A Conversation with Brett Palmer

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Hello and welcome to the latest episode of Inside Out, the podcast that takes a pragmatic and balanced look at the Mormon church and faith.
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We consider all of the good that the church does, and it does a lot of good.
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And we also look at some of the problems and issues with the church and discuss ways in which we think the church could change and improve.
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The podcast wouldn't be complete without my partner in crime.
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So as always, I'm delighted to be joined by the indisputable Mr.
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Jim Bennett.
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How are you today, Jim?
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I cannot dispute that I'm doing great.
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It's indisputable.
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It's
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indisputable.
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If people try to dispute with it, they will fail.
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That's correct.
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That's absolutely
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correct.
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You always win an argument, I think.
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Maybe never win.
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I'm not sure which one it is.
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But it's great to have you here with us, Jim.
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Appreciate you joining us here and being part of this really exciting conversation.
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We have a very special guest for this episode, someone Jim and I have wanted to meet for quite some time, somebody I've not seen for a very long time.
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And today we're joined by Brett Palmer, or should I say Elder Palmer, because I remember you, Brett, as a missionary in the Scotland Edinburgh Mission back in 87 to 89.
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I think you probably came out in 86 to 88, if I'm not mistaken.
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Yeah, that's right.
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Is that about right?
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And you served with, and it's probably okay to start, you know, we shared notes back and forth about how we would structure this conversation.
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It's probably a good place to start is somewhere in the middle, which is the mission, perhaps, or, you know, early on in your life.
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Because, you know, my memory of you as a missionary was, and I don't want to embarrass you here, but you were an absolute legend.
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The stories I heard about you with you, living with exactness, I think it was, living with obedience and exactness that President Dunn, who was your mission president for most of your mission, I believe.
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I think you're fondly or affectionately known as a Dunnite.
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And President Dunn, he was my mission president for the first six months.
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And he was a tough cookie, a tough character.
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You served with him a lot longer than I did.
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You did a lot longer than I did.
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But your, I hope you don't mind me saying this, but your reputation in the mission was just unbelievable.
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Everybody I met wanted to serve with you.
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You were an extraordinary missionary, a very kind, loving individual, but an individual also with great leadership and total commitment and devotion to the church.
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And you excelled in leadership as a missionary, and you became an assistant to President Dunn.
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And I just remember looking up to you.
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I was probably the same age, but I liked You know, yourself and Elder Holland and I think Elder Samson.
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Do you remember Elder Samson?
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Yeah.
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Do you remember him?
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And Elder Murdoch and Corbett.
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Do you remember those guys?
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I do, yes.
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And I was new and I looked up to you guys and thought, wow.
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What would it be like to be like those guys?
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He had all this knowledge and also experience.
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Everybody wanted to serve you.
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And I was the new kid on the block.
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But it was...
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You were a very balanced missionary, and I just heard legendary things about you and some of the teachings.
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So it's just wonderful to reconnect with you.
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I have so much respect for you.
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And at the same time, I'm shocked, I think, and surprised.
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You and I have exchanged messages back and forth over the last year or so.
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I was very surprised to learn that you, correct me if I'm wrong here, but you don't go to church anymore.
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You're not as active as it used to be.
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And to go from where you were, that level of devotion, commitment, through a whole series of experiences since your mission and where you are now in your life, I'm absolutely intrigued and fascinated to learn and understand how you got where you are today in terms of where you are in your life.
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And I shared this with you, and I shared this with Jim as well, that if...
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you know, individuals like Elder Palmer leave the church, then the church is in trouble because, you know, that is, you know, when a lot of people join the church, especially in Scotland, as you know, many of the individuals don't stay for very long.
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They might stay a few months, even a year or two years, but they tend to drop off.
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But you were a lifelong, devoted, committed individual, and you served this extraordinary mission, and you had a profound impact on so many missionaries' lives, including my own.
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And so what I'd like to do, if you're comfortable with this, is kind of just start in the middle or a little bit towards the early part of your life, at the mission time of your life, and just kind of enter into the conversation at that point, and then maybe go a little bit historical in terms of your upbringing and youth and how you served a mission in Scotland.
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And then maybe jump forward a little bit in terms of what happened after your mission and how your life kind of panned out from there, so to speak.
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So you were a missionary in Scotland.
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Who did you serve with?
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Like you said, I was there in 86 to 88.
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And first of all, very kind of you to say those nice things.
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Definitely, I think Scotland was a special place.
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And as we talk about Mike and others, it's a unique mission that I haven't seen elsewhere with a lot of my friends.
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So I certainly learned from a lot of great elders before me.
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I served, my trainer was Elder Hardy.
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You probably didn't know him.
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And Elder Holland had been, he was in my district.
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So he was, I was in Dalke and then went to Springboig in Glasgow, kind of a legendary chapel at the base of Easter House, kind of a rough area.
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And then I got called to, I went to Stornoway with Elder Holland and was there for, you know, six months, an older wild.
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And I may forget a few, but all great companions, all great companions.
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So, yeah, had a tremendous experience in Scotland.
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But, you know, I think like a lot of missionaries, it wasn't easy.
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And I appreciate, Jim, as I listened to your podcast a few weeks ago, how maybe, Jim, when you started your mission, it was pretty– you're pretty– you know, depressed and discouraged.
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And, and I, I was a lot like that probably for the first half of my mission felt very inadequate.
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Um, scrupulosity is the term, you know, I didn't know then, but definitely had that and just felt guilty about anything I'd ever done in the past.
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And I would talk to president Dunn and, you know, and said, Hey, just go out there and work.
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And so that's what I kind of dedicated to just working really hard and president Dunn.
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I love President Dunn.
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I know a lot came out maybe later.
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He was pretty strict and intimidating.
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He was a big guy, but he loved the missionaries.
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And so serving with exactness is what he really emphasized and being obedient.
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And that's the way I've kind of been taught as a missionary.
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use for my parents is yeah obedience is the most important thing and so i just kind of consider myself a soldier just doing what i'm told and working really hard and um that's what got me through through the day you know um but i'd say a lot of missionaries struggle at first and scotland's certainly not easy attracting all the time a lot of rejection a lot of time to reflect on things and really feel inadequate and things like that.
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So, yeah.
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And then later, you know, well, both of you served in Inverness, right?
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Yeah.
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I served with the Cahoon first, and then I had the BB, and then I went senior as a zone leader with a lot of Wrigley, I think it was.
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Jim came into the, was in the zone at the same time I was in.
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Yeah, I had maybe three or four missions in Inverness.
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I was there for six, seven months.
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A great, great ward.
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I loved it.
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Yeah, I didn't serve in Inverness.
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I was in the Inverness zone, but I served for six months in Thurso.
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Oh,
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okay.
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Okay, so that was the zone.
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When I was there, there was just the Aberdeen zone.
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Thurso, I don't think anyone had been there.
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That was open later.
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So we served in Stornoway.
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was that island on the Outer Hebrides of Scotland.
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And it's a special place.
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All those places are pretty special.
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What you find out is just you and your companion are the district, right?
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It's just the two of you.
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So hopefully you get along.
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And I had a great companion, Elder Holland, and then Elder Wilde later.
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And our zone conference was in Aberdeen.
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So...
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So what we would do is every zone conference, we would travel on the ferry and come over and get on the train at Inverness and essentially hop along with the different companions as they would just hop on and then we'd meet in Aberdeen.
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And that's when I first met Elder Maddox is he was an elder in Elgin.
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And I think he liked me at first because I made some...
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comment about his backpack and you know he's a pretty funny guy he didn't he didn't like my comment and I'd only made that comment because my trainer had made fun of my backpack the same way and he had this caribou backpack it was massive he would carry like eight books of Mormon and a projector and everything in that in that backpack um but I had fond memories of that and you know one of my more spiritual experiences on my mission was really those aberdeen zone conferences so i don't know so so for us when we would go to aberdeen um it's a long ways away from the mission home so the mission president wouldn't even come up until the next day so we would have a zone the district leader meeting and the zone leaders would meet and it would just be us and then we'd be there and we'd you know, sing hymns and share testimonies and give a lesson.
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And I just remember really having some spiritual experiences there that stayed with me all my life.
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And that was pretty important to me.
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And then later on after that, I trained Elder Soko from Finland there in Elgin.
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Oh, I replaced Maddox.
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Elder Maddox left and I went to Elgin after Storaway.
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And then after that, I I got called to be a zone leader with Elder Maddox.
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And that was part of the reason I wanted to come on and just pay tribute to Elder Maddox that we'll get to, because he's just such a great person and sad to see him gone.
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And so I was companions with Elder Maddox twice, which is unusual in the mission field.
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So we were companions as zone leaders in Edinburgh.
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We were only there, I was just brand new zone leader so he was my senior companion.
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There I think about three months and then they moved me to another zone over in Paisley and in Paisley and Motherwell, I served both in those places.
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And then later when I think both of you probably met me is I was called to be an AP with Eldamatics when President Banks came, right?
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So I was fortunate to serve with two great mission presidents, very different, but both great men that I still really look up to a lot.
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And I would say, yeah, I probably was with President Dunn longer, so they would call us Dunn boys kind of things, you know, that we were after the order of Dunn, so to speak.
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But love President Banks, too.
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it's not like president banks wasn't a strict mission president either he was he was just as strict but i think the one difference is uh like president didn't let us uh eat at members homes that was yeah in fact well the rule was is you had to have a i'd have an investigator right and so that wasn't very often so we didn't eat at mission at members homes very often i think that was I mean, I understand why he did it.
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I think some people abused it.
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And so he took it away.
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And then the other thing, I don't know if that changed when you were on a mission, but we didn't call home.
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So I didn't talk to my family for two years.
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They didn't call home on Mother's Day or Christmas.
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I think they let Elder Maddox, he would call home because his parents were not members and they'd let him.
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um call home on on those days but uh yeah so you know great great spiritual experience really transformative um a lot of my lifelong friends are from scotland still to this day and uh uh great examples to me um so yeah that's kind of in the middle
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um Well, we've talked about Elder Maddox.
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We did an entire episode about his funeral, which is where I saw you last.
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But you and I have also had some conversations in the interim, and we discussed your faith journey and the fact that you have decided that...
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Have you removed your name from the records of the church, or you just don't go anymore?
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I'm just no longer active.
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I'm still a Mormon.
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If anyone came and asked me what church I belong to, I would say I'm LDS, I'm Mormon.
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I'd probably tell them I'm not a very good Mormon, but I'm Mormon.
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I grew up in the church.
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I'm a fifth generation Mormon.
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My parents, my ancestry are Mormon pioneers on both sides.
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So growing up, I grew up in Orem, Utah.
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My dad taught at BYU.
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At an early age, the church was just every part of our life.
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When my dad taught at BYU, our whole entertainment was around BYU.
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BYU football games I would go to with my dad.
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We'd go to movies in the Wilkinson Center where they'd edit the bad words.
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We used to do that.
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We'd go to the homecoming, uh, event, uh, where you'd have the Lamanite generation and young ambassadors, a lot of those things.
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So while it was all, all influenced me and I knew early on, I was going to go on a mission.
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Um, and that was just part of my heritage, which, you know, was another reason why I just had a lot of respect for elder Maddox and, and, and Ian, like you, You know, converts that join the church and go on a mission, that was like, you know, for those of us who grew up in the church, when we'd see a convert go on a mission, that was like, that was a real testimony boost to us.
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It was, wow, that is, that's amazing.
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You know, I kind of call it the Mormon draft for those of us that grew up in Utah.
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You have to go on a mission.
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You know, if you're 19 and not on a mission, you probably should leave the state of Utah and go someplace else, because everyone will be wondering what you're doing.
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Yeah.
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So I came home off my mission, went to BYU.
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Again, like a lot of things, you have these spiritual experiences.
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And I think, I don't know if it's the same with you, but when I came off my mission, yeah, I had a handful of baptisms.
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Scotland, we're not very successful.
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But I did come home with this.
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If you were wrestling with scrupulosity, you assumed that the lack of success was a result of your unrighteousness.
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Yeah.
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There's a lot of that, like, hey, you know, and it's kind of padded into you that, you know, if you've ever done anything wrong, it's like, yeah, I'd remember things like stealing crayons in Sunday school or something like that, just dumb things that really weren't important.
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But yeah, you get over those things, I guess.
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But yeah, that was something that always still bothered me.
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Then, you know, I came off my mission.
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I went right into school, which was really helpful because then you get busy.
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And I remember I talked to my bishop, my former bishop, and said, hey, I think I want to be in MBA school.
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what's the best major to go in MBA school.
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And he, he didn't even hesitate.
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He said engineering.
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So I changed my major, like the next day to electrical engineering and, and studied engineering for the next five years at BYU.
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Um, and then end up, um, you know, working in software.
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So now I'm, I'm a software engineer.
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Uh, that's what I've been doing since then.
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But, uh, you know, I'd say, uh, still had a strong testimony through, uh, All that time I got married, I met my wife at a BYU ward at a ward prayer.
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So it was a singles ward.
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I didn't get married right after my mission like a lot might do.
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I was just graduating and I met her at a ward prayer.
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It was our singles ward, kind of an older singles ward.
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It was a cool ward where they'd allow people to just come in.
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It was pretty popular.
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A lot of people would just come here and they didn't necessarily live in the boundaries.
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And yeah, we had a really short courtship though.
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And I just always believed, hey, if it feels right, you live right, things will work out.
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And I look back now, I think that was really dumb.
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We should have had a lot longer engagement, found out more about each other.
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Because what if she'd gone to BYU too, she'd grown up in Guatemala and kind of a less active family.
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So when we got married and we got married in the temple, going to church, you know, her dedication to church and mine were a little bit out of sync and that always caused some contention there.
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So, and I feel bad about that now.
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because she was probably right and I was wrong.
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We're still together and we have four beautiful children.
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When you have your kids, they're just so special to you.
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You have three daughters and my youngest is my son and they mean the world to me.
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I took it upon myself to really be a good spiritual leader to them and teaching the gospel.
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In fact, I had five polymer rules that we kind of joke about now.
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First was, because I thought, okay, my wife doesn't have the same background I do, so I'm just going to keep it fairly simple.
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First one, everyone goes to church.
00:21:18.294 --> 00:21:21.917
Second, everyone goes to BYU or gets a college degree.
00:21:21.938 --> 00:21:27.503
Third, my son goes on a mission.
00:21:28.744 --> 00:21:33.130
And four, and my daughter's going on a mission too, but son has to go.
00:21:33.634 --> 00:21:36.777
And fourth, uh, everyone gets married in the temple.
00:21:37.237 --> 00:21:39.519
And my fifth one was everyone has to ski.
00:21:39.859 --> 00:21:42.923
So we had that, those are the five follow rules.
00:21:43.784 --> 00:21:52.372
And, uh, so, so I, I kept that, um, and, you know, was active in the church.
00:21:54.114 --> 00:22:04.787
Uh, most of my callings were like a lot of times elders quorum presidency, uh, often in the young men's, uh, Never in a bishopric.
00:22:06.809 --> 00:22:08.791
Never got a call to that.
00:22:08.951 --> 00:22:15.199
Part of that, I think, might have been my wife and I, it might have been a little stressful for our marriage.
00:22:15.318 --> 00:22:18.282
I think leadership probably saw that.
00:22:18.502 --> 00:22:27.112
I love working with young men, too.
00:22:27.153 --> 00:22:45.665
I'd grown up in scouting and all that, and that was, I thought, was I just really had a positive influence in my life and wanted to do the same for the young, you know, kind of pay back for all the great service that, you know, the leaders that I grew up with had done as well.
00:22:47.709 --> 00:22:48.589
Yeah.
00:22:50.452 --> 00:22:55.740
I guess to tell you about my faith journey, though, so everything's going fine.
00:22:55.780 --> 00:23:01.369
And in my 40s, I...
00:23:02.337 --> 00:23:08.784
one of my close friends, and we'd been roommates at BYU, and we'd grown up together.
00:23:08.804 --> 00:23:14.529
We essentially went to kindergarten together, and our families were really close, and we skied together growing up.
00:23:15.750 --> 00:23:19.694
And he also became a great friend with Michael Maddox as well.
00:23:23.459 --> 00:23:30.445
So we went on this ski trip up to Canada in British Columbia, so
00:23:30.625 --> 00:23:31.086
Beautiful.
00:23:31.106 --> 00:23:31.406
Where else?
00:23:31.487 --> 00:23:33.669
Did you go to Whistler?
00:23:34.990 --> 00:23:36.051
No, not that far.
00:23:36.172 --> 00:23:42.038
I think this is the heli-skiing trip up by Nelson.
00:23:43.039 --> 00:23:43.380
Oh, yeah.
00:23:44.201 --> 00:23:45.021
Not far from where I am.
00:23:45.041 --> 00:23:46.343
It's maybe three or four hours from here.
00:23:46.804 --> 00:23:48.846
It's the Valhalla Mountain Range.
00:23:48.925 --> 00:23:51.169
It's an amazing ski resort area down there.
00:23:51.628 --> 00:23:52.450
Yeah, yeah.
00:23:52.569 --> 00:23:54.051
So just beautiful out there.
00:23:57.377 --> 00:24:11.256
one night, you know, we're staying up late and he's telling me about his wife who was going through a faith crisis who had just ran rough still rolling and had lost her testimony.
00:24:11.695 --> 00:24:14.038
And I was just really concerned.
00:24:14.058 --> 00:24:21.067
I was like, first of all, this is my good friend growing up and his wife's wonderful and grew up in kind of a family like mine.
00:24:22.028 --> 00:24:28.520
And my friend, you know, kind of, he'd been our neighbor and we'd kind of reactivated their family growing up.
00:24:28.580 --> 00:24:30.784
So it's like, wow, all that work.
00:24:30.824 --> 00:24:33.406
And now, now you you've lost your faith.
00:24:33.507 --> 00:24:39.114
So of course I, I went home, I bought Russ stone rolling, read it.
00:24:40.875 --> 00:24:44.140
Uh, and it actually didn't have that kind of effect on me.
00:24:44.420 --> 00:24:45.280
I, I enjoyed it.
00:24:45.381 --> 00:24:46.201
I liked the history.
00:24:46.241 --> 00:24:47.002
I loved history.
00:24:48.144 --> 00:25:29.738
Um, there are a few things that were new, like, you know, polyandry and those kinds of things that Joseph Smith and, uh, seer stones were were were tough right um but it didn't have that i'm still still in um then i you know i read cs letter and i i i didn't really like that either i read it and it it had like uh you know i i thought it was supposed to be like a a nice letter to uh an uncle saying hey ask these questions and it really read more like an anti-mormon pamphlet to me so I really didn't enjoy that at all.
00:25:29.778 --> 00:25:31.279
That didn't impact me at all.
00:25:31.339 --> 00:25:35.305
But then started listening to podcasts and reading more.
00:25:35.345 --> 00:25:43.355
And the Mormon Stories podcasts were a big impact on me.
00:25:43.455 --> 00:25:59.728
And I think where my shelf finally broke was Simon Southerton's interview with John DeLinn and where he talked about DNA evidence in the Book of Mormon.
00:26:00.028 --> 00:26:07.297
And as a boy, I had grown up reading the illustrated stories of the Book of Mormon at an early age.
00:26:07.317 --> 00:26:08.278
I just read them.
00:26:08.298 --> 00:26:13.644
My heroes were Ammon, you know, and Captain Moroni.
00:26:13.684 --> 00:26:24.938
And growing up in Utah County there, we would have like the Lamanite generation, they'd come and they'd come and to their Native American dances there or school.
00:26:25.159 --> 00:26:27.461
I just thought that was the coolest thing on earth.
00:26:28.502 --> 00:26:36.413
So just really had a testimony of the Book of Mormon and the whole stories behind the historicity of the Book of Mormon.
00:26:37.875 --> 00:26:45.006
And almost overnight, that's the one that just, my shelf totally just crashed.
00:26:45.106 --> 00:26:47.390
It's like, I...
00:26:49.026 --> 00:26:52.269
I just realized the Book of Mormon wasn't true.
00:26:52.710 --> 00:26:56.996
And if the Book of Mormon isn't true, then Joseph Smith isn't a prophet.
00:26:57.056 --> 00:27:04.084
And if Joseph Smith isn't a prophet, then it doesn't matter what the men in Salt Lake say they are or anything else.
00:27:04.223 --> 00:27:07.909
Everything is just a lie.
00:27:08.409 --> 00:27:12.775
And that was pretty crushing for me.
00:27:17.185 --> 00:27:49.554
you know i and i've talked with others about this it's kind of like uh you go into kind of some dark spaces of you know it's like a midlife crisis you know for a man and then then a faith crisis on top of it and it's like a perfect storm it's like wow it just hits you and you just think i've wasted so much time um and you you know you just have a lot of regrets and It's kind of that, what do they call it?
00:27:49.634 --> 00:27:57.666
The kind of steps of grief where first year, you know, in denial, you can't believe it's true.
00:27:57.707 --> 00:27:59.449
Then you go through kind of anger.
00:27:59.490 --> 00:28:06.539
And then you finally come to cope with it.
00:28:06.901 --> 00:28:10.507
And then you kind of move on and you realize it's okay.
00:28:10.567 --> 00:28:11.808
We can keep going.
00:28:12.108 --> 00:28:16.826
And so that's kind of what, what led me out.
00:28:16.926 --> 00:28:20.010
So like I said, I haven't resigned.
00:28:20.131 --> 00:28:22.192
I have really no interest in resigning.
00:28:22.673 --> 00:28:27.218
Um, I tell my kids, you know, I was, I was born a Mormon.
00:28:27.898 --> 00:28:28.960
I'm going to die a Mormon.
00:28:29.820 --> 00:28:37.288
Um, you know, maybe after this podcast, my stake president called me up and, and have a different, different opinion.
00:28:37.328 --> 00:28:43.103
But, uh, that that's always been my shot is that, It's in my DNA.
00:28:43.303 --> 00:28:45.025
You can't take that away from me.
00:28:45.065 --> 00:28:47.207
It's all I know.
00:28:47.247 --> 00:28:55.015
Like you guys have said in other podcasts, I love the Mormon people.
00:28:55.035 --> 00:28:57.477
I love the history.
00:28:58.298 --> 00:28:59.179
My ancestry.
00:28:59.318 --> 00:29:00.500
Couldn't be more proud of them.
00:29:01.701 --> 00:29:05.586
I'm just a non-believer now.
00:29:05.625 --> 00:29:09.348
But other than that, I'm the same person.
00:29:09.568 --> 00:29:16.237
And so That's what makes this kind of tough when coming out like this is I don't think everyone knows that.
00:29:16.537 --> 00:29:35.943
And it's funny, my friends that do know, just like, you know, Ian, you said, I think they are scared to ask because they look and say, hey, if Brett can leave, then I can leave and I don't want to leave.
00:29:35.963 --> 00:29:40.410
And so we never talk about it.
00:29:40.705 --> 00:29:42.248
And that's fine.
00:29:42.428 --> 00:29:43.048
I understand.
00:29:43.088 --> 00:29:55.207
Um, we, we, we meet, we're still good friends and you know what I would, Mike and I were still pretty close and we actually live relatively close here.
00:29:55.227 --> 00:30:02.336
He would, he knew I was out cause he would talk with my friend who was the same one that I went skiing with.
00:30:02.438 --> 00:30:05.862
Cause he was good friends with him and asked me, how's Palmer?
00:30:05.883 --> 00:30:06.864
What's, what's he doing?
00:30:06.923 --> 00:30:07.965
Why don't you ask Palmer?
00:30:08.026 --> 00:30:12.976
And And I went to lunch with him a few months ago before he passed away.
00:30:13.316 --> 00:30:16.840
And we just didn't talk about it.
00:30:17.823 --> 00:30:21.268
And now I have regrets about that.
00:30:21.307 --> 00:30:24.952
I wish we had talked more about it.
00:30:25.374 --> 00:30:28.357
And I just said, hey, Mike, I love you.
00:30:28.397 --> 00:30:29.619
You're one of my best friends.
00:30:30.521 --> 00:30:33.185
And I want you to know I have the utmost respect for you.
00:30:33.246 --> 00:30:35.608
But I no longer believe in the church.
00:30:36.170 --> 00:30:38.212
I'm still the same person.
00:30:39.329 --> 00:30:40.290
I'd do anything for you.
00:30:40.791 --> 00:30:45.296
And, you know, I didn't get a chance to do that.
00:30:45.997 --> 00:30:48.078
And I regret that, you know.
00:30:50.082 --> 00:30:56.429
Is your wife where you are essentially or the rest of your family?
00:30:56.449 --> 00:30:58.250
Yeah.
00:30:58.351 --> 00:31:03.797
So when I had my faith crisis, it was really tough.
00:31:03.836 --> 00:31:10.336
My kids were So I have four kids and my two oldest were kind of in a GRI high school.
00:31:11.499 --> 00:31:22.855
So it was really tough for them because I had brought them up in the church, taught them, uh, you know, as much as I could on, on how to be good Latter-day Saint.
00:31:23.436 --> 00:31:30.587
Um, and my wife kind of leaned on me to do that because she felt like she hadn't had the family to do that.
00:31:31.509 --> 00:31:33.640
And, uh, So that was really tough for them.
00:31:33.700 --> 00:31:36.262
My two youngest were kind of in primary.
00:31:36.364 --> 00:31:43.794
So when I stopped going to church, they just kind of, well, okay, yeah, we'll just stay home with mom and dad.
00:31:43.835 --> 00:31:50.423
So my wife is funny because when I left, she was kind of mad.
00:31:50.463 --> 00:31:54.609
It's like, hey, who's going to teach the kids, you know?
00:31:54.630 --> 00:31:56.373
We need you to do that.
00:31:56.532 --> 00:31:59.457
And I said, well, you could do it now.
00:31:59.577 --> 00:32:07.959
And And so she was not that happy about my faith crisis, but over time she's in the same places as me.
00:32:08.480 --> 00:32:23.357
Um, and, and my family, I mean, I think they still think their dad's crazy, but, uh, but we're close and they, we get together and we're still really close family.
00:32:23.577 --> 00:32:24.660
So I'm happy about that.
00:32:24.819 --> 00:32:30.911
We talk a lot and they're, but yeah, we usually don't talk about religion too much.
00:32:32.753 --> 00:32:34.736
What about your siblings or your parents?
00:32:34.756 --> 00:32:36.057
I don't know if your parents are still with us.
00:32:37.199 --> 00:32:37.480
Yes.
00:32:37.599 --> 00:32:40.663
My mom passed away a few years ago before my crisis.
00:32:40.943 --> 00:32:43.887
My father is still alive.
00:32:44.368 --> 00:32:50.076
And like I said, I had great parents, very spiritual people.
00:32:50.135 --> 00:32:55.242
And I have not come out to my father and told him.
00:32:55.462 --> 00:33:04.019
I went to breakfast with uh, all of my siblings, except one, uh, who wasn't in the area, but, and I'm the oldest.
00:33:04.098 --> 00:33:08.967
So there's a, there's a, I have a twin sister and then I, there's like a nine year gap.
00:33:09.346 --> 00:33:13.093
And then we, then I have four adopted brothers and sisters.
00:33:13.113 --> 00:33:15.155
I have three brothers and an assistant.
00:33:15.175 --> 00:33:17.078
So there's six siblings altogether.
00:33:17.118 --> 00:33:32.671
And I was the oldest and my parents kind of put me up there as, you know, Hey, you're the example, first missionary, um, So I felt like I needed to come out and talk to them.
00:33:32.691 --> 00:33:43.582
And so I took them all to breakfast and just let them know that, hey, I want you to know I no longer believe, but I still love all of you.
00:33:43.622 --> 00:33:46.644
And I didn't tell them why.
00:33:46.664 --> 00:33:48.928
I said, if you want to know why, you can just ask me.
00:33:49.387 --> 00:33:51.289
I just no longer believe.
00:33:51.390 --> 00:33:56.579
And they were all, it was nice that, They were judgmental.
00:33:56.599 --> 00:33:58.001
They were all pretty supportive.
00:33:58.383 --> 00:34:02.249
I'm the oldest, so maybe that makes it a little easier.
00:34:02.689 --> 00:34:11.342
And they knew my dedication to the church, so it's hard to argue scripturally or doctorally things.
00:34:13.625 --> 00:34:15.387
So, yeah.
00:34:17.871 --> 00:34:19.454
I've come out to those.
00:34:19.634 --> 00:34:28.574
I think my dad has found out later that And the one reason I don't tell my father is what he's a, he's a great man.
00:34:28.735 --> 00:34:32.699
And he's starting, starting to, to lose his memory a little bit.
00:34:32.938 --> 00:34:36.983
So, uh, he's not the same as he once was.
00:34:37.003 --> 00:34:41.126
I felt like I, I think it would be really tough for him.
00:34:41.166 --> 00:34:44.311
Um, he might forget.
00:34:44.391 --> 00:34:47.914
We had the talk a few minutes later, so just don't bring it up.
00:34:48.153 --> 00:34:48.954
I think he knows.
00:34:49.114 --> 00:34:51.478
Cause he used to always ask, Hey, what are you doing in the church?
00:34:51.597 --> 00:34:55.036
And, He doesn't do that anymore.
00:34:57.739 --> 00:34:59.242
Yeah, but I still meet with them.
00:35:00.262 --> 00:35:01.224
I go up to his house.
00:35:01.284 --> 00:35:03.748
We watch BYU football games together.
00:35:03.768 --> 00:35:06.530
And we're still pretty close.
00:35:06.570 --> 00:35:08.554
But I know that's the sad part.
00:35:08.594 --> 00:35:11.597
He's told my sister once, you know, what did I do wrong?
00:35:11.617 --> 00:35:13.860
Because several of my siblings are out.
00:35:14.019 --> 00:35:21.849
I'd say four are out and two are, let's say three are out.
00:35:22.306 --> 00:35:27.331
completely and two are in and one is kind of nuanced.
00:35:27.650 --> 00:35:30.353
So it's a mixed bag.
00:35:32.355 --> 00:35:39.681
It's that scrupulosity again, like, you know, as a parent, you know, if your children and the church, you're raising with the church.
00:35:41.364 --> 00:35:48.269
And I did for a while up until the, like, the, you know, mid-teens, late-teens, and you heard my story.
00:35:48.411 --> 00:35:53.150
It's a very difficult time, actually, very difficult for my you know, for the kids.
00:35:55.052 --> 00:36:08.610
But, you know, thinking about your father, and it's probably very common where parents whose children have so-called gone astray, if you like, they question their, you know, their quality as a parent.
00:36:08.650 --> 00:36:09.610
You know, what did they do wrong?
00:36:09.710 --> 00:36:15.639
And maybe they feel they didn't live with exactness or wasn't as obedient enough or maybe he wasn't devoted enough.
00:36:15.679 --> 00:36:19.603
But the reality is that, you know, we're all free agents, right?
00:36:19.784 --> 00:36:29.958
And, you know, kids grow up They research, find out stuff for themselves from their own opinion, and go the direction they want to go in.
00:36:29.998 --> 00:36:40.309
But I can see why a lot of parents in the church who have been so devoted, so committed to raising the family, they wonder where do they go wrong as parents, and that can be tough, for sure.
00:36:41.510 --> 00:36:41.911
Yeah.
00:36:43.592 --> 00:36:51.081
Well, scrupulosity is something that essentially runs in our family.
00:36:51.121 --> 00:36:58.552
I When I came home from my mission, I mean, I am still now a huge Rolling Stones fan.
00:36:59.112 --> 00:37:05.882
In fact, tomorrow night, I'm going to be in Denver, Colorado, watching the Rolling Stones live with one of my sons.
00:37:06.983 --> 00:37:07.143
Hey.
00:37:07.824 --> 00:37:13.092
So, but I came home from my mission and I'd heard the Gene R.
00:37:13.172 --> 00:37:13.833
Cook talk.
00:37:14.626 --> 00:37:21.715
where he talks about meeting Mick Jagger on an airplane and Mick Jagger said to him, our music is calculated to drive the kids to sex.
00:37:22.775 --> 00:37:24.038
I don't know if you guys heard that one.
00:37:24.958 --> 00:37:31.067
And so I came home and I broke all of my Rolling Stones records and threw them away.
00:37:31.086 --> 00:37:42.782
And I said that to my son, not the son that's coming to the Rolling Stones concert, but his twin brother, who was diagnosed with scrupulosity while on his missions.
00:37:43.554 --> 00:37:47.077
And he said to me, oh, dad, I didn't know you had scrupulosity too.
00:37:48.340 --> 00:37:52.483
And I thought, you know, we didn't talk about it that way.
00:37:52.664 --> 00:37:53.746
We didn't discuss it.
00:37:54.166 --> 00:37:59.972
It was not even an acceptable topic of discussion as a missionary.
00:38:00.012 --> 00:38:21.331
I mean, I woke up every morning panicked that I had done something wrong that was going to drive some investigator away and that I had done something that was going to have an eternal impact on somebody else's salvation, and they would get to the other side and confront me and say, why didn't you get up at 6.30 in the morning like you were supposed to instead of getting up at 6.35?
00:38:21.471 --> 00:38:27.199
I mean, it was really that level of intensity.
00:38:28.139 --> 00:38:32.606
And there was no outlet to discuss it, to deal with it.
00:38:32.666 --> 00:38:33.947
You couldn't even acknowledge it.
00:38:34.228 --> 00:38:37.693
You couldn't even say, hey, I'm struggling with this.
00:38:38.815 --> 00:38:40.277
And early on my mission, I...
00:38:41.217 --> 00:38:46.786
I had this encounter with an evangelical Christian that shook me up.
00:38:47.186 --> 00:38:55.760
And President Banks came to Livingston, Scotland to sort of perform an intervention because I had just had this moment where I was doubting everything.
00:38:56.382 --> 00:38:58.625
And he gave me a blessing and was very kind to me.
00:38:59.987 --> 00:39:05.376
But one of the things he asked was, is there some unresolved sin in your life?
00:39:06.797 --> 00:39:09.101
And there wasn't.
00:39:09.954 --> 00:39:17.081
Other than, Brett, the kinds of things you described with, you know, stealing crayons and primary or whatever else.
00:39:17.101 --> 00:39:20.827
I mean, there wasn't some kind of big unresolved sin.
00:39:22.527 --> 00:39:37.525
But I kept searching for it because the lack of success that we all had in Scotland, which was due primarily to the fact that Scotland is largely a post-Christian country at this point, let alone...
00:39:37.858 --> 00:39:46.208
You know, there are half as many active members in Scotland now as there were when we were there 35 years ago.
00:39:46.889 --> 00:39:53.197
And you have to ask, well, does that mean that everybody that's, every missionary that's come through then just wasn't righteous enough?
00:39:53.396 --> 00:39:54.418
Is that the problem?
00:39:54.458 --> 00:39:56.840
Or is there something else going on here?
00:39:57.481 --> 00:40:03.929
And the answer is, of course, there is something else going on here, but these are things that we weren't allowed to talk about.
00:40:04.911 --> 00:40:07.373
Brett, when you talk about your scrupulosity...
00:40:08.065 --> 00:40:12.492
Is that something that you discussed with anyone when you were a missionary?
00:40:15.996 --> 00:40:16.257
No.
00:40:16.396 --> 00:40:24.547
I mean, maybe my mission president, because I just come up with, well, there's a list of things that I think I maybe need to take care of, you know.
00:40:25.068 --> 00:40:30.215
But he probably, particularly if it was Elder Dunn or President Dunn, he probably made it worse.
00:40:32.277 --> 00:40:40.407
You know, he was actually pretty good and just said, hey, you know, you've What I think convinced him is, well, Elder Palmer is very repentant.
00:40:40.728 --> 00:40:52.065
I mean, he's, and I think I've actually got a letter from my bishop because he wrote my bishop and said, you know, Elder Palmer's having a hard time.
00:40:52.485 --> 00:40:56.550
And the bishop wrote me back and said, hey, you know, you've been forgiven.
00:40:57.211 --> 00:41:01.577
Just don't worry about those things and get on with your mission.
00:41:01.878 --> 00:41:04.222
And, yeah.
00:41:04.673 --> 00:41:08.239
Yeah, but definitely they didn't talk about scrupulosity at all.
00:41:08.440 --> 00:41:12.144
That wasn't a topic that even people brought up.
00:41:12.646 --> 00:41:21.778
You know, on our mission, we had a few people with, you know, mental illnesses that probably shouldn't have been on the mission, you know, but that was back in the day.
00:41:22.621 --> 00:41:29.230
The bishops would just send them off on a mission and thinking, you know, you're going to pray and work hard and everything being great.
00:41:29.311 --> 00:41:40.706
And, you know, This is a person that, like, I think we had someone with schizophrenia, and they finally got some help, and they sent him home, and they had no business being on a mission.
00:41:42.447 --> 00:42:00.525
Well, President Beck prided himself on the fact that he didn't send anyone home, which, looking back on it, I think was a huge mistake, because I can name you at least five missionaries that I think were damaged and damaging people by staying out.
00:42:01.282 --> 00:42:03.304
And I can name a fishery five times.
00:42:04.905 --> 00:42:06.927
I know exactly who you're talking about.
00:42:06.947 --> 00:42:12.594
And I don't know that we should talk about it any more than that.
00:42:12.614 --> 00:42:13.835
Another time, maybe.
00:42:13.875 --> 00:42:14.335
Another time.
00:42:14.755 --> 00:42:19.942
But President Banks absolutely felt like you can't go home.
00:42:19.981 --> 00:42:27.789
If you go home, I talked to some of these missionaries who went to President Banks and said, I want to go home.
00:42:28.545 --> 00:42:36.596
And President Banks laid such a huge guilt trip on them of, if you go home, you're going to go home as a failure.
00:42:37.336 --> 00:42:41.181
And that's going to follow you for the rest of your life, and it's going to follow you into the next life.
00:42:41.782 --> 00:42:46.748
Because you're not going to be valiant in your testimony and all of that kind of thing.
00:42:46.768 --> 00:42:57.601
And I think a lot of that pressure that we felt has been lifted to some degree because...
00:42:58.402 --> 00:43:06.670
Well, for one, the stigma for coming home early isn't nearly as bad as it was when we were missionaries.
00:43:06.769 --> 00:43:27.150
I mean, I dreamed of escaping from my mission and going over into Russia and crossing the very straight land bridge to start a new life and my new identity because the idea of calling my parents and saying, I want to come home early for my mission was just too horrible to contemplate.
00:43:27.585 --> 00:43:34.876
The stigma that was attached to that, I don't think I knew anybody growing up that had come home early.
00:43:34.896 --> 00:43:41.206
And the idea of coming home early was just, oh my goodness, you are the worst person in the world.
00:43:41.706 --> 00:43:48.858
Well, you look at it now and the statistics are off the charts compared to where they were back then.
00:43:49.880 --> 00:43:55.288
I've seen some numbers that say somewhere close to 30% of missionaries are coming home early.
00:43:55.327 --> 00:43:56.510
Yeah.
00:43:56.802 --> 00:43:59.605
And I've seen it in my own ward.
00:44:00.244 --> 00:44:05.869
I can remember we had this beautiful, tearful farewell for this one missionary when I was in a bishopric.
00:44:06.590 --> 00:44:09.092
And three weeks later, I show up at church and there he is.
00:44:10.014 --> 00:44:11.976
And I was like, oh, well, hello.
00:44:13.797 --> 00:44:20.264
But the absolute stigma attached to that doesn't seem to be there anymore.
00:44:20.304 --> 00:44:26.610
And I think probably because out of necessity, the church has sort of started having to deal with that.
00:44:27.233 --> 00:44:28.375
on a regular basis.
00:44:28.896 --> 00:44:50.340
But when my sons were out there, there were mission psychologists, and my son, with scrupulosity, met with a mission psychologist every week, except the psychologist was under contract with the church so that nothing that my son said was confidential.
00:44:51.282 --> 00:44:58.818
The psychologist had to share all of the information from the sessions with the mission president, which I just thought was nuts.
00:44:59.117 --> 00:45:06.184
I thought, geesh, give this guy an opportunity to deal with a healthcare professional in a professional setting.
00:45:06.224 --> 00:45:14.612
And the church doesn't seem to be there yet, but they've come a long way from the place where we were, which was shut up and get to work.
00:45:15.534 --> 00:45:19.498
If you have any problems, it's your problem and you're a terrible person.
00:45:20.137 --> 00:45:28.385
I mean, now that you've stepped away from the church, Brett, Do you still feel sort of that churn of scrupulosity?
00:45:28.425 --> 00:45:33.791
Do you sometimes wake up in the middle of the night and go, what if I'm wrong and I'm going to burn in hell?
00:45:33.811 --> 00:45:36.875
No, no, I don't.
00:45:37.474 --> 00:45:59.673
In fact, one feeling I had when I finally, the shelf crashed, is I kind of liken it to when you've repented of something or maybe talked to your bishop about something, And you just feel so relieved after you're out and feel great again about your life.
00:46:00.755 --> 00:46:08.063
When I no longer believed in the church, all that guilt and all that weight on my shoulder just fell off.
00:46:08.664 --> 00:46:18.293
And I felt, you know, I had other feelings too, but definitely felt like, yeah, I don't have any guilt about it.
00:46:18.530 --> 00:46:20.213
anything like that anymore.
00:46:20.492 --> 00:46:21.635
So that went away.
00:46:21.655 --> 00:46:25.239
I mean, really, the scrupulosity was kind of short-term for me.
00:46:25.400 --> 00:46:26.702
It was on my mission.
00:46:27.364 --> 00:46:30.648
I'd say even when I got home, it was still around a bit.
00:46:31.369 --> 00:46:36.318
I did Rolling Stone Story 2, Jim, and I saw them in Vegas a while ago.
00:46:36.358 --> 00:46:37.800
Oh, yeah.
00:46:38.121 --> 00:46:39.902
I was there in 21.
00:46:39.922 --> 00:46:40.204
Yeah.
00:46:41.184 --> 00:46:43.528
Yeah, we were there at the same time.
00:46:43.548 --> 00:46:44.751
Should have said hello.
00:46:45.271 --> 00:46:45.753
I should have.
00:46:46.353 --> 00:46:51.237
But So when I went home on my mission, I extended a couple months.
00:46:51.478 --> 00:46:53.079
And so I went by myself.
00:46:53.179 --> 00:46:54.101
I didn't have a companion.
00:46:54.121 --> 00:46:59.045
And I didn't want to watch a movie because I'd feel really bad about that.
00:46:59.327 --> 00:47:00.688
So I'm listening to music.
00:47:00.887 --> 00:47:02.849
And it's an oldie station.
00:47:03.090 --> 00:47:06.153
How wrong can you go with an oldie station?
00:47:06.173 --> 00:47:10.697
And I was not a big Rolling Stones fan before this.
00:47:10.978 --> 00:47:14.262
But all of a sudden, they're playing 19th.
00:47:14.882 --> 00:47:15.262
Yeah.
00:47:15.603 --> 00:47:23.211
And I remember listening to that and I remember this feeling, cause I, I loved rock music too.
00:47:23.452 --> 00:47:25.014
And I felt really guilty about it.
00:47:25.034 --> 00:47:34.626
I've grew up, you know, listening to ACDC and Motley Crue and, and Van Halen and, you know, in the church, those were always, those are really bad.
00:47:34.666 --> 00:47:39.711
You'd have firesides about them and they were gonna condemn you if you watch those things.
00:47:39.731 --> 00:47:41.373
But I, I really liked them.
00:47:41.434 --> 00:47:44.717
And when I listened to that Rolling Stones, I felt this feeling come back.
00:47:45.313 --> 00:47:47.036
And you know what it was?
00:47:47.117 --> 00:47:50.420
It was President Dunn telling me, it's the spirit of rebellion.
00:47:50.440 --> 00:47:53.105
And it was.
00:47:53.365 --> 00:47:55.768
It was the spirit of rebellion when I was listening to it.
00:47:56.170 --> 00:47:57.512
And it felt fantastic.
00:47:57.891 --> 00:47:59.554
But, of course, I felt really guilty about it.
00:47:59.635 --> 00:48:03.159
So I told my stake person I got home.
00:48:03.179 --> 00:48:04.882
Yeah, I listened to some music on the airplane.
00:48:04.942 --> 00:48:05.362
I'm sorry.
00:48:06.184 --> 00:48:06.644
That's okay.
00:48:09.088 --> 00:48:10.110
That's what crazy is.
00:48:10.465 --> 00:48:15.755
I don't think Nervous Breakdown is one of the mildest Stone songs you could possibly listen to.
00:48:15.775 --> 00:48:18.259
I know.
00:48:18.278 --> 00:48:18.398
I know.
00:48:18.438 --> 00:48:19.460
The new Rolling Stone.
00:48:19.481 --> 00:48:24.027
Oh, you froze up there, Ian.
00:48:26.952 --> 00:48:27.775
Can you hear him, Brett?
00:48:28.356 --> 00:48:28.795
I can.
00:48:28.856 --> 00:48:29.518
I can hear you.
00:48:32.021 --> 00:48:32.461
Can you
00:48:32.682 --> 00:48:33.284
hear me?
00:48:35.547 --> 00:48:35.827
Yes.
00:48:36.489 --> 00:48:36.989
Yes.
00:48:37.250 --> 00:48:40.514
Okay, yeah, I was a bit of a dilemma for President Dunn.
00:48:40.894 --> 00:48:42.717
Him and I didn't really get along.
00:48:43.940 --> 00:48:45.802
I questioned him a few times.
00:48:45.862 --> 00:48:49.608
He was really pissed off, you know, rebuked me a couple times in the...
00:48:49.648 --> 00:48:52.813
You're
00:48:58.101 --> 00:48:58.822
muted, Jim.
00:48:59.382 --> 00:49:00.844
Oh, we seem to be having some more...
00:49:00.864 --> 00:49:03.750
Ian has frozen up here just a bit.
00:49:05.893 --> 00:49:06.653
Well, you know...
00:49:06.753 --> 00:49:11.722
I'm going to quick, before Ian gets back, I want to tell a quick story.
00:49:11.742 --> 00:49:14.626
Like President Banks, I never had President Dunn.
00:49:14.666 --> 00:49:22.016
I got out in September of 87, and President Banks was called to be a general authority while I was still a missionary.
00:49:22.958 --> 00:49:35.518
And in my final interview with President Banks, he said, look, I don't usually do this, but I want to talk to you about what you're going to do when you go home, because I'm not going to see you again as your mission president.
00:49:36.193 --> 00:49:42.302
And so tell me what your goals are.
00:49:42.382 --> 00:49:44.425
And back then, prior to being...
00:49:44.445 --> 00:49:46.409
It looks like you're back there, Ian.
00:49:46.429 --> 00:49:48.512
Oh, yes.
00:49:49.512 --> 00:49:49.773
Okay.
00:49:50.715 --> 00:49:54.039
I'm going to finish my wild and dangerous story here.
00:49:55.221 --> 00:49:59.728
Prior to leaving on my mission, I was a theater major at the University of Southern California.
00:50:00.829 --> 00:50:03.994
And I wanted to still be a world-famous actor.
00:50:04.833 --> 00:50:12.802
And so I told that to President Banks, and President Banks said, okay, well, Elder Bennett, let me tell you a story.
00:50:13.782 --> 00:50:15.603
Told me the story of his son.
00:50:15.623 --> 00:50:24.353
He and his son had an evening together, and he said, okay, son, you pick the movie, I'll pick the restaurant.
00:50:24.952 --> 00:50:36.177
So they went to dinner, and then they went to a movie, and after the movie, President Banks said, okay, what did you think of that movie, son?
00:50:36.197 --> 00:50:38.862
And he said, oh, it wasn't half good, it wasn't half bad.
00:50:40.184 --> 00:50:45.431
And President Banks said, well, geez, there was so much swearing and there was so much immorality.
00:50:45.672 --> 00:50:50.659
And he says, well, geez, Dad, I hear all that kind of stuff at school all the time.
00:50:50.699 --> 00:50:54.125
And he said, well, would you take a date to see a movie like that?
00:50:55.447 --> 00:50:56.409
And his son said, sure.
00:50:56.449 --> 00:51:02.077
Well, would you take the Savior to see a movie like that?
00:51:03.202 --> 00:51:08.108
And I interrupted him at that point and said, well, President Banks, I wouldn't go see any movie with the Savior.
00:51:09.471 --> 00:51:15.498
And his response was, well, Elder Bennett, that's why I don't go see movies.
00:51:17.983 --> 00:51:20.306
And my response wasn't all movies are evil.
00:51:20.987 --> 00:51:26.755
It was if Jesus shows up on my doorstep, I'm not going to say, well, jeez, there's a matinee.
00:51:26.795 --> 00:51:29.217
We can just catch it if we go right now.
00:51:29.257 --> 00:51:31.742
Oh, it looks like we've lost Ian here again.
00:51:32.802 --> 00:51:34.684
Yeah, you see if you can, can you call him back?
00:51:35.204 --> 00:51:36.945
Yeah, I'll see if I can add him back in.
00:51:36.985 --> 00:51:39.728
I'm ringing him there.
00:51:39.768 --> 00:51:47.657
But to me it was, that doesn't mean, I wouldn't take Jesus to go see a BYU football game either.
00:51:48.539 --> 00:51:54.025
Just because I think that that would be a great way to spend time with the Savior of the world.
00:51:54.585 --> 00:52:01.092
But Ben Banks insisted that that meant that pop culture was somehow evil and wicked.
00:52:02.213 --> 00:52:05.344
And and needed to be avoided at all costs.
00:52:05.465 --> 00:52:15.896
And so I went home from my mission with that in the back of my head, panicked that I couldn't be a theater major because I'd be wicked and terrible.
00:52:15.976 --> 00:52:23.364
And so I spent a year at the University of Utah trying desperately to find something more wholesome to do with my life.
00:52:24.326 --> 00:52:42.621
And I finally went, a year after that, I went back to USC during spring break During spring break at the University of Utah, I went down to LA, went to USC, bumped into all of my old classmates who all just said, oh, Jim, we missed you and you should come back.
00:52:43.822 --> 00:52:49.230
And so I went back and finished my degree at USC to be a world famous actor, which didn't work out.
00:52:50.030 --> 00:52:57.081
But the mission council was, this is an evil, wicked way to live your life.
00:52:58.262 --> 00:53:03.737
And I ended up I ended up running theaters.
00:53:03.856 --> 00:53:07.222
I didn't really spend a lot of time as a professional actor.
00:53:08.083 --> 00:53:10.405
But all of that kind of...
00:53:12.289 --> 00:53:13.911
That scrupulosity followed me.
00:53:14.492 --> 00:53:17.094
And it's followed me to a large degree through my life.
00:53:17.456 --> 00:53:19.778
I think that I've got a handle on it at this point.
00:53:20.599 --> 00:53:23.945
But for a very long...
00:53:24.264 --> 00:53:25.306
I remember when I got married.
00:53:26.108 --> 00:53:27.028
We were on our honeymoon.
00:53:27.228 --> 00:53:30.614
And my wife told me that she didn't believe in a literal flood...
00:53:31.554 --> 00:53:33.856
and a literal Noah's Ark.
00:53:34.257 --> 00:53:35.797
And I went, who have I married?
00:53:36.539 --> 00:53:37.519
What have I done?
00:53:38.561 --> 00:53:44.346
And I look back on that and it seems very silly to me that that was even an issue.
00:53:45.067 --> 00:53:48.710
But these are the kinds of things you wrestle with.
00:53:48.871 --> 00:53:59.420
And so when you finally decide to sort of step away from the church, it's always fascinating to me to see how much of that kind of stuff follows you.
00:53:59.621 --> 00:54:05.686
And it sounds like None of it has, which means you're in a very healthy and productive place.
00:54:06.588 --> 00:54:09.833
Well, Jim, I'm just impressed on your honeymoon you're talking
00:54:09.873 --> 00:54:10.775
about Noah's Ark.
00:54:10.994 --> 00:54:14.742
That's impressive.
00:54:14.762 --> 00:54:16.965
That's the only way it wasn't a topic we brought up.
00:54:17.786 --> 00:54:26.101
We talked about polygamy, too, and she insisted that polygamy was not of God, and that was another thing where I went, oh, no, who have I married?
00:54:27.074 --> 00:54:29.197
And it's just very interesting now.
00:54:29.257 --> 00:54:37.751
My wife and I have had all kinds of disagreements and struggles and whatever else.
00:54:38.112 --> 00:54:43.260
But we were asked at one point, they've never followed up.
00:54:43.300 --> 00:54:45.903
There's a podcast out there called Marriage on a Tightrope.
00:54:46.744 --> 00:54:47.025
Yeah.
00:54:47.507 --> 00:54:50.530
My friend Alan Mount and his wife run the podcast.
00:54:50.672 --> 00:54:54.538
And they said, Jim, we want you and your wife to come on this podcast.
00:54:55.554 --> 00:54:57.155
And we agreed to do it.
00:54:57.215 --> 00:55:01.822
They haven't followed up, so we've never been on.
00:55:02.463 --> 00:55:04.545
So, Alan, if you're listening, we'd be happy to do it.
00:55:05.226 --> 00:55:12.637
But in talking to my wife, she said, you know, we've had all kinds of disagreements, but the church has never been one of them.
00:55:13.579 --> 00:55:21.510
We really are very much in exactly sort of the same place in terms of our participation in the church and our belief in the church.
00:55:22.471 --> 00:55:33.621
And it's certainly a much more The word nuanced drives me crazy because it just sounds like such a cliche.
00:55:33.661 --> 00:55:44.954
But for instance, I no longer believe in a literal global flood, but I don't think that that has anything to do with my faith.
00:55:45.195 --> 00:55:48.139
I don't think we have to believe in a literal global flood.
00:55:48.179 --> 00:55:49.961
And I used to think we did.
00:55:50.786 --> 00:55:58.378
So my understanding of what's important and what's essential as a part of my faith has changed dramatically over time.
00:55:58.418 --> 00:56:03.726
And I think I've just kind of caught up with where my wife was when we got married.
00:56:04.809 --> 00:56:05.429
Think
00:56:05.449 --> 00:56:05.751
about it.
00:56:06.331 --> 00:56:10.197
So Ian, has any of that sort of scrupulosity followed you out of the church?
00:56:10.798 --> 00:56:11.159
No,
00:56:11.460 --> 00:56:12.342
and thank goodness.
00:56:12.422 --> 00:56:16.307
So what happened, my experience sounds like it's very similar to what Brett went through.
00:56:16.347 --> 00:56:56.463
I had my i like the way brett described it midlife faith crisis a very profound experience i had the same experience with the cs letter it didn't do anything for me it was an anti-mormon tract uh a document that i didn't still don't put a huge amount of uh value on frankly but it was uh the um you know the race of the uh the priesthood and it was the essays and it was some of the uh a couple of the mormon stories podcasts and um And so what happened when I went through the very similar stages that Brett went through, you know, uh, shock, uh, uh, hurt, anger, betrayal, uh, so much pain.
00:56:57.664 --> 00:57:02.492
I came out of that, uh, uh, dark valley that I was in.
00:57:02.512 --> 00:57:07.679
Um, the dark night of the souls has been described, uh, before that I relate to that.
00:57:07.780 --> 00:57:19.905
And what happened to me was, uh, in fairly, uh, short period of time, I felt all this guilt lift from me because I've been living something that wasn't true.
00:57:19.945 --> 00:57:22.106
The basic principles were true.
00:57:22.307 --> 00:57:25.590
Love, service, kindness, forgiveness, repentance.
00:57:25.911 --> 00:57:47.023
I still believe as described to those universal principles, which are not unique to the church, as you know, but those very detailed specifics, that absolute live with exactness, going to the temple, wearing the garments, Living with, like we did on the mission, you know, we'd have these tick boxes, you know, we'd done this, done this, done this each morning, right?
00:57:47.123 --> 00:57:49.085
And in prayers and do this, et cetera.
00:57:49.527 --> 00:57:52.809
And if you missed something, then you'd feel so guilty.
00:57:53.170 --> 00:58:02.838
That lifted fairly quickly for me after I realized that, ah, boy, I'd been beating myself up for no reason at all.
00:58:03.059 --> 00:58:17.806
And what comes to mind, and so as I respond to you, Jim, and think about what Brett said earlier, One question I've got for you, Brett, you mentioned earlier, if I heard correctly, that you regretted some things.
00:58:18.047 --> 00:58:26.938
And I think you said that you felt you'd wasted some of your life or part of your life because you realized, hey, it's not all what it claims to be.
00:58:28.079 --> 00:58:31.885
My question is, do you still feel that about the church generally?
00:58:32.146 --> 00:58:37.192
For example, do you still feel the mission was a waste of time or regret?
00:58:37.211 --> 00:58:40.320
Are there any aspects where You know, how can you contrast the two?
00:58:40.340 --> 00:58:41.340
What was a waste of time?
00:58:41.380 --> 00:58:46.367
And what would you say perhaps, you know, wasn't a waste of time, even though you don't go to church?
00:58:47.547 --> 00:58:48.768
There's a question in there somewhere.
00:58:49.389 --> 00:58:54.096
Yeah, no, those are...
00:58:54.235 --> 00:58:55.677
It's complicated, right?
00:58:55.737 --> 00:59:02.485
It's like my mission still had such an impact on my life and...
00:59:03.554 --> 00:59:06.840
I left the mission thinking missions are for missionaries.
00:59:06.920 --> 00:59:12.188
It's really, we're not that successful converting people, but it converts the individual.
00:59:12.708 --> 00:59:19.942
And it worked for 40 plus years of my life of being very dedicated to the church.
00:59:20.922 --> 00:59:24.108
And some of my greatest friends are from my mission.
00:59:24.349 --> 00:59:34.271
So I would have never met Elder Mannix or Elder Holland or other than Islander, you guys, I wouldn't have met my mission presidents.
00:59:36.235 --> 00:59:41.182
So yeah, just a lot of great elders and sisters.
00:59:42.244 --> 00:59:46.050
It would be sad that I didn't get to meet them.
00:59:46.110 --> 01:00:00.804
But I guess part of it is just some of the guilt you felt as a youth, when you're probably not really any different than 99% of, young men your age, right?
01:00:00.963 --> 01:00:03.507
And you're tempted by different things.
01:00:04.268 --> 01:00:11.840
I love my parents, but I always felt like I was not as good as they were.
01:00:11.880 --> 01:00:14.784
I mean, I never heard my mom swear ever.
01:00:15.105 --> 01:00:22.996
I think my dad has sworn like I can count on one hand and I was swearing from the sixth grade on all the time.
01:00:23.617 --> 01:00:26.461
And I'm thinking like, how did I get this family?
01:00:26.501 --> 01:00:28.806
And they teach you, you know, you're the chosen generation.
01:00:29.762 --> 01:00:36.648
So I'm thinking, oh, well, I just must have been a really good soldier in the pre-existence, and they put me with these great parents.
01:00:36.829 --> 01:00:38.070
I couldn't go wrong.
01:00:38.130 --> 01:00:47.137
And see, all these beliefs that you think you had, and then you realize, oh, those are not real.
01:00:47.438 --> 01:00:55.826
So yeah, definitely the things that I think the church is great at, like service.
01:00:55.865 --> 01:01:14.103
I grew up really loving my war and being in young men's and being around, I know there's abuse that can happen, but scouting for me was really, I was very impressed by the people I was with.
01:01:14.543 --> 01:01:24.655
You'd have men that would give up a week of their vacation to spend a day, to spend a week at scout camp with you.
01:01:25.356 --> 01:01:28.721
I think back, wow, that's something.
01:01:30.018 --> 01:01:30.998
It's a lot of service.
01:01:32.059 --> 01:01:37.085
The church always emphasized education, and I'm always grateful for my education.
01:01:37.467 --> 01:01:40.650
It was always important growing up.
01:01:40.791 --> 01:01:56.088
When I came home off my mission, going to school and getting an education, I think that's one of the reasons the church is so wealthy is they're smart and they encourage people to go get an education and better themselves.
01:01:56.168 --> 01:02:00.061
And so they can be a little more affluent as they grow up.
01:02:02.204 --> 01:02:04.047
Yeah, it's mixed.
01:02:04.128 --> 01:02:17.585
I feel better now, but I guess just I'm mixed on the mission because that's the two years when you're at your best part of your life and you're dedicating that to the church.
01:02:18.527 --> 01:02:25.297
And I guess the part that kind of makes me angry is the things we taught weren't necessarily true.
01:02:25.597 --> 01:02:28.012
And that's But I gave 100%.
01:02:28.052 --> 01:02:33.137
And I convinced people this is what I believed in and this is true.
01:02:33.157 --> 01:02:40.666
And that's the part that you kind of get angry about when you find out that isn't the truth.
01:02:40.927 --> 01:02:49.038
And I don't blame our leaders like our mission presidents or state presidents or bishops because they don't know any more than we do.
01:02:50.039 --> 01:02:51.000
But it's the leadership.
01:02:51.119 --> 01:02:51.440
They knew.
01:02:51.481 --> 01:02:53.342
They knew about Sears Stones.
01:02:53.382 --> 01:02:54.063
They knew about...
01:02:56.481 --> 01:02:59.965
you know, polyandry and all these other kinds of things.
01:03:00.065 --> 01:03:03.751
And, you know, I remember I went to BYU and really was interested in history.
01:03:03.771 --> 01:03:06.635
So I take a history class, Mormon history.
01:03:06.675 --> 01:03:08.836
None of that stuff is taught at all.
01:03:09.237 --> 01:03:12.322
So it's like, hey, I'm at a university level.
01:03:13.302 --> 01:03:19.851
Isn't it time we finally, you know, throw off the Sunday school lesson and let's get down into what really happened?
01:03:20.731 --> 01:03:21.793
And none of that.
01:03:21.974 --> 01:03:30.056
And the people, the historians that are telling about it, This is the time when they had the September 6th is about the time I graduated from BYU.
01:03:30.777 --> 01:03:33.601
They're excommunicating them for teaching the truth.
01:03:33.900 --> 01:03:45.737
And that's the part that just really bothers you, especially if you got to this scrupulosity and you've been coming clean with anything you could possibly do because you think the church expects that.
01:03:46.157 --> 01:03:50.503
And then you find out they haven't really been that honest with us.
01:03:51.846 --> 01:03:56.416
And And I have some mixed feelings about, we talked about a lot of missionaries coming home.
01:03:57.458 --> 01:04:03.126
Some are coming home for mental reasons or different things, which is good.
01:04:03.206 --> 01:04:07.112
And others are being sent home because they made a mistake before their mission.
01:04:08.295 --> 01:04:10.518
And I have really mixed feelings about it.
01:04:10.538 --> 01:04:15.065
It's just like, okay, you send this person home, you're never going to see them again.
01:04:15.445 --> 01:04:16.527
They're not going to come back.
01:04:16.987 --> 01:04:18.911
You've humiliated them in front of their family.
01:04:18.931 --> 01:04:26.844
And I think a better approach, I mean, I'm mixed, because I think a better approach would be, you have this person, he's obviously repentant.
01:04:27.403 --> 01:04:32.449
He's come to you, he's told you some stuff, and he's going to work his butt off for you.
01:04:34.331 --> 01:04:35.452
That would be the better option.
01:04:35.753 --> 01:04:41.018
But, you know, they sent him home, and that's why I think some things are just so stupid.
01:04:41.038 --> 01:04:43.099
Like, why would you do that?
01:04:44.900 --> 01:05:08.711
Well, the numbers of people, not just missionaries that are sent home, But the numbers of missionaries who complete their missions honorably and then leave the church within five years, I've seen numbers that say that that's close to 50% at this point, that you're seeing just this large departure.
01:05:08.751 --> 01:05:45.989
And the way I've described this too is that the thing that ought to be concerning to the brethren or to anybody who is concerned, it's concerning to me, somebody who wants to see the church grow and succeed, is that these younger people that are leaving are not going through the kind of Brett Palmer, Ian Wilkes faith crisis that led you out in this very painful struggle where you finally end up saying, I can't do this anymore, I don't want to do this anymore, I don't believe this anymore, and you leave.
01:05:46.945 --> 01:05:51.532
They're leaving, and they're just saying, no, this doesn't work for me.
01:05:52.213 --> 01:05:59.083
And they're sort of, the way I say it, they shrug it off like it's an ill-fitting suit, and they just go on with their lives.
01:06:00.023 --> 01:06:04.891
And this is the thing that we're seeing over and over again.
01:06:04.971 --> 01:06:07.253
It's not just the church.
01:06:07.894 --> 01:06:15.465
This is something that all the churches, Christian and non-Christian, are seeing, is you're seeing an increase...
01:06:16.257 --> 01:06:21.585
In secularization, the rise of the nuns, they talk about it, people with no religion.
01:06:21.625 --> 01:06:37.824
But the kinds of things that kept us in, the kind of fear that was used to keep us in, doesn't work anymore, I think, with the rising generation at all.
01:06:38.585 --> 01:06:40.648
There's no stigma.
01:06:40.708 --> 01:06:41.389
There's no anything.
01:06:41.449 --> 01:06:42.971
It's just, nope, I don't believe this.
01:06:43.070 --> 01:06:44.211
Nope, this doesn't work for me.
01:06:44.873 --> 01:06:45.373
Off I go.
01:06:46.177 --> 01:06:56.010
And I think that that is the thing we need to address because we keep pretending that the old ways still work.
01:06:56.610 --> 01:07:02.677
We keep pretending that piling on the guilt, piling on the scrupulosity, that's the way to do it.
01:07:02.737 --> 01:07:12.929
We just haven't given you enough fear to keep you in, enough shame, enough guilt, and it's not going to work.
01:07:13.090 --> 01:07:15.411
We've got to take an entirely different approach.
01:07:15.492 --> 01:07:29.666
We've got to recognize that all of the things, Brett, you raise, polyandry, seer stones, or whatever else, that all of these kinds of issues are issues that we need to address and correct head on.
01:07:30.726 --> 01:07:31.487
And we don't do that.
01:07:32.188 --> 01:07:33.150
We sidestep them.
01:07:33.190 --> 01:07:35.952
We say things like, maybe we're asking the wrong question.
01:07:36.572 --> 01:07:38.635
No, no, I think we're asking the right questions.
01:07:38.675 --> 01:07:41.257
At least they're the right questions for the people who are asking them.
01:07:42.177 --> 01:08:03.693
And I just think I am so grateful for you sharing your story, Brett, because I think the more people who hear these kinds of stories, hopefully this will reach enough of a critical mass where we realize in the church that the approach we're taking is exactly the opposite of the approach that we ought to be taking.
01:08:04.614 --> 01:08:06.838
Ian, am I wrong about that, or do you agree with that?
01:08:08.481 --> 01:08:09.402
I agree with all of them.
01:08:09.443 --> 01:08:13.588
It's hard to disagree with any of the things that you've said.
01:08:14.030 --> 01:08:17.835
It's like the brethren are asleep at the wheel.
01:08:17.914 --> 01:08:23.221
It's like they're living in a different time zone, a different age still.
01:08:23.682 --> 01:08:25.865
They're very old men and living in the past.
01:08:26.747 --> 01:08:30.391
Why can't we just be open and honest and say, hey, look, we've got a difficult history.
01:08:31.073 --> 01:08:31.774
We messed up.
01:08:31.873 --> 01:08:33.896
We were afraid that we shared too much.
01:08:34.377 --> 01:08:37.175
They The meat and the milk concept, right?
01:08:38.076 --> 01:08:44.449
If we give the meat, you know, too much of the meat too soon, then, you know, we're afraid you're going to leave.
01:08:44.489 --> 01:08:45.332
We didn't want you to leave.
01:08:45.372 --> 01:08:45.832
We love you.
01:08:45.853 --> 01:08:46.434
We care for you.
01:08:46.474 --> 01:08:51.264
But they've gone too far to the extreme and they've hid that.
01:08:52.206 --> 01:08:53.167
And what happened?
01:08:53.188 --> 01:08:55.814
The Internet emerged, right?
01:08:56.257 --> 01:09:00.444
and they could no longer control the narrative and all the information's out there.
01:09:00.965 --> 01:09:12.502
But I just long for the day where we can just, you know, when I was going through my faith crisis, and Brett, you've not talked about, I don't think you've talked about the reaction of the church leaders when you were going through your experience.
01:09:13.283 --> 01:09:16.028
Be interesting to get your perspective on that for sure, if you can.
01:09:16.087 --> 01:09:30.350
But, you know, when I tried to ask questions at church, Jim, I walked across that threshold of the church, came from the car park, walked through the threshold of the church, I felt my right to ask questions that I wanted to ask was removed from me.
01:09:30.610 --> 01:09:32.993
And I was told, and I was on the state presidency at the time.
01:09:33.033 --> 01:09:37.797
I've been a bishop in Dalkeith, by the way, Brett, if you know that.
01:09:37.858 --> 01:09:38.759
You served in Dalkeith.
01:09:38.878 --> 01:09:40.940
I was on the state presidency and I had questions.
01:09:41.560 --> 01:09:49.969
And I was told by rank and file members that members of the state presidency shouldn't be asking those questions because you've got to bring doubt into the hearts of the members.
01:09:50.130 --> 01:09:53.011
I was asking all the wrong questions, to your point, Jim.
01:09:53.032 --> 01:09:54.573
And for me, they were the right questions.
01:09:54.978 --> 01:10:01.806
But I just, you know, why can't they just be honest and say, look, we've got a colored checkered history.
01:10:02.247 --> 01:10:03.009
We've made mistakes.
01:10:03.048 --> 01:10:05.351
Elder Othoff has said we've made mistakes, right?
01:10:05.932 --> 01:10:08.256
I just, they're just asleep at the wheel.
01:10:08.296 --> 01:10:09.938
I just don't understand them at all.
01:10:09.997 --> 01:10:13.904
It's a very different, you know, type of thinking.
01:10:14.625 --> 01:10:21.373
So just to go back to you, Brett, on this, two questions I have, if I may.
01:10:22.018 --> 01:10:27.345
If you can, briefly, just tell us what the reaction was from the ward and the state when you were going through your experience.
01:10:28.006 --> 01:10:36.595
And the other question I've just been really longing to ask you, if you don't mind me asking, is where are you at with God, religion, faith?
01:10:37.256 --> 01:10:38.399
Do you believe in God anymore?
01:10:39.841 --> 01:10:42.684
You made a comment on one of my experiences that I had.
01:10:42.844 --> 01:10:50.493
You and I exchanged some messages about a recent experience that I had that was a very profound impact on my life in terms of...
01:10:50.913 --> 01:11:21.692
know could be face to face with you know death frankly that without being exaggerating too much but what was the reaction in your uh you know when you were trying to ask questions and get to the truth and going through your experience what was the reaction or support or lack of from the church leaders and the other question is where are you now do you do you believe in god uh do you believe in christ uh do you believe in any faith or any religion so this A couple of questions, Zach, for me.
01:11:22.332 --> 01:11:23.154
Yeah.
01:11:24.296 --> 01:11:26.298
First of all, I wasn't really in leadership.
01:11:26.399 --> 01:11:30.746
I think I had just been released as an Elders Quorum president.
01:11:31.466 --> 01:11:45.568
My wife was somewhat less active at the time, and they put me in primary, which is a terrible place to put someone whose wife's less active is in primary because you're there and...
01:11:47.329 --> 01:12:27.938
feel bad and and the sisters are there and you know i i i hated actually i like teaching primary i like teaching i hated the the opening stuff and all the cute skits and music and i hated that part but so when my son finally graduated from primary i think i asked to be released and take a break and and i kind of walked away and they and no one really and then It was a couple years later, one of my 11-year-old scouts talked with me about why I'd left.
01:12:28.479 --> 01:12:30.782
I think he was trying to get me to come back to church.
01:12:31.483 --> 01:12:43.596
And that's why I had a really open discussion and went to much detail than we've done here is all the different truth claims that I found were not true and that my testimony was gone.
01:12:44.898 --> 01:12:46.979
He hasn't talked to me since then.
01:12:47.081 --> 01:12:53.028
So I think that went back to the ward and the message was, yeah, Brett's a lost cause.
01:12:53.108 --> 01:13:00.596
Let's not, they're all still polite, but yeah, they haven't really tried to reactivate me.
01:13:00.697 --> 01:13:08.005
I get the emails and I get a home teacher text message occasionally, but yeah.
01:13:09.487 --> 01:13:47.180
You know, one of my neighbors who I was elder scoring president with, he's also out and he's in a mixed-faith marriage and that that can be really tough right i mean that's the that's the part of this is i think the church needs people just need to realize there's going to be people like me that leave and you can see how devastating that could be on a marriage if you went into it and just committed and you know you got you went to the temple and you're expected to be together forever and then one person leaves And so a lot of the people that I talk with now are in a mixed state marriage, and that can be pretty challenging.
01:13:47.199 --> 01:13:49.063
So I'm grateful I'm not in that.
01:13:49.122 --> 01:13:50.284
That makes it a lot easier.
01:13:50.604 --> 01:14:03.904
But yeah, I would say my belief now is I used to, that was one of the big shelf breakers is Mormons, I thought, always had the answers.
01:14:04.144 --> 01:14:07.529
I still think the Mormon church has the best story.
01:14:07.609 --> 01:14:12.996
It's a It's a cool story, whether you like it or not.
01:14:13.176 --> 01:14:20.083
I mean, I still have issue with the term, you get your own planet.
01:14:20.224 --> 01:14:21.386
It's like, no, no, no.
01:14:21.966 --> 01:14:23.908
You get as many planets as you want.
01:14:24.588 --> 01:14:28.213
Let's get the theology correct.
01:14:28.274 --> 01:14:29.354
It's not your own planet.
01:14:29.395 --> 01:14:30.416
You get great planets.
01:14:30.497 --> 01:14:32.939
I thought that was always a cool story.
01:14:33.140 --> 01:14:46.105
And then when my shelf crashed, I lost faith in God and Jesus and religion in general because I just thought it's all made up.
01:14:47.028 --> 01:14:54.118
This is what the human race has done for generations, has come up with answers to difficult questions.
01:14:54.319 --> 01:14:55.319
It's usually around death.
01:14:55.961 --> 01:14:57.743
That's the part we don't understand.
01:14:57.764 --> 01:15:00.148
In fact, I have another companion.
01:15:00.167 --> 01:15:04.453
I won't say who that is, but he I think I have two companions that are out of the church.
01:15:04.894 --> 01:15:09.881
And one reached back to me and said, he's a Christian now.
01:15:09.961 --> 01:15:15.748
So he always sends me Christian messages and say, hey, you need to go listen to this.
01:15:16.590 --> 01:15:19.635
So I'd still say I'm a Christian in belief.
01:15:20.015 --> 01:15:25.722
I don't know if there's a literal Jesus or a son of God.
01:15:25.743 --> 01:15:28.606
I like the teachings.
01:15:28.787 --> 01:15:30.289
I think the principles work great.
01:15:31.234 --> 01:15:40.689
I love reading biblical history and the secular part of did Jesus live at that time and that stuff.
01:15:40.708 --> 01:15:41.409
So I like that.
01:15:41.750 --> 01:15:49.561
That's why when I listen to your podcast, that's encouraging to me because that's the one my wife often asks me.
01:15:49.601 --> 01:15:54.510
So you don't necessarily believe we're going to live after this life and I have to answer, I don't know.
01:15:54.529 --> 01:15:56.132
I don't know.
01:15:56.172 --> 01:16:01.391
So let's say I'm an atheist and I I hope there is a God.
01:16:01.471 --> 01:16:03.033
I hope there's a life after death.
01:16:04.636 --> 01:16:05.438
But I don't know.
01:16:05.899 --> 01:16:15.372
And what I'm absolutely convinced of is there aren't men or women on earth that talk to God and that God directs them for us.
01:16:15.634 --> 01:16:17.136
That's what I'm convinced of.
01:16:20.039 --> 01:16:27.271
Well, you know, again, I appreciate you sharing this.
01:16:27.311 --> 01:16:28.753
I think we're coming up to the end here.
01:16:29.506 --> 01:16:48.904
I would disagree to some degree, but not to as big a degree as you might expect, in that I think that there are men and women who have all kinds of encounters with God.
01:16:50.145 --> 01:17:04.715
And I think the thing that we don't ever want to say in the church is that the way that the men who are the head of this church encounter God is the same way we do.
01:17:06.056 --> 01:17:20.951
You know, we used to think, or at least I used to think, that Jesus would show up at the Thursday meetings in the temple when the apostles were meeting and that President Nelson talks directly to God face to face.
01:17:21.952 --> 01:17:23.554
And I no longer believe that.
01:17:23.814 --> 01:17:34.811
And I think when you talk to these men up close and personal, they will concede that they encounter God through the Holy Ghost, which is how they tell us that we need to be encountering God.
01:17:35.393 --> 01:17:44.466
But we don't share that message far and wide to the point where I think that's part of what gets us into trouble.
01:17:45.287 --> 01:17:48.113
So anyway, Ian, can you sum it all up for us?
01:17:49.494 --> 01:17:50.136
Absolutely.
01:17:50.355 --> 01:17:50.777
I'll try.
01:17:50.877 --> 01:17:52.458
I'll do my best here.
01:17:53.220 --> 01:17:53.440
Right.
01:17:53.480 --> 01:18:02.529
We want to take this opportunity to thank you for sharing your experience, your mission experience with us.
01:18:02.569 --> 01:18:18.265
Are there any other, any of the final messages that you could share with any of our listeners along the lines that you discussed already that you think would help somebody who's going through a transition, have gone through and still trying to find themselves?
01:18:18.365 --> 01:18:21.789
What advice could you give them from your experience?
01:18:24.417 --> 01:18:29.204
First of all, I'd say time is always, it always gets better.
01:18:29.244 --> 01:18:35.734
So if you're really down, because I think the hardest time is when you first have that faith crisis, it's pretty dark.
01:18:36.615 --> 01:18:45.028
And I'm on, I'm pretty involved with the Thrive group and we have a Zoom call every Sunday at nine.
01:18:45.068 --> 01:18:51.537
And it's, you know, it just rotates new people coming in and often they've just been out a few months.
01:18:52.194 --> 01:18:57.739
So helping them make through that first transition, but life gets better and it's not the end.
01:18:57.779 --> 01:19:02.386
And there is still a lot more of your life to appreciate.
01:19:04.287 --> 01:19:13.677
And I guess the other thing would be if you're a member of the church and a family member falls out or a spouse, you know, love them still the same.
01:19:13.717 --> 01:19:15.140
They're the same person.
01:19:15.180 --> 01:19:22.583
And I think over time you'll be able to work things out and it's, It's not, it's not the end of the world.
01:19:22.885 --> 01:19:25.988
And, uh, we still have a lot of good that we can do.
01:19:26.189 --> 01:19:28.792
So I'm, I'm, I'm grateful for what you guys are doing.
01:19:28.832 --> 01:19:38.525
I'm hoping that Warren, Laura, that we can, I love living in Utah and I'm surrounded by Latter-day Saints and this is my home.
01:19:38.905 --> 01:19:45.094
And I, I, I love working with them, but we just need to realize that everyone thinks the same.
01:19:45.614 --> 01:19:50.041
And, you know, how can we work together and make the world a better place?
01:19:50.360 --> 01:20:03.238
There's, there's, Lots of things like, you know, some things I get frustrated at the church on, you know, like, I think the church does a great job of, if they set their mind to it, they can really do wonderful things.
01:20:03.759 --> 01:20:06.922
And we have a terrible homelessness problem here in Utah.
01:20:07.582 --> 01:20:09.324
Seems like that's something we could work on.
01:20:09.364 --> 01:20:17.153
I really disappointed with, I mean, so when we're getting, we're getting a Scotland temple, right?
01:20:17.193 --> 01:20:24.625
I remember, I remember when I was there, it was like, well, when we get the membership up, we'll get a temple for you.
01:20:24.645 --> 01:20:29.470
Well, the membership's not up, and we're building a temple for you anyway.
01:20:29.770 --> 01:20:35.396
I wish they'd build a medical school.
01:20:35.537 --> 01:20:37.679
We have BYU.
01:20:37.759 --> 01:20:39.081
We have an MBA school.
01:20:39.121 --> 01:20:40.202
We have a law school.
01:20:40.863 --> 01:20:43.605
President Nelson was a fantastic heart surgeon.
01:20:44.527 --> 01:20:47.550
It seemed like, why don't we build a medical school?
01:20:48.417 --> 01:20:51.381
You know, Jim, you know, it's hard to get in medical school.
01:20:51.661 --> 01:20:54.123
I feel like you would do a great job with it.
01:20:55.085 --> 01:20:57.427
I don't know why they don't do that.
01:20:57.667 --> 01:20:59.170
They still have the money for it, so.
01:21:00.150 --> 01:21:04.095
Well, I think I know why, but I think that's the topic of another discussion.
01:21:04.916 --> 01:21:06.197
Probably, probably.
01:21:06.797 --> 01:21:08.539
Anyway, oh, go
01:21:09.399 --> 01:21:09.541
ahead.
01:21:09.581 --> 01:21:22.628
Yeah, Brett, we want to, on behalf of our listeners, sort of inside out, we want to thank you for taking the time to join us today, for sharing your experiences and your insights, they will resonate with so many individuals out there.
01:21:22.748 --> 01:21:27.315
Jim, thank you again for your insights and your passion there.
01:21:27.877 --> 01:21:33.086
So folks listening, grateful that you joined us on this episode.
01:21:33.586 --> 01:21:35.729
Hope you get a lot from it.
01:21:35.890 --> 01:21:36.470
I certainly did.
01:21:37.091 --> 01:21:38.373
And as I say, well, that's all folks.
01:21:38.675 --> 01:21:39.855
That's it for the podcast.
01:21:40.417 --> 01:21:42.940
Please join Jim and I next time on Inside Out.
01:21:43.521 --> 01:21:47.939
where we will look forward to more lively and robust discussions about the Mormon Church and faith.
01:21:48.601 --> 01:21:49.163
Thank you, Jim.
01:21:49.605 --> 01:21:50.148
Thank you, Brett.
01:21:50.649 --> 01:21:51.311
Thank you, Ian.
01:21:51.351 --> 01:21:52.837
Thank you, Jim.
01:21:52.898 --> 01:21:53.822
Thank you, Ian.