Jesus for Mormons #32: Mormon Temple to Born Again Christian

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
All right, well, welcome to another edition of Jesus for Mormons.
I am really excited about my episode today. One one
thing I really wanted to do in this is not
only share my story, which I have been cataloging over

(00:25):
the last few months, but to also bring other people
in who have had these amazing experiences with God and
to have them come tell their story and to really
build a community. And so today I have Cameron. Cameron

(00:45):
is going to share his story about his time in
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. We're
probably not going to use that paragraph. We will probably
say I will say Mormon, Cameron, feel free to say
to you is whatever term you'd like. And then Cameron's
gonna share his story and we're gonna we're gonna just

(01:08):
listen and and kind of get a get a perspective
of where where he's coming from. You may have to
excuse me. I do have a cold, and so if
you hear me coughing, I guess it is what it is.
I'm gonna try my best to to be a to
be a halfway decent host. So Cameron, welcome to Jesus
for Mormons. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
Kay, thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yeah, yeah, no problems. So I'm so glad that when
I reached out on Facebook in a Facebook group that
you were someone who responded and said, I have no
problem telling my story. Yeah, so I really appreciate that
you sent me. You sent me over your kind of

(01:51):
your written story, which I thought was beautiful and was
very moving. I hope to really touch on that a
lot as we go through uh this today, and so
just tell me a little bit about about yourself, your
history in the church, and we can kind of take
it from there.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
Yeah. So, yeah, what I sent you for background. In
true Mormon fashion, you know, we journal, we write down things,
you know, do your family history, all that kind of stuff.
I have that and grain in my brain and I'm thinking, well,
I'm not good at remembering things, so if I write
it down, at least it's in there and maybe I
can expand upon it later. So I kind of wrote,

(02:31):
you know, a couple of pages there, but that was
so that was my start. But yeah, one of the
things when it comes to it with my history, that
I want to just lay down is that, yeah, I
have a lot of family, I have a lot of
friends and others in the church. I still I still
love them. I you know, I I wish nothing but

(02:54):
the best and and for the and I come on
here not not for not not to be likeative or
to tell a story that would you know, I don't
know hurt others. I don't want to my my intention
is not to hurt others. I think in in the
in the Mormon Church, we have the we have the
tendency to think, well, they left the church because they

(03:17):
were hurt, and what did I do and how do
I have that relationship? I you know, I still have
a great relationship with my family. You know, they're they're loving,
their accepting, and I still I still love. But to
that point, I mean, sometimes the church is not for everyone.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
And so.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
To give you a little bit of background, yeah, I
I was born into the Church, born born under the Covenant.
B I c Man eighth generation pioneer ancestors. On some
of my lines, I think, uh, what is it. My
great great great grandmother was like the first white pioneer

(03:58):
child born west of the Jordan ris in the youth
in Salt Lake Valley. You know, uh, yeah, you know
there's Henry b Iren that's Benyons. So that's a Benyon
line and so I'm kind of distantly related, you know something.
So I have some of that. We can go back
to Nauvoo and I have and gone back and seeing
their plot of land where my ancestors were. And so yeah,

(04:21):
a lot of you know, raised in the church full
you know, fully in insult. Well let's see in Bountiful, Utah.
So that's just north of Salt Lake, Okay, So that's
still very very heavily concentrated LDS. We're going to church
every week. We rarely missed any weeks. I mean I

(04:42):
had to you know when when I walked around the neighborhood,
when we walked around our ward, you know, in our area,
it was so heavily concentrated with with LDS people that
I mean that you could pick out just a handful
of of houses that you could stay were not members.

Speaker 1 (04:59):
Wou.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
Yeah, so the heart of Mormon country, and I mean
even my my parents were pretty were pretty devout. I mean,
it was just kind of an understood thing that you know,
you're you're in the church, you're going and you know,
we even with when we went on vacations, we would
sometimes you know, bring our you know, white shirts and ties,

(05:23):
and we would coe to church wherever we were on vacation.
You know, I remember doing that some weeks. And so
I did all the things, went to primary, learned all
the songs, went to young Men's did Scouts. I was
an Eagle Scout. Couldn't get my couldn't get my driver's
license until I until I got an Eagle Scout award.

(05:48):
I was ordained a deacon, teacher, and priest and the
ironic priesthood. Did all that. Was very proud, very excited too.
You know, standard fare, passing the sacrament, collecting, you know,
fast offerings because back then, you know, you can't do
electronic you know, we had to walk around the ward
the first the first Sunday and a lot of the

(06:08):
times that's when you're fasting. So you're as a twelve
year old, you're dying. Yeah, Bountiful. Bountiful is really hilly,
so having to do a lot of callings and walk
around and do those things. It's up on the hills
in the mountains, so kind of tough. But so doing
all those things home home teacher with my dad all that.

(06:29):
You know, I'm the old I'm the oldest of four kids.
So I was brothers and sisters, two younger sisters. So
and uh yeah, just uh being being raised in Utah.
It's kind of a unique experience that it's you're the

(06:50):
church is simply just part of your entire life. You're you.
You have seminary classes, you have scouts, your friend groups, school,
family gatherings, friend gatherings, any kind of thing. It's all
centered around this church centric kind of thing. It's like
everybody is a member. It's kind of just a thing.

(07:14):
And I guess, you know, growing up, I'll date myself
eighties nineties, you know that it was very, very heavily
concentrated and there was this big sense of community and
everybody was kind of doing their things together, and practically
everybody around you was a member of the church. You
really don't get exposed to anybody that is not almost

(07:36):
It's just it was just very, very very influenced on
how you act, your thoughts, what's what your expectations are,
things like that.

Speaker 1 (07:45):
So, did you did you like that very I don't
want to say controlled, but that's how I kind of
view it, or that very bubble atmosphere. Did you thrive
in that? Did you feel like you need to be
rebellious in that that that was oppressive. Was what were
kind of your thoughts on that?

Speaker 2 (08:06):
Yeah, so it was weird. It was it was almost
like it's a safety bubble. It's like you had It's like,
you know, you there are some times when you know,
I was pushing against the bubble. I was poking, I
was doing things like that where you know, I, you know,
I goofed off as a kid. I didn't I don't
think I didn't really get in trouble, not you know,

(08:28):
no arrest, no, none of that kind of stuff. But
really just kind of I kind of liked it. It
was just kind of just this nice, wholesome, you know
I I looking back, I actually feel, you know, I
feel blessed to be able to live and you know,
and to have that kind of childhood where my parents

(08:48):
loved me, they taught me, they taught me good things,
they taught me how to go be a good person.
We had some good family vacations and interactions and things
like that. I had some good friends. I had even
some good leaders in the church that I really, you know,
looked up to. So it was a at the same time,
you know, there was this. There's there's a little bit
of cognitive dissonance where you know, you know that you

(09:11):
know we're not living up to everything. You know, you
know you need your temple recommend to go do baptisms
for the dead or do things like that, or or
past the sacrament and things like that. Yeah, I'll admit
there are some there are some things I probably did
you know that probably weren't. You know, I wasn't the

(09:31):
perfect Mormon boy. But for the most part, you know,
pretty pretty pretty standard fair.

Speaker 1 (09:38):
So yeah, so you were human.

Speaker 2 (09:41):
Yeah, I was human of the day. So yeah, yeah,
looking back at it, though, it's like it's like you
you're human, but but there's that such a high expectation
of you that you're just you're It's the I felt
like looking back, I feel like I it's always kind
of on edge. I was always kind of I don't know,

(10:06):
trying to try to do my best to work and
feel it, and sometimes it just felt exhausting a little bit,
you know.

Speaker 1 (10:14):
So, so you did it safe to say that you
felt some some pressure in that system to to live
up to a certain expectation. You know, It's different for
people who don't grow up I've only spent three weeks
in Utah and the MTC, so it's a little bit

(10:35):
different for me because I, you know, I grew up
kind of being uh the outsider, right, Yeah. In Seattle
area it is three percent you know, Mormon, and so
I always grew up thinking, yeah, we're just different, and

(10:56):
you know I'm not. You know, I'll take the good
with the.

Speaker 2 (10:58):
Bad in on that.

Speaker 1 (11:01):
So I maybe I I felt that the internal pressure
but not the external cultural pressure might be might be
a way to look at that. So I think that's
interesting somebody growing up in Utah, maybe the pressure that
you might have felt, you know, I to maybe fit

(11:21):
in in that way. Or would you say that was
more internal as in, hey I want to do this
a certain way. Or would you say that was more external, Hey,
I'm in this culture that might push me to it
to act.

Speaker 2 (11:35):
Yeah, I would say it's more of an external pressure.
But then you internalize it and it just becomes part
of your being. It's just this is what we do,
this is how we think, this is how we act.
We were proud to be, you know, to be Mormon.
You know, it was one of those things it's like,
you know, you don't you know the I guess nowadays,

(11:56):
you know, and we could, we can, we can talk
about this later. But I mean, just nowadays it seems
like you can't. You know, you don't. Don't say Mormon,
don't say Mormon. But now, but back then, it was
like I'm a Mormon. I'm proud. You know. You had
all these billboards, you had all these ads, you had
all these things. You had President Heackley just saying, be proud,
be excited, be different. You know, it's okay to be different.

(12:18):
We are different, and we are not you know, even
even going so far as say we are not Christian.
We are special. We are the true Church. And you
wear that as a badge of honor. It's almost you know,
and but it leads to something toxic that you know,
looking back, is that you have this judgmental attitude. Growing up,

(12:43):
you look at you look at others and and I'll
say that this this attitude because I have spent the
majority of my life in Utah, this attitude carries in
with you as an adult where you're just like they're
not a member what or or they're a member book. Oh,
I see they're they're doing something on Sunday they shouldn't

(13:06):
or oh it's someone so wearing their garments or you know,
or are are they you know, what are they doing?
You know wrong? You know, and you look, you look.
I hate to say that you look down on people?
You know?

Speaker 1 (13:18):
Yeah, yeah I can. Oh I can see her shoulders. Oh,
you know, and how how in public? No, I I
do think there is And I'm sure that is so
cultural there, you know, And I think that's a really

(13:39):
interesting perspective because a lot of the people that I
talk with are not from Utah who have left the church.
They're from western Washington, and it's and there isn't that same.

Speaker 2 (13:49):
You know.

Speaker 1 (13:49):
My best friend growing up with it was atheist, very differends,
you know. So it's like and I grew up very Mormon,
and it was and it was okay, Like there wasn't
this pressure for him to conform to anything. And you know,
now he lives in a tree fort and doesn't conform
to anything. Maybe a little conformity might have helped him,

(14:11):
but so but but I do think I think that's interesting.
So I think a big kind of dividing line for
really any any young man in the church is this decision.
I don't know if you would consider it a decision,
but the commandment that we have to go and serve
a mission. Did you did you serve a mission? Were

(14:33):
there were there any obstacles to that? Or was that? Uh? Hey,
everyone in my graduating classes is putting in their paperwork
and we're all going, what what did that look like
for you?

Speaker 3 (14:45):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (14:45):
Yeah. So a lot of my friends that I that
I ran around or ran around with, they actually were like,
you're a year ahead of me in school, so they
were older. A lot of them were older. And as
the time came, you know, everybody's graduating and all my
friends they're starting to go on missions and they're starting
to do things, and and I'm just kind of like,

(15:05):
you know, I I'm young for my age. I had
a birthday in June, so I didn't turn eighteen till
after I graduated. And back then, you know, you had
to wait till nineteen. So it's like, well, I have
a year. So I went to college for a year,
took two semesters, and just was like, okay, I did,
I'm gonna do something with it. But all the while, yeah,
I'm I'm getting I'm wearing I'm getting ready. I'm I'm

(15:28):
getting you're what I was taking. Let's take those classes.

Speaker 1 (15:33):
Yeah, I was taking the there you go, what what
school did you go to?

Speaker 2 (15:37):
We were State? Uh yeah, up and up in Ogden.
They were They were really just the ones that gave
you the most credits. I took go on JP classes
and they were like, okay, we'll give you these credits,
and like I did great. So I started there and
just kind of immersed myself for a little bit, and

(15:57):
you know, I went to singles. I I tried to
start singles words and things like that. But yeah, in
the back of my brain, I'm like, okay, I gotta,
you know, start thinking about this. And so come springtime,
you know, after you know, after the fall graduating or
after the summer graduating and doing that. Yeah, I put
in my papers as soon as I could, as soon
as it was like allowed. My my bishop was super

(16:21):
cool and he actually put my papers on a disc
drive like like that. Yeah, like you know, like even
just like a three and a half inch floppy Okay,
this dates me, but yeah, yeah, I served from ninety
nine to two thousand and one, so figure that out.

Speaker 1 (16:36):
So, oh, we are not that different in age. So
I served from seven oh nine, so we're yeah, so.

Speaker 2 (16:45):
Yeah, ninety nine oh one. Yeah, so I'm I'm an
old I'm an old geezer. I grew up. And the reason,
the reason, the reason for all this is, you know,
me saying that my childhood was good is because I
feel I didn't have all the pressures of technology and
all that distractions and things like that as well. But yeah,

(17:06):
so we just we put in my papers and the
call came. I had my family come and everybody was excited.
I went through going through the going through the temple
and getting in and actually getting your endowments out. They

(17:27):
used to say that. I was told, you're not supposed
to say it because you're not taking anything out. You're
supposed to keep everything in your secret. But yeah, I went.
I went to the Salt Lake. I went to the
Salt Lake Temple when they still did the live sessions.

Speaker 1 (17:42):
Oh sure, Yeah, so that was weird. Yeah yeah, and yeah, yeah,
it is an interesting So I went through before my
mission MTC, before the MTC. Yeah, and I remember going
through the live session and you know, yeah, yeah, I

(18:03):
think that can be Uh So tell me about your experience.
What what was it that you thought was different or
maybe different than the church that you grew up in
the and and maybe different than the than the very
in depth temple prep that you mayor may or may
not have gone through.

Speaker 2 (18:24):
Yeah, yeah, it was really it was weird. You have
this temple prep where that like, it's so beautiful, it's
so great, with all the ceremonies and all these other
things like that, and so being respectful, I don't want to, like,
you know, you know, say here's all the stuff that
we do. I'm not gonna I'm not going to do that.
That's not that's not cool. But going through it was.

(18:47):
It is a strange experience for people that because the
hard part is is that you can't really talk about
a lot of what you do ahead of time. So
my dad is there sitting at my side saying, Okay,
this is gonna be kind of weird. Just go with
the dude. And it didn't help that I didn't have
the video, which a lot of people have now you

(19:09):
know that just kind of goes through the stuff. You
had the live actor people, you know, had the workers
there acting out the roles and doing and performing the ceremony.
So it was very disjointed, very kind of weird. I
mean I was just kind of like, Okay, I'm just
gonna go with this, you know, hopefully it will get better.
I always felt kind of weird. I mean in my brain,

(19:33):
it was like, Okay, you know, this is this is normal,
this is what I'm supposed to do. So I'm supposed to,
you know, go through the temple. I start to wear
the garments and I and I'm gonna get my Milkezdick
priested and I'm gonna go on my mission and I'm
going to change the world. I guess, I don't know.
It was just kind of that was my first experience.
I mean, we could go deep into what the till

(19:55):
later on because that kind of cap the temple kind
of caps my journey too, as well as I start
and and there.

Speaker 1 (20:01):
So yeah, well well let's let's cover a little bit
on the mission. So where were you called to to serve?

Speaker 2 (20:10):
Yeah, I was. I went to Guya, kill Ecuador, so
down in South America. And I think I don't know
if it was because I put I put. I had
two years of Spanish, you know in junior high that
I knew Spanish, and so I uh, yeah. So I
was called and went down to the NTC, like like

(20:31):
you down in Provo, I was. I went for two
months down there, trying to learn the language as best
I could, and then when I arrived there, I really
realized that, holy crap, I don't know the language. Yeah,
my first, my first, and it was it was a
very jarring experience. At the beginning. I'm just I come

(20:52):
to this crazy, you know place with with you know,
little buses and and jungles, and I'm I'm in this
bus with my big suitcases and there's a lady with
a chicken in a cage right next, you know, right
across the aisle from me, in this little bus taking us,
taking us like a couple hours away from the big

(21:13):
you know city, you know, glacial city, out to you know,
our our area. Me and my companion. Everybody comes into
the you know, to the buses and gets their companions
and takes it back out. And I I remember going
to some place some some I think a member's house
that night, and they're like getting us juice and things
like that, and I'm just like.

Speaker 1 (21:34):
M mmm hmm.

Speaker 2 (21:35):
Yeah, you know. So it was a it was an
interesting experience getting getting started there.

Speaker 1 (21:43):
So yeah, did you would you say that your mission
overall was a positive a negative? Where were you excited
to go out and convert the world on your way home?
What was your what were your general what was your
general experience down in Ecuador?

Speaker 2 (22:04):
You know? So my my experience was largely positive. I'll say,
looking back, I feel like I didn't, you know, knowing
what I know now, I can't. I can't. It's hard
because it's hard for me to paint the picture back
then with what I know now. But in my mind,
I was like, I am we have the true church.

(22:26):
Let's just let's just talk to everybody and let's convert
and down an Ecuador. I mean, there's a lot of
people they're just like, you know, You're like, do you
want to learn about God? Do you want to learn
about Jesus? They're like, yeah, I'm Catholic. And it's like, okay, well,
you know, do you want to learn about Jesus. Here's
Joseph Smith, here's the book more. Isn't this great? You know?
And we baptized a lot of people. It's pretty much. Yeah,

(22:50):
I think my mission was one of the it's like
the second highest baptizing mission. In the area in kind
of northern South America, just second to Venezuela. So I
mean we were you know, we were dunk in the man,
I mean every every month, and it was it was
kind of crazy. There was some crazy experiences. I was
there during Y two K you.

Speaker 1 (23:10):
Know, I uh, I was there.

Speaker 2 (23:14):
There was two coups, political coups where they were taking
over the palace, the presidential palace, and they had like
they have what they call paros. They have these big
you know, burning tires on the road and trying to
disrupt the banana trade and all the stuff. And so yeah,
and I got stuck in the city once for a

(23:34):
few days because we couldn't move and you know, we
were supposed to be inside. I was held up at gunpoint,
you know. Once you know, I just kind of the gut.
Then I didn't resist, but they you know, I didn't know.
And I had a little companion. He's an Ecuadorian. He's
he's kind of standing outside of me, and you know,

(23:56):
I'm just kind of these two guys come to me
and try to get my backpack. I did. It wasn't
resisting like whatever, he's I don't know what's going on.
About him, but he I hear the gun go off,
and I'm like, holy crap, what's going on. So he
had pushed the hand up of the robber up in
the air and it went off. And then my two
guys took off one way and his guy took off

(24:18):
the other way, and he's pointing the gun at us
and nothing went off, like he didn't shoot my light
and we're like whoa, and my companions just yelling at
him like stop. So I had some interesting experiences. I mean,
I got, yeah, what overall good experiences when it comes

(24:38):
to the church, when well, when it comes to when
it comes to anything in the mission. I feel grateful
that I was. I had a good experience of like
learning self sufficiency, learning Spanish, especially because Spanish did help
me later on in some jobs and other things later on.
So it's kind of it's it's been a overall positive.

(25:02):
I think by the end, I was a little tired
of it. I felt a little drained. It's hot down there, dude,
and it's just you know, you're on you're on the equator, man,
and it's either really hot and dry or hot and
wet during the two seasons, and when it gets hot
and wet, it floods, and all you're doing is you're
walking down paths of just dirt dirt bounds with like

(25:27):
rice patties and banana fields around you, with and people
with bridges going to little cane shacks on stills and
they're living on those and these It's it's very humbling.
It was a very humbling experience in a way, you know,
to see the difference, it's like, holy crap, your third world.

Speaker 1 (25:48):
Yeah, yeah, that's yeah, that's it sounds like a great
like cultural experience, and that there were things that that
really anyone could take away right this transitionary time of being,
whether you're eighteen to twenty or nineteen to twenty one,
you know, learning some life skills of being you know,

(26:09):
separated from from family. And you know, I think I
think it's a pretty mixed bag on what people what
people experience, And it sounds like you had an overall
pretty positive experience on the mission. So, so you you
did the mission, is there anything else kind of spiritually
you did? You feel like there were some real positive experiences.

(26:31):
Was it in the middle where what would you say
in that respect, I would say kind of in the middle,
I mean overall, I mean it was it was it
was positive in that there, you know, I had, like
I said, I said, some crazy stuff.

Speaker 2 (26:46):
Happened, but otherwise, hey, you know, I got to be
away for two years, and I was I would be
the good Mormon boy. I mean it was like, this
is the tiding of your life. Because if you're going
to be twenty in two years, right, that's the tithing
of your your tithing to the Lord.

Speaker 1 (27:03):
Yeah, your Mormon math there there you go.

Speaker 2 (27:05):
You know. So so overall, I came home, did my thing.
It just started, you know, off of my career, you know,
and and school and things like that.

Speaker 1 (27:14):
So yeah, yeah, so you you came back. Did you
go back to Weber State.

Speaker 2 (27:20):
Yeah, yeah, I went back to Weaver finished and finished
my degree. I was just kind of working, living with
my parents, you know, and and just going to church,
going and doing you know, going. It was funny because
living where I lived with my parents' house, I qualified
for like four or five different singles words. Huh because

(27:41):
back to the day, I think now they've consolidated the
y s A program, the Singles ward program, but back
then you had different student boards and YSA wards and
other wards and I went, I hopped, I hopped around. Yeah,
my ward hopped because I was I was trying to
find the girl. You know, you're you're charged when you
leave your mission to like go, oh, go get married,

(28:02):
go have babies, go do your thing, go fulfill your calling.
You know.

Speaker 1 (28:06):
So yeah, so what was the what was the clock on?
You said? Though, as I read through your your story,
you said that you actually waited a fair amount of time?
Is that is that correct?

Speaker 2 (28:22):
Yeah? I was. I guess it's a I guess it's
a menace to society. I was a menace to society. Right,
have you heard You've heard you've heard that quote?

Speaker 1 (28:31):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (28:31):
Was that uh m Brigham Young. Yeah, he's like, if
you are over twenty five and not married, you are
a menace to society. And the funny thing is is
me and my friends would wear that as a badge
of honor. Sure I had. I had a bunch of
buddies that would get back and we're like, dude, don't
get married so soon you got your missionary goggles on,

(28:53):
you know, at least maybe six months or whatever. But
some of them just like instantly, just you know. So
there was me and a and another guy that were
to hold out. The funny thing is is he's actually
still not married, so he shows a bachelor life, which
is great, you know, chatting with him now nowadays, it's
it's it's kind of interesting in that respect. But yeah,

(29:16):
I was twenty six when I got married. Okay, Yeah,
and then what did so serving faithfully in the church.
Were you kind of in the middle during that time
or were you consistent every every Sunday? What what did
what did adult Mormonism look like for you? Callings, temple,

(29:37):
those types of things. Yeah, So got married at twenty six,
and I met my wife, you know, through the singles board,
through you know, I was living with a bunch of
guys and just kind of like, yeah, so even before
I got married, I mean I was still I was

(29:58):
still trying to do do my best, still trying to
you know, fulfill my callings and doing the singles ward things.
And then when we got married, you know, trying to
do my best with callings. And I never I don't
think I was ever called to anything huge besides just
maybe elders coren secretary or something. I wasn't ever anything

(30:23):
big per se. But I just, uh, I tried to do.
We tried to do our best. My my son, our
first our first, our first son was born on our
eleven month anniversary.

Speaker 1 (30:39):
So there you go.

Speaker 2 (30:41):
So it wasn't one of those things that we planned on,
you know, being just right away. But the funny thing
is is that my sister right after we got married,
she got married the year before my younger sister did,
almost a year exactly. She said, oh, I'm pregnant. And
then my my sister, her in law, my my brother

(31:02):
in law's wife, she says, oh, I'm pregnant too. So
my wife is like, well, what do you think. I'm like, well,
it'll take a while, it'll be fine. Nope. So so
we we had that. We we didn't we didn't have
like the singles, the married but no kids kind of thing.
We just kind of right away just started having kids.

(31:23):
And first one came pretty easy. Our second born actually
we had to go through some fertility treatments because we
could not get pregnant for it was almost four they
are almost four years apart. So that was that was
really interesting, kind of stressful for my wife. And you know,
she's she I married her when she was twenty. I

(31:44):
robbed the cradle man, you.

Speaker 1 (31:46):
Know there your your words, not mine.

Speaker 2 (31:49):
Okay, just like this fresh face little you know, little
college students. She had two semesters of college and then
she gets married, and you know, we went ahead and
started doing the things that we're supposed to do.

Speaker 1 (32:04):
Hey, as long as it's not in the summer of
her fourteenth year, then I shouldn't. I shouldn't.

Speaker 2 (32:12):
Sorry, she was almost fifteen, she was almost fifteen.

Speaker 1 (32:17):
Oh no, we should have we should have gone. Now
now you know that I'm the host of this thing,
because I'll throw that out there. Yeah, she was almost sparky.
Many so for those of you who didn't get that reference,

(32:38):
if you look up the Gospel topics essays right on
polygamy and navoo, the church tried to kind of clean
up someone being married to Joseph Smith when she was
fourteen years old, and they tried to say in the
summer of her in the spring and the summer of

(32:59):
her fifteenth year. Anyways, they tried to kind of So
I guess many of you post Mormons will probably know
that that little uh, that little comment. So anyway, sorry
to take you off your off your story, Cameron, but no, no, no,
so what did that what did your family look like?
What how many kids did you guys have and were

(33:20):
there any kind of hiccups or was it just like,
we're a Mormon family, this is our this is our
belief system, this is our lifestyle and culture. What did
what did that look like?

Speaker 2 (33:32):
Yeah, so we ended up with three kids. So we
had the oldest one, like I said, right away, my
second son, he was born for almost four years later,
and then a little over three years later we had
my daughter, my youngest. We were we were pretty much
done with two and then my wife, you know, she
actually she said she had a dream that my you know,

(33:57):
my daughter came to her in a dream and said, Mommy,
I'm coming, you know. And so she's like, we're going
to have a kid. You know, I had a spiritual experience,
you know, I'm like okay, I'm like okay. And at
the same time, her grandma, who she was raised by,
was passing away, and so she counted that as something
like Grandma's okay, I'm coming. You know. It was really

(34:20):
interesting there. So yeah, yeah, I mean it didn't help
that for the first few years of our marriage. I'll
say that right now, where we're living, we're living we're
living in the heart of Mormon country in Utah County,
but this is our ninth house. Oh wow. Yeah. Yeah.

(34:43):
So we ended up moving moving around a lot, not
not per se really for bad reasons, except for once
we had to short sell because I lost my job.
But we just kind of moved around a little bit
just for work and stuff like that, just basically moving
up and down the wahsat front in Utah. Oh okay, okay, yeah,

(35:06):
never never really out. I'll say honestly that I haven't
really been out, like lived outside of Utah besides my mission.

Speaker 1 (35:14):
Okay, And so yeah, And would you say that as
an adult, would you say that that was more cultural
or spiritual? I mean I think that or both? Or
what would you say that what kept you there and
and those types of things.

Speaker 2 (35:34):
I think there was a little bit of both. I
mean whenever whenever, like I lost my job a number
of times, but always we were like, well, if I
get a job outside of Utah, will we go somewhere else?
And will it be okay? And can we you know,
live outside and you know, we can move away from
our families because her dad and her grandma who raised

(35:56):
her were here. My family was here pretty much. And
and I'll say, just backing up a little bit, my
family is very very big, very very close. My mom
had had had My mom's one of seven kids, okay,
and so lots of cousins. I'm the oldest, I'm the
oldest cousin, and then the youngest cousin is only three

(36:17):
days older than my son. So we have so we
have a lot of you know, cousins. And I grew up,
you know, going to Grandma's house every Sunday and or
have and it's like Jimmy sneeze, let's have a party.
You know. We just yeah, that's the way it did.
My my wife, she's the youngest of four and she

(36:38):
came from her parents' divorce and she was five, and
so she didn't have that, but she was still close
to her dad and still close to others. But so
it was this dissonance where it's like, well, we'll go
where the Lord wants us to. But then I ended
up just always finding a new job that was here
locally in Utah. So we were just like, Okay, it's

(36:59):
meant to we just stay here and just do our things,
you know.

Speaker 1 (37:03):
So yeah, so you had this, would you say that
you were, you know, card carrying Mormon family that was
living in Zion, I say a tongue in cheek, yep,
and and pretty much just kind of going through going

(37:24):
through that. Were there any kind of hiccups at any
point for you and your wife where you were like
we want a world outside of this, or we want
to start searching spiritually or was there even a reason
for that? Was there a driver that made you think
maybe maybe we will we'll do something else.

Speaker 2 (37:45):
Yeah, So we when it came to like where we
were going to live, what we were going to do,
where we were established, I mean, we always said, hey,
it would be nice to live outside of Utah because
we realized I would say a number of years ago
almost you know, like eight to ten years ago, as
our kids were getting older. First of all, I'll say

(38:09):
that we were card carrying members, but I would say that,
you know, I wasn't perfect and ever, you know, maybe
going to the temple all the time mm hmm. In fact,
you know, one of the drive one of the things
is my wife. She she didn't want to go a
lot of the time. She was always she was always
busy or things like that. But it just kind of

(38:32):
like we were we were we were doing our thing,
but there were some drivers that the last few years
that have kind of just caused us to kind of
think about things differently. I don't know if you if
you want to go there, but.

Speaker 4 (38:50):
Yeah, I think I think that that's important because I
I I think you're you're probably going to be talking
to an audience where there are a lot of people
who have decided.

Speaker 1 (39:02):
I mean, I don't think the church will admit to this,
but I know in my area they are selling off
ward buildings, consolidating wards, probably consolidating stakes, shockingly building temples,
but you know they're there. There is this change that's

(39:27):
happening right now, and I think it's important to kind
of speak to why people are are changing. And maybe
you guys felt, uh, I know for us COVID not
no in person church. You know that affected my family
and and and affected my my spouse. So I guess

(39:50):
what was kind of your your guys, is that made
you kind of maybe look outside of the covenant path
maybe I'll call it that, you know, oh man, maybe
look outside of just the the card carrying member. What
what was that for you guys?

Speaker 2 (40:11):
That? Yeah, I mean there was COVID was something that
was really like a wake up call. I'd say. It
was something that, like you said, it made us realize that, hey,
we're not going to church and we're not We're just fine.
Like our ward set up the zoom and we tried

(40:32):
to like listen to their little you know, everybody scrambled,
you know, to try to do some kind of zoom meetings.
And I tried to do the sacrament at home things
like that. You know, we tried to do that. But
it was one of those things that I think, looking back,
is probably one of those big factors that caused my
wife to try to I think I noticed that in

(40:57):
her first that she was just tired of things. She
was very frustrated with like callings and just the responsibilities
and stuff. She she plays the piano, so I guess,
so guess what her callings were always to do?

Speaker 1 (41:13):
Oh yeah, then she's she's caught in the crosshairs.

Speaker 2 (41:18):
Yeah. The second the second that they that they like,
they come in and we come into a new ward
And like I said, we moved around a lot, and
even down here in our area where we're at. We
let's see, we've lived here about six years and two
different houses really close to each other. But we've lived,
We've been in four different wards and two stakes, and
we haven't moved mm hmm because the the wards just

(41:41):
split and changed boundaries because we're in a new development area.
So every time where we're relearning things and they're like, oh,
you played the piano, and you know whether she rotates
between release Society or or primary or even so for
some time she was doing the organ, yeah in church
that she she was like, after much, she's like, I
can't do this. You know. It was organ's different than piano.

(42:03):
Apparently I took two years of piano lessons. That was it.
But my wife is really good, so she was always
not there and she used to have it frustrated. You know.

Speaker 1 (42:14):
Yeah, so maybe the burden of callings. I know, for
a lot of people, those can be a blessing. I
felt like a lot of my callings were a blessing.
I am not virtue signaling, by the way, but I did.
I felt that they that they were good. But I
know for a lot of people they say, gosh, I
you know, I work full time, or I homemake full time,
or I'm like I want church to be a time

(42:37):
of rest. I wanted to be a time of truly
like the Sabbath of rest, and the idea of maybe
doing doing another calling I think can or having another
as I would say, part time job that you are
you know, all old to do sometimes doesn't you know,

(42:57):
can can kind of put that put that on people.
So you guys are are fully in the church, but
maybe maybe uh open from from what I I remember
this from our conversation over the phone that we had.
You said that your wife, excuse me, that your wife

(43:20):
was a part of a women's conference or a Bible
study and if you can help kind of fill in
the gaps.

Speaker 2 (43:28):
Yeah, yeah, so so she a few years ago, I
think it was two or three years ago. She went
just because a friend had an extra ticket. It was
a thing called the Jubilee Women's Women's Jubilee and it
was down over here in Lehigh and at the just
they had it at the park and it was it

(43:50):
was the it was, it was.

Speaker 1 (43:52):
It was.

Speaker 2 (43:52):
It was organized by by Mormons and Christians and they
just kind of like coming together and doing stuff where
they would sing worship songs. They would have contemporary worship, Yeah,
contemporary worship. They were Startain, and that's where she really
got into the She really liked the Christian just just

(44:13):
Christian worship music, you know, modern Christian, you know, and
it was just so so different from what she's used to.
She goes to our she goes to our church and
it's like, you know, Organs, and it sounds like a
funeral dirge and nobody's nobody's really singing. They're just you know,
they're not really paying attention. We had barely any youth,

(44:35):
and so I'm leaving her alone because I'm having to
go past the sacrament, you know, and that doesn't help her,
you know. So she's listening to this really nice, fun
Christian music, upbeat music, and then she goes to us
and it's just like, uh, you know, I'm not gonna
say there's beautiful hymns, fine, you know, but there's a difference, man.

(44:57):
And so so she had that that kind of influ
and she just like, man, I really like that, and
I know it caused a lot of you know, conflict
in her mostly.

Speaker 1 (45:08):
Yeah, And I think that can be I think that
can be interesting because you see this culture that you
grew up and even these hymns that you you know, you, you
know that you would sing and we're familiar with And
then I remember going to a so I'm Pentecostal. I
remember going to a Pentecostal church and being like, oh

(45:30):
my gosh, it is just way too loud.

Speaker 2 (45:34):
For me.

Speaker 1 (45:34):
But but my wife, you know, and now I love it.
But I remember thinking, this is what church should look like,
and maybe it looks a little bit different here. So
so you guys, uh, just through reading through your story,
you had this, you know, being faithful people in the church.

(45:57):
You had a sacrament meeting. And I actually want to
talk about another thing in your story. I'm sorry for
telling us. Yeah, yeah, but you talked about a temple
open house. Can you talk to me a little bit
about that, about about maybe and this might paint a
picture of a level of activity for people who are
listening to this. Can you talk a little bit about that.

Speaker 2 (46:21):
Yeah. So I was gonna say as my as my
wife was being conflicted, she's trying to pull away, but
guess what I was doing. I was doubling down.

Speaker 1 (46:30):
There we go as I.

Speaker 2 (46:31):
Was feeling like less, I was feeling less spiritual church
isn't the same. There's less people in our ward. There
was four you, four young men, including my two boys.

Speaker 1 (46:42):
And that's after COVID. Is that that.

Speaker 2 (46:45):
Well, well after COVID and even before in our area
because it's newer families, there wasn't a lot of older youth.
And that's not anybody's fault, but they didn't do us
any favors with the way they drew the boundaries and things.
So my my sons were getting a crappy youth experience.
They hated it. My my daughter even hated primary. My

(47:05):
wife's not liking it. She's wanted I basically most of
the time just trying to drag her in. The bishop's
texting me saying we missed you last week. Where are
we are you gonna come? I'm like, okay, I guess
I better drag the family over. So I was doubling down,
and and as you said, I was. I even volunteered
to work at the Saratoga Springs Temple open house because

(47:26):
we live very close to that temple. We pretty much
I could almost throw a rock, I swear, and get
there almost, but so very close. I was at the
temple open house, and I was, I volunteered, and I
was like, I was the guy that counted the people
coming in, and I volunteered the week before officially opened
where they were doing special tours and yeah, so they

(47:50):
were like special dignitaries like the government officials and by invitation,
the state presidents and others would bring people in. Like
every half hour we had people, so it wasn't a
constant flow. So I was just kind of standing around,
just enjoying the temple, and and so Elder Gong from
the Apostles came and he came by and walked up

(48:10):
and shook the kid's hands that were putting on the
booties of people's feet, you know, for the temple, and
shook everybody's hands, shook my hand, and looking back, it
just feels kind of tv GB weird that I was like, oh,
it's like a celebrity, you know. It's like, oh, you know,
he's shaking his hand. And he comes up in a
black suv okay over to the State Center. It's across

(48:34):
the parking lot, gets in a little golf cart, drives
across the parking lot to the to the little tunnel,
walks up the tunnel with all the security guys, and
I'm just like, this is kind of weird.

Speaker 1 (48:46):
Yeah, in hindsight, I'm sure in the moment you you
I mean people worship right, like that's yeah, that's the
part of Mormon culture. These fifteen men du yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (49:03):
And so I actually went to they they were doing
the dedicate at the open house. We we went through
my mom and others, you know, and let's see, yeah
that August last August. We we I two weeks. Let's see.
I went. I went to the dedication of the temple.
They did a they did a satellite, they do they

(49:25):
do at I would. I didn't go to the temple
because they don't fit everybody. They have to be in
the choir or something specially in the room. But I
went to the dedication. I have my temple recommend I went,
and you go through the doors. They locked the doors
of your stake center and and get you in there.
You're waving the white handkerchief and doing the dedication. My
wife and my kids did not want to go. And

(49:47):
I was like, oh God, we should have gotten your
temple recommends. And my wife is thinking, and this is
this this impacted me the most is she's thinking, if
it was that important to you, you would have prepared
and gotten our kids. Their special temp recommends to go
to this. You can't scramble in the last minute and
get them, you know, or even the white handkerchiefs. I
didn't get white. Oh you know. I didn't get my

(50:09):
white handkerchief, you know for the dedication. I don't know
if you've ever been a dedication at the temple I have. Yeah, yeah,
so it's special. You got to get your white handkerchief,
you know. I was. I put booties on kids on
people's feets for the Bountiful Temple when I was when
I was fourteen, So at that dedicated, at that open house,
you know, so it was hailing back. It was like

(50:31):
this weird nostalgic thing. I wanted my boys to put
booties on kids feet, people's feet because I did that.
It was all about it was all about me longing
for them to have an experience in the church that
I had. Sure, but it's not the same church. It
is not the same church. Yeah, carrying that tradition because

(50:56):
it is so traditional, it is so cultural, right, I
mean you even go back to you talk about your
pioneer heritage as you're going through that. In my mind,
I go through my pioneer heritage right there is that
that physical thing that ties you to it. And I
think a lot of people who are who are in

(51:18):
the church, especially now, they have this maybe faith of
our father's mentality of hey, well I was brought up
through this and and I'm here and this is kind
of what I maybe signed up for, and so I
want to I want you to talk about this sacrament

(51:38):
meeting that you had. And wasn't it pretty close to
the Temple dedication? Was the sacrament meeting close to that?

Speaker 1 (51:48):
Is? Am I getting my time frames correct?

Speaker 2 (51:50):
Yeah? It was about two weeks after, you know, I
did the dedication. So we're just piling the kids into
the car and and driving over and just like normal,
the kids were kind of grumbling, not liking it. You know,
I'm trying to attribute that to teenagers. You know, they're
teenagers now, and they're they're they're not wanting to go,

(52:12):
and my wife is kind of OK. So we're sitting
there and this was a Sunday where I guess the
bishop wanted the youth to like he had a couple
of youth speakers where they were supposed to talk about
their experience at f s Y or f YS for
a strength No f s y. I think it's called

(52:33):
for the strength of youth. It was, it's what EFY
was that used to be. Yeah, used to be down
at Buyu or Utah. You'll be here different locations they
haven't globally, you know, other places. But they're supposed to
talk about their spiritual experiences. They're supposed to talk about
how what a great testimony builder it was. And the

(52:56):
kid gets up there, this fourteen year old kid. Good kid.
I'm know, I'm he you know, I was a young
men's leader, you know, I think a little bit before then,
so I knew. I knew the kids really well. They
were good kids. But the whole time they're getting up
there and I don't and I don't think the bishop
could have anticipated this, but he spent like ten minutes
talking about how he bought candy and soda and it

(53:20):
was so cool going to the Byu store. And I'm
just like, I'm I'm kind of looking at Lisa. We're
side glancing, We're like, man, where's what does this have
to do with us? Is this? You know, where's where's
God in this? Where's the lesson here? And I don't
think the girls were a little bit better. But but

(53:42):
the boys were not were like non existent on any
kind of spiritual message. So you know, my my kids
are not My kids are not interested. They're just not
doing it. They're doing the same thing that everybody else does.
Side note, the one thing that I've noticed, I've noticed
the last couple of years was just everybody is just

(54:03):
freaking looking down at their phones. They're you know, they're
they're just not paying attention. They're the guys during the
lessons in elders Korum, during Sunday school, during sacrament guys
are just sitting there, you know, checking their sports and
fantasy scores. You know, I don't know, people are playing games,

(54:26):
They're not really focused. They don't seem to want to
be there. There's been this lack of you know, warmth
and happiness of what people want. You know. It seems
people are putting on a facade. And that was kind
of my feelings up until then, you know, and that's
that's how I still kind of feel about it.

Speaker 1 (54:44):
But yeah, there's this I would like to and I
feel this way when I was when I was around here.
So it's it's no different up here in Snahomish County
Washington where you just fell that there was this pemo attitude.
I don't know if you've heard that acronym right physically in,

(55:06):
mentally out. And I remember sitting being in an Elder
Scorn presidency, sitting in the back and seeing guys playing
Candy Crush on their phone, you know, and I'm thinking, man,
how are you guys not like trying to feel this
and trying you know, I was all in, So I
I would say that it seems kind of like a

(55:28):
dead church, Like you guys were having a dead church
spiritual experience. Maybe maybe that's not true, maybe you characterize
it a different way. But what is it that you
felt that you were getting out of maybe the you know,
the the spiritual when you showed up to church. What

(55:51):
did you feel that you were getting out of it
when you left? At kind of this point where we're at,
I felt like I was getting really anything out of it. Mine.

Speaker 2 (56:01):
Man, I was going through the motions and I was
doubling down, and I wanted in the back of my
brain for everything to work out that I wanted to
have these spiritual experiences. But I still it wasn't there,
and I was I was, I was trying, but then
my wife isn't in it. She was very primo, you know,

(56:21):
she was not feeling it, and I'm not feeling it.
Everybody's there because they don't want to be there, just
there because they're supposed to be. So to pick it
up a little bit, my wife, she texts. She texts
me because we have two of our kids in between us.
And she texted me and she's like, do you want
to go to rowdy church with me? And I'm like,

(56:42):
what's rowdy church? You know, I'm thinking about what's going
on and I and I'm thinking in the back of
my brain, I'm like, wait. She she commented to me
about rowdy church because I think at her at the
conference that she went to the Christian there's a lady
that's part LVS and part Christian. She was raised in
both and she went both churches growing up. And she

(57:02):
said she got to go to the rowdy church or
the Christian Church Evangelical church, and then she went to
the Mormon church, you know, and the rowdy church was
the one she usually liked because of the music and
things like that. So Lisa's like, oh, I want to
go to rowdy church and I'm like okay, and I'm
thinking about I'm thinking my brain. I'm like, you know,
normally I probably would have been a jerk and say no,

(57:23):
how dare you?

Speaker 1 (57:24):
You know we have the one true church.

Speaker 2 (57:28):
Yeah, like you know, why why would you want to
go anywhere else? And she's like just she's and she's
just like she looks she's just looking like she needs it.
And I'm like, okay, I need to I need to
be fair. I'm like, sure, I'll do it. And in retrospect,
she didn't really think that I would say yes. She
was expecting me to say no, and she'd be like, well,

(57:50):
I might go, but I'll go to both or something
like that, you know. But she went. She was like, okay,
I want to go to rowdy church. I'm like okay.
And it's like we have n o'clock Sacker meeting. So
we're there early morning and she she kind of looks
up a little bit. She had a friend. Funny story.
She she met this lady who was the wife of

(58:12):
a of a pastor fifteen years previously. Oh okay, our
kids were when our kid was when our first kid
was really little. She met in the parking lot of
a movie theater. The pastor's life was going to go
see Twilight, you know, and she's just gonna go see
it alone because it was a night time her husband
the pastor, which meant, you know, now I get it

(58:33):
why he wouldn't want to go. They go and she's
they've met. They looked at each other like, oh, do
you want to go to the movies together? And they
struck up a friendship and they hung out a little
bit and we kind of they kept in contact her
Facebook and other things like that. Didn't really hang out
too much because we moved around, like I said, but
she knew that her husband was a pastor at a

(58:54):
local church here, and she was like, where do the
be where's this location? You know, and what time are
they at? You know, and she's like, well, they have
a meeting at eleven o'clock. You know, we could make
that if we, you know, after stacker meeting ends at
like little like right right after ten, you know, a
little bit before ten. We just got to bolt, you

(59:15):
know and book it there. And so I'm like, okay,
you know, let's go, let's find it. So she messages
this pastor's life through Facebook, you know, didn't ever text
message or anything. But yeah, just like and we took
we took our daughter and we told our sons to
just kind of walk home, you know, do whatever, you
know when you're done. And we went to Rowdy Church.

Speaker 1 (59:40):
There you go. What was what was your experience like
when you showed up at now? Now, just to clarify,
Rowdy Church is, uh is a non denominational church, I
think from what you were what you.

Speaker 2 (59:55):
Were saying, Yeah, our our church is. Yeah, it's not
a nomination. It's just about four or five miles away
from us, so, you know, a little farther than what
our stake center is. But not a nominational they you know,
the traditional they had. They have drums, they have guitars,
they have keyboards, things like that. Non denominationally evangelical, I guess.

Speaker 1 (01:00:18):
So okay, yeah, so what was what was your I
think energy? I don't want to be too I don't
know the religious podcast, so we can you know, go
new age metaphysical. But what type of energy do you
think you experienced?

Speaker 2 (01:00:37):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (01:00:38):
And what was kind of the difference is even when
you walked in the door for the first time, what
was that like?

Speaker 2 (01:00:46):
Oh? Man, so the experience there was just it was
night and day and and that's not being me being
like facetious and like putting down the Mormonture, just not
any of that. It literally was like we got out
of our car and with a few steps I had
a guy saying hello, good to see you. You know,
as we're walking out, we're in the parking lot. We

(01:01:08):
had three or four people greet us, and and we
got and and the pastor's wife was right there. She
was so surprised to see my wife because she didn't
get the Peace Book passage yet. They're they're all they're in,
they're in classes and stuff. But she's just like so surprised, like, oh,
you're coming, and we're sticking out like a sore thumb, right,
you know. She has her dress on. I had taken
my tie off. Okay, luckily, luckily I wasn't wearing the

(01:01:31):
white shirt. I myself, this is my rebel self. I
didn't wear a white shirt. Sometimes. Sometimes I wore pastel
colors like blue.

Speaker 1 (01:01:39):
And you guys are taking nights.

Speaker 2 (01:01:45):
So well, and I I passed the sacrament with a
blue shirt on. Oh man, this is this is where
we're going off the rails here. Mormon thug hashtag right there, Cameron, Yeah,

(01:02:06):
we're still we're still sticking out, dude. And and like
we're kind of like we're walking in and I'm like, oh,
so they have a coff they have coffee on the side.
It's not a huge church, you know, it's it's kind
of in the middle of an industrial park. It's kind
of you know, and it sandwiched between like a gymnastics
you know, kids gymnastics place, and some electrical contractors. So

(01:02:26):
it's just a little, you know, a little church up
on the edge of the on the edge of the town.
And we're walking in and we and we're we're almost late.
So we get a seat right in the back and
it's really dark and it's this well they darken the
lights and it's shining on the stage and I see
this music start to go on, and I'm just like, Okay,

(01:02:48):
this is kind of weird. It's kind of got a
you know, interesting vibe. So you know, they're like, well,
stand for worship, so we stand for worship. And and
my wife she's having this like amazing experience. She's crying,
she's loving this. She's just like there was a lady
that turns out she's turned out to be one of
her best friends is you know, comes up behind her

(01:03:09):
because in the back row and like puts her hand
on her shoulder and like praise for her right there
and like in between the songs or something like that
or whatever. But I'm kind of like, Okay, I like
this vibe. It's a good vibe. I think we can
we could do this, you know, And I'm like, okay,

(01:03:31):
so I kind of think. I'm like, okay. It was weird.
There was this, like I said, cognitive dissonance where I'm like,
I like this, but I should like this.

Speaker 1 (01:03:45):
Yeah. Yeah, there's something dirty. There's something dirty about being
in this mainstream Christian church whatever that is. Yeah, yeah,
what that is a there's some thing wired inside of
us to say that we're part of the one True
and and anything outside of that is bad. You know.

Speaker 2 (01:04:08):
But I'm seeing yeah, sorry, I'm seeing these guys that,
you know, big sleeves of tattoos, and they're in T
shirts and jeans and drinking their coffee, and I'm just like, wow, okay, whoa,
you know, just really blown away, not in a bad way,
but just very just eye opening to me because I

(01:04:29):
really had never gone to one of these one of
these churches before.

Speaker 1 (01:04:33):
Yeah, it's a different culture, and I'm I'm I'm sure
that there's a there's a side of it, especially growing
up in Utah where it is cultural and spiritual. Where
you go in somewhere that is totally different cultural and
totally different spiritual. That is just I think, you know,

(01:04:58):
could be really refresh ushing, or could be incredibly uncomfortable,
you know, whatever, whatever that that looks like for you.
So your wife is having this, and first of all,
I do want to point out the fact that you
said your wife is having a spiritual experience and a
woman came up and put hands on her and prayed

(01:05:19):
for her. I think, yeah, a lot of I think
in mainstream Christianity they might say big whoop. In you know,
a Mormon context, Uh, that's huge. I mean that's unheard of.
That's you know, to have somebody pray for you in

(01:05:40):
that way, to as to use the Mormon vernacular, use
the priestthood, the power and authority delegated to man, yeah,
to m a n man to to bless and then
you have this woman come up and while your wife
is having this spiritual moment, to have her put hands

(01:06:04):
on it, and and and and bless her. I would
I would love to have your wife on to hear
that I've I've had. I've had tons of spiritual experiences
where women have prayed over me, which was so unfamiliar, uncommon,
and uncomfortable for me at first, and and but now
has been some of my deepest spiritual experiences I've been
from women praying over me. And so I would love

(01:06:27):
to I would love to hear that experience someday. So,
so she's there, she's having this experience, and you're there
in the middle. Would you say or or how would
you gauge your Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:06:44):
I guess, I guess as as the as the time
went on, you know, through the worship, I was like, Okay,
I like this enough. It's it's it's more fun. And
the big difference for me, besides the music, was looking
at everybody and seeing that they're participate, they want to
be there, they look happy. You know. The first guy

(01:07:06):
that said hi to me turns out he's the assistant pastor.
That was like one of his first weeks because it
was brand new into the area too. He's moving in
and so he's a really good friend Now and it's
just amazing to see what people are happy they like
to be here at church. This is different, you know.
And and funny funny thing is that I enjoyed the message,

(01:07:28):
you know as well. But the message was about divorce.
It was It was really funny because, yeah, my first
sermon that I hear is about divorce, and they're going
through Matthew and and he you know, and he just
made it so so dynamic, so good, and we just

(01:07:50):
one of the one of the big things is that
they talked about Jesus. They talked about God and something
that is like wow, he mentioned Jesus and God, like
I was trying to count on my fingers and I
ran it the fingers and toes I was just like wow,
the amount of times that he's referencing and talking about

(01:08:11):
God and Jesus and all he did and and and
going through all his teachings was just like incredible to me.
That was the game changer to me. You know.

Speaker 1 (01:08:22):
Yeah, So you're you're in this experience, and I think
you put a headline of your of your thoughts and
and one of them was having more Jesus something something
along those lines. And I think that's a really interesting comment.
Because the church that you came from, the Church of

(01:08:44):
Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, some people might say, well,
more Jesus, it's in the name, it's you know, it's
in there. Why is it that you felt that you
weren't really experiencing like and I obviously have a response this,
But why is it that you felt that in a

(01:09:07):
in a church environment you didn't really experience God in Jesus? What? What?
What would you say? A sacrament meeting? Is that that that?

Speaker 2 (01:09:18):
Really?

Speaker 1 (01:09:19):
Do you think it lacked? What did you think it
lacked in comparison?

Speaker 2 (01:09:24):
Yeah? Good question. One of the things that I think,
looking back now thinking about it, the sacrament meetings are
really a lot about You're assigned a topic and you're
supposed to find scriptures about that topic, and then you're
supposed to look up and the scriptures. Try to avoid
the Bible just talk, you know, put it. You know,

(01:09:44):
we got the Book of Mormon, we got the Doctor
in Covenant, and you have the words of the Prophets. Sure,
you have past profits, you have you have a general conference,
so you're hearing a lot of words about why the
Book of Mormon is true and why Joseph Smith is
is is the prophet? And how and how and oh

(01:10:07):
how you have to have faith and temples and all
these things. And it's almost like, I hate to say it.
I know people will contradict. Everybody has a different experience,
but but to me, Jesus was an afterthought. This is
supposed to be the head of this, it's supposed to
be the head of the church, but it feels like
Jesus afterthought. There was this interesting picture that we saw,

(01:10:29):
you know, after leaving the church that we saw where
it showed on a bulletin board church bulletin board. It
showed big pictures of the first presidency and big, you know,
single picture letters of President Nelson and Oaks and iron,
and then it showed pictures of all the different apostles
and stuff, and down here at the very very bottom
was a picture of Jesus, you know, the standard you know,

(01:10:51):
him in the red robe thing, but big, big pictures,
you know, tiny Jesus.

Speaker 1 (01:11:01):
Yeah, and that and that is just.

Speaker 2 (01:11:02):
So much, you know, it just shows you know, yeah, and.

Speaker 1 (01:11:06):
In a way, you know, you can feel that might
even be a representation of the church, at least in
its in its organization, and so I hope I didn't
take you off of your story, but so your your wife,
you guys are through worship.

Speaker 2 (01:11:25):
You have this.

Speaker 1 (01:11:28):
Beautiful lesson on divorce of all things, uh, divorce, and
then where did it go from there?

Speaker 2 (01:11:37):
Yeah, So after the after the service, they actually were like, well,
we're having like a picnic at a park. It's you know,
every couple of weeks they had during the summer, they'll
have picnics at the park, you know, where people can
just socialize. First of all, that's awesome because ever since COVID,
I feel like we have no active there's no activities,
activities or anything really happening at the church that we

(01:12:00):
can go. We can go over that topic. But we
went to we actually went to the picnic. We're like,
I'm like, let's go, you know. I and so I
sat there for about forty five minutes talking with the
pastor about things and just learning more about what the
church was about. And one of the things that's really

(01:12:20):
was amazingly refreshing to me is that, first of all,
Pastor Steve is just an amazing guy. He's very very humble,
He's he he keeps to the word and the amazing
thing to him that he mentioned. He's like, I don't
care what church you go to, as long as you
find the true Jesus, the true biblical Jesus, and you

(01:12:46):
give yourself to him, you put everything, you come to
the cross, you recognize what he has done for you.
He's like, you could be saved in my church and
then next week just go off and go to another church.
He's like, I don't care. I want to lead you
to Jesus the person, not a church. It's not about
the church. It's about the person of Jesus. And that

(01:13:10):
really really impacted me a lot.

Speaker 1 (01:13:14):
Yeah, that's and that's a beautiful thing about about mission.

Speaker 2 (01:13:20):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:13:21):
He saw his mission was not the church, his personal church.
The mission was Jesus. And I think there's a lot
of power. And I think if you flip that, you
know both of us, you and me being quote unquote
apostates to a church, but loving Jesus. Yes, right, I mean,

(01:13:45):
so who is it that we've turned from? And sorry,
I don't mean to make this about me, but who
is it we've turned from? Have we turned from Jesus
or have we turned from an organization? And what's it
really about? At the end of the day. So sorry, sorry,
I I I kind of took it that way. So,
so you you're there for meeting with them. I think

(01:14:08):
this is an important point to bring up, is salvation
and what did that look like for you guys? You know,
I actually didn't ask before if you were saved. Maybe
I made an assumption or your wife was saved? What
did that What did that experience look like? Did you
did you even feel that it was necessary? Uh?

Speaker 2 (01:14:27):
You know what? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:14:28):
What did that look like?

Speaker 2 (01:14:30):
Yeah? So, the the funny thing is is that after
that meeting, we never went back. We never we felt
so good about that. We never and even to this
day it's been eight or nine months now, so we
have not set foot back, and well I think I
I yeah, never, We pretty much have not set foot

(01:14:52):
back in the and saccer maybe ever. We've just we
we we just it was just like, damn, we're just
going here. We lucked out in finding a church. We
didn't have I don't feel like we had this struggle.
It was just like, yes, this makes sense. What the
pastor said just made sense. And so I would say

(01:15:12):
that within a few weeks of going and just really
getting used to things, and feeling good about things. We
had our kids come. My nine year old, even the
first week that we went, like we sent her to
the kids ministry, she couldn't shut up about what she
learned about Moses. She talked for half hour all the way,
you know, back home, and about what she learned. She

(01:15:36):
was so excited about the gospel and what it gave her.
And even my twelve year old, my son, he was
he got excited in the next couple of weeks because
we sent him the youth group and there's like twenty
youth there's like many more youths than what there is there,
so he's getting excited. My wife is excited about going
to the women's ministry. I'm excited about going to the

(01:15:58):
men's ministry that it happened. I'm going there at seven
am on Saturdays. What kind of guy at the LDS
church actually puts in the effort to get up at
seven am and go to church besides just cleaning the chapel,
that's a whole other thing. But like it wasn't so
it wasn't so much about like we had these problems

(01:16:20):
theologically and doctrinally and about the church itself, or we
weren't hurt by somebody. We just wanted more Jesus in
our lives and this church fulfilled it for us. And
it really and it really hit us. And so I'd say,
within a few weeks, we're going to small groups, we're

(01:16:41):
doing all these things. We stood up and when he did,
our pastor likes to at the end of at the
end of every sermon, you know, he's like, if anybody
needs prayers, if anybody needs, you know, wants to accept
Jesus in their life, you haven't done it in your heart.
You need to accept him. You need to accept Jesus.

(01:17:03):
And we stood up and one of the pastors came
by and he prayed with us and we and we
were saved. Then, beautiful, it was amazing. And then within
let's see, so that was we left. We started going
in the middle. In the end of August. On December
third last year, my wife, myself, and two of my

(01:17:28):
kids were baptized.

Speaker 1 (01:17:30):
Beautiful. Yeah, so you you got rebaptized. You were obviously
baptized in Mormon Church and decided to get baptized again
and renew that that commitment. Beautiful, Is there anything I
mean specific about that baptism? That you know, can I
pause for one second. This is a beautiful story of revival, right,

(01:17:55):
And I don't know if that's a term that you use. Uh,
that's something you know. I'm pentic costal hands in the
air and you know, loving and people are running around
and you know they make all sorts of jokes, people
swinging on swinging on chandeliers. But no, that's what happened.
That's what happened in your family.

Speaker 3 (01:18:12):
You had this this valley of dry bones, a family
that is like a dad trying putting it all out there,
a wife that's just feeling like, hey, I'm not really connecting,
not connecting with God anymore, kids feeling.

Speaker 1 (01:18:30):
The same way. Just just this valley of dry bones.
And then just when Jesus came ignited that family salvation
came a beautiful relationship with Jesus. I just I think
that's amazing. I think that's what an encounter with Jesus does.

(01:18:51):
I think that's what he'sactly, not not going to a building,
not following the traditions of our pioneer heritage, but revival
comes when the Holy Spirit and when Jesus are present.

Speaker 2 (01:19:09):
Mm hmm, exactly. I and the main most amazing thing
is it's it's like it's just Jesus. Jesus is enough.
It's not about your works. There is what we what
we learned, and why we decided to be baptized was
because we knew that there was nothing that we could do,

(01:19:32):
there was nothing that we could offer. We were broken.
We are broken people. And that's the that's the fallacy.
And that's the things that that I've been taught that
I've had to fully just you know, scrape from my brain.
And sometimes I still get these things poking around. I
don't know if you get it where it's like, oh wait,
was that a Mormon teaching or was that Christian? What

(01:19:53):
am I learning now? And there's as I as I
rewire my brain, I just I just I'm just like
I don't need any of this. I don't need to
go to the temple. I don't need to fulfill my callings.
I don't need to Like, I'm not going to get
in trouble if I don't pay tithing every every week.

(01:20:15):
I don't you know, if I if I'm not there
taking the sacrament and things like that. It's all these
works and you have to do this, you have to
do this. You have to do this, and I know
that I've got friends that I've kind of pointed this
out later on. I'm like, you have all these works
and all these things that you have to do, and
they're like no, but it's a it's kind of like

(01:20:35):
it's you just do it, and I'm like, no, the
church says you're supposed to do this and do this,
and do this and do this and do this. It's
the covenant path, and so Jesus is enough. And committing
and doing that was just amazing. I mean, my oldest son,
he's still he's still kind of I'll say he has
a lot of scars from the church he has. He

(01:20:59):
has a lot of things that he's still working out.
So he has still not been saved or been baptized.
We still take him to church. We're you know, even
a little bit kicking and screaming for him. He's sixteen,
almost seventeen, so obviously we're like, you're gonna get God
in your life until you're eighteen, and after that you've

(01:21:19):
got to make your own decision. And that's been hard
a little bit, but it's been amazing to see the
transition in the family. You know, my wife and all
of us. We're reading the Bible, and we're learning that
we can trust the Bible, that it's not just this
telephone game of you know, of incorrect translations and things

(01:21:41):
like corrupt monks or rogue monks are writing things in
the margins and adding stuff that's not how it happened.
That's how he was taught in seminary and other classes.
But sure it's not that way, and you can trust
the Bible. It's God's word. That's what's amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:21:57):
Yeah. Yeah, there is so much that causes some hesitation
in the church for making that transition. And I think
it's beautiful that you guys, that you're in your family,
you felt something and you just followed that and pursued that.
Really in the same way that you know, the the

(01:22:20):
early apostles and disciples just left their profession and just
followed Jesus, right, they left their nets there. And that's
what I would say probably your guys' experience was, Hey,
even though I've put all this time and all this
effort into this faith and religious system, it's it literally

(01:22:45):
doesn't matter because I need Jesus. I need I personally
need him, and so I feel fine leaving those things,
you know, just just at the just on the shore.
You know, I don't need it, need to carry those
with me. And I think that's I think that's beautiful.
So many people when they deconstruct it is, uh, there's

(01:23:09):
a lot of wreckage and rubble that is left, you know,
and and you know, the atheism agnosticism is something that
that a lot of people wrestle with after they leave.
And so I think it's beautiful that you guys were
able to stay stay in relationship. Yeah, with with Jesus.

Speaker 2 (01:23:33):
I would say, you know, there's there is some wreckage,
you know, there is some that there's late you know,
even months after, I still feel angry. Sometimes I feel
this anger, and it's not towards people, mostly because I
I think, I think, well, I'm kind of smart. I

(01:23:54):
try to try to think I'm smart that I I
know it's not the people. The people are just doing
their thing. We our eyes were just open, the scales
came off our eyes. These people aren't ready. But then
it's the church. Sometimes I have this anger towards like
the church and leadership, and I have anger about, you know,

(01:24:14):
things that I felt like I was lied to about
that I had this, you know, and so it's almost
like my shelf broke. You know how they talk about shelves, Yeah,
a lot, a lot of ex Mormons talk about being
being having these shelves and this heavy stuff, and finally
it just collapses because you're taught, you're told to doubt
your doubts, nothing outside. Just put it on the shelf,

(01:24:36):
don't worry about it. But your shelf collapses. My shelf collapsed.
And I picked up the cross and went with Jesus
pretty pretty close to right away. And then afterwards I've
been like, Okay, I'm just gonna look in this box
and pick out these things and kind of you know,
examine it and work with it. Luckily, there's like a

(01:24:58):
group and there's a group at our church that once
a month they meet. It's called Refuge, and they you know,
it was it's all ex Mormons where we go through
and talk about topics of the gospel and how and
relearning things going from square one, Who is God? Who
is you know, who's the true Jesus, the biblical Jesus?

(01:25:20):
Why you can trust the Bible? What about faith? What
about salvation? All these factors and things you have to
learn that. You know, people I think as Christians take
for take for granted. But for forty three years I
was taught one thing, and all of a sudden, I
radically have to you know, have this My mind just
gone gone on an one eighty And so we have

(01:25:41):
to pick up these pieces and we have to kind
of reconcile these things, you know, practices of you know,
like we mentioned the polygamy. You know, I'm I think
I'm a one of my plans. I'm like from a
second wife or something like that back in my ancestors,
you know, And I mean I just didn't even think
about that being a problem. And now learning about Joseph

(01:26:04):
Smith Pullay and me, and then learning about you know,
the Book of Mormon, how he sat on one side
of the curtain with the with the with the plates
and then he had the plates there and he's he's
using the urim and thumbum and he's doing all that stuff.
Oh sure, no, no, no, no, no, there you go. Yeah,

(01:26:24):
he's facing the hat, you know, with the stone and
all this all this other things that you know, blacks
and the priestood and all these other changes and things
about the temple that the veil of the temple was torn. Yeah,
why did we put it? Why did they put it
back up? What? Why did they let why did they

(01:26:46):
let Satan and others be a part of the temple
ceremony and other things like that, things that really just
was like wow, when you step back and you have
your eyes open, you're just like, WHOA, Okay. But you
know when we ask questions to our friends, we're like
they're like, no, well, I just kind of let you know,
people just sometimes they just don't see you. And that's

(01:27:09):
the hard part. That's the sad part being around our
neighbors and other things and our family is because I
know that they're very strong and I love them so
much that I want to tell them about things. But
most of the time, most of the time, I guess
they're just not ready.

Speaker 1 (01:27:26):
Yeah, And it's really hard because I know so many
people who have left and they want nothing to do
with with God right, and so so you, as someone
who's left the church, you are left saying I don't
want to do damage. I don't want to do harm
to people who are still in, and so it is

(01:27:49):
this really hard balance. I did want to talk to
your the anger that you sometimes feel towards the church.
I'll tell you, I am right there with you, you know,
and I don't want to be you know. I think
that that is something that ultimately brings brings me down right.

(01:28:13):
I think of you know, there may or may not
be a podcast out there that talks about it, and
that really brings up a lot of negative emotions, and
I think I think that makes people stay mentally in
a bad place. And I don't want, you know, I

(01:28:34):
don't want this podcast to be that way. I don't
want me, you know, talking about all the negative things
about church history. I don't want myself to be that way.
And so you're you're kind of stuck between telling the
truth and you know, and not being ashamed of the
Gospel of Jesus and this and also being sensitive, you know,

(01:28:57):
to the people around you. And you know, I think
I think that is I think that's something that should
be spoken to that people, you know. I think that
that that anger that people hold towards a towards a religion,
a religious system, I think that that is valid. And

(01:29:20):
I don't think people should put their head in the
sand and say, oh, I can only think positive things
because you know, each both of us and anyone else
listening has paid a price to be a part of
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, and
it's lack of truth is frustrating when you've paid that.

(01:29:46):
And so I'm with you. I wish that in my
mind I could say, hey, I view this in the
most spiritual christian like manner, but I don't. There are
times where I get really upset and really angry, and
I think it's important to to bring bring that to
light and to say, hey, you know, there's a lot

(01:30:06):
of people who who feel that way. I want you
to give a shout out to your church, your church home.
I'm a big supporter of the local church. This is
not a church where you go to to meet with
your fellow believers. Uh, that's a church. So shout out

(01:30:27):
to your church. Where where is it that you go?

Speaker 2 (01:30:30):
Uh? It's called Redemption Hill, Redemption Hill. It's an Eagle Mountain, Utah.

Speaker 1 (01:30:36):
Evil Mountain, Utah. Redemption Hill. All right, great, And it
sounds like they have some support groups for people who
are curious about, you know, Christianity outside of of the
Mormon Church, which is which is great to do that.
So it sounds like, uh, you've you've made this transition. Okay,

(01:31:00):
I want to just to kind of land the plane
on this. I wanted to ask you these three questions.

Speaker 2 (01:31:06):
Now.

Speaker 1 (01:31:06):
I love to have fun. I think that this is great.
And so this is the first question. Did you leave
the Mormon Church because you wanted to sin?

Speaker 2 (01:31:19):
No question, dude, I still love I still love Mountain Dew.
But then you know, my wife she has her but
her glass of wine. Now I have I have a
every now. And then you know, we go yeah, and
all of our friends, you know, we're like, whoa they

(01:31:41):
just you know, what did they do? Or are? Yeah?
They they want to they want to ditch the garments
and and you know they took the they took the
escape patch. And my family and others mostly thought, oh,
this is a phase. Yeah, you know that's how we
really Yeah, I.

Speaker 1 (01:32:02):
Think that there are these common questions that you know,
the church puts out there. Right, how about this? Were
you offended and that is why you left? Did somebody
hurt your feelings? Cameron?

Speaker 2 (01:32:14):
No, we left because you know, we just we wanted Jesus.
It didn't help that. I will I will say that
you know, some of the attitudes of people doesn't help.
But any particular person didn't really like, you know, cause
us any harm. We we we were able to separate,

(01:32:35):
you know, the church itself from the people and realize
that people are just part of the system. You can't
be offended. My grandma was offended and went inactive for
over thirty years. And so that was our cautionary tale.

Speaker 1 (01:32:51):
You know, sure, yeah about that, And hey, it's your choice,
right it choose to be offended, all right, that's a
little bennar in there. Okay, And then did you leave
because and now going to the current prophet, did you
leave because you are lazy or a lax disciple?

Speaker 2 (01:33:11):
Oh? No, oh no, man.

Speaker 1 (01:33:16):
What this common trope has fallen apart. You didn't leave
because you're because you're lazy or a lax disciple. I
assume that since you were hardcore when you were in
And yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:33:28):
And that's the thing, you know, going listening in conference
the last couple of times, I think I heard the
thing saying, you know it, parents, if your kids leave,
you are a lukewarm, you know parent. They said, they
said that. That part really got me a lot, because

(01:33:48):
I was like, how dare you my mom? Is as
right and true and believing as can be. You know,
it's my this is me. The bottom line is this
is us making the decision. And you know, I'll lay
it out there. We have removed our records from the church.

Speaker 1 (01:34:10):
Oh wow, okay, so you've moved you moved on to
that to that point, you guys are completely completely out.
And how did if you were to look at yourself
that whatever it was less than a year ago, that
that that Cameron back then and that family, you know

(01:34:32):
that that we're feeling maybe disconnected from God. I don't
want to put words in your mouth from relationship. What
would you say back to to that, Cameron? What would
you say about this journey about faith and religion outside
of of Mormonism. What would you what would you say?

Speaker 2 (01:34:56):
It's so free? I feel free. I feel you know that,
I feel joy again. I feel like just keep going.
You know, there is this there's this light at the
end of the tunnel as you as you work through things.
But it's so freeing once you realize that you just

(01:35:17):
give it to God, you give it to Jesus. And
even this is this is what I've had to deal
with even recently in the last few weeks. Like I said,
with the anger, I'm giving it to God and I'm
just learning to just run with that and learn learn
about him and learn to love him. Re reading the Bible,
reading his words and figuring that out. It's just so
freeing not to live in this hamster wheel of rules

(01:35:41):
and just constantly trying to figure out am I worthy
or not?

Speaker 1 (01:35:45):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:35:45):
You know, I know, I know that I am unworthy,
but through through Jesus I am.

Speaker 1 (01:35:51):
Yeah, yeah, definitely all right. So I I want to
give you a space. And that was beautiful in it
of itself, but I want to give a space for
you to tell any kind of words to anyone who
I guess the people that are inside the church that

(01:36:12):
aren't really feeling connected, Like what what would you what
would you say to those people? What would be your
I mean, you have this beautiful experience and testimony, and
what would you say to people who are who are
just in there, those PEMO people that you know, uh
physically in and mentally out? What would you say to

(01:36:33):
those people who are going through that right now?

Speaker 2 (01:36:40):
I would say there is an alternative, There isn't You
don't have to just throw the baby out with the
bath water. If you are in leaving doesn't lead you
to this black bleak wasteland. It is not. There is
an alternative to You don't have to throw out God completely.
You can build upon what you what you know. Now

(01:37:03):
you have to relearn some things, but overall, you know,
you have some kind of you know, basis and foundation
of it. Build upon that. Don't be afraid to take
the jump either. One of the things that they tell
us is that you're not supposed to, you know, look
at anything besides church approved materials. But the interesting thing

(01:37:27):
is that the things that they told me in nineteen
ninety and two thousand that we're anti are actually now
on the church website via the Gospel topic essays sure
so things, things are available to you to see. There's
people that are there. God is doing a work in Utah.
It's amazing. It's amazing to see if you could see this.

(01:37:48):
We have we have families coming in constantly that are
leading the church realizing that there is this, you know,
they don't need it, they don't need a religion, they
need to find they're finding God. And it's a beautiful
thing to see that. We we just recently moved to
three services because we're just we're and we're running that room.
They're looking for another location of the church because it's

(01:38:11):
just growing so much. There is God that it's Yeah,
it's just it's amazing to see. When we started, there
was just like maybe they were filling up one service.
But now even within six months, we've almost I swear,
like doubled the amount of people coming. They're coming because
they know that they're missing something. And if you're missing something,

(01:38:33):
it's there. You just have to look outside and just
dare to kind of peek outside the tent. It's okay,
it's not you're not going to be struck by lightning.
It's okay to look out. It's okay to doubt your doubts.

Speaker 1 (01:38:47):
Yeah, And I think that that's beautiful. I mean, that's
even that is even an act of faith, is just
saying God lead me, you know. I I don't feel
that I'm in the right situation. I don't feel that
you know or or just let me experience you wherever

(01:39:07):
that is. And I think that that's I think that's
really beautiful. You're touching on so many things I think
are just so are going to be so valuable to
people who are there and they're sitting there in sacrament
meeting and it just doesn't resonate with them. Or they're
sitting there, sitting there in Young Men's or Gospel Dog
or whatever whatever class they're sitting in, and they're saying,

(01:39:30):
you know, this is what I was raised in, but
this is not this is not connecting me to God anymore.
And I want to do something. I want to do
something else, and so I you know, I really appreciate it, Cameron,
and I appreciate you coming on and telling your story.
And you know, I know that it will impact people.

(01:39:51):
I know people will listen to it and say, man,
maybe I should, Maybe I should try something else out,
Maybe I should Maybe I should right out that that
rock band church down the street, you know where I
could show up in jeans and my wife can wear pants.
You know, maybe that is something we should we should do.

(01:40:11):
And I appreciate you sharing your your your faith journey
in that so you can you can go look up
Cameron's church and and if you are people open, is
that is that something that you're open to if somebody
shows up at at uh your church? Yeah, let me

(01:40:36):
even give you the the website. It's r h utah
dot Church. All right, so r h utah dot church
and yeah, if you are if you are interested in
in uh finding a church community, this this podcast is
all about supporting the local church. So if you if

(01:40:59):
you want to show up at what you can find
out more information at r h utah dot com and
sorry dot.

Speaker 2 (01:41:08):
Yeah, and there I'll be I'll be right there at
the door. I'm actually one of the greeters in the
you know, the ushers, So I'm in the greeting ministry now.
So I'm serving and i'm and I'm in it. I
haven't been called. I haven't been you know. I love
doing it. I love serving people. That's that's the difference
as well.

Speaker 1 (01:41:27):
So you're doing it just because you love it, not
because you were told you had to.

Speaker 2 (01:41:32):
Huh funny thing.

Speaker 1 (01:41:35):
Yeah, it is a funny thing. Yeah. How how that's uh,
that's something that people. That's something I've experienced. Hey, I
just want to go and help whatever. I'll help that DBS,
I'll help it. Yeah, And that's a that's a really
beautiful thing. So well, Cameron, I appreciate it. I appreciate
you you. I'm wanting to take the time and being

(01:41:56):
open enough, you know, off of a random Facebook comment
that I put out there, you know, I I I uh,
we started this off with prayer. I'm gonna, I'm gonna
pray for you and your family.

Speaker 2 (01:42:09):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:42:09):
And you know, I just I pray that that all
of us, all the people in the church and leaving,
would would be able to find God, would just be
able to find Him. And I say this in your name. Amen.

Speaker 2 (01:42:21):
Amen.

Speaker 1 (01:42:23):
All right, well, thank you and you're welcome.

Speaker 2 (01:42:27):
It's been great.

Speaker 1 (01:42:28):
Yeah, And so we're going to continue to do these
uh you know, Jesus for Mormons, and we're gonna continue
to interview people and and it helped help hear their story.
I'm sure there are great stories like Cameron's and uh yeah,
until next time.

Speaker 2 (01:42:45):
Yeah,

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