progress, and I think hopefully it will continue to make progress.
00:48:44.951 --> 00:48:49.896
But going back to your experience, I wasn't affected like you were.
00:48:50.056 --> 00:48:56.302
If I was in that situation, that individual would not have budged me one bit, would not have shifted me one iota.
00:48:56.541 --> 00:48:57.922
Would you have just assumed he was evil?
00:48:58.523 --> 00:49:00.465
Well, yeah, or wrong.
00:49:01.065 --> 00:49:02.047
I could not be moved.
00:49:02.106 --> 00:49:03.768
I was immovable when it came to my faith.
00:49:04.208 --> 00:49:04.510
But...
00:49:05.313 --> 00:49:31.063
Any thought of talking about, any of the points in my mission where I was down and depressed, and there were a few, quite a few actually, and I struggled, and inside there was just a battle going on with my emotions that I couldn't make sense of, no one to talk to, and the culture in the mission, for me at least back then, was if you talk about anything like that, you're weak.
00:49:32.384 --> 00:49:36.528
You're a failure, you're weak, You could even get sent home, and I could not get sent home, Sam.
00:49:36.648 --> 00:49:37.690
There's no way to get sent home, right?
00:49:38.150 --> 00:49:40.753
Just for my own, I had to succeed at something.
00:49:40.853 --> 00:49:44.496
I felt such a failure in my entire life until serving a mission.
00:49:44.536 --> 00:49:46.579
I could not see this through.
00:49:47.039 --> 00:49:48.601
You have to carry me back in a box.
00:49:49.822 --> 00:50:02.836
But I bottled up all these feelings, and the thought of being able to talk to somebody, even then I would have felt, you know, scrupulosity.
00:50:02.856 --> 00:50:07.934
I would have felt, well, the very fact that I'm thinking about that means there's something wrong with me.
00:50:08.333 --> 00:50:09.275
It means I'm not strong enough.
00:50:09.735 --> 00:50:10.876
It means I can't hold it together.
00:50:10.916 --> 00:50:17.202
And I've made myself, I've forced myself to be iron cast and like, you will do this no matter what.
00:50:17.262 --> 00:50:17.983
You don't deviate.
00:50:18.023 --> 00:50:18.764
You don't talk about it.
00:50:18.784 --> 00:50:19.684
You don't share your feelings.
00:50:20.206 --> 00:50:22.268
There's no forum to do that.
00:50:22.288 --> 00:50:26.190
There's no medium in which to have those conversations.
00:50:26.512 --> 00:50:29.233
The whole culture around that just back then just didn't exist.
00:50:29.735 --> 00:50:32.657
If he did start to talk about those issues, you'd be seen as a weak mystery.
00:50:33.090 --> 00:50:37.807
And also, I had leadership ambitions, right?
00:50:38.242 --> 00:50:43.085
early on, not later on in the mission, aspire to, you know, be a zone leader.
00:50:43.365 --> 00:50:44.867
You weren't allowed to say that.
00:50:44.947 --> 00:50:45.949
No, you weren't allowed to say
00:50:45.969 --> 00:50:46.088
that.
00:50:46.108 --> 00:50:47.889
It's so obvious for everybody.
00:50:47.909 --> 00:50:49.170
I know, and I certainly had them.
00:50:49.331 --> 00:50:52.835
Yeah, I think many of them had them, but when I got a zone leader, I didn't want to, by the way.
00:50:52.954 --> 00:50:54.476
I thought, what have I asked for here?
00:50:54.815 --> 00:50:57.378
And so I had to be this perfect missionary, right?
00:50:57.838 --> 00:51:37.349
And, you know, I slept in, I couldn't deviate, I had to be this, you know, totally independent, totally dependent, reliable Elder Wilkes, right, who followed the rules, followed the rules, followed the rules, but that turned me into a robot but the i say the thought of even talk trying to talk to somebody about it was a sin because it meant i was weak i didn't have the spirit with me i wasn't strong enough and um and then i mean who do you talk you couldn't talk to anybody about that because it was just there was no there was no process there was no therapy there was no counseling there was no counselors he spoke to you speak if i spoke to president dunn the first president president he would probably think, oh, we've got a missionary who was on the edge, right?
00:51:37.972 --> 00:51:39.596
And are we going to be sending him home, right?
00:51:39.655 --> 00:51:47.264
Without, you know, I don't think President Dunn had very much professional or any counseling experience Forget professional, scrub that.
00:51:47.664 --> 00:51:50.949
Any counseling experience whatsoever, President Banks did.
00:51:51.570 --> 00:51:53.632
With President Banks, I felt loved and listened to.
00:51:54.032 --> 00:51:57.697
And it wasn't professional, but I felt I could talk to him.
00:51:57.717 --> 00:51:58.739
But it was genuine.
00:51:58.840 --> 00:52:01.543
It was genuine, but I always bottled up my feelings.
00:52:02.083 --> 00:52:03.626
I didn't write home about them.
00:52:04.487 --> 00:52:05.869
I didn't write to my friends about them.
00:52:06.369 --> 00:52:08.833
I didn't write to my companion.
00:52:09.474 --> 00:52:13.018
because my companion might tell my mission president, I certainly told my mission president, right?
00:52:13.039 --> 00:52:16.023
Because I didn't want to be a failure missionary.
00:52:16.585 --> 00:52:17.947
And I just kept it.
00:52:19.668 --> 00:52:21.452
Mentally, it was a lock and a key.
00:52:21.893 --> 00:52:22.574
It was a vault.
00:52:22.793 --> 00:52:24.856
I describe it as like Fort Knox, like a vault.
00:52:25.237 --> 00:52:30.766
I had all these feelings and all these struggles myself, but no one knew I went through that.
00:52:30.826 --> 00:52:35.619
They thought Elder Wilkes, I don't know, Steady as he goes, right?
00:52:35.701 --> 00:52:36.240
A steady ship.
00:52:36.561 --> 00:52:43.452
But I got that lock and I chained it and I bolted it and there's another door and I locked that one and I hid it all away.
00:52:44.152 --> 00:52:56.391
So compared to that, I'm not saying the church is perfect by any means, but I think the church, and if I'm wrong, correct me, fast forward 35 years to a mission in the Ohio experience.
00:52:57.052 --> 00:53:01.780
It sounds like it has, we've got counseling in place, which we didn't have, right?
00:53:01.860 --> 00:53:02.621
You mentioned that earlier.
00:53:03.106 --> 00:53:05.590
There's some processes, some systems in place, et cetera.
00:53:05.630 --> 00:53:11.362
To me, that's like night and day, even though the church has still got a long way to go.
00:53:11.382 --> 00:53:11.422
Do
00:53:12.623 --> 00:53:13.224
you think it
00:53:13.264 --> 00:53:13.925
has made some
00:53:13.945 --> 00:53:14.206
progress?
00:53:14.226 --> 00:53:15.590
I think it's made progress.
00:53:16.030 --> 00:53:19.637
I still think Michigan environments themselves aren't healthy for individuals.
00:53:21.681 --> 00:53:23.264
These young kids are going away from home.
00:53:23.304 --> 00:53:26.210
They only get to contact their family once a week still.
00:53:26.818 --> 00:53:28.039
Which is a few
00:53:28.480 --> 00:53:28.820
slides.
00:53:29.179 --> 00:53:29.740
I could call.
00:53:29.820 --> 00:53:31.081
I'm not kidding.
00:53:31.262 --> 00:53:32.143
I made one call.
00:53:32.262 --> 00:53:33.023
It was 10 minutes.
00:53:33.224 --> 00:53:36.827
It even had a duration of time, and it was Christmas time, and that was it.
00:53:37.047 --> 00:53:37.728
I happened.
00:53:37.789 --> 00:53:38.188
Zero.
00:53:38.690 --> 00:53:39.349
Zero calls.
00:53:39.409 --> 00:53:42.273
I was not allowed to call Christmas, not allowed to call Mother's Day, nothing.
00:53:42.914 --> 00:53:43.173
That is awful.
00:53:43.614 --> 00:53:43.695
Yeah.
00:53:43.715 --> 00:53:45.016
Absolutely no contact with my mother.
00:53:45.056 --> 00:53:46.137
That had the letters.
00:53:46.356 --> 00:53:48.579
Did that change happen a year before I went out or something?
00:53:48.599 --> 00:53:49.719
A couple of years, I think.
00:53:49.740 --> 00:53:49.760
A
00:53:49.780 --> 00:53:50.260
couple of years.
00:53:50.340 --> 00:53:51.081
A year, yeah.
00:53:51.101 --> 00:53:55.005
I think a year or two at all before I went out the first time.
00:53:55.809 --> 00:53:57.811
I just think mission environments aren't healthy.
00:53:57.833 --> 00:54:04.521
I always say you don't feel like your normal self because you're- That's what
00:54:04.581 --> 00:54:05.621
Louise was saying the night.
00:54:05.681 --> 00:54:06.583
That's what she said.
00:54:07.525 --> 00:54:07.844
Yeah.
00:54:07.864 --> 00:54:16.356
You're just kind of suppressing yourself to try to be this like black and how do you say?
00:54:16.396 --> 00:54:17.036
This mold.
00:54:17.237 --> 00:54:19.699
This mold of a missionary that everyone's told you to be.
00:54:20.159 --> 00:54:21.282
And they show you videos.
00:54:21.826 --> 00:54:23.527
If Jeffrey R.
00:54:23.608 --> 00:54:27.090
Holland, a big name in the LDS church, Gordon B.
00:54:27.130 --> 00:54:30.653
Hinckley, a previous prophet, they showed videos of them, how Jeffrey R.
00:54:31.034 --> 00:54:31.976
Holland almost went home.
00:54:32.016 --> 00:54:35.858
His mission president made him a hamburger and he said, go out and work, elder.
00:54:35.878 --> 00:54:37.139
And Gordon B.
00:54:37.179 --> 00:54:41.503
Hinckley said he almost went home once and his dad wrote him back and said, just go out and work.
00:54:41.625 --> 00:54:44.427
So if you just work, everything will get better.
00:54:44.487 --> 00:54:51.454
But mental health issues don't get better if you're just doing 12 hours of physical labor and not getting enough sleep.
00:54:52.161 --> 00:54:55.804
Like you're supposed to get, it says you're supposed to sleep for 1030 to 630.
00:54:57.166 --> 00:54:59.028
And, but the thing is a lot of missionaries aren't getting that.
00:54:59.469 --> 00:55:11.681
Like my brother talks about how he was calling people till 10 o'clock at night, 1030, like different missionaries in his zone, his district, and getting updates from them, texting people, making sure they're progressing.
00:55:11.721 --> 00:55:15.885
And so most missionaries are not sleeping eight hours a night.
00:55:16.364 --> 00:55:21.389
And if they are, it's not a good eight hours because you've just done 12 hours of physical labor all day.
00:55:21.954 --> 00:55:25.358
of just walking around and knocking doors, which is mentally and physically taxing.
00:55:25.398 --> 00:55:34.570
And so these people are just setting themselves up to have a mental health because you're just exhausted, both mentally, spiritually, and physically.
00:55:35.172 --> 00:55:41.360
Like you just can't do that for two years and be okay.
00:55:41.380 --> 00:55:41.960
I've listened to you.
00:55:42.081 --> 00:55:42.742
It reminds me.
00:55:42.922 --> 00:55:49.271
And by the way, this is one of the most amazing podcasts and actually just conversations I've ever had.
00:55:49.570 --> 00:55:51.353
I just want you to know that.
00:55:51.938 --> 00:55:56.282
There was a missionary that I served with before you came out.
00:55:57.925 --> 00:56:03.010
He had a reputation of being the hardest worker in a decade.
00:56:03.050 --> 00:56:03.992
That was your trainer, right?
00:56:05.193 --> 00:56:06.416
My trainer, my trainer.
00:56:07.876 --> 00:56:12.523
He had a nervous breakdown, an official, formally diagnosed nervous breakdown.
00:56:12.603 --> 00:56:17.728
I was actually in the hospital for a month because he went, you know, I described my situation.
00:56:17.748 --> 00:56:21.693
You know, you've got your own gym, you've got your experts, you've got...
00:56:21.793 --> 00:56:29.422
Mine was just this, at times, this robot and putting everything into following the rules and hard work.
00:56:29.563 --> 00:56:32.686
That was my, you know, that was the thing I focused on.
00:56:33.726 --> 00:56:37.891
This guy, you know, I think you can do that and you might last two years.
00:56:37.952 --> 00:56:38.371
And I did.
00:56:38.411 --> 00:56:40.775
I'm one of the lucky ones that got through it two years.
00:56:41.255 --> 00:56:42.657
But my trainer didn't.
00:56:42.916 --> 00:56:43.797
He had a nervous breakdown.
00:56:44.599 --> 00:56:47.161
And he was in hospital and at one of the therapists.
00:56:47.202 --> 00:56:47.882
In Scotland?
00:56:47.902 --> 00:56:50.105
In Scotland for a month.
00:56:50.525 --> 00:56:52.760
He had a a real nervous breakdown, right?
00:56:52.840 --> 00:57:00.706
He was losing his mind, because he'd gone, he'd lived like that, but his body's mind, because we're all different, he just couldn't do it.
00:57:01.568 --> 00:57:13.199
He then came to me as my trainer, and I'm told he continued to live like he used to after his treatment, because he just worked, we worked all the time.
00:57:13.840 --> 00:57:20.333
You know, the last night time, 9.25 at night, because you had to be back by, what was it, 9.20, you had to be back by 9.30.
00:57:20.353 --> 00:57:23.737
I think he had to be back at the apartment by 9.30.
00:57:23.898 --> 00:57:25.018
Yeah, a flight at 9.30.
00:57:25.519 --> 00:57:32.487
And so the last few minutes before he can get back, he said, Elder Wilf, would you, should we knock this one last door or go back?
00:57:32.547 --> 00:57:33.748
And I was so exhausted.
00:57:33.829 --> 00:57:34.570
I said, let's just go back.
00:57:34.590 --> 00:57:36.152
He went, no, we'll knock that door.
00:57:36.431 --> 00:57:37.393
He'd always test him.
00:57:37.914 --> 00:57:42.139
And to make the time up for that conversation would run back, which it didn't back, right?
00:57:42.159 --> 00:57:42.860
To get back in time.
00:57:43.440 --> 00:57:53.786
So even that therapy he, and counseling he got, whatever that was, in a very rudimentary fall, I'm sure, a very basic one, hadn't changed him.
00:57:53.827 --> 00:58:11.650
And I heard he had a lot of mental health issues after he came back, including in his relationships, because going through that on a mission, it's not automatic that once you go home, you say, no, could you speak to that?
00:58:11.750 --> 00:58:21.634
So you had this experience, you went to Ohio, there's some support that you got, you came home, And how did you get stronger if you did it at all?
00:58:21.673 --> 00:58:23.355
How did you make yourself stronger?
00:58:23.375 --> 00:58:26.858
When I first got back, I said, I'm going to keep the missionary habits up.
00:58:26.958 --> 00:58:28.920
So I would pray all the time.
00:58:29.021 --> 00:58:31.184
And I was still having the obsessions and cupola.
00:58:31.204 --> 00:58:32.625
And so I said, I worked in the temple.
00:58:33.025 --> 00:58:33.967
I did work in the temple.
00:58:34.007 --> 00:58:34.927
After you came home.
00:58:35.047 --> 00:58:36.009
After I came home, yes.
00:58:36.550 --> 00:58:40.914
I worked in the temple, waking up at 5 a.m.
00:58:41.014 --> 00:58:41.894
to go work in the temple.
00:58:44.577 --> 00:58:50.693
And I was really, my first semester back in school, I was a mess mentally.
00:58:50.713 --> 00:58:58.400
I went off my meds and then just tried to do school.
00:58:58.882 --> 00:59:02.246
But I was reading the scriptures, I think, three to four times a day.
00:59:02.266 --> 00:59:10.375
I was saying a lot of prayers before homework, before tests, before every event I did.
00:59:10.394 --> 00:59:17.021
And I would constantly panic about getting bad acne again because I had a really bad acne that occurred.
00:59:17.313 --> 00:59:18.916
when I was in Argentina.
00:59:18.936 --> 00:59:23.141
And not until my second semester, I decided I'm going to go back to therapy.
00:59:23.681 --> 00:59:28.768
I went to the BYU CAPS therapist, which is their mental health BYU has.
00:59:30.009 --> 00:59:34.994
And this guy, I walk in there and he has this pride flag, a Black Lives Matter flag.
00:59:35.014 --> 00:59:38.559
I'm like, I'm going to get along with this guy.
00:59:38.579 --> 00:59:39.119
At BYU?
00:59:39.199 --> 00:59:39.840
At BYU.
00:59:40.041 --> 00:59:46.548
And he was a bishop as well, which for me actually helped because I would tell him about my experiences.
00:59:46.588 --> 00:59:50.188
I'm like, I was at this place called Liberty Square at BYU.
00:59:50.329 --> 01:00:01.565
And if anybody, any of your listeners have been to BYU or their kids have, Liberty Square is known as the social spot for new missionaries, new people coming home.
01:00:02.806 --> 01:00:06.130
And the bishop there was awful.
01:00:07.211 --> 01:00:09.235
We had a different event every single day.
01:00:09.454 --> 01:00:10.416
Oh, I remember that bishop.
01:00:10.496 --> 01:00:11.617
Yeah, he was terrible.
01:00:11.637 --> 01:00:21.009
I sent him a big letter about how he's not a good bishop and how he's like you– are going to be damaging young kids' mental health.
01:00:21.889 --> 01:00:22.990
But I was really struggling.
01:00:23.030 --> 01:00:27.375
And this therapist, though, was like, we're going to try some things.
01:00:27.876 --> 01:00:28.916
I'm going to be a devil's advocate.
01:00:29.757 --> 01:00:31.458
I want you to read your scriptures once a day.
01:00:31.498 --> 01:00:33.161
And I would start panicking.
01:00:33.201 --> 01:00:34.021
I'm like, what?
01:00:34.242 --> 01:00:34.501
No.
01:00:34.782 --> 01:00:35.023
What?
01:00:35.242 --> 01:00:35.583
No.
01:00:35.943 --> 01:00:36.925
That can't be a thing.
01:00:36.965 --> 01:00:40.427
And then, read your scriptures once a day, and you're fine.
01:00:41.168 --> 01:00:43.771
Like, okay, we're going to only pray twice a day now.
01:00:44.251 --> 01:00:44.612
I'm like, what?
01:00:45.092 --> 01:00:45.231
No.
01:00:45.472 --> 01:00:45.652
No.
01:00:45.773 --> 01:00:46.012
What?
01:00:46.333 --> 01:00:46.534
No.
01:00:47.362 --> 01:01:16.780
and and now everything's fine and he would just have me do these little skills to like test the OCD test the obsessions like are you actually a bad person and remember like i watched a radar movie on a plane and i felt an awful human being even though my sister recommended it to me and i told him that he's like oh i know a sick president watches all the time i don't personally Like he said, he watches PG-13.
01:01:16.800 --> 01:01:19.443
I'm like, I have a stake president who watches Rated R all the time.
01:01:19.463 --> 01:01:21.226
I'm like, you're fine, dude.
01:01:21.565 --> 01:01:26.311
I'm like, oh my gosh, there's this authority figure telling me that it's okay to watch Rated R movies.
01:01:27.273 --> 01:01:32.219
And like just all these things, he would just continually test me.
01:01:32.260 --> 01:01:36.706
And then I got back on to my medication, started taking a sleep medication as well.
01:01:36.746 --> 01:01:40.269
And all of a sudden things just immediately got better again.
01:01:40.291 --> 01:01:54.195
And all it was was just like, becoming a normal human being again and allowing myself to escape the mission environment and letting myself experience life again.
01:01:54.597 --> 01:01:56.940
So where do you feel like you are now?
01:01:56.960 --> 01:01:58.943
I think I'm in a very good spot.
01:01:59.282 --> 01:02:00.585
Like I still have OCD.
01:02:00.625 --> 01:02:02.827
I go to therapy right now for it.
01:02:03.849 --> 01:02:09.717
OCD itself, like if you, what my first therapist says, it goes into remission.
01:02:10.338 --> 01:02:11.880
And so it will always be there.
01:02:12.041 --> 01:02:14.164
Like it can sprout back up in certain instances.
01:02:14.344 --> 01:02:15.284
Maybe it's stressful intense.
01:02:15.846 --> 01:02:20.413
So I still get anxiety sometimes like at school, going back to school gives me anxiety.
01:02:20.432 --> 01:02:30.188
For instance, sometimes I don't have as much scrupulosity now as I did, but sometimes my OCD goes into like relationships.
01:02:31.148 --> 01:02:32.851
Like, do I like this person?
01:02:32.911 --> 01:02:33.793
Do I not like this person?
01:02:33.833 --> 01:02:35.775
Like OCD can just morph and take forms.
01:02:36.757 --> 01:02:39.202
But now I'm doing really good.
01:02:39.585 --> 01:03:39.307
I like reading books on mental health and really I just continually share stuff but overall I'm in a very good spot now with medication therapy and just allowing myself I think the biggest thing which is allowing myself to almost distance myself from the church a little bit let myself live inside the church in my own way and that has really helped me to like stay in the church because I think if I had kept doing those things that I was so scrupulous about I would would have left but allowing myself to like disagree with things in the church and like sleep in on occasion like today I slept in because my body was tired and that's okay and like not going to family home evening because I like being by myself sometimes when I'm studying or I like doing school work over going to family home evening with a bunch of kids in my ward that I don't really get along with anyway so it's just allowing myself to live inside the church and And I'm in my own way as hope.
01:03:41.110 --> 01:03:44.474
Well, Sam, I can't thank you enough.
01:03:44.594 --> 01:03:46.697
I mean, I knew pieces of this story.
01:03:46.717 --> 01:03:53.146
I mean, but I've never heard you sort of disgorge the whole thing in one sitting.
01:03:53.186 --> 01:03:55.469
I've done it many a times to many therapists.
01:03:55.568 --> 01:03:57.851
So I got the whole story down now.
01:03:58.052 --> 01:03:59.333
Yeah, yeah.
01:04:00.014 --> 01:04:02.336
But I can't thank you enough for this.
01:04:02.478 --> 01:04:03.958
And I can't tell you enough.
01:04:04.119 --> 01:04:04.460
I mean...
01:04:06.561 --> 01:04:09.083
how proud I am of you, how much I love you for this.
01:04:09.684 --> 01:04:11.025
Love you too, dude.
01:04:11.947 --> 01:04:15.590
I just, I just, I really, I think Ian's right.
01:04:15.630 --> 01:04:21.335
I think this is going to be very helpful because there's just not enough conversation about this.
01:04:22.157 --> 01:04:23.677
There's still not enough talking about this.
01:04:23.717 --> 01:04:40.806
The one place, I wanted to say one thing, the one thing that has changed, I think, that the church has changed positively is that the stigma for coming home early is still there, but it has lessened considerably.
01:04:41.027 --> 01:04:49.034
The thought of coming home early for me, I mean, I imagined like escaping, because they had my passport, so I couldn't come home whenever I wanted to.
01:04:49.516 --> 01:04:55.481
So I imagined escaping like going through Russia and crossing the Bering Strait.
01:04:55.862 --> 01:04:56.282
I'm serious.
01:04:56.302 --> 01:05:02.349
I've had all these fantasies of how I was going to get home and maybe start a new life and a new name.
01:05:02.369 --> 01:05:06.434
I mean, seriously, but the idea of just saying, oh, I'm going home early.
01:05:06.849 --> 01:05:12.817
And facing my parents and facing my ward was just completely unthinkable.
01:05:13.117 --> 01:05:14.398
I mean, it wasn't even an option.
01:05:14.559 --> 01:05:16.380
It wasn't even, well, I could do that.
01:05:16.420 --> 01:05:19.144
And that has changed to some degree.
01:05:19.204 --> 01:05:26.293
Actually, the numbers show that somewhere between 20% of missionaries now are coming home early.
01:05:26.313 --> 01:05:26.934
Interesting.
01:05:27.114 --> 01:05:28.315
For health reasons.
01:05:28.556 --> 01:05:31.860
Maybe that will put some sense in them and make them
01:05:31.920 --> 01:05:32.641
change the mission.
01:05:33.422 --> 01:05:33.501
Yeah.
01:05:33.634 --> 01:05:38.358
because that was my final question.
01:05:38.659 --> 01:05:44.625
Before I ask you the question, I just want to say I think you're an amazing individual.
01:05:44.804 --> 01:05:45.726
You probably hear that a lot.
01:05:47.208 --> 01:05:53.614
You should feel good about being able to have the courage to talk about this because I'm a person that I haven't got that courage.
01:05:54.494 --> 01:05:57.297
I still bottle things up.
01:05:57.577 --> 01:05:59.119
I haven't got the courage that you've got.
01:05:59.559 --> 01:06:00.760
I don't know how you do it.
01:06:00.840 --> 01:06:01.322
It's amazing.
01:06:01.793 --> 01:06:06.068
And also to what your dad said, you know, there are people out there that this will resonate with.
01:06:06.108 --> 01:06:08.094
He'll help people, and that's going to make you feel good as well.
01:06:08.235 --> 01:06:08.396
Yes.
01:06:08.496 --> 01:06:08.757
Right?
01:06:08.797 --> 01:06:11.003
So you are an extraordinary individual.
01:06:11.385 --> 01:06:11.927
My question is...
01:06:12.833 --> 01:06:42.317
To all who are listening, you know, missionaries going on a mission, even missionaries are out right now, bishops, state presidents, because I've got people in my family who are bishops, state presidents, or in senior leadership callings, but even the church general leadership or leadership as a whole, what advice would you give to them, if any, in regards to helping missionaries go on, you know, prepare to go on missions, to prepare, but also missionaries who are having these experiences while they're out and even coming home as well?
01:06:42.597 --> 01:06:46.981
I think one of the big things is don't tell people to pray away their mental health.
01:06:47.702 --> 01:06:49.884
I think the church has lessened its stance on that.
01:06:50.385 --> 01:06:54.748
But like my first step, the therapist I had on my mission told me to do that.
01:06:55.289 --> 01:06:57.130
I'm like, I pray 15 times a day on the mission.
01:06:57.632 --> 01:06:58.793
It's not going away, dude.
01:07:00.614 --> 01:07:06.179
But I think lessening that and just giving them resources to get help.
01:07:06.360 --> 01:07:16.777
Another thing, I've had a cousin, their bishop has their missionaries like go get counseling before they go on a mission, which I think is really important.
01:07:17.577 --> 01:07:23.003
But also I think pushing service missions more because I think those are healthier environments.
01:07:23.503 --> 01:07:27.809
Those people already have mental health issues going into it.
01:07:27.829 --> 01:07:33.153
I just don't think the mission, like the proselyting mission, the one where you go out and knock doors is good for them.
01:07:33.574 --> 01:07:34.835
So they should go do a service mission.
01:07:34.896 --> 01:07:37.237
I think that should be more widely accepted.
01:07:37.858 --> 01:07:39.039
than like the secondary
01:07:39.199 --> 01:07:39.460
option.
01:07:40.001 --> 01:07:41.742
And I think that's fantastic advice.
01:07:42.463 --> 01:07:50.956
And would you also agree that that service mission has the same level of respect and fame as a proselyting in terms of?
01:07:51.217 --> 01:07:52.898
I think it's getting to there.
01:07:52.918 --> 01:07:54.121
It's not there yet, is it?
01:07:54.141 --> 01:07:55.061
It's not there yet.
01:07:55.101 --> 01:07:56.403
But you think it should be the same?
01:07:56.463 --> 01:07:57.925
It should be the exact same.
01:07:57.945 --> 01:07:59.708
Evaluated to the same level.
01:07:59.869 --> 01:08:00.349
Yeah.
01:08:01.371 --> 01:08:06.557
And then allowing people to come home and so sort of four months and if that's good for them, that's good for them.
01:08:07.202 --> 01:08:13.833
I think a lot of people not to go on missions is a big thing as well because sometimes missions just aren't for people.
01:08:13.873 --> 01:08:18.362
Like Russell M.
01:08:18.402 --> 01:08:20.125
Nelson, the current prophet, didn't serve a mission.
01:08:20.645 --> 01:08:26.756
I don't think he served a mission.
01:08:27.317 --> 01:08:31.944
There are several apostles, like high-ranking people in the church, that didn't serve missions.
01:08:32.481 --> 01:08:35.466
And then they go tell people, like, you have to serve a mission if you're a male.
01:08:35.546 --> 01:08:37.570
And you strongly encourage the woman to serve a mission.
01:08:37.650 --> 01:08:41.157
But, like, you didn't serve a mission, and look where you are now.
01:08:41.396 --> 01:08:46.947
So it's just changing how we talk about missions and why you go.
01:08:46.966 --> 01:08:48.149
It shouldn't be a force.
01:08:48.229 --> 01:08:52.796
It should just be supposed to be a good experience, like a spiritual experience.
01:08:53.417 --> 01:09:13.618
But if you're forcing these young adults to change exactly, like, Woods of wisdom.
01:09:14.337 --> 01:09:15.158
Words of wisdom.
01:09:15.380 --> 01:09:16.962
We'll let those be the final words.
01:09:17.061 --> 01:09:18.264
Thank you very much, Sam.
01:09:18.505 --> 01:09:18.845
Anytime.
01:09:19.225 --> 01:09:20.327
This has been delightful.
01:09:20.368 --> 01:09:24.514
Ian, you need to just move down here so we can do this live and in person every time.
01:09:24.554 --> 01:09:25.354
Thank you so much.
01:09:25.375 --> 01:09:25.815
Yes.
01:09:26.757 --> 01:09:28.079
And thank you all for listening.
01:09:28.140 --> 01:09:31.765
We hope you'll join us again next time for Inside Out.