Jed - Deconstructing the House of Cards

SYK Episode 112 - Jed Final-Final.mp3
Complete Show Notes - https://www.strangersyouknowpodcast.com/jed

INTRO 

Jed [00:00:04] We wanted to tell three or four of our best friends in person. That went horribly because I'm a I'm a garbage mouth. It just all comes out. You know, I sit down like we're out. This place sucks and we're leaving, you know, and and just start firing off all these things, and they're sitting back going, We thought you were coming over for ice cream. What will happen? You know, and and my wife's, like, grabbing my leg, like, stop, honey. 

Brian [00:00:29] We need to go now. Leave and leave the ice cream. Put down the ice cream. Let's go. 

MUSIC

Brian [00:00:42] In today's conversation, Jed and I talk about the painful, wonderful, lonely, scary journey of deconstruction. Jed was in his fourth of six years serving as bishop of his ward when his faith crisis began. Beginning with his deconstruction of God before he began deconstructing the church, both while serving as Bishop and without being able to talk with anyone about it, including his wife. For a period of time, Jed talks of his many years of sacrifice and his immediate rejection by what he once considered to be very close friends and neighbors. Our conversation covers LGBTQ issues beards in the bishopric and many triggers that still set us on high alert. 

I hope that still practicing members of the church who hear this conversation can gain a better understanding of how difficult and tortuous the decision to leave is for many people. It is often a long and very painful process that is done with agonizing, deliberate consideration and a great personal cost. 

CONVERSATION

Brian [00:01:33] The first question I wanted to talk with is what is deconstruction? Just the overall term? What is that mean to you? 

Jed [00:01:38] To me. To me, it means, I think the best way to put this to to really have an honest look inside on why you believe what you believe and why we do what we do and and removing the parts that don't make sense or are not kind and not helpful. I'm trying to think of the word that we went to a we went to a little seminar for secular Buddhism, and they used a word like basically as a useful in your life anymore. Is that belief useful? Does it bring you happiness? Does it bring you is it useful? Might not be the right word, but basically, is that belief useful to me anymore? Does it does it help me? Does it better the people around me? And if it isn't, then I've got to get rid of it. And sometimes deconstructing those beliefs is painful. And you don't know what the new beliefs going to be. You don't know what the new reality is going to be. And so it is a bit of jumping into the unknown, but it's, it's living with some integrity and trying to find a new, better way to live in harmony with our fellow humans and with our families and our friends. And so it can encompass all aspects of our life. And it does. Yeah. So to me it's a pretty big undertaking. I think it's a good idea to deconstruct things much more frequently now. I feel like it's something that I want to be very conscious of and and really be mindful about. Why do I believe this? Why am I voting for this person? Why am I working where I'm working? And and just make sure it still fits in what I want for my life. Yeah. 

Brian [00:03:16] So before 18 months or so ago, have you ever deconstructed something before? 

Jed [00:03:21] I really can't say that I have. There might be little things that I changed the way I believed in them, but. Yeah, but not deconstructing it down to the down to the bare bones to really see why there might have been little. I think everybody changes and evolves, but to completely tear down a belief or a lifestyle, I don't think I had. Yeah. 

Brian [00:03:43] And you bring up an important distinction in my mind is, you know, a lot of people say, well, I used to be much more conservative and now I'm a little more liberal. That's not necessarily my mind. That's not deconstruction. That's kind of a change. I used to go to church regularly. Now I only go once in a while. That's not quite the deconstruction. 

Jed [00:04:00] That's a little more evolving. 

Brian [00:04:02] Yeah. And like you said, it's an honest, literally getting into the nuts and bolts and tearing it apart and looking at every piece and say, What does this do for me? Do I believe this? I'd never even considered that doing that with my life until I had this process. And then once you do it with one process, particularly religion, you're like, Oh, I need to be a little bit more open minded in other areas. 

Jed [00:04:26] Right? 

Brian [00:04:27] But it's interesting because I think I don't know if deconstruction comes about much before a deconstruction of religion. There's something about religion that gets people to say, Well, this is the way it is and this is the truth. And you've never questioned that. You were never like, you use the term honest and looking internal. You were never either of those things. You were told something, you believed it. You still hold on to that and you get down there and you're like, What the hell am I doing with this? 

Jed [00:04:55] Yeah. 

Brian [00:04:55] Where did this come from? Yeah, religion. Like I've been carrying this and. 

Jed [00:04:59] That religion hijacks our feelings and our inner self and claims that and and to me, that's the most to me now is kind of the most damning thing about it is I felt like I should do this, but I gave religion credit for it or I felt like I shouldn't do this, but I did it anyway because religion told me to. 

Brian [00:05:20] And can you give me specifics? I mean, there are those. 

Jed [00:05:24] Going on a mission. Okay. There's no way I would do that. Now, like you. 

Brian [00:05:29] Turn 19. 

Jed [00:05:30] I turned 19. That's just what I was expecting if you in and there was two years of my life that I grew a lot and I appreciated my mission. It wasn't a horrible experience, but it put my life on a trajectory that wasn't mine. We've said this together as a couple. We probably wouldn't have had kids as quick, actually, 100%. We wouldn't have had kids as quick as we did. And so big, huge decisions in our lives weren't ours to make. We we followed what the religion told us to do. And and they stole that from us. And then even just the the time and the callings and everything that you do, being in there, I'm I'm not I'm not upset or sad. At the time that I spent as bishop and as a counselor in the Bishopric, I feel like I was very I tried my best to do as much good as we could. And I don't think I did too many dumb things. There are too many things that are crazy. But that was also like all of my thirties and early forties. And those years were just given. And part of the deconstruction is coming to terms with that too. So yeah, it's just tough. I do feel I do feel like there were parts of my life that were were handed over to the church. And I don't think Mormonism is unique in this. I think a lot of religions do that. But handed over without a second thought, without ever being able to say, is that really what I want? I just do it because I was born in Utah. Right. Right. And so we just do it. Yeah. 

Brian [00:07:00] I have an interesting aspect because my family was not LDS. My dad's not LDS. My mom has never been to church except for a kids thing. But we grew up in in Taylorsville and there were everybody was LDS and your friends went to church on Sunday and that's where you went. And I was I say I was baptized at eight but converted at 21 when I was in a for living in a fraternity up at the U. Until then, I'd never really been a member of the church. And for some reason now I was and went on a mission and left when I was 21. And and so it wasn't like I can't even get angry at that because it wasn't I wasn't taught this by my parents. I was taught this by good people who were backing their role and doing their part and doing what they thought was good. And like you, there were some benefits to it. But did I honestly look at internally? No. Never did that. Yeah, everybody went. I had a friend who was just about ready to get home from his mission when I left. And so I was late and missed all of that. But I brought up another thought. Some of these things. Getting baptized when you're eight said, well, you made the choice to be baptized when you're eight. Right? You didn't even make a choice to go on a mission when you were 19. Yeah. You may not have even made a choice to get married when you were in your early twenties or have kids when you were in your early twenties. Yet, sure enough, by the time you're 25, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. Here you. 

Jed [00:08:25] Are. 

Brian [00:08:26] Is that by design, do you think? 

Jed [00:08:28] Absolutely. Yeah, I do think that's by design. And I think that's I don't even think that's hidden. I mean, that's like yeah, I don't think that's something that that the church hides. They actively teach that. 

Brian [00:08:41] But they teach it because they don't want you to fall into sin. They don't want you to have sex before you're married because that's the worst thing you could possibly do. Or one of the 50 things I mean. 

Jed [00:08:52] So no, I think they do teach it to keep you in. Okay. And I can say that because that's what I taught 16 year old boys and and young women was you need to get married and start having kids because that's what God wants you to do. Right. And that's what's going to keep you happy. Right. And I was taught that by apostles in general, authorities in many trainings and teachings. It's there's no anyone who thinks that that's not on purpose, I think is going themselves. It is very much on purpose at it's time to follow that path. We call it the covenant path and you just hammer that on you, okay? LONG So you don't have time to think about it. You don't have time to reflect and say and you're scared. You're scared to get off it. There's pressure all around you to stay on it. And and then before you know it, you're three or four kids deep and and. 

Brian [00:09:44] Have a bishop and you're a bishop. 

Jed [00:09:46] Right? 

Brian [00:09:46] And now we got you. 

Jed [00:09:47] And then you're. Then you're. 

Brian [00:09:49] In. Yeah. You don't even have time to know somebody who's not a member of the church, right? 

Jed [00:09:52] Yeah. You know. 

Brian [00:09:53] You, the everybody you work with. Yeah. All day. Every day. Yeah. So you talked a little bit about deconstructing your beliefs, teachings and patterns. 

Jed [00:10:03] Mm hmm. 

Brian [00:10:04] But I thought it was interesting that you specifically itemized those three things. Were each of those a different deconstruction for you, or did each of those have a specific reason in your mind for for pointing those out? 

Jed [00:10:18] I think they're different. You know, my it was definitely my beliefs that that had the deconstruction first. My teachings definitely followed. I don't know if we'll get into this a little later, but my deconstruction started while I was still actively serving as Bishop, and the things that I taught in the way I taught the last two years were very different than the first four and a half years. 

Brian [00:10:44] Something else we have in common. 

Jed [00:10:46] And then behaviors and patterns are completely different now. Like just completely different. Yeah. So what do we have in common there? 

Brian [00:10:57] Well, so we'll get to that. But my teachings, like when I was in the Bishopric, I was first counselor when I started to deconstruct, but I didn't know that at the time. And it'll ask you this question in a minute. I'll let you start telling your story and I'll come back to it. But I didn't recognize it as well for what it was at the time. But looking back on it, I'm like, No, that started before that. It started before that. It was more of this. But at the time, again, I was in the Bishopric, I was all in and everything else. But my teachings at that time became. In my my conversations that I was having in Bishopric meeting and in counsel council were definitely tilting. Yeah. And it didn't come directly from the manual or the handbook or anything else, but were still definitely Christian, definitely LDS doctrine and everything else. But it was leaning a certain direction before I even realized it in myself. 

Jed [00:11:48] Yeah, for probably the last thing I did with the church. And it was after I was released as Bishop a couple of years. They asked me to teach an Elder's Quorum lesson and I couldn't bring myself to use the manual, the scriptures, any of it. So I pulled out a Dr. Seuss book and said, This is our source material for the day. And and I told people, we are not accepting answers of pray, read your scriptures, go to church. Those don't fly for me right now. And we taught a lesson on I can't remember which book it was is probably is the Grinch ax because it's around Christmas so I Grinch stole Christmas and I'm like we're not we're doing it completely different. Like, I don't even warrant opening and closing prayer. I want to just talk and have a real conversation about being better people and rooting out whatever grittiness is in us and being better. And so yeah, even to, you know, and I wasn't done, done. We were probably 75% of the way out at that point, but still hoping that there was a life raft back in the I wouldn't I wouldn't use the manuals or anything. So it's yeah, my teachings changed completely. 

Brian [00:13:01] Yeah. Looking back on it is a clear sign to you, right. It's like, yeah, I was, I was gone. I didn't no one tapped me on the shoulder and told me yet. Yeah, you kind of need to get to that point. It's crazy. So I've had a couple people say their exit has either been very gradual that it's hard to notice or it was like getting hit by a mack truck. Does your fall in one of those categories? 

Jed [00:13:23] It was definitely more gradual. If you just look at it in the on the timeline of, okay, I mean, it took it took me roughly 5 to 6 years from when I first had my my first crack of maybe this isn't what it says it is okay to my garments are in the garbage and were gone and so that that's a long time but. 

Brian [00:13:45] Which was how long ago was the word did the garment. 

Jed [00:13:47] Saturate in March? 

Brian [00:13:49] Okay, but you still say you're still deconstructing. Does that mean you're trying to replace some things that you've thrown out but you haven't quite replaced it with something yet? Or. 

Jed [00:13:58] I'm still trying to I'm still trying to find out all there is to know about it, because I just I put so much into it. I need to feel like I need to get it back out. Okay. I'm not trying to replace it with things. I'm not trying to find a new religion or a new a new guru or anything like that. But I am trying to find I'm still is not as intense now, but I still do try to find little bits of doctrine that I was misled on. And I don't know why I need to know that, but to let it all go, I feel like I need to find it all. 

Brian [00:14:30] I think that's part of the process, right? I mean, I think a lot of people go through that to some extent or another, but I think you've kind of found your replacement. I mean, Dr. Seuss's your. 

Jed [00:14:40] Oh, he's great, right? Yeah. 

Brian [00:14:41] Yeah. Let's stick with that. 

Jed [00:14:42] I learned Dr. Seuss back on my mission. I actually bought his I bought like 15 or 20 of his books on my mission, and I would use little snippets here and there. I found great wisdom in his writing, and I guess by the end of it it was what's much more valuable to me than Scripture. 

Brian [00:14:57] So. So you were already a heretic back then, right? 

Jed [00:15:01] I was my mission president's worst nightmare, probably. I actually used to say that I got called as bishop in this particular ward and had to be there for six and a half years because of how bad a missionary was my punishment for. 

Brian [00:15:16] You're not done. 

Jed [00:15:17] Yet. So I needed to. I needed to pay some penance there. 

Brian [00:15:21] So now let's let's let's jump into your story. Tell me what started it and when by what and just walk me kind of all the way up until 18 months or so ago and just kind of hit the highlights or spent as much time as you want. This is kind of the meat of the conversation, I think. 

Jed [00:15:40] So. I was born, my mom was very young and it's part of the story. She was very young. My biological father had nothing to do with me. She met a man when I was about 11 months old. She had a few years of high school left to finish before they could get married. And then I was about three years old when when they got killed in the temple. And I was I was there with them. And so I've I've had my dad and he's a wonderful man and I've never reached out to my biological father. I have no interest in that. So I don't have any complaints on my childhood at all. It was very idyllic. It was actually a very functional Mormon family getting all the benefits of being a mormon family. If I if I'm honest, there wasn't any problems with the church growing up. So I'm very blessed and very lucky to have had that upbringing. I also attributed that to the church and gave the church all the credit for that when in reality it was. My mom and dad are just really good people and they really tried so. So my life was fine growing up. There wasn't any big trauma. There wasn't any issues like that. I was a very happy kid and taken care of me. Parents were very attentive in there, went on a mission at 19, came home, took me a few years to to find this wonderful lady. I was almost 25 when we got married. She was 21. Pretty standard. Go on a date. Get engaged in three months and married four or five months after that. 

Brian [00:17:12] Got to love Utah. Just a. 

Jed [00:17:13] Whirlwind, whirlwind courtship and engagement. And and we get married. 

Brian [00:17:20] Did you know I mean, at that point when I got married and gone through all that, I didn't know that there were other ways to do it. 

Jed [00:17:25] Oh, no. 

Brian [00:17:26] I hadn't been exposed to like the East Coast wedding where you get married when you're 28 and you have this great big party and and you both got careers and everything. I'd never that was I'd never. 

Jed [00:17:36] Even know that was never an option. And I felt a lot of pressure being single at 24 and 25. 

Brian [00:17:42] That crazy. 

Jed [00:17:43] Yeah, felt like a menace to society, is because Brigham said. Yeah. And, you know, I guess at the same time, I was I was still being being pretty patient about it. And and I honestly felt very I felt very blessed to find her and to, you know, I felt like we were led together. 

Brian [00:18:04] Okay. So and I have to ask you. By what? 

Jed [00:18:07] Well, we so we we work together at the same place. After we've dated three or four times, we come home to dinner. I bring her home to meet my mom and dad. And I mean, really long story short, we find out that her mom is married to my biological uncle, okay? Not her biological dad, or we would have been real cousins, but we were just cousins by marriage at that point. 

Brian [00:18:37] So your genealogy kids, right? 

Jed [00:18:39] Yeah. My my mom about passed out when when Angela said, yeah, my mom's name is Dawn Golding and she lives in Lehigh. And my mom goes just white and the next day calls me and is like, you know that Roger Golding is your dad's brother, right? I'm like, oh, kind of had a hand when you went right and about passed out and I knew the last name. But just because of that experience and, and I just kind of thought, what are the chances that we meet at work and that her biological mom is married to my biological uncle? Like this seems divine. Okay. 

Brian [00:19:17] So at the time you attributed it to this is God directing. This is your reward for serving such a great mission. Right. 

Jed [00:19:23] And and I remember specifically praying, I just want to find someone that will love me as much as I love them. And and and that happened. And I gave God the credit for that. I didn't give any thought to the two of us just loving each other and being good for each other. So I did feel like we were put together. Okay, so it's kind of a fun story to tell. It bugs her. I don't know if the bugs are as much now, but as let's get on record. 

Brian [00:19:49] Yeah. 

Jed [00:19:49] Hey, we're cousins, you know, it's always a fun little it's always a little a fun little party story to tell. But, um, so anyway, back to my story. Get married on our first anniversary, we get pregnant, we start building a house like two months later. So a year into marriage, we're getting a mortgage and having a child and we have no business doing either of those things. But again, following the pattern, following the path, I don't think either one of us at this point would or would choose to do it that way. But we certainly wouldn't regret having kids. And the children are amazing and they're incredible. And and two of the best things that they will ever do is be their parents. So but it was it was too early. We we should have waited a little longer. Travel, had a little more fun, been young and stupid and newlyweds and. Yeah, but we weren't. And that wasn't pattern. So so we're married and then, you know, various callings here and there, putting an Elder's Quorum Elder's Quorum president for a couple of years and then into the Bishopric it about like 31 or 32. I can't remember exactly when I served in that position for four years and then got promoted to Bishop. He served there for six and a half years. 

Brian [00:21:07] Sentenced. 

Jed [00:21:07] To sentence we whenever someone to get made. Bishop I'd say I'm sorry. I think it's not a congratulations by any means so so serve as bishop and and to get to the point of where my deconstruction starts about four years in I was having a conversation with a young man who was in his early twenties and. He he was he was a gay young man. And and he came in he was talking to me and talking about his struggles, about being a member of the church and being gay. And he said to me, I talk to my friends and every night my friends go to bed and they pray that they'll find someone that they'll fall in love with, and then they take to the temple and have an eternal family with. When I say my prayers, I ask that I will not find someone to fall in love with because I can't I can't choose between the church in love and that that wrecked me. I mean, that hurt. Yeah. And and probably more than anything, that hurt my belief in God and in the church. And and it just hit me really hard. I was like, this is not this is not right. Like, the church's stance on this is wrong. There is not a God that loves his children that would put somebody through that. I mean, there is the most genuine, heartfelt plea for help that I that I'd heard. And this is four years into being bishop. And I thought I'd heard it all and we dealt with some really, really tough, hard stuff. And that just really put me in a bind. It hurt. And a few months after that, we had a scout leader molest a kid in the ward. Not really kind of cemented it. I was pretty jaded at that point. And it's I laugh a little because it's it's too horror. It just it was devastating. Like, I was a mess for months. Yeah. And then my my trust in a God and a loving God that would guide me is the bishop to put this man in a position to have that opportunity to molest this young child, this young boy. Just I'm like, I didn't I don't know. I don't know what to do with that. I couldn't process it. I couldn't make it fit in between those two circumstances happening. Right. And people would come, you know, after that that got callings. And people would say, is this calling coming from God? And I'm like, I really don't know. I'm honest with you right now. Yeah, I don't know. I think you're going to do great. So go for it. 

Brian [00:23:25] We put your name up on the board. We prayed about it. We've talked about it. We've considered other things. 

Jed [00:23:29] We've I've done all the steps. I don't feel bad about you being there, and I think you're going to do great. But for the last two years in my my time as bishop, I couldn't look someone in the eye and say this calling from God. I didn't believe I had that authority to to to act for God because I didn't want to I didn't want to be associated with somebody that would put a man in a place where he can was a kid and would tell a young man that he needs to not find love in his life. Yeah, like the happiest thing. The best thing that's ever happened to me is finding love and finding someone to share my life with and to take that from somebody that doesn't that didn't feel right. And so that's that's when I started deconstructing. And it's kind of weird that I went through the path of deconstructing a belief in God before I deconstructed the church. 

Brian [00:24:16] I think that was the same thing for me, though. I mean, I was probably a year or more into it before I even wanted to read the CES letter right? At that point, it didn't even matter. I none of that matters. We had my wife was had a similar reaction. We have a neighbor that lives near here who is who was gay. And he went away to college and found his soulmate. And they got married and his parents supported him and loved him. And they're great family. But my wife's take on that was if God's got a problem with him, he's an asshole, right? 

Jed [00:24:50] I've got a problem. 

Brian [00:24:50] With he and I are going to fight. I don't want to be on the same page with that God. And because this is an incredible person that loves everybody and I love him. And you're saying that. 

Jed [00:25:03] You're saying that they're wrong and they're evil. Yes, they're yeah. All of that. They're mistaken and it's their their trial in life or some bullshit like that. 

Brian [00:25:11] Right. And they suffer and suffer and suffer and we'll never come back around to it until they realize, oh, this doesn't mean anything to me. I'm going to put this whole thing down and walk away from it and then I can be happy, right? It's holding on to it. That's making me not happy. Exactly where the church would tell you. It's just the opposite, right? You can't truly be happy. Not with the church in one hand and your beliefs in another. 

Jed [00:25:36] Yeah, yeah. It doesn't work. And there's just a real tug on you. So, you know. So that's the last two years of being bishop. I was I was happy to still be there. And I was serving and enjoyed helping people and that much, much more liberal in my teachings, much less dogmatic. You know, it was starting to make some of those changes and then getting released was rough to see how the and I hate to say this about members in general, I don't want to ever put everybody into one big bucket. But yeah, but I got released and we were forgotten, like, immediately. Like. 

Brian [00:26:11] Did you ask to be released? No, you're just. You're white knuckling it until it was your turn or. 

Jed [00:26:17] White knuckling it a little, but also saying like, we're okay. Like the Stake President was having a hard time finding someone. He said he couldn't find the right revelation or the right guy and. To fit in. And we have a it's an interesting dynamic in our world. A lot of I mean, a lot of single mothers, they're like, it's just that for whatever reason, we had 80 single moms in our ward. 

Brian [00:26:42] Wow. 

Jed [00:26:43] And two thirds of them pretty active and half of them freshly divorced. And and so there wasn't a ton of there was a lot of gay men who could have done a great job, but they they'd been divorced or some other thing that would eliminate them or they had a beard or something stupid. 

Brian [00:27:03] Now, I was asked to shave my beard because I had a beard as a High Priest group leader for seven years. And when they wanted me to be in the Bishopric, I said. 

Jed [00:27:09] Oh, we. 

Brian [00:27:10] All do that. 

Jed [00:27:11] I grew my beard about three, three years into being bishop, and it was a constant fight and they were bugging me all the time to shave. And as I shaved my beard, you guys are up in the night if you're going to tell me how to cook for you. 

Brian [00:27:23] I just caved. I'm like, Well, okay, God's asking me to do this. And I didn't think it wasn't honest with myself. 

Jed [00:27:29] And yeah, and then the first Stake President president I had didn't, didn't care. The second one had a big problem with it. And I'm like, Whatever. You can have a problem. We'll just fight about it. And it was kind of ironic. He tried. I think he genuinely was trying to release this because we've been in five years. I don't think there was any malice on why he's trying to release us, but I don't think he wanted me serving there anymore either. Yeah, ultimately they had they did a Ward realignment of the boundaries to bring somebody new in to be present there. 

Brian [00:27:59] It's pretty extreme measure. Right. 

Jed [00:28:01] And and I mean, it makes it sound like our ward was this shit, so it really wasn't that bad. 

Brian [00:28:06] No, it's just the size and shape and placement, right. It's the way you define the word in the first place. Needs to be. 

Jed [00:28:11] Lots of lots of rental properties, lots of apartments. It was just a nice, cozy, safe place to land. And we felt a lot of I mean, a lot of pride in helping these people in some very dark moments of their life to hit rock bottom in a soft place. And then we felt, you know, we took a lot of pride in helping these these ladies and these men in really deep trouble to kind of get their life back on track. And then they'd move. Yeah. And we get a new fresh set come in every summer. So yeah. So that's how it was in the last two years. I was thrilled. Like, I don't I'm writing checks for everybody. Don't you need rent? Here's your rent. Whatever. We're just going to make sure you're happy and taken care of. And I felt really proud about that. And yeah, you should. So but there was hurtful when we got released because it was this complete and I say we because the bishop's wife is absolutely 100% sure part of that calling. But we were just forgotten, like. 

Brian [00:29:06] By the warden, by the state, by your neighbors, by. 

Jed [00:29:09] All. 

Brian [00:29:10] That check, check, check. 

Jed [00:29:11] Just like, okay, well, you can't help me anymore, so I'm going to go to the next guy that was that hurt. You know, that was like, man, I thought I had some real relationships with these people. And some of them I did. And some of them I found out were very superficial. And it was it was painful. 

Brian [00:29:28] Why is that so common? I mean, I felt that for sure, but it wasn't when I was released. It was when we said we're not going. Yeah. And I've lived in this neighborhood for 22 years and again, crickets, right? 

Jed [00:29:43] We yeah, we lived in our house for about 22 years as well. Right up until the last up until COVID, we were every week they're doing our calling, doing everything we could. And then we we never went back after that, but we were already on our way out before that happened. Anyway, I don't know why that is. There's, there's this reverence for the calling and the organization over the person is the only thing I to put it to. People respect the authority and the power more than the person maybe. 

Brian [00:30:14] Yeah. I don't know. I'm really interested in that because I've had another conversation, actually, an episode that drops tomorrow. We talked about service and there are lots of great service opportunities in the church, but they're almost all like handed to the youth. Yes, we serve. This is who we're serving. This is who needs help. This is what we're going to do without that, without the home teaching assignment or the visiting teaching assignment or whatever, you don't go back to that person. 

Jed [00:30:38] Right? 

Brian [00:30:39] You may have been the most faithful home teacher or visiting teacher for years. The second you get reassigned, you may not talk to that person again outside of church for ten years. 

Jed [00:30:47] Right? I think it's because of where our loyalties to the organization, not to the people. Yeah. And and when you remove the assignment, you have no loyalty to that person because you you're you're loyal to what the organization and the authority of the organization tells you what to do. And that's what I think is going on. 

Brian [00:31:05] But it certainly feels real, doesn't that. 

Jed [00:31:07] Oh, yeah. 

Brian [00:31:07] I mean, are they just that good at faking it or are they just that nice of people that they really want to do that they really want to check the box and be loyal and. 

Jed [00:31:16] They're that nice of people. I cherish the friendships that we had from from being in the Bishopric. I mean, we have a group of friends that that we would vacation with every year and. And they've been, for the most part, really good and really great about us leaving. But the things change the second you leave it explained. 

Brian [00:31:35] Did you ever have anybody in your ward that had been there for a while that everybody knew leave the church while you were bishop? 

Jed [00:31:41] No, not that I can recall. 

Brian [00:31:43] Okay. I was going to ask you to walk through that process of what people talk about. Well, she's got a name for you. 

Jed [00:31:49] Yeah, there was one couple. I don't know. They haven't been there very long, though. They lived there maybe two or three years by the time when that happened. But people knew them. Yeah. 

Brian [00:31:59] So it was. Did people know ahead of time? Did it come all of a sudden? Did you like double your efforts and assign them the best home teachers? 

Jed [00:32:07] Did you read those efforts? 

Brian [00:32:09] Tell me about that process of what may have happened with you or somebody else that left or the talk in ward council or bishopric about that poor soul who's lost their way, or however you phrase it, or however you looked at what we would have looked at it at the time. 

Jed [00:32:25] We were we were very active in trying to to keep people happy and are active. I as a Bishopric, we would go out at least one, sometimes twice a week to go visit these families and to go help them out. I mean, personally, I she's I let her work for me. We we tried to get help her with getting a job set up. We tried to we tried to get extra home teaching, extra visits, callings, whatever we could think of. 

Brian [00:32:56] What was the discussion in Ward Council when their name came up? 

Jed [00:32:59] Man trying to think. I remember there being discussions of then being deceived and having anger and what can we do to show more love to them? Ironically, that just makes people more mad a lot of times. Yeah. And the discussion very, very much so was on. We don't want to lose them. Yeah, we, we want to do whatever we can to put them in there. I was never very I tended to respect people's decisions though. I was kind of like, you're an adult and if you're going to make this choice, I'm going to put my good faith effort into it. And we were going to have discussions and we're going to pray and we're going to fast and we're going to try to give you callings and help me and everything. But at the end of the day, I'm not I again I've got 70 single moms that yeah. They need more attention. Yeah. And, and so that's kind of where we would land after a few months of trying and working. And I did have five or six people request to have their names removed, but I never met them. It wasn't anything that was an active member that that really fell away other than that one couple that they'd only been they hadn't been a real establishment in the ward. 

Brian [00:34:09] Okay. And they just sent you a letter, they dropped by, send you an email and all. 

Jed [00:34:14] I did get their letters in the mail, but I think they went inactive at first. And, you know, we tried and then we she was teaching Relief Society and she came to me and said, I don't think I should teach anymore. 

Brian [00:34:24] I can't say I brought Dr. Seuss in this last week. It was all I could think of to read. 

Jed [00:34:29] And okay, we get it, you know, I'm fine. We'll we'll release you if that helps. You know, sometimes you just need space. And then a couple of weeks later, we got the letters in the mail. And a few weeks after that, I see him on Facebook getting baptized into another religion and was just like, Well, that's it. She's done. And they were never talked about again. Okay. Yeah, I mean, they really weren't. They were gone. And like she worked for me for seven or eight months and that was that was just kind of weird how a relationship just ends. And thinking back on it, I'm like, I played that part really well of loyalty to the organization, and when you don't want to be a part of us, you're against us. And that's sad. Yeah. 

Brian [00:35:13] So do you think, like, the final nail for you was was covered? You were leaning that way, had covered, gave you some space and some time to really kind of dig into it. And then you're just like, Oh, that's it. Or was it something else? No, you're shaking your head. 

Jed [00:35:27] No, for those were for COVID was convenient that we didn't have to we didn't have to deal with the wire. And we learned the castings at church, but we were, we were on the road. Yeah. So back to the timeline. I get released and, and barely hanging on to a faith in God at this point or belief in God. And I would drive by, you know, three temples and eight chapels on my way to work. Right. And look at them. And I'd have these thoughts of like, what's this all about? Like, why? Why are we here? Why, why would some why would I believe in somebody who hates a huge population of children on the earth, whether you're born with a darker pigment in your skin or with with homosexuality or attraction to someone you know, why would he hate them? Drive by these temples and like these are supposed to be places of hope and healing and health. And I looked at him as almost hate for places where so many of the population of the earth had no shot at getting in there. Yeah. 

Brian [00:36:28] I mean, the sign on the front of every chapel says visitors. Welcome. Do they really feel that when they walk in that door? Not even when they're member of the ward? Sometimes they don't feel that way. They don't feel like they belong. And the temple is just an exclamation point on that. Yeah. 

Jed [00:36:44] Yeah, absolutely. 

Brian [00:36:45] So, yeah, go. 

Jed [00:36:46] Ahead. So I'm still processing through all of this. I, you know, we, I, I kind of stopped paying my tithing and stop caring about a lot of that stuff. 

Brian [00:36:56] That's a big step. What what what was the determining factor on that? At what point got you to that? Like, was there anything specific or was it just like you just kind of gradually rolled up to that part of the part that seemed like yeah. 

Jed [00:37:10] Part of it really was kind of that it was like, what's going to happen? Like, am I going to lose my house if I don't know? Like, none of that's going to happen. And I almost was like a little bit of a test and some of it also a lot of it was so much confusion and and chaos in my head that I didn't think about it. And then like a few months would go by and I'd start to feel a little bit of guilt again and I'd pay it for a little bit. And then I'd kind of be like, Why am I paying this again? And it became a little bit of a sore spot in our relationship at home. But it it was, you know, my wife very much respected my my belief. And then where I was at, I'm sure it I know it hurt. We've talked about it. It hurt. And she wasn't at the same place I was at that time. I was very quiet and reserved about it, very scared to say anything. Being that she's your bishop two years ago, how can you not believe, like, know? So I, I, I held a lot of it in and processed it internally quite a bit. We had some discussions about tithing and ultimately just decided to pay yours and I'll pay mine and that kind of put that to bed with the two of us. But not too long after that, she had her own shelf crack. It was probably is probably, I'd say about six months before COVID started because of during COVID. Oh, so she was during COVID? Oh, that's right. Because we were still doing sacrament in the house and doing a few things like that. But when I was just again playing along, I gained my mind. I was like, This is not worth fighting over. I'll go to church, I'll do my callings. It's not worth disrupting my family. I want to, above everything else, to keep my family together. And and I knew the stories I've seen the families that were torn apart by a husband or wife leaving. 

Brian [00:38:57] Mixed faith marriages. They're really. 

Jed [00:39:00] Tough. They're tough and really tough. And I think more often than not, they end up in the family getting torn apart. Yeah. And I was like, I can go to church on Sunday and try to pay my tithing better and do these things to to keep the peace. And then one day, one day, Angela comes home and shows me this video of some missionaries knocking on the door of a of a black family. And he's like, Open your scriptures, elders, and read me the scripture in Second Nephi. What's that say right there? And says basically that if I'm not right in the light some, I don't get to go to heaven. And you're coming here on my doorstep and asking me to join your church and and your scripture says this. And I internally am sitting there going, where is this going? Like, are we going down this road? Like, am I okay to say, yeah, look at that. What do you think? Or and you know, and inside I'm just like, oh, man, I hope, I hope this is going was Christ. Yeah, but I, I played it. I mean, I that's your and in my mind I was like, this is your journey and you need to take it and see where it goes. And, and her doing that gave me up until that point, I had not read one CES letter, one Mormon stories. None of it. My my deconstruction at that point was, why would God be so dismissive of so many of his children? I can't I can't wrap that around it. And why would God's want to church keep pounding that drum over and over and over? But I hadn't looked into any historical facts. And then and then my wife, she she needs that stuff. She needs to know why. And she started diving in and was reading everything and listening to everything and coming home and like, did you know this? And like, no. Where did you see crazy? 

Brian [00:40:44] Like one worse than that. 

Jed [00:40:46] And then we started looking into it a little bit and and then one of my probably the tipping point where we finally just said, we're figuring it out. We're going all we're going all the way down this rabbit hole. We're not going to kind of tiptoe around anymore. We had a client and a good friend of mine was on Mormon stories and, and, and we listened to that episode and we're like, that was an evil eye. That wasn't bad, right? That was somebody's story, somebody's honest life. And it kind of gave us permission to ourselves to to really look deeper. And then we I mean, it was just it was all all in. And from that point, I'd say that was probably in December, three months. Later. We are December 18th to February 12. 

Brian [00:41:32] We've got the exact dates. Yeah. Then I have a historian to tell my story. That's that remembers all that. She remembers what we were both wearing. 

Jed [00:41:40] Right. Well, I can remember that then that two months, it was 3 hours at night. Both of us on her phone, sitting in bed just like, holy crap, look at this. Holy cow, look at this. Did you know this is you know that in our world was crumbling? Like this wasn't an exciting, happy experience. It was terrifying and heartbreaking. And we felt like we didn't know up from down. We didn't know what to do with it. We had no idea where this was, where this was heading. We decided to go to Moab for a little getaway. I can remember sitting in the hotel and she shows me a picture of some Masonic Temple stuff and we were like, That's it. Garments are off. Like, I'm not belonging to some weird Masonic Temple thing anymore on top of everything else. And then like the real emotional work started like it was, it was rough and it was scary and we didn't know how to tell our kids. We didn't know how to tell our friends. We didn't tell our parents. 

Brian [00:42:33] All still very much in the church. 

Jed [00:42:35] Absolutely. 100%. Well, our oldest daughter wasn't. 

Brian [00:42:38] But did you know that at the time? 

Jed [00:42:40] Well, we did. We knew she wasn't leaving, but we didn't we knew she was she told us a little while earlier that she just didn't believe it. And we were like, You'll come around, you'll find it. And it really was like, I'd sit in bed and just cry. And I mean, just her, like, my whole identity and my whole life was wrapped up into this, you know, I was that was the Mormon kid from Utah that was a bishop and loved it. And yeah, and then it was exactly not what I believe. I mean, it was it was something completely different. And I went through some really dark nights of just sitting there sobbing and going water with you. What happened? Where did we how do we get here? What? What's this? But also knowing full well that there's no going back. I can't I can't put that genie back in the bottle. And and so we had to decide what to do with it, you know, and we were struggling. How do we how do we tell our kids? And we reached out to another couple. He was a bishop as well. And he actually resigned as being bishop and left the church while he was still serving. And we reached out to them and said, can you go to lunch with us? We need to talk. And they were very gracious and went to lunch and we're like, How do we tell our kids? And they're like, Tell them now it's not going to get easier. And you know, our older daughter was relieved. You could see some relief over her come over her. And our younger daughter was devastated. 

Brian [00:44:11] How old was she at the time? 

Jed [00:44:12] 15. Okay, almost 16. And our our older one was a senior, so she would have been 17 or 18 at the time, probably 18. 

Brian [00:44:21] That had to be something hard for her to tell her bishop father that she's not interested in the church. 

Jed [00:44:27] She was terrified. She was having a very hard time to tell that, tell us that. And we early on in our marriage decided we would never force the church on our kids. We're like, we're not going to be those parents that make our kids believe something they don't believe. We're not going to do it. 

Brian [00:44:42] Still, you're her. 

Jed [00:44:43] Father, right? 

Brian [00:44:44] You're a really good man. You believe in the church and she is taking what you have said is in your DNA, right? It is who you are. And she's saying, I don't believe in that, that I mean, she must have had some pretty sleepless nights about that as well. 

Jed [00:45:00] Absolutely. 

Brian [00:45:01] Because. Yeah. 

Jed [00:45:02] And then on the flip side, our younger daughter, we caused her to have sleepless nights. Yeah. From leaving and and and it's it's hard. And, you know, we, we decided to tell we wanted to tell three or four of our best friends in person. And that went horribly because I'm a I'm a garbage mouth. It just all comes out. You know, I sit down like we're out. This place sucks and we're, you know, and just serve fire and all these things. And they're sitting back and we thought you were coming over for ice cream. What happen? You know, and my wife is, like, grabbing my leg, like, stop, honey. 

Brian [00:45:38] We need to go now. Don't leave. I believe the ice cream. Put down the ice cream. Let's go. 

Jed [00:45:42] And and so after two, I think two of those episodes were like, we need to just send a text message. 

Brian [00:45:49] Why did you feel like you needed to tell them? 

Jed [00:45:51] I didn't want anyone to hear from someone else. I want them to we we both decided this. This was definitely the decision we both came to that we felt we didn't want. We love them. We respect them. And we just didn't want them to hear it from anyone but us. And we wanted to have a chance to tell our side of it. 

Brian [00:46:10] Can you and I'm going to exaggerate here a little bit, but I was swimming. You walked it and you went in there with the CES letter and different point of doctrine you were going to lay down as to your justification. But if one of them had come to you five or six years before that and said the same thing, what? What would what would you have that trained brain at that time? What would your reaction have been? 

Jed [00:46:33] Panic like, whoa. Like, what's going on with these guys? Something's gone. Something's gone wrong in their life. How they've read something wrong. They've talked to the wrong person. They. They stepped off the covenant path for a minute. I would have had all those thoughts. Yeah, hundred percent. 

Brian [00:46:49] And again, part of the plan of the church is to prepare you for when that happens. You have your excuses all lined up. Yeah. Lazy learners wanted to send lost their testimony. I have a person that I respect quite a bit that says people fall out of the church for the same reason they fall out of bed. They just weren't in it far enough. Right. 

Jed [00:47:09] And like I fell out the other side. 

Brian [00:47:11] I couldn't have been more in this bed. 

Jed [00:47:13] So far in. I fell out. The other side is what I tell people like it was it was being bishop that drill that set those motion, those wheels in motion. 

Brian [00:47:22] And you stopped studying. Oh, wait, no, you just had a different. 

Jed [00:47:26] Studied harder and longer and more than I ever, ever did as an active believer. 

Brian [00:47:31] And most of this stuff now, I mean, we were warned forever. Don't read anti-Mormon literature, but now this is all published on the church website, right? You don't have to go anti-Mormon to get any of this. 

Jed [00:47:44] You know, and that's where we started. We're like, okay, so racism in the Book of Mormon that why is that in the Scripture? I get it. Brigham Young could have been a racist. John Taylor could have been a racist as or tap in some was a racist like we can we can justify them as men with the scripture. That's the most perfect book on the face of the earth, direct from God's lips to man's hand and and into our hands. And and there it is. And very clearly, very clearly there. And so we would go to church sources to find it out. And that would just made you mad. It was like quit trying to justify and beat around the bush about it. Why is it in there? And then you start reading some of the footnotes that bury all the information and it's like, Oh, because every question we had, any church response just made it worse. And the only answer that made it better is that it's fabricated, that all of it is not what it claims to be. And it's the only answer for me that satisfied every question Why aren't there Native Americans with Hebrew DNA? Why aren't there? I mean, we've got Roman so many Roman coins from that same timeframe that they're worthless. Like you can buy them for a buck on eBay for a Roman coin from 100 B.C., because there are so many of them, but there's not one from the Americas. Well, because they didn't use coins, but the Book of Mormon says they did. And so all these questions just over and over and over, the answer just kept coming up. It makes more sense that it was fabricated and and that it wasn't a true history that answers all the questions that we have empty. That whole shelf wipes it all out and it makes everything come into focus and everything makes sense. You don't have to make up excuses for bad behavior of members of your ward or Stake presidents or bishops or general authorities or old prophets. You don't have to make excuses for them anymore. It was fabricated. Yeah, none of it was the literal truth. And coming to that acknowledgment while it just wrecks you like it wrecks your whole life structure, and then everything falls apart. It frees you to look at everything new. And. And for us, we. We felt like we had to really. And I'm still going through the glass. I'm still deconstructing. I'm still trying to find everything that I believe, see if it's useful. And if it isn't, that's still ongoing. I wasn't able to just say, No, it's not right. I'm done and move on. I've had to tear everything down and continue to tear it down and build little bits and pieces back up. But there's still so much that web is intricate and deep. 

Brian [00:50:16] And we've made it so personal. It's become talk a little bit about the the freedom to believe in the freedom to think on your own. Tell me some of the positive aspects of that. 

Jed [00:50:28] The positive aspect is seeing every person for who they are as as a miracle of life, not a member nonmember, not a homosexual or a heterosexual, just a fellow human being that I can love no matter what, without any without any footnotes to it. You know, I don't have to say, oh, man, I love that guy, but he'd be such a better member or I love that guy, but he really needs to not have his boyfriend. And you know, I love you. End of story. I respect you. Your and it's so freeing to look at that. And it was that part of it was pretty immediate like all of that judgment. And we felt like we're really non-judgmental people. But there was always a they'd be happier in the church. Who am I to say? Why would I say what their happiness is? Right? So now that frees me to just let them be. Yeah. You you want to. You want to do that? Great. If it brings you happiness and you're not hurting someone else, all the power to you. I'm happy for you. Yeah, the. The hard part of it is now where do where do I go from here? Because everything that I have done was to find the happiness that the church told me is only in there. It's only on this path. It's the only place you have. And then all of a sudden, I've got a path in front of me. And eternal salvation wise, none of them matter. Whichever path I take isn't going to make a lick a difference on what happens when I die, and I need to just find which path brings me the most happiness. And it's exciting and it's fun and it's scary and it's hurtful. And we screw up on a lot of them and we got to backtrack. And but the biggest blessing of it all, without a doubt, is just saying we just accept people for who they are and and try to find whatever good we can get out of whatever connection we can find from them. Like we before we told our kids, we kind of redecorated. 

Brian [00:52:20] We had got rid of a few things. 

Jed [00:52:22] We had to get some pictures and statues down. 

Brian [00:52:25] Before you told your kids. 

Jed [00:52:26] Right. So we we go to HomeGoods one day and a few hundred dollars later coming back with mirrors and different things and pictures are coming off the wall and other things are going up. And our older daughter's best friend at the time was transitioning. It was in the middle of that process, and he's like, as soon as those pictures came down, I felt so safe and comfortable in your home. And not that he didn't feel welcomed, it was always welcome. Still, the. 

Brian [00:52:55] Same people live there. 

Jed [00:52:56] We never we never said one negative thing about it, never treated him with any animosity. Those pictures come down and he's like, I can breathe here. I know it's a safe place. And we were like, Wow. And and then there's a parade of kids coming into our home that feel the same way, going through different struggles on both our kids friends. You know, they they've it's just it's interesting how they think that those pictures and the pictures of temples and the statues of Jesus and those things symbolize we think they symbolize one thing. But to a whole host of people, they symbolize nothing but hate and and exclusion and, and something being wrong with them. Yeah. And we just remove some of that same symbolism in our home and, and it blossomed. It was really, really neat to see. And those are the, those are the really cool things about deconstructing and and this this young man, you know, he he had his is reconstructive surgery and he comes running to our house like the first time he can. And he's showing us his scars. And he's so open and loving and so grateful that we're there for him. And his parents are great, too. It's not like he was having a hard time at home. His grandma paid for the surgery and but he was just so comfortable and safe knowing that we're just given a high five and a hug and crying with him saying, how wonderful is this that you get to do it? And that experience wouldn't have happened. 

Brian [00:54:19] Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. 

Jed [00:54:21] Just so I mean, there's some very, very touching and moving human relationships that are that are great blessings. But the flipside of that is feeling very loss, very broken. I don't think it was this like shining light of the world's my oyster and we can do whatever we want. Now, it was a lot of like, well, what do we do here? Yeah, talking to my mom was one of the most heartbreaking things I'll ever. I'll never forget the disappointment and hurt. She grabbed my face and just cried and. And it's heartbreaking. It's like, I'll never forget that moment. And it was it was rough. And those are things you just don't ever want to do to people you love. And it's hard to explain. I didn't do this to you. The church did it to you. Yeah, but. But that church means everything to them and. Yeah. And they're taught that I did do it to you, but it wasn't me. And I'm comfortable in that and fine with that and we'll be fine. And they're great and we're. 

Brian [00:55:15] Yeah, but you will also be an empty chair at their table. 

Jed [00:55:18] Yeah. 

Brian [00:55:19] Right. And that's how, that's how they're looking at that because of a choice you made. Right. 

Jed [00:55:24] And I don't know how deeply they believe that. And I hope I hope it's not too deep, but but it's definitely thoughts that are going through her through their head. Right. And it's it's things that they're losing sleep over. And I hate that I had. 

Brian [00:55:36] One of people earlier on the show said, I never realized when you left the church that the church gets to keep your family. 

Jed [00:55:43] Right. 

Brian [00:55:44] It's just so heartbreaking. 

Jed [00:55:46] That's crazy. Well, even just today on those same lines, my wife, busy day at work and few things stressful. I texted her, How are you doing this morning? She's like, Oh, it's kind of crazy here today, this, that and the other. And she goes, I used to be able to just pray and give it to God, but now I got to do God's work and figure it out. I was like, wow, that's that's heavy. Yeah, that's a big job. And I hadn't thought of, you know, I've just a really articulate way of putting it is now for our whole lives. We'd have a day like that and we just push it off or God will take care of it in the eternities or whatever it is. Right. It's I know I got to face that today. I had to figure this out. So that's still part of the deconstruction is we're fighting those little battles. But I wouldn't go back. There's no there's no. 

Brian [00:56:34] You can't. Right. 

Jed [00:56:36] You can't you. 

Brian [00:56:37] Can't unsee that. And you wouldn't have seen that beforehand if somebody had told you about it. You had to see it. You had to walk into it. 

Jed [00:56:43] And yeah, there's the the light switch going off for me was a completely different switch than the one for my wife. And it was probably a different one for you. Yeah, everybody has something that will affect them in a way that makes you kind of snap your head back a little and then. 

Brian [00:56:59] Question Yeah. And then there are the hundred that follow after it. Yeah. 

Jed [00:57:03] Right. There's usually that just cemented in, but there's usually that one and I can I had a little duel, but if I wasn't Bishop I would have never had that experience. I would have never talked to. 

Brian [00:57:14] Yeah. You would have had it someplace else. 

Jed [00:57:15] It would have been down the road somewhat. Probably. But one. 

Brian [00:57:19] Of your daughters friends or something else, I. 

Jed [00:57:21] Mean, so one thing I did find through this whole process is that the concept of being empathetic, it doesn't work in conjunction with being a good member. True empathy means accepting people for who they are and not putting restrictions and labels on them and then trying to walk a mile in their shoes and understand what it's like and believing their struggle and believing their pain and religion and dogma. Don't let you do that. 

Brian [00:57:46] Well, you don't need to, because you just need to pray about it and work harder. Yeah, pay more tithing, right. Go to the temple more often and it will go away. Yeah, yeah. And how, how useless and helpless is that for someone who's acting, asking for some support to get that. Well, have you been reading your scriptures? 

Jed [00:58:03] Yeah. Oh, really. Oh, that was my thing. I, I felt like members of church that we, we would have our little soapbox item, some people's family history and some people it was fasting and mine was say your prayers or your scriptures come to church. So for four, five years as bishop, I just hammered that. What's your problem? Say your prayers. It'll be better. I know if you say your prayers in the Scriptures and come to church, you're going to be fine. But it doesn't fix anything mean it doesn't fix those real problems that are so damaging to people. Like I found that out. Like reading scriptures made it worse. They didn't answer questions. I brought more up. Yeah, yeah. And, but that, that whole process of deconstructing that belief and I really believed it. So that was a deconstruction process to what do I do without prayer? What do I do without finding some analogy in a book that helps me think through this problem in my life? I got all those resources and crutches are gone. I've got to find a new way to do it. 

Brian [00:59:02] So what? What do you do now? 

Jed [00:59:04] Talk with my wife a lot. We can. We talk a lot about different things. We argue about things. We cry about things together. You know, we we use each other as a crutch. I trust my inner voice a lot and realize that that is just what we all have inside of us. We all have an inner voice that gives us, for the most part, gives us the right answer for what we need. We we kind of know what we need in our life and podcasts. Podcasts, yeah. Lots of podcasts, lots of reading and on different things. Like I don't feel, I felt handcuffed to, to learn about what it would be like to be a member of the LGBT community. Because I thought that that was a sin. Right? I growing up, you think and I never felt like I was hateful, know, I never felt like it was something that should have been so restrictive. But I never felt like I needed to walk a mile in their shoes. And then all of a sudden, I have an opportunity to talk to a young man who's transitioning and blown away by all the the things you learn and. 

Brian [01:00:07] Their perspective, their. 

Jed [01:00:08] Perspective. 

Brian [01:00:08] The world is a little different than the one we thought that they should have had. 

Jed [01:00:12] Right. I realize I don't I don't get to tell you what to believe or how to live your life. Yeah, I don't have all the answers. That's very freeing to to say, I don't know. How do you feel about it? Yeah. What do you do in this? 

Brian [01:00:24] I'm just here to give you a hug and give you a high five when you need it. 

Jed [01:00:26] Yeah. And, you know, so, yeah, it's, it's a lot of just trying to learn the world and realizing that in a lot of aspects. I was stuck in a sixth grade mindset emotionally and in trying to learn what it's like to be human on this earth. 

Brian [01:00:43] And but it is it can be terrifying to going from knowing all of the answers for your whole life to realizing, you know, nothing it is. And what you do think you know, it's all wrong. 

Jed [01:00:56] It's all wrong. 

Brian [01:00:57] And so sit with that for a few for a few years. 

Jed [01:00:59] And and so I think that's why I need I need to find out all the things that I that I thought were right, that aren't and it's getting better. Like for the first year I would do nothing. But it was 5 hours of podcasts and 3 hours of reading and church history books and journal. Anything we could get our hands on, just devouring it. And now I'm finally back to like, Oh, hey, I can listen to a podcast about the jazz. Like. 

Brian [01:01:24] Like I can think about something else for. 

Jed [01:01:27] I have some interests outside of this that I want to get back to. 

Brian [01:01:30] But it is all consuming. Their whole life just got ripped away from you and your whole being, your whole sense of purpose, your perspective on life, the universe and everything. 

Jed [01:01:40] Yeah. This carefully crafted house of cards that you put together for 45 years and it just crashes in. 

Brian [01:01:49] That you helped build, by. 

Jed [01:01:50] The way I. 

Brian [01:01:50] Built it. That's the kind of thing I look at is like how many of those meetings was a sitting in their building, carefully building each card on this deck. 

Jed [01:01:58] And in December 18th of February 12th, gone, I just completely wiped out. And you sit here, you sit there like emotionally, intellectually and spiritually in relationships. You're like, holy cow, I got nothing. And what do I do? Yeah. And and so lucky to have such a great partner to go through this with, with my wife and so glad that we we took this journey together. We we say that weekly, not daily, like, and so happy that we went through this together. I'm and I just my heart reaches out and breaks for those couples that that can't have that journey together because it is far too often a very negative outcome. 

Brian [01:02:40] It's so dark and painful to do it on your own. Do you have triggers still? You have things that will just trigger you that are just like we. 

Jed [01:02:47] We drove here from Riverton to Centerville, came down 4700 south by that big monstrosity of a building there throwing up. 

Brian [01:02:56] And that used to be my wife's old one house, right? Yeah. Steak center. Yeah. That's where she grew up. Was right. 

Jed [01:03:03] There. Yeah. See, that can go. 

Brian [01:03:05] Right up the. 

Jed [01:03:06] Freeway. Like what? It doesn't even fit in that neighborhood. I'm like, why? Why, why? Yeah, so trigger those. Yeah, there's definitely triggers. And then every now and again, I'll find something that is just so blatantly stupid that we didn't see it. Like, I'm trying to think of a good example of the only one that's coming to mind is, is the Leona in the Book of Mormon just curious workmanship, this ball. And then I see a picture of a hand warmer that people would put coal and to keep their hands warm in the 1820s and like that's exactly what they described Leona has no like how dumb a mind so how dumb and and so some of those things really trigger me and I get kind of upset any organ music. 

Brian [01:03:50] Okay, so. 

Jed [01:03:51] Any song that starts out with a little organ music, it's like, Oh, where are we going with this? Praying is hard to hear people pray that that, you know, if we go somewhere and they want to say a prayer on the food, I'm like, I need to go sit over a waiting list. Yeah, I think I'll be better with that and okay with that with some time. It feels like it's getting a little better. And maybe part of that is just this fear of somebody saying, Hey, do you want to pray? And me having a go, not a chance, and making an awkward situation. 

Brian [01:04:21] I had just that situation like a week ago. Fortunately, I wasn't asked, but I had been the go to person for a long time and we're in the same gathering and not everybody there knew. Even though I'm haven't really been hiding it, I just. 

Jed [01:04:36] Yeah. 

Brian [01:04:37] I know. Not everybody there knows. And yeah, it was just. It's it. Yeah, it's tough. Primary songs do it for me that I used to love so much. I hear the words now and I'm like, Oh, my gosh, that is terrible. 

Jed [01:04:50] Yeah. 

Brian [01:04:50] I mean, I did find one one. Finally the other day, I told my wife I was so excited. I found a primary song that I can actually sing and still believe in and none of the words bother me. Have I done any good in the world today? I can sing that whole song through and say, I like that song still. 

Jed [01:05:08] So we we went to we've been to church one time since. 

Brian [01:05:12] I haven't had that experience. 

Jed [01:05:14] We went. 

Brian [01:05:14] Into a funeral. 

Jed [01:05:15] We went to a missionary homecoming, and we walk in the back between the Relief Society and primary room. Every church is pretty much built. The same shirt and t shirt. No tie and sweater. Okay, I think you sleeveless dress and a little cardigan or something. Anyway, walk in and the primary is in your ward. In our ward. 

Brian [01:05:36] Okay. 

Jed [01:05:37] That's yeah. And our primary is not our primary. The other primary singing Follow the Prophet. And there was a visceral reaction, the literal. 

Brian [01:05:47] That one gets me a lot. 

Jed [01:05:48] The literal cringe and trigger. And it was like, go fast. We got to get past this room and around the corner and out of earshot. Very, very upsetting. Yeah, very real dark feeling. And I mean, it was very triggering. And then we walk into the back of a gym. We're not there's no chance we're sitting in the front, right? So we walk into the back and the bishop, who's a great man, like I have nothing against him at all. And he sees us come in, we kind of make eye contact and there's just a noticeable pause like, oh, and we kind of make eye contact. We go sit down and then three or four people. Recognize this, and then we sneak out before the prayer is over. So we don't have to. We went we did go back one time. Well, you. 

Brian [01:06:33] Don't want to spoil their Sunday either, right? You you don't turn their Sunday into something else. That. 

Jed [01:06:38] And these. These. These. This young lady who is coming home from her mission. Her parents are some of our dearest friends. They're one of the three couples we told them person. And and we had a little text group between the four of us and our daughter named it like church gossip group or something like that. And so we show up and I fire up that text chat right away like we're back. It's one day only, so let's make it count. And I started texting with them, you know, making fun of a few people and things, but. But that was a rough experience. There was one other time when we were hidden, missed a little bit. We came back and just felt like we were we could tell we were a project. This is right before COVID and and and and we were definitely we're definitely a project. And but it's the only time I felt that way in this word like Sacrament gets over and there was 85 people just swarming us. Like, we're like, we want to leave, we're going to get out of here. And we were just coming back to see if this was going to fit and it ain't fit and we're out of here. We came back because our daughter wanted to go to church that day and was like, Can we go to church? Or I should go. So we went one time and then we came back for that missionary homecoming. And I don't have any problems going to homecomings and farewells and things. I don't I want to support our friends and these and so many kids that as bishop that was a big part of their lives right now hurts hurts to part of the deconstruction was accepting that I felt like I might have let some of them down. I know I let some of them down. 

Brian [01:08:06] By leaving were by making them go. 

Jed [01:08:08] By leaving the church. I know for a fact that there's people who there's young young men and young women that I was bishop for that have said to our daughter, we won't talk to your dad because he left the church or won't talk to your mom because they left the church. Nothing you can do about it. But that's part of the deconstruction processes initially. That's like all that stings. That hurts. And it wasn't me. I made the choice to leave, but I didn't make the choice to fabricate and lie and hurt people. So that's part of the other deconstruction, is not valuing or separating the belief from the person and giving them that grace to feel that way without having animosity towards them. But it's not easy, hard. It's a lot of time and effort and sweat and tears and into serving and loving people. And it's hard to be rejected over something that. 

Brian [01:08:59] Right. Because you were serving them. Right, right. And they're rejecting you. Yeah. Like I wasn't doing it. I know. I asked myself, was I doing it out of loyalty? I accepted the calling probably for for that reason, yes. But none of my actions that I did while I was there were disingenuous or I actually enjoyed the fact that I was in a Bishopric because it gave me the opportunity to go to any house at any time and say, How are you doing? 

Jed [01:09:27] How can. 

Brian [01:09:28] We help? 

Jed [01:09:28] So it was such a I was even saying the word is such a blessing. That's still a little bit of a trigger. Like there's will. 

Brian [01:09:34] Be words, a little trigger for me. 

Jed [01:09:36] Too. But it was it was such a good experience to have people openly and actively ask for help and be able to go and help them. Yeah, they trust the bishop and the Bishopric without knowing you. Like, people show up. They haven't. They don't know me from anybody. They've been here for two weeks and they're telling me their deepest, darkest problems and I'm not qualified to. 

Brian [01:09:57] Help the training you get as a missionary. 

Jed [01:10:00] On. 

Brian [01:10:01] His training and book and your scriptures and. 6:00 every quarter. 

Jed [01:10:06] I got training on how to count tithing. Right, and how to report financials. Yeah. I never got training on how to help somebody in a crisis who lost a child. We had three children that I presided at funerals or no one teaches you how to do that. Yeah, we had 70 single moms in the worst spot in their life. The church taught them that if they get married in the temple and can stay faithful, that their life will be fine and then it's not. And they've got four kids and no job and no pathway for a job. And their ex-husband is married, the 20 year old waitress, and off doing just fine. And they're left carrying the bag. 

Brian [01:10:47] And you don't have an education because you were told to stay home and take care of the kids. And you did. 

Jed [01:10:50] That. And then as a bishop, you have no training. There's no this is the resources you have to give out. These are the resources you should lead. No, no, it's just follow the spirit. Yeah. And I mean, it's it's it's crappy. Like, I feel. I hope I didn't screw somebody up worse. I really do. I hope I didn't. I tried to be as honest and truthful and kind and caring as I could. But, you know, I may have said something really damaging to someone along the way, and I hate that. 

Brian [01:11:18] But for the people that you served, I would want them to know that it was all you. 

Jed [01:11:24] Yeah. 

Brian [01:11:25] There was no spirit in. There was no training involved. There was no. It was just genuinely you being your best self. And I hate that they take all that and they throw it all away because now you're persona non grata. 

Jed [01:11:39] Right. 

Brian [01:11:39] And so I know it's still the same human being here, the exact same. 

Jed [01:11:44] Right. And I can honestly say that every every bit of advice, every help I gave was out of love and kindness and concern for and compassion for what they were going through. And and I hope I did good. You know, I don't regret being patient because there were so many wonderful people and wonderful experiences and opportunities to serve and help. I mean, I was able to take lunch to a to a man who was bedridden for a year, and every day I'd go over and take him lunch. I work from home. So I had the opportunity to make him lunch and and go sit with him for a minute. He had really bad vertigo and he'd get the spoons and we'd snuggle in bed and I'd hold them down and try to keep him from spinning. And and, you know, eventually he got a little better and was able to have a family of his own. And, and, and and things worked out. But I'm like, that would have never happened. I would have never known him or had an opportunity to serve like that. And that's one of thousands of opportunities like that, you know, that that just show up because of the calling. And that's great. But it's it's also this double edged sword of I left my family for 40 hours a week to go count timing and to go to trainings and to go to Stake meetings and to meet with other bishops. I don't regret ever serving somebody one on one like that, but man, the meetings and the. 

Brian [01:13:01] Meetings. 

Jed [01:13:02] My kids didn't know I my youngest was two when I got called in the Bishopric and 1314 when I got released or she didn't know me at church. I was always the dad up on the stand and she didn't know me on Tuesdays or Wednesdays or all Sunday and I. 

Brian [01:13:18] Or Saturdays or. 

Jed [01:13:19] Saturdays or yeah. Baptisms on Saturdays. Sorry. I got to get up and go, yeah, fill the font then why can so-and-so do it? Mike I don't know, but someone's got to, so I got to go do it. And I'm such a knucklehead that way. I see my wife and kids walk into church and three smiles on their face and I'm like, Oh, hey, how you guys doing? Big hug and a kiss. And not knowing that it was like World War Three in the House trying to get the kids out the door, you know, and and and my wife was just so great at not ever adding that burden to me, but I didn't know. And I feel like I'm I was absent on that. One more thing you get to deconstruct and try to come to terms with that. You did the best with what you knew and you thought you were doing what's right. And and here we are. When you know better, you do better and. 

Brian [01:14:07] Yeah, that's right. Yeah. You can only deal with what you got. And some of these are some of these we've covered. So I had this crazy idea. Okay, you tell me if you're interested in it or not. I got to hide that last year because I want you to peek in. And I'm curious to know where you sit on all the temple recommended interview questions. 

Jed [01:14:27] Fire away. Do I believe that? God, is. 

Brian [01:14:29] That too weird? 

Jed [01:14:30] No, no. We want to ask him. Let's go. 

Brian [01:14:33] Well, I don't know if all of our listeners know all of them. So let me ask, do you have faith in in the testimony of God, the eternal father, his son, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost? Is this a trigger? 

Jed [01:14:42] I didn't know it was that. Yeah, yeah. It's a trigger for my life. 

Brian [01:14:46] I we cannot do this if you want. No, seriously, we can skip this. It was. It was. 

Jed [01:14:52] Really. No, I'm. I don't know where it's coming from. No, I'm okay. I'm good. 

Brian [01:14:56] I'm sure. I know. I'm feeling like. I'm feeling like we shouldn't do this. 

Jed [01:15:00] No, I'm interested, too. Yeah, let's do it. This is why I love her. One of the. 

Brian [01:15:06] Hundred. Yeah. And I have no reason to put you through this, so. I mean. 

Jed [01:15:09] It's no, i, i she she would tell you if it was too much. I promise to. 

Brian [01:15:15] This is really weird for me to. I haven't done this before. 

Jed [01:15:20] We're going through it together. 

Brian [01:15:23] Okay. So, God, Jesus. Holy Ghost. 

Jed [01:15:26] No. 

Brian [01:15:27] On all three. 

Jed [01:15:28] On all three. I, at this point in my life, do not believe I would classify myself as atheist, and I leave a little bit of room for there being some being something, right? It's not Mormon, God. Jesus is not the savior of the world and the Holy Ghost is our inner self. 

Brian [01:15:46] Do you have a testimony of the atonement of Jesus Christ of it, and of His role as your Savior and redeemer? 

Jed [01:15:51] Now, I hope, I hope he was a real person and taught very good things. I think the New Testament teachings of Jesus are actually really good. Love each other, be kind. Sadly, Christianity in general and Mormonism specifically doesn't follow that. But I do not believe he atoned for my sins to save me from an eternal damnation. 

Brian [01:16:10] So my turning point in the Bishopric was the first two commandments are love God, which I've never understood. Right. Well, is it just we show our love for him by serving him and following him and. Okay, I can kind of get that. For a little bit. Does God need us to love him to see that? Maybe. I don't think that was the case, so I never really quite understood that one. Second one, love your neighbor. I'm all in everything about that. Great. Then you've got the Ten Commandments and you've got all the Scriptures. Then you've got the Bishop's Handbook. Then you've got the state presidency handbook. And for some reason, four times a year, we need to go talk to our young women about how they can have one piercing in each year. 

Jed [01:16:47] Right. 

Brian [01:16:48] I'm sorry. What did we really nail down the love your neighbor part? Because I'm feeling like we really aren't even close to that. 

Jed [01:16:55] We jumped right over it and shot right on to all this. 

Brian [01:16:59] Stuff, all of this great. 

Jed [01:17:01] Fear in mine. 

Brian [01:17:01] So my teaching in Ward council and in Bishopric was every assignment we give to talk in church, every calling we issue, every topic we assign to be taught should be love your neighbor through whatever you want. Love your neighbor through service, love your neighbor through paying a full tithe. Love your neighbor through what that should be at the front of everything we do. Because until we get that, really, none of the rest of that matters. But we act like the thing way out here on the far end is what tie you wear in church, or whether someone Bishopric where it shaves your beard is far more important than whether we actually love our neighbor, right? 

Jed [01:17:38] Yup. Yeah. Where did it. 

Brian [01:17:40] I get a lot of that. Isn't the church, the leadership or whatever? They're different issues with all that. But that one just really bothered me. It's like I'm just. I'm not feeling like we should get past number two. I don't know what number one is, but. 

Jed [01:17:52] Right. 

Brian [01:17:54] And there's part of me that says, like, if God gave us Ten Commandments, that would last forever. These are the ten. Couldn't have done better than the ten that he gave us. I mean, he did a really lousy job coming up with ten. I mean, come on. 

Jed [01:18:06] The the one that always got me. And then we're on a little tangent here. But yeah, we. 

Brian [01:18:11] Are. 

Jed [01:18:12] Honored, my father and mother. But what if your mom and dad or I my my wife's childhood was a shit show? Your mom and dad were awful and her adoptive parents were awful, and she was abandoned by multiple parents. Honor them like hell. No. Yeah. Why? Why? That makes no sense to me and to the fact that to the point of believing that when we were first married, like she really struggled with, like, well, I'm sealed to my adoptive parents, but my my biological mom's over here and I don't know who am I going to be in heaven with and who do I honor and who do I follow? They're both abusive and and abandoned me at times that I needed them the most. And it's like, no, you don't honor either. I'm like. 

Brian [01:18:55] Yeah, and do I have any say in this at all as an adult? And I choose to. 

Jed [01:18:59] But it was something that you believe so deeply that it would take on stress. Like, I wonder who's my real mom? It was my parent. Where am I going in heaven? And you're worried about these things because you need to honor them, right? And so that's messed up. Yeah. Yeah. So and I'm sure the other nine aren't any better, but that's one that just not that that's something that I've thought about a lot over the last couple of months is just how we we had conversations about that. How do I honor my mom? Like she's sealed me, I'm sealed to her. But she also neglected me and sexually abused me and physically abused me. 

Brian [01:19:30] And Cody honored. 

Jed [01:19:31] How do I honor that? And why. 

Brian [01:19:32] Would I want to go to. 

Jed [01:19:33] Hell if I don't? Yeah, where's where's the rationale and reasoning in that? And why do I want to believe in a God who forces me to honor that person even into my adulthood? 

Brian [01:19:45] So put them on the shelf. 

Jed [01:19:46] Yeah. Moving on, question. 

Brian [01:19:48] Three Do you have a testimony of the restoration of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ? 

Jed [01:19:52] Absolutely not. 

Brian [01:19:54] Do you sustain the President of the church as profiteering? Revelator And the only person who's authorized to exercise all priesthood keys. 

Jed [01:19:59] There's not a stronger word than no. And tonight, I don't want to sound flippant and and disrespectful because I felt reverence towards these men for a lot of years. Past tense. Past tense. Yeah. And believed them to be a mouthpiece in genuinely good people. I don't know what to think about them now. I don't know what they know. I don't know what lies they tell. I don't know what I know. They don't they don't hold any keys. They don't hold any power or authority over me or anyone that you don't give to them. Yeah. Yeah. And to sustain or honor, I don't have any place in my life for that anymore. 

Brian [01:20:38] Okay, well, skip that next. Those next two. I thought it was kind of interesting. They asked the same question four times. 

Jed [01:20:42] Right. But it's crazy. Like there's one question about do you believe in God? And Mike four, do you believe in the prophet? Right. Like, where's our where's our worship really at as members of the church? And when you walk down the halls of a church, do you see pictures of God? No. You see pictures of Russell Nelson and Joseph Smith and I. Where is the idol worship that it's not. 

Brian [01:21:04] Usually translating the the book of Mormon away that is not a historically accurate accurate right but is in every book and every story in every lesson manual. 

Jed [01:21:12] And so the it's interesting, you know, and even we talked about this a day or two ago, like the great plan in heaven was Jesus saying, I'll give all the glory to God. And here we are giving him and the Prophet all the glory and. God. Yeah. Interesting. 

Brian [01:21:28] I'm going to skip question five because I don't think it should ever be asked to another person. But do you follow? Number six, do you follow the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ in your private and public behavior with members of your family and others? 

Jed [01:21:39] That's a new verbiage. 

Brian [01:21:41] Yeah, it is. I had to print these because a couple of these have changed. 

Jed [01:21:45] Yeah, that's. That's new verbiage. There's probably something I do. 

Brian [01:21:48] But to be honest, if I do, it's because I choose to. 

Jed [01:21:51] And I don't want to say that every teaching in the church was negative. 

Brian [01:21:54] Right. 

Jed [01:21:55] And so I do think that there are some things that I probably do follow. I don't give them any credit for it, though. Right. Every good thing that the church lays claim to can be found anywhere else. 

Brian [01:22:06] And the fact that you left doesn't mean you still don't believe in some of those values. 

Jed [01:22:09] Absolutely. 

Brian [01:22:10] You're not going to go out and doing all kinds of strange, abhorrent behavior just because you don't need a temple recommend. 

Jed [01:22:17] I think it was crazy. It was Penn. And Teller said, you know, he's a pin. 

Brian [01:22:23] Had to be Penn. Teller doesn't talk. Right. 

Jed [01:22:25] So Penn is a very vocal atheist. And somebody asked him, what stops you from raping? What stops you from pleasuring? He's like, I rape all I want. It's zero. Yeah, I plunder all I want. It's none. Yeah. And that's how I feel. Like I don't need some moral compass to be a good person, right? I don't need some organization to tell me how to be a good person anymore. 

Brian [01:22:46] Do you support or promote any teachings, practices or doctrine contrary to those of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints? 

Jed [01:22:53] Yes. Proudly, happily. Gladly. 

Brian [01:22:55] Do you strive to keep the Sabbath day holy? I'll read the whole thing, both at home and at church. Attend your meetings, prepare for and worthily partake of the sacrament, and live your life in harmony with the laws and commandments of the Gospel. 

Jed [01:23:05] If Holy is taking my wife to lunch and mowing the lawn and cleaning the house because she works on Sundays. So I feel like that's a good time for me to do something. And yeah, sure. Keep that. Holy. Do I go to church? No. Take the sacrament. Never again. Okay. 

Brian [01:23:23] Do you strive to be honest in all that you do? Yes, I think is a good question. 

Jed [01:23:26] It's a great. 

Brian [01:23:27] Question. We're on number nine. We got it came up with a good question. Are you a full tithe payer? 

Jed [01:23:32] No. 

Brian [01:23:33] Do you understand and obey the word of wisdom? 

Jed [01:23:35] No. Well, yes. Understand. Obey? No. 

Brian [01:23:40] 13. Do you keep the covenant you made in the temple, including wearing the temple garment and instructed in that date skip the one that. 

Jed [01:23:46] No, I want to go back to Word of Wisdom for once. Okay. I keep it better now than I did as a member though. 

Brian [01:23:51] How so? 

Jed [01:23:52] I eat better. 

Brian [01:23:53] Yes, me too. 

Jed [01:23:54] I exercise a little more. Yeah, I. 

Brian [01:23:57] Was a big change for. 

Jed [01:23:58] Me. I drink way less coke and. And so I think I do live in a little fuller, even though that means drinking coffee, which is super healthy for you and, you know, and not having as much of that other garbage. So yeah, in a weird way, I probably did that one a little better than I did. 

Brian [01:24:17] Sugar isn't part of the word of wisdom, so you can partake of that as much as you want to? Yeah. Carbs. Sugar. 

Jed [01:24:22] Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, moving on. 

Brian [01:24:26] Where where do you keep the covenant you made in the temple, including wearing the temple garment as instructed in the endowment? They were in the garbage can in Moab, if I understand. 

Jed [01:24:34] Well my tops where I can find a bottom for a while. So now that was kind of a struggle. Yeah. It's kind of weird trying to find a new. Yeah. Comfortable. 

Brian [01:24:46] There's an adjustment. 

Jed [01:24:47] Yeah. That was another thing to deconstruct is, is, is what to do. But from that, from that day on, they meant nothing to me. That's for damn sure. They are just a piece of cloth. So. Yeah, no, no. On that, no. On temple covenants other than I do honor and respect my wife and, and my family. And, you know, those are the things that I want to keep and those are things that I'm happy to hold on to. I want to be a better husband, be a better dad, and honor those promises that were covenants hard. That's another trigger word. But those promises, those relationships, I want them to be better. And I don't know what happens when we move on, but I hope it's with her and with my kids. If there is something it's not, then we live the best life we could. 

Brian [01:25:30] We're not going to sacrifice this one for the greater possibility of her. 

Jed [01:25:34] An unknown. 

Brian [01:25:36] Are there serious sins in your life that need to be resolved with priesthood authorities as part of your repentance? 

Jed [01:25:41] I wish this was on video that I wrote was probably audible. No, I don't believe in sin. I believe in you. Do you do the best you can. You leave people better than you found them. Great. And then that's it. 

Brian [01:25:54] Okay, last one. Okay. Do you consider yourself worthy to enter the Lord's house and participate in temple ordinances? 

Jed [01:26:01] Worthy is one of those is garbage or man. They are worthy. What is worthy? That was always one. That was a struggle. As a believer, am I worthy? 

Brian [01:26:11] Will you never feel good enough? 

Jed [01:26:13] Right? Like we're taught that we are never good enough. 

Brian [01:26:16] You have a temple recommend you don't go often enough. If you go often enough, it's not with the right heart if you go with it. 

Jed [01:26:21] So that that was something that as a bishop giving I don't. No. 3000 Temple recommend interviews over ten years that I did it. I can count on both hands and both feet. How many times somebody said yes without any hesitation. That's something that everyone struggles with. Am I worthy? What's that even mean? Worthy in whose eyes? Like if. If the church is expecting exact obedience? No, not happening. My doing my best. Sure. And so even. Even as a believer, I saw that question was horseshit. Like when I tell people, I'm like, just say, yes, you're fine. Go. 

Brian [01:26:56] Yeah. 

Jed [01:26:57] Right. Like, there's. Don't beat yourself up over this. The temple supposed to be a place of healing and growth. Not a place of feeling bad. So. So. Yeah, I feel worthy. I will never step foot in another one again. But I'm a I'm a better person today than I was then. 

Brian [01:27:12] So my wife, one of her last few relief societies that she went to and she left a little bit before me and all, and three of my four kids left before both of us. So I had like the easiest exit of all really is like I was like the last one. I'll turn off the lights and close the doors, you know. But in one of her last Relief Society that she went to what they were talking about, the temple attendance, and she's like, I've never enjoyed going to the temple. Have you felt that way? Did you feel like when you got that, I mean, other than it was a quiet sanctuary where you could just sit for a few seconds and not have 400 people waiting for you to knock on your door. Bishop, was what was your experience, normal temple experience like? 

Jed [01:27:55] Boring. Okay. I felt guilty for not finding enough symbolism and meaning. Ceilings were probably the one thing I enjoyed. I felt like we were doing some good there and bringing families together, and I was something I could do actively with my wife. And you would be in a nice, quiet room and could contemplate if you fell asleep, you didn't miss anything. Sitting on the sidelines generally I was very streaky and going to the temple. We'd be good about it for a year and then horrible for four. 

Brian [01:28:24] And then, you know, all your spare time as bishop, you didn't go six times a week. 

Jed [01:28:27] No, we we made that a priority and then got there once a month with the Bishopric or something, or took the young men and young women like we we made the temple as big a priority as we could. And I just one more one more day in the month. I wasn't with my family. Yeah. 

Brian [01:28:41] We made it a priority as well for as much as we could. But my wife hated date night being temple night. Not the same thing. Right? 

Jed [01:28:50] Well, you're not together and you're not talking. You're not comfortable. I never felt comfortable in the clothing. Like it was always pinching in the wrong places and stuffy and hot and and weird and all the other things. But, yeah, horrible day. Night. 

Brian [01:29:04] Okay, I've got to speed round for you to something else I came up with just for you. There are so many of these topics that I just talk as little or as much if you want to just give a one or two word response. We've talked about some of these already, but yeah, so speed around profanity. 

Jed [01:29:17] Fuck yeah. Alcohol from time to time. Sure, they love it like it and not not a big issue. I enjoy trying drinks, enjoy having fun, but can go weeks without touching it too. It's not a thing. It's there and it's a fun social thing to do. 

Brian [01:29:36] But coffee. 

Jed [01:29:37] Every day. Tattoos support all of her. My wife's. I have made a commitment to get one that's between her and I at a certain point. Okay. I have no problems with youth interviews. They should never happen. 

Brian [01:29:52] Eight year old baptisms. 

Jed [01:29:53] Is atrocious to an eight year old. Committing their life to a church is ridiculous. There's no there's no way that child has any understanding of what the commitments are coming. And even the staunchest believing member. I could give you all the reasons I said it was the right time because oh, finally you can sing and you need all the help you can get. But. But even now read Na Na said, like young men, you don't have a choice to go on a mission. You have that choice at eight, Bednar said at first and a Stake. 

Brian [01:30:24] President everyone here. 

Jed [01:30:25] Reiterated it. You made that commitment at eight. You don't get a choice to go or not. You you committed to it at a loss. 

Brian [01:30:32] Stop that right now, right? 

Jed [01:30:33] Like that. 

Brian [01:30:34] So you should be arrested for saying. 

Jed [01:30:36] That so wrong to to make some 18 year old young man young woman feel pressure for a decision. They didn't even make it eight. I can't remember my baptism. Who remembers that day other than I got a blanket and everybody told me how proud they were of me. 

Brian [01:30:51] Right? Yeah. Talk about temple covenants. You make the covenant and then they tell you what the covenant was that you just made. Well, I'm sorry. What? Yeah, that was backwards. I don't sign the document, and then you put the words on there that you think should be on there. That's not the way. 

Jed [01:31:04] It's not a blank check that you get to. Right. 

Brian [01:31:07] But modest dress. 

Jed [01:31:10] So I have two daughters. And this is one thing that I've had to deconstruct. And I am so proud of my my daughters. I don't think they dressed in modestly. I think they dress comfortably in what they feel is great and if anybody has a problem with it. That problem is yours and not theirs. Okay. And shut the hell up and don't say a word about it. It's not your body. It's not your choice. And if you have a problem with it, that's you and not them. And heaven forbid you say something to them because it's on. Right? 

Brian [01:31:41] Yeah, exactly. You make them feel bad. Right. 

Jed [01:31:43] And I've watched both our daughters just really embrace and they dress super cute and fun and they're comfortable. And I don't even know what to say. I don't need of modesty is anything other than a buzzword to make people feel bad. 

Brian [01:31:57] Is guilt and shame, right? It's those are big tools, especially for the young women. 

Jed [01:32:02] You know, it's all towards the end where we young men can do whatever they want. A young man can literally walk into church in a Speedo on a tank top and probably just be allowed to pass the sacrament. Yeah, they'd say put a tie on with it. And as long as your tank tops away it, you're fine. 

Brian [01:32:15] The Book of Mormon. 

Jed [01:32:17] Made up. 

Brian [01:32:18] Joseph Smith. 

Jed [01:32:19] Talented criminal charlatan. I used to he could tell a story like I'm to give him credit. He can tell a story. And he's really good at stealing other people's stories and other people's experiences and compiling them. But he was a power hungry with power and sex. I don't know what else to say about it. I'm not. Not at all what he claimed to be or set out to be. And overall, not somebody that deserves any admiration or worship. 

Brian [01:32:46] Emma Smith. 

Jed [01:32:47] A victim I don't want to say a willing participant, but I'm trying to think in that day and time, how easy would it have been for her to leave him? I don't think she wanted to be there the whole time. I don't know enough of her history and I don't think she gets enough respect for the shit she put up with. Yeah, and she should have left him, but I don't know. I have a lot of sympathy for her. And then I wonder if she was implicit in any way at the same time. Yeah, that's a tough one. 

Brian [01:33:13] That is a tough one. Her history is so sad. 

Jed [01:33:14] It's sad. Sad and complicated. So, so. 

Brian [01:33:17] Similar word, profit. 

Jed [01:33:18] I don't think there's such a thing. 

Brian [01:33:19] As priesthood priest. 

Jed [01:33:20] Craft made up power to pretend authority. 

Brian [01:33:25] Control over others by righteous. 

Jed [01:33:27] Dominion. 

Brian [01:33:27] Righteous dominion patriarchy. 

Jed [01:33:30] What? The church is really about this. Yeah. I don't know what it's. Yeah, it's awful. It's sick, it's wrong. It's. It's plaguing America in general, in the Mormon Church specifically. And it needs to be and needs to be eradicated. I don't know what else to say about when you just keep fighting and voting and standing up for women. 

Brian [01:33:49] And unfortunately, I think we're taking steps in the wrong direction faster. 

Jed [01:33:53] Than right. 

Brian [01:33:54] And ridiculous. 

Jed [01:33:56] And I feel like I've always been pretty good about that. I've tried to really lean in into including and accepting and making equal the women that have been in my life even as bishop, my my Relief Society president and then young women's president, primary president, we're more involved and more important than my councilors in in ward council meetings and things like that. When we had the kid get molested, my first calls were Relief Society president, primary president, my, we need to get together and figure some stuff out. I, I've seen that as a problem for a long time. I did that. So my kick myself that I didn't I really didn't let it bother me more than it should have. Yeah, but it needs to go. That's ridiculous. 

Brian [01:34:37] Where do you find joy and peace now? What brings you joy? 

Jed [01:34:42] I really like to get into nature, and I like to be disconnected from, like a real peace is when when my wife and I can go get away and sit and stare at a cliff, you know, and just quiet the world around us. Spending time with with our kids is great. Still trying to find something better. I don't. Although it's not like the church brought me a lot of peace and joy is a lot of work and stress and heartache. So I don't know that it's I'm replacing that. I'm just leaning into things that are a little more healthy and peaceful and even just simple things like taking a walk or bike ride. I find I'm a lot more interested in music than I was, which is saying something. It's still not a big thing for me, but we've been to a few concerts and I really like the lake. So traveling, seeing new places and just sometimes just breathing, just sitting down and and just breathing and calming. Calming things can bring some peace and comes from inside. There's no real external, but some of the most peaceful times in the last two years have been in the middle of the desert. We were completely lost and just sitting there and we pull sandwich out of the back of the truck and sit on the tailgate and watch a bird fly over and look at it, you know, look over a cliff and see a river and just sit there and we don't need to talk and just sit there and be in peace and just simple and just simple and and kind of get recharged. And we try to try to find a lot of opportunities to do that. Jump on the truck, get out in the desert, head down to Moab, go to Bear Lake, just something, you know, and and get away from all the reminders of the chaos. 

Brian [01:36:24] And you. Found something that you thought leaving the church that would be very distressing or very difficult or very wrong, and that you have found that was actually joyous or or better that or not as not as hard on maybe not even existent. 

Jed [01:36:44] I don't know that I went into it with expectations of what would happen. I knew that there would be relationships, there would be hurt. And there definitely has. And and I would love to at some point speak about we had one friend, one couple, everyone. We told pretty much the same story of We still love you. That's fine, we still want this, right? Don't talk to us again, but we still love you. And if we do talk, we can talk about the church, but you can't talk about not being in the church. But we promise we won't talk about the church. That's the story we got from everybody except one couple just said, that must be really hard. What are you guys? How do you feel? What are you going through? And we were like, Wait. 

Brian [01:37:28] You got the wrong script. 

Jed [01:37:29] Right? And this was this was one of my counselors in the Bishopric, still very active, a kid on a mission. And I wish so. I mean, the thing that was the hardest was that was was seeing people that we loved dearly still to this day and still do stuff, hang out with them, try to do things with them. But we're not we're not we're not looked at the same way. There's a respect that's left us. There's a I mean, that's been hard. And I think that's normal. I don't think that's unique to us. Yeah, I think what was unique is we we had that one friend, the one couple that they said we were terrified to come to dinner with you. And we we didn't know what to expect. You know, this is scary, but how are you doing? And we were like, Holy crap, this sucks. We're doing awful. Like, this is not fun. Yeah, we're weird. And we didn't even need to talk about why. It was just very refreshing to have somebody just say, that's hard. You know, I can't imagine being in your shoes and that's hard and recognizing, yeah, there's some sticky points. You're not wrong for thinking there some sticky points with the church and if there was anything that we could do better is to just be that way, just accept the people's pain as their pain, and that's real to them. And it might not be really you, but it's real to them. And try to walk with them in it for a minute. Yeah. 

Brian [01:38:43] Just be our friend. Love your neighbor. Yeah. 

Jed [01:38:45] Nothing needs to change. We just don't say prayers at dinner anymore. Right. And if you want to talk about your calling, fine. Don't be mad when I want to talk about this new beer that I tried. You know, don't don't be offended by that. And and we can live and be great and happy, you know? And then on the flip side, we've met some wonderful people that are becoming really good, good, fast friends. And in our our sphere of people and people influence us and we influence them as grown so much and and cousins that have left the church that we're reengaging with. And it's funny how it takes that, though. I mean, it takes something like this trauma to bond us to certain people in the. 

Brian [01:39:23] Church to set it up that way. Right. 

Jed [01:39:24] It's a definitely it's an answer them. 

Brian [01:39:26] Yeah. And they need to come up with some good reasons why these really good people that we all know really well, why they suddenly went off the deep end. I need to come up with an excuse to justify that and explain that story, because otherwise it just doesn't make sense. 

Jed [01:39:41] And I wish I could I wish I could tell them that it wasn't a snap decision. Like for me, it took six years for my life. It took a good year and a half to fully get there. It's not a snap decision. It is a really hard road to go down and you are left, you're left drowning and you just fight your way through it and then you have to grow up in a lot of ways. You have to really reevaluate. There are still people that I'm like, people I work with and I'm like, I don't even want to say anything to you about it because I don't want to have to go through that shunning again. Yeah. 

Brian [01:40:13] That work too now. 

Jed [01:40:14] Yeah, that work. And vendors that I used to do work for me that I'm worried might not do work for me anymore. It's kind of ridiculous. I give you lots of money every year to do the work, but I'm pretty sure if you knew this, you might not take my business anymore. So, I mean, it's still a struggle. That's what I say. We're still deconstructing. These are things I still haven't resolved. 

Brian [01:40:34] Do you think that will stop? 

Jed [01:40:36] I hope so. I hope so. I think it might take some some bigger changes that we still need to find. And I think it'd be helpful to move out of that ward to kind of get a new start in that regard. We're kind of waiting for our younger daughter to graduate high school this next year and then we'll be able to do some things like that. But I hope so. I hope there's a new baseline. I feel like it gets closer every day. So yeah, I'm hopeful for it, but we also live in the heart of it. 

Brian [01:41:02] Yeah. How far do you have to move to get away from that different color state? Yeah, probably at least that much. 

Jed [01:41:08] At least that much. And that's on the table. Like we're actively looking at that too. So so we're open to whatever life brings us. We're open to new experiences and that's the cool part about it, you know, and I do. We look back like when we bought this house, we were five years starter. I. Five years. We'll move on. Well, five years. I was the Elder's Quorum president. We don't want to leave calling like God called us to this. 

Brian [01:41:32] Like you wouldn't get another one on your next ward. 

Jed [01:41:34] So let's not leave. He clearly wants us here. So seven years. I'll be done. Bishopric. Bishop's been in for a year and a half. It's another three years. Bishop So that's in six and a half years or a five year plan and now a 15, 20 year plan. And then our daughters are senior in high school and a freshman, or we're not uprooting them after we especially after we drop this bomb on them. We're not going to pull them from their friends and do all that. And so those are the things that get me mad. Like the church made me feel like I didn't have a choice in that. 

Brian [01:42:03] What are you most angry about when you get mad about that? 

Jed [01:42:06] Or what? Or who? I'm mad at the institution and the people that know better and don't do better. I do think that the overwhelming majority of the members of the church are just wonderful, great people that do their best and try their best. 

Brian [01:42:20] So that's something for the church, right? Right. I mean, there's something there's something there. 

Jed [01:42:24] The people are great. But then they just actively at a high, high level, actively keep you under that umbrella. That's how I was, Bishop, when the when the church essays came out. You think that would be something you'd want to train the bishops on? Not a word. Again, no training. Not a new word. Not a word. Like people are going to read these and have their testimony rocked and you probably ought to be ready for it. They just hide them like, here's the truth, or we're going to bury it so far down that most people will never find it. So I get really matter of that. And I get mad that we made a lot of life decisions based on what we thought the church would have us do. 

Brian [01:43:00] Again, who are you mad at for that? 

Jed [01:43:02] At times I'm upset at myself for not seeing it, but I don't know who else there is to be mad at other than the leadership of the church for not being more transparent and open and honest about the real history and what it's really based on. I'm not mad at my parents, right? They they were born and raised. 

Brian [01:43:18] There was no malice there. 

Jed [01:43:19] No malice there at all. That that was some of this really hard is my mom. Like, I'm 45 years old when we leave the church and she's like, I feel like I left. I let you down somewhere along the way. I'm like, How do you feel that way? You didn't let me down. 

Brian [01:43:33] Have you been withholding information because you didn't know? 

Jed [01:43:36] You didn't know? Yeah, I didn't know. None of us knew. And we just bought in. And so I I'm I'm mad at myself probably more than anything from not seeing things earlier, but very disgusted with the leadership that I'm confident knows better and just doesn't I don't know what their motivation is. So it is it's frustrating, but we have this whole life in front of us now, right? Go make of it what we will. And we're doing that. We're trying to make new people, try new things, live in new places. It feels like we're doing things that most people do over a 20 or 30 year timeframe in like two years to try to catch up. Right. And and so there's just all these decisions and choices that make I guess that's a cool thing. We got choices. 

Brian [01:44:17] And you get to decide, right? 

Jed [01:44:19] Yeah. 

Brian [01:44:20] It takes a while to come to come to grips with that, I think. 

Jed [01:44:22] Yeah, we're staying in this house right now because we choose to so that we don't upend our daughter's life. We feel like that is the best thing to do, right? We know what is as the best thing for our kids. We've told them, the second you graduate, we're gone like we're moving somewhere else. We don't want to be here and we want to try something new. We want to live in a new area, live in a new neighborhood, maybe a new state. We've kick the tires on a few different places and still looking around and that's exciting. We get all these like it's there's nothing holding us back in terms of a belief or a dogma. It's whatever holds us back is because we are allowing it to because we choose to do that for reasons that we think are important. 

Brian [01:45:01] Do you have anything we missed? We've been pretty thorough. We've been all over the place. 

Jed [01:45:05] But oh, I don't know. There's so much story to tell. But there's I mean, did the best thing I can say is I just wish everybody was more like that. One couple of our friends that could just just try to walk a mile in our shoes for a minute. I don't know who listens to these on the other end and what kind of influence there is. But when people are struggling, love them. Yeah, whatever they're struggling with, it doesn't it doesn't matter whether you think it's a struggle or not is irrelevant. It's a struggle of them, whether it's dealing with abusive parents, dealing with their religion. You don't know about trying to fit in with friends, whatever it is. It might not bother you, but it's their pain and it's real to them. Accept it, love them, pull them and and be there for them. Yeah. And take care of yourself. And it's such an easier way to live. 

Brian [01:45:52] But they've been trained that you're off the path and there are eternal consequences to your decisions. And what kind of friend would they be if they didn't try to drag you back onto the path? Right. But I would say the same thing you just said. Here's your neighbor. Love them. 

Jed [01:46:06] Right? 

Brian [01:46:07] Love them. Be there for them. Let them make their decision. Because whether they were baptized at the age of eight or not, they get to make their own decisions and they would love to have your support and be a friend. 

Jed [01:46:18] Yeah, ironically, do what Jesus would do and put the person above the organization and. Far too often, not just in religion and politics in the corporate world. And we put the organization above. People know and it's it's horrible. We need to put people first for put our loved ones first and care for each other and stop caring for these inhuman organizations that will. 

Brian [01:46:44] Just take everything. 

Jed [01:46:44] Yeah, they'll just bleed you dry. Yeah. And it's it's a epidemic. I every that all parts of our life or organizations are demanding things from us, and then we need to put a stop to it. And religion's a big one. That's a big one because it takes your take your beliefs. It takes your moral structure. Take your money. Take your time. 

Brian [01:47:03] Take your family. 

Jed [01:47:04] Take your family. It's a big one. It's a big one. And it's rough so we we can all do better. I feel like I'm such a better person now than I was. 

Brian [01:47:12] I told someone that the other day I feel I'm a far better Christian since I left the church than I ever was when I was in it. Yeah. And I was doing a really good job before, but the whole love your neighbor thing, I felt like I was handcuffed. 

Jed [01:47:24] Right. You can love your neighbor if they show up to church on Sunday, but if they're having a beer on the patio on Sunday, don't love them as much. 

Brian [01:47:31] Yeah, you got to steer clear of that, because that will just suck you right in, will it? 

Jed [01:47:35] Right. Like it might that week. 

Brian [01:47:37] Can you go sit on the on the porch with with that. With them. 

Jed [01:47:39] Yeah. Yeah, it's crazy. I promise you. They don't care. 

Brian [01:47:43] They don't care. 

Jed [01:47:44] Yeah. Yeah, they just come sit down. 

Brian [01:47:46] Unless you make an issue about it. They do not care. 

Jed [01:47:48] Yeah, they're happy to have you. Yeah, I'm the same way. I'm happy to have you. Come. Come sit down to visit. It's awesome. 

Brian [01:47:55] Well, you've been very generous with your time. 

Jed [01:47:57] Thank you. This has been awesome. 

Brian [01:48:01] Thank you for listening to strangers. You know, if you're enjoying our conversations, please share us with a friend. Continue the conversation by sharing and liking on Facebook and social media, or for exclusive content and detailed show notes. Visit our website at strangers you know podcast dot com where you can subscribe to our newsletter or make a donation to support the show. Thank you for your support.