Leo started to grapple with his faith when he started uncovering information about church history that he had never heard before. It sent him down a rabbit hole of information that caused him to question everything he had ever been taught. A series of miraculous events pushed Leo back to the church, he couldn't deny God's hand in his life. Leo is back as a fully active member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He uses his experience to help others stay on the covenant path with his non-profit called Uplift Community of Faith. One of the most powerful moments of the podcast episode was when I asked Leo if he has any doubts or concerns that still bother him, to which he simply replied - no.
Transcription
Ashly Stone
00:00
Hey, Leo, I am so excited to have you on the podcast. Yeah, so why don't you go ahead and start and tell us a little bit about you and all the things.
Leo
00:12
Yeah, it's nice to be with you, Ashly. I, I guess I've got a long story, we'll try to keep it within, I guess, the timeframe that we have. But my story starts with just pretty much every other member of the church that's raised in a traditional home, I was raised in Utah, Salt Lake and also Bountiful, and grew up in a very strong ward with parents who loved me and love the gospel. And it was just a really nice way to grow up in the church with a lot of friends that were good kids and, and had a lot of good influences. I was checking all the boxes, you know, as a young man, I did scouting and, and served my callings and leadership before my mission. And then my mission was awesome. I had a, an opportunity to serve in Uruguay, South America and spoke Spanish and, and was very, the word I kept talking about in my letters and to myself was "intensity." I was an intense missionary, I worked my tail off, I testified, with, you know, very black and white. It's all or nothing language. And I believed with all my heart. And I knew it to be true. That's kind of how I, you could say, that's the very traditional way of describing of having a testimony is that I know, and, and so I was set up for success in some ways, but in failure, for failure in other ways. The failure came was after I was at BYU and married my first child, basically, at that time was about 10 years ago, now a little more than 10 years, I came across some information on the internet. On YouTube, actually, it was a video that popped up that was of the Manti Pageant, and it was some evangelical sisters, who were all lined up with signs on their chest, indicating that they were representing different women who were married to Joseph Smith. And they started talking about their stories, their names, and kind of like going through and explaining who they were. And my skeptical mind, you know, was, like, at first, I was skeptical of these women. And I said, these women are liars and it can't be true. And, and it was a real mind trip, you know, you could say is that I, I went from one complete angle in dismissing them to being curious and researching and going down what we call the rabbit hole in faith crisis terminology.
Ashly Stone
03:01
Did you, I'm curious to know what was it that was so shocking to you about that? Was it that you weren't familiar with Joseph Smith and polygamy and all of that? Did that come as a surprise to you? Like, completely?
Leo
03:14
Yeah, it was because a lot of the information, I mean, I had an inkling, you know, a little bit of information because I, as a lot of youth in our church, and even adults, many of us are bored with church history. It's boring. History is not an exciting subject for a lot of people. And it wasn't for me. My dad sort of tried to get me to be interested in church history, bless him, but the way he, you know, went about it was about genealogies and some, you know, obscure facts and things that weren't really compelling for me to learn about. So until it became a salacious, you know, really, potentially damning information about someone who I really cared about, Joseph Smith, I wasn't really driven to study. And so that new narrative that I was learning from people who don't like the church, who were there to protest against, against the church, it wasn't an environment, it was all myself, you know, on the internet. It wasn't an environment of love, and of the Spirit. And so I went, we call down the rabbit hole, because I was curious, I wanted to learn. And so it was a good thing that I was learning, but I wasn't learning with, with any kind of hope, or trust, or faith, it was all skepticism. And I was a skeptical person as it was, but I hadn't ever found anything that shook my testimony like that. And so that's what happened. I just, we jumped right to the faith crisis, part of my story, but if we're going to try to get to the meat of the discussion, that's where, that's where it all began. So yeah.
Ashly Stone
04:52
Awesome. Okay. Well, I think the thing that I'm curious to know about, I just did an interview last night with her name is Jasmine, and she's actually over at Book of Mormon Central. And she talks very open and directly about questions in the church and church history. And, and a lot of it is, it kind of feels like different. It feels, you know, it's very, you know, transparent about what it was. But she, the way she describes it is through a lens of faith, and I'm just curious if you have any suggestions in terms of like, like, what do you think that by talking about this more openly when you were younger? Or could that have made a difference for you?
Leo
05:43
Yeah, Jasmine and Neal, right?
Yes, yeah.
Yeah, they're great. They're great people. I've met them and hung out with him a couple of times.
That's awesome.
So, yeah, you know, the term is inoculation, right? That's what we've used. Some of our church leaders have talked about inoculating the youth, inoculating our members. And it's, ya know, for sure, like, being able to talk about these topics upfront. One of the keys on the piano that our critics are pushing right now, and I can name some names if we want to talk about people, individuals, but it's called consent, right informed consent. And it's a very hot topic for our critics, because they feel like when we're talking about a traditional narrative, you know, which is, you know, the correlated narrative of the church. for many years, up until about the past 10 years or so, right. 20 years, we've had a very strong control from top down on what we're taught. And so that informed consent is something that our critics are, it's a very powerful blame, that they're, that they're issuing. It's a very powerful accusation against the church, and against our leaders, that they're saying that we have been hiding the truth. Right. And so our church leaders in our wisdom, have produced some great gospel topics essays, right. Saints volumes are, are more in depth and Jasmine loves those, I know she's into those. And Neal's done a great job with a lot of his stuff. And so we've got all these youth in the church today, who are being taught things in seminary and Institute that are way more transparent than I received. And my parents received and my parents' parents received, it's all it's all coming to light now and, and you can either learn it through a very cynical lens, of faithless lens, which a lot of our youth are learning about these issues on Tik Tok different places on the internet, Reddit, ex Mormon Reddit is one of the most visited communities for ex Mormons and questioning Mormons. So you have these places people are going for, for strength and for understanding and for validation.
Yep.
And so, yes, absolutely in the home it's important for us to be teaching our kids and, and as my kids get older, age-appropriate information, talking about all sorts of things like, you know, the seer stone in the hat, on Joseph's plural marriage, blacks and the priesthood, temple, and priesthood ban, you know, these different topics that are very difficult to wrestle with, and if we wrestle with them, these topics with people who love us, and who are interested in our eternal welfare, not just the quote, unquote, the truth, right. So that's, they want, our critics of the church, they want to, they want to inform our consent, but through their truth, which is a very cynical brand of truth. It's not the truth. It's their truth.
Right.
We've got some challenges with our youth. And I've had my own challenges trying to, what we call, trying to reconstruct my faith. My belief system has been reconstructed from basically from ground, from the ground up.
Ashly Stone
09:11
Yeah, yeah. So okay, so you're, you know, you are at BYU, you just had a had a baby and you're starting to go down the rabbit hole with all of this information.
Yeah.
What did that look like? How. I imagine that when your your faith comes crumbling down, there's a big gaping hole in your life of, you know, what, all of this that my whole life has been centered around is now, poof, gone. What was your experience like with that?
Leo
09:42
It's a crumble. It's a crumble, right. You crumble the shelf, breaking of a shelf, crumbling of a shelf? All of the questions that things you had on your shelf break, come falling down. I, yeah, it's we call it, and we have this community which is an alternative to some of these post Mormon communities, I'll just put a plug in for it. It's free. Everything we do is for free. It's called uplift community of faith. And it's for questioning members, and for family members of questioning members, people who want to learn how to minister to each other in kindness and charity, in patience and love through these difficult questions, but anyway, so we've got these, these places we can go for information, but I feel like, I'm not really sure how to best answer your question other than just saying we can, we can provide places of, of peace and of understanding of love, of openness for people that are questioning.
Ashly Stone
10:40
Mm hmm. So, at that time, when you were going through it was that, was there something like that that was available for you or?
Leo
10:51
No, yeah, it's, the other thing I was gonna say about this is it's called an identity crisis, that this gaping hole, because you don't only question well, was Joseph Smith a good person? You question well, is the Book of Mormon a fraud? Does that mean that x, y, and z, President Nelson or the current prophet is a fraud, a pious fraud? That's the term that critics like to use is that these may be well-intentioned men. But they're, they're ultimately frauds. Right. So when you have all these, that's what they think. I don't think that anymore. But you have, but you have, you have this, this identity crisis, which is basically like, yeah, I began to question not only the institution of the church, but my identity as a child of God, right? Becomes, it goes, it comes into question. And when you have that kind of identity crisis, it affects your community. Everything related to like me with your work, you know, if you work for a very LDS company, I would just sing a criticism today that someone was working an ex Mormon who's working for a Utah based company that's very predominantly LDS. And they have, they've been at being having some prayers at work. And this ex Mormon is super upset about that, right, to pray and work. So we begin, it begins to throw everything out of whack, even your, your place of work, place of employment, your family, obviously. You've talked to some mixed faith marriages in your podcast, we've got people in mixed faith marriages, that's often thrown out of whack, your extended family. They feel like they're being shunned by parents. And in some cases, I think our parents, parents don't do a great job with their reaction. Right?
Yeah.
It's too reactive instead of being, you know, more of listening, and diving in with love to discuss the issues. So yeah, that's kind of the problem is, when you go through a faith crisis, begin to question, lose your belief, you know, distance yourself from the church, all these different phrases, you don't really know. And so I was an agnostic, atheist closet, because I was scared to tell people. Community, no, there was no community at that time. Uplift didn't exist. We, the community that I had to go, to turn to was maybe a parent, but my parents I didn't really, my, my dear mother didn't understand these issues. Right. She hadn't studied church history. My dad, you know, I talked about him and his studies were kind of different. They're more obscure topics that wouldn't really relate to the things that I was struggling with. I went straight to my stake president when I was deconstructing my belief system. And he, because my, my bishop, I knew I knew intimately. And I knew that he didn't understand these topics, either. So I went straight to my stake president and, and explained a couple of the things that I was struggling with expecting, maybe he would understand and he didn't, bless them. He hadn't studied the history. And so he gave me kind of a, I call it the "pat on the bum, get back to work" reaction, you know, Leo, he's like, Joseph Smith's a prophet I testify of, of him being a prophet and patted me on the bum, and said get back to work, rather. And so I, at that point, I was pretty low, right, because I didn't know what else to turn to. And I didn't really want to turn because I was so upset. I lost trust.
Ashly Stone
14:20
What about your wife? What was your wife and that I imagine, for me, if that happened with my husband, that it would be very painful for me. What, what was she going through?
Leo
14:32
So my wife is a pretty happy-go-lucky. You can even ask me, and I, I probably gonna put my foot my mouth when I say this. She's a simple, I love Jesus believer, right? And she tried even studying "Saints" a little bit and she kind of got a pit in our stomach. She's like, I'm not going to study this. And she's awesome in that way. She's got a very strong testimony of the Savior and loves the church. And so I knew, you know, I know my, I knew my wife, and I knew that if I came to her with some of these things, it wouldn't be helpful for her. Or really for me, I needed to wrestle with these things somehow on my own. And there is this, this fear. You know, we could say it's Satan. And I do, I say, Satan had me in a corner. He was whipping me in a dark corner, all alone. Just rocking me. Like you cannot tell people, tell your stake president, but you know, he'll be released at some point. Don't tell your, don't tell your wife. And I mean, I could have probably in love and faith talked to her. But my rational part of my brain also said, well, yeah, you could hurt her, and cause her to also tailspin. So I wanted to make sure she wasn't affected by my faith crisis. So I'm a protector, people pleaser. And so I didn't go to her until I was on my way out of the faith crisis. And people could say, you lied, or whatever. And I hid the truth. And, and I did. But I was also trying to do a good thing by protecting her. So when I finally told her, I remember where it was, it was in Provo in our little townhouse in the kitchen. And I told her, I said, "Hey, I'm on my way out of this. So it was really dark time. And I want you to not have to worry about me. Because if you sensed something, and I think she could, because I would still pray. And I would pray and I was good at going through the motions. I was what you call a PMO. Physically and mentally out. That's the term. And so I'd go to church, I even served in some callings at the time. But you know, as far as my heart, I was out. So I can tell you this, the story of how I came back.
You want to jump into that next?
Ashly Stone
16:55
Yes, I do want to jump in.
Leo
That's a good ,that's a good, that's a good--more positive. Yeah, 'cause it's kind of, it's heavy stuff, man. This is the, this is the stuff of nightmares.
16:55
Yeah. And I do like, I have a, I want to talk, you know, somewhat openly about the struggles of being in the midst of it, because there are so many people that are leaving the church because of the things they're seeing on Tik Tok and the things they're seeing on Reddit. And, and so I do, I appreciate your, just candor, because I think that, you know, it's, it's important to share that so that people can see, you know, that you can come back from that. And so, yeah, I appreciate that.
17:34
Yeah, no, it's important for us to talk about when you, you know, the analogy of this is, it's really, it's really an apropos analogy, squeezing toothpaste out of a tube. You can't get it back in the way it was. It's not going to happen.
Ashly Stone
17:52
I got that exact comment from somebody on Tik Tok.
Leo
17:56
Yeah, it's not, faith is never going to be the same when you go through something like that. And you have a lot of people who are kind of on the edge, their toothpaste is out there. They're super progressive, a lot of them right, very liberal in their views, political, their political views are more of their religion than anything else, right. And so you get to this point where it's like, I can't live authentically, that's the term, as a member of this church, right? I can't support this church because it's causing harm, because of the beliefs of the church, and so on and so forth. So yeah, that's, that's the challenge, right? Is you have, you have all these people, and I was kind of, there's all these different journeys out of the church, like intellectual journeys out, like studying the history, doesn't make sense. You have cultural reasons, right? Like sociological or social reasons, like current events, current issues in the church, women and the priesthood, stuff like that. So all these different reasons people are leaving. And so yeah, we do, we do need to figure out ways to put the toothpaste back in. There's these different faith journey models that have been proposed. Um, you've got some something called Fowler's stages of faith, that a lot of really progressive and anti and former members of the church, critical people, and very, people that are on the edge who love Fowler, because it's like this progression from a simple faith to a 'beyond religion.' It's a, it's a very linear model where you go from, I just do what I'm told authority, which is very true in the church kind of resonates that way. And then they get to the point where they kind of supersede the confines of any religion like I'm just a spiritual person, spiritual but not religious. And so, that model I don't really love because it doesn't really fit my journey. And there's another journey and different model that's been proposed. In the book "Faith Is Not Blind" by ---
Ashly Stone
20:02
I'm reading that right now, chapter eight so far, and I've already told like 10 people about it today because it is so incredible. It is mind-blowing how, how good and spot on that book is.
Leo
20:15
Uh huh, yeah it describes the journey of many of us who are finding this our way back into simplicity beyond complexity, beyond enjoy the fruits of the gospel with knowing that our faith will never be the same. It's not the same. So I've got a deeper and a broader faith, one that's been tested and tried to break through the coals has rocked my world. And so now I see prophets differently. I see the scriptures differently. I still see prophets as being ordained of God, you know, being able to be talked to God and receive special revelation for the church. I believe in priesthood keys, I found a lot of amazing answers to my questions. And so we can get into how I started to find those and return to faith, but I just keep talking unless someone stops me, so---.
Ashly Stone
21:06
Yes, yes, I would love to hear about how you were able to answer those questions and return.
Leo
21:12
So I was in my really dark place there for, like I said, for about a year. It was growing, my atheism come-- it's like, it's like a testimony but we're in reverse, right? For a lot of us, for a lot of people it's not like a, you know, overnight, some people read these different critical pieces, you can see online videos and articles and things. So you can have these, these different things that really influence you. And so, but anyway, I was just going to say that my, my journey back really was, it was a miracle because I was in this really dark place and being influenced by a lot of critical material that I was curious about and I had lost trust in the institution, didn't really believe that I could get good solid answers reasonable answers from the church because I was told that I was being lied to. And I believed it. So out of the blue one day, I was in m,y the same house that I had that talk with my wife, but which happened before was actually out of the blue, I had a voice that came to me out of the blue. I wasn't expecting it that said the, the voice said contact Steven Harper. Just those simple words. And the voice was, I would say was audible slash spiritual. I think I needed to hear with my ears. I think I needed to hear with my heart, my heart was pretty hard, and not really open to spiritual things. I didn't really trust the spirit or, you know, what I thought was the spirit. So I needed to hear something too. And it was a tender mercy, was a miracle to hear that voice, and I, I sat on it for a night and thought about it. And then the next day, I emailed my old professor, Steven C. Harper, at BYU. And I told Steve in my email, Dr. Harper, Professor Harper, he's a bishop now, by the way, in Utah. And was like, "Hey, Brother Harper, you might, you might remember me from your D&C class at BYU. But I've got some real serious concerns about Joseph Smith." And I outlined some of my primary concerns related to plural marriage in my email. And his response was very empathetic, and detailed, and open, and kind, just all the things that you need to hear from somebody. And he was a brilliant historian, I knew how smart this guy was in my, in his class. And I didn't really ever jump into the details, like I should have probably in D&C in his class, but I didn't, you know, have a real curiosity. It was just, I appreciated his class I will say, and the doctrine that he taught. He taught a lot of great doctrine. So I got, I got an email back from him. And the key thing from Steve that helped me in my journey was his invitation to re-examine my assumptions, my new assumptions that I was making about Joseph. And he has also described this as a layered meaning or layered interpretations on top of the facts. So you have all these historical facts, primary source documents, and other, you know, articles and things from our history. And if you take those articles and, and these different documents at face value, you can go any, any way. You know, you can interpret things 1,000, 2,000 infinite different ways in a single document. And so I was going really much, really heavily into the cynical interpretation. And so I needed that invitation from him from someone who knew the history, you know, if anybody I knew was Steve that knew the history and he knows it. He knows it all. So that was really helpful to kind of stop me in my tracks, right, and say, well, maybe I should be more open to what we call apologetics, right. Faithful answers to the accusations our critics make against the church. So that kind of set me back on my, you know, my heels a little bit and I was, I took a deep breath. And I started to pray again. And my first prayer, when I was, after my experience with Steven and his email, I remember praying, I waited for a time when I was alone in my, in our in our house, and I prayed out loud, and I yelled, I was hot, not lukewarm. I was hot. I was so, so angry. And I prayed at the ceiling. I yelled at God. I said, God, if you're there, you better fix this. And I gave him an ultimatum. And I said, you better answer my questions, I need you to answer me. And he absorbed my anger and my hot fire from my, from my, my rebellious, you know, unfeeling unloving tongue. And he started to return, like we talked, talked about earlier beauty for ashes, right. And I, and I was dead inside spiritually and he started to, and I was, but I said I need to be open. I'm gonna demand some answers. And he did. He started to give me answers. And I started being open to the apologetics, you know, could this be a possible answer to this accusation? Oh, maybe. And I call apologetics now, not the ultimate source of truth. I call it priming the pump are the apologetics, which means you study things, faithful answers to these accusations. And then you go to God in prayer. And you say, "Hey, this is what this apologist says, Heavenly Father. Could you please either confirm or provide me with the answer that will resonate with me? And I started receiving answers out of the blue in places where I wouldn't expect them. You know, the classic in the shower or whatever, eating breakfast and, and I'd get a sudden, you know, lightning bolt, boom, this answer would just come out of nowhere. And I had some visions too, stuff that was like, just completely rocked my, my mind, like, oh my gosh, this really is from God. And because I started getting these amazing answers, and I was open to so, atheists that are listening, anybody that's an atheist or agnostic, who's doubting, you start to go, pull away from the sixth sense, I call it, spiritual knowledge. You've got your five senses that you start to rely on, I can feel, I can touch, running scientific experiments, right? I can see, whatever I can see with my eyes and touch with my hands, measure, I'm going to observe with my physical eyes, and you begin to question and to dismiss spiritual knowledge, the sixth, the sixth sense. And that's what our most of our testimonies are built on. It's just the sixth sense growing up, right? It's what we call your personal epistemology, which is the study of knowledge. How do you know what you know? Or your personal epistemic framework, and I had this growing up as a traditional church member. My epistemic framework was just spiritual knowledge. And their, their attack on spiritual knowledge, our critics, is so intense and so effective, that you begin to call your spiritual experiences, elevation emotion. That's the term, right, is that this is just a product of a frenzied mind, Korihor in Alma 30, I think.
Ashly Stone
28:33
Yep. Yes, that story of Korihor relates so, so much to the world of today. It's crazy.
Leo
28:40
It is crazy. I mean, Korihor's arguments were powerful then and they're powerful now.
The biggest critics are now saying, yeah, your your spiritual knowledge is unreliable. Right? Don't trust it, trust your five senses. And so that's and that's the challenge for I think, for a lot of us is to say, "No, I can trust my senses, my five senses, but I need to be able to trust or at least try to trust. A seed of faith, Alma 32, to plant that seed and be open to the good fruit of the Spirit, and spiritual knowledge and peace that comes through Jesus Christ. And when you're open to those things, are a truth seeker and open to the the additional branch of knowledge, which is the sixth sense, then God can talk to you. If you're not, he might still, you know, break away, break through your cloud of darkness like he did for me out of his, you know, mercy, maybe knowing that I would speak out against this and try to be an advocate for returning to the church. Maybe that's why he did it. Maybe it's because of my mom's prayers. I think my mom probably had an influence on me. But most of us that are leaving the church are not open to that sixth sense, unfortunately.
Ashly Stone
29:48
Yeah, I have to say it. I was talking to my mom today. And it's interesting because as somebody that was for me in my past being a drug addict, a heroine addict, I was in chains to this drug, I had no--- my agency was gone. And I, I felt like when I first started going on that path, I felt like I was more free. That's what I thought, you know, like I'm leaving the church behind. I'm leaving its restrictions behind. It's too, it's keeping me caged up. And I was like, I'm drink like drinking and alcohol and drugs and trying things, I had no, no reason to not try these things, because I now was free from the feel of the church. And then, you know, it wasn't long before I was completely in chains, which was the exact opposite of what I was seeking. And so, just when you talk about people that say, the church is controlling us, and you know, to me, I think I've never been more free in my entire life is, you know what I mean? I've never felt free and so much peace and joy, so.
Leo
31:03
Yeah isn't that interesting? How the tables are turned in that situation? I think that's really interesting.
Yep.
Yeah, I felt like, you know, when you start to explore these topics, and start to exit the church, and which I never actually did, by the way, I never actually removed my records. But I toyed with that idea. A couple of times, like, I just need to walk away from this because it's called cognitive dissonance is the term right? Where you're living in a, in a way that's not authentic to your true self, you know, you know, you have these deeply rooted concerns with the church and with the history and whatever else.
Yeah.
So anyway, that's kind of the problem is, he's having these people that are struggling with cognitive dissonance in the church, I mean, they begin to have their religion becomes their politics, or, you know, their personal values, personal morals. And they can't, they can no longer wear garments, and they can no longer attend the temple, and they can no longer pay tithing. Because they just lose so much of that, of that love for the church, like the love is gone. So, it's tough.
Ashly Stone
32:12
That is so hard. And so I'm curious, like, when you were going, like, how did you? So you have this experience and the spiritual experience that kind of led you back. And so how did that did the love just come back to wear your garments? And to pay your tithing? Like, how did that, how did you start coming back to that? And, and specifically, I mean, you feel, you obviously had that spiritual experience to reach out to your BYU professor and but, you know, Alba, she, I interviewed her a couple episodes ago, and she mentioned that, you know, at first it was it was she lost belief in God, totally. And then she had to ease her way back into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. So, you know, tell me how that felt coming back. And, you know, gaining that testimony of garments and tithing and the temple and you know, all of those things, like was it a slow progression? How did you, how did that work?
Leo
33:22
Yeah, so it's, it's definitely not a quick thing for a lot of us who journey back. I think it takes time. You know, need to have some reasonable revelation, things that really bring peace to your heart. Stuff that just really resonates. That's like, yeah, that that does make sense. So you do need some kind of revelation, something that that resonates with you. And over time, so what are the two key terms I like to use to describe the church now is power and beauty. Okay. So growing up in the church in Salt Lake, in Bountiful, I experienced power and beauty like going to the conference center, right? Standing when the Prophet walks in, like the thrill of wow, hearing, you know, "Come, Come Ye Saints," even "Praise to the Man" was beautiful. Right, I'd seen that. "I Hope They Call Me On a Mission," right? All these beautiful things. There's power and there's beauty. And that power and beauty is gone when accusations start to fly. You know, it's like the accuser. So the accuser has a lot of power and when his accusations go unanswered, then the power and beauty is gone.
Ashly Stone
34:53
Yeah. So in "Faith Is Not Blind," I really binge listened to it today. And so it's fresh on my mind. But they tell that story of the grandma who had taken in her grandson and she does all these things for him. She's, you know, showering him with love. He's, he's making her so proud. And I think he goes off to college or something. And she gets an email saying that he's in jail in Europe, and she needs to pay his bail. And, and the grandmother is just, everything that, all of these things that she thinks about her grandson just dissipate. And she says how could he? How could he? Like it's a whole different view of her grandson, and then, come to find out, it was a, it was a fraud, a spam email, it wasn't even true.
Leo
35:46
Oh, yeah and it's the accused. Did it taint her view permanently?
Ashly Stone
35:52
Yeah, I don't, they don't go on to say that a tainted her view permanently. But I mean, it just is such a perfect description of, you know, if somebody accuses the church of something, and we don't even have the proof. It's the accusation that really, that hits, even if it's not true, it just, or in any sense, like, you know, my mom telling me today about how she heard something from about one of the neighbors and she heard this thing, and then in her mind, it was true. And then come to find out the person that said it had said similar things to about other people. And my mom's like, you know, thinking this thing is true for all this time, and then come to find out it's probably not even true. And that's a clear, you know, example. Yeah, of what people do with the church and how it so quickly can make you think, wow, you know, that's, that's crazy.
Leo
36:46
Yeah, turning, turning things to be look ugly that were once powerful and beautiful.
Yep.
That's, that's where the power of the accuser comes in. And those who accuse, right. I'm not gonna say people are possessed by Satan. Right, but, you know, our, bless our critics that, actually, I think a lot of their criticisms do help us to reflect and to try to be better.
Ashly Stone
37:13
And to enter into that complexity stage so that, if we have these questions, yes, if we enter into complexity, then we can move over to a mature simplicity, where we have answers and where we've taken the time to study these things out and receive our own personal revelation in regards to these questions.
Leo
37:31
Amen. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, throwing someone into complexity, on purpose, and then leaving them there to flounder without any kind of support, rather than saying, Oh, you're, I'm going to validate your, your hatred now for the church.
Yeah.
That's not a great thing. Or, you know, come to my community and, and continue continually accuse to try to heal, right. Poison your Spirit, through constant accusation and blaming. And that's, you know, let other people say, oh, yeah, you're right and get this feeling that you're healing It's a relief from the church is not true peace. So I've got these concerns with Ex Mormon communities now, because I've see what they do, they poison through accusation, through blaming, and don't, do not leave people with a true way to thrive. Right? Thriving in the Gospel, Jesus through the peace of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. That's truly thriving, actual peace. So I am, I have some things to say about ex Mormon communities. I was not officially a part of one as an ex Mormon, but I've been in them for now. And watching and listening to them for almost, for about 10 years. And I've studied this, I've done surveys, I study, listen to them, and man alive. It is a bunch of poison, spiritual poison. And it's deceptive. And I wish I could help more people to see that they're not on the side of truth. It's disheartening.
Ashly Stone
39:15
So tell me a little bit about what so you're doing today. Tell me more about this. So obviously, this is something you're very passionate about you, you know, and you're and you're still it sounds like you're still in those communities to try and maybe shed light. And how, how do you separate their accusations? Like how can you, how does that work today? Like how can you not let that affect you? I mean, I know that for me, when I first got on Tik Tok, I was like, holy crap, this is I actually my, my editor, Lauren, who you just saw, I was like, is there any way that you could be the one that deletes these comments because it's like, really, I don't like it. It's yucky.
Yeah.
And, and she's just like, yeah, you know, and I, but over time, I just was seeing them quite a bit. And now it's like, what you just said makes zero sense, like Warren Jeffs is not even part of our religion, you know, like your accusations are so off-base here. And so anyway, I'm curious to know how you know what that looks like why you continue to stay. And you know ---
Leo
40:30
You can join pretty much any subreddit, right that you want, I don't think that they, I think they can block you if you're like if you get too low of karma or whatever. But I, I've joined a few Facebook groups over the years. And I'll just name the one for anybody that's part of this group or knows, but Mormon Stories podcast community, I joined that years ago, and I was there to learn to listen. And it was when I was out of my faith crisis, I'd actually joined to listen and to learn from these people from and to listen to their pain, right and see if I could perhaps be a better minister by listening to those who want to be ministered to, I wasn't there to preach. But long story short, they actually booted me, blocked me from the group without any kind of warning. I, I posted the time I was interested in trying to protect children. I was really interested. I wrote a long article about, you know, encouraging bishops and parents to work together and have some two deep if they've been, you know, open to having two deep interviews. So I was working, I talked to a couple people, this guy who left the church. So I was in this group, Mormon Stories podcast community. And I'm not I'm not saying this because I'm feeling animosity. I'm just trying to say this, because it's, it's educational, right. And I posted as a member of the bishopric, I was in the time. So okay, as a member of the bishopric. I am interested in trying to protect children in my ward, and I said I'm going to commit as a member of the bishopric to always invite parents if they want to come in and sit in with my interviews that I'm doing. And I had hundreds of comments and like hundreds of likes in this group. There were all these people coming out of the woodwork saying, yeah, Leo, active Mormon. Awesome. Great job, clapping, applauding me. And at one point, I just got banned.
42:37
Because they were starting to see that . . .
42:41
They were, they were, yeah, they were they were doxing me, right. And hunted me down. And they were complaining to the admins and the admins messaged me after. Well, I messaged them to say "Hey, I just want to know what happened, you know." Because most the time I was just listening. I posted that just because I wanted to build some rapport with this community.
Right.
And I'm a member of a bishop, in the bishopric. And I'm trying to listen to this concern and try to apply what I've learned here. And the guy said to me, you've been banned because you were proselytizing. That's what he said.
Ashly Stone
Wow.
Leo
So anyway, I do follow and learn and listen, and try to be available for people that want to have one-on-one conversations I offer my time like I I say just the the term I use as a free life coach. So I people might, you know, I talked to them, mixed faith marriages, couples, and people, kids on missions, I just helped this one kid stay on his mission recently, and he just returned home. So I talked to people if I can help them. And so all this research I've been doing and trying to learn to listen, it's really to minister.
Ashly Stone
So cool.
LEo
To be an effective minister. So and it's, it's hard because these places are dark.
They are dark. Yeah.
So it does impact my, it does impact my spirit. I do, I do get down sometimes.
Ashly Stone
44:11
Yeah. Well, you're doing something incredible. I think that especially in today's, I mean, just seriously, in the last maybe six to eight months, it's like or six months to a year. It's like, just so many people that are, and I truly do believe that it is because of the internet and these groups. And so it's, it starts these conversations. And so what you're doing is, it's so incredible. So tell me a little bit, tell me the name of, you have an organization, correct? For . . .
Leo
44:47
Yeah, we have. So I found it's a group I founded. It's a community called Uplift Community of Faith in 2017. And it's on Facebook. It's a small group. We have a YouTube channel but there's not a lot of content coming as it's a volunteer organization, we just do stuff when we have time. I interview people once in a while some of our other admins will interview people and, and so but it is a place where we allow for open discussion of really of questioning and wrestling. We don't allow for what's called, we'd say unfettered deconstruction, which means unlimited. No, no holds bar, I'm going to share everything I can think of the reasons why I'm leaving Mormonism, right? That kind of, we call authentic self, you know, I'm sharing exactly why I don't agree with the church, I have concluded that the church is false. That's not for us part of our mission, right is to allow for open, unfettered deconstruction. So we allow for open discussion for people that are struggling and are open to faithful answers. If you're open to spiritual knowledge, we allow you to stay and want you to stay. We do, we do boot some people sometimes for being too aggressive in their preaching for the church. We've had a few that have joined and have been so aggressive that we're like, hey, you're actually pushing people away from the church when they're on the border, because they're like, why are you just preaching to me instead of listening? So we kind o,f it's kind of a sweet spot for people that are legitimately suffering and are open to answers and want to struggle through it and make it, make it happen, make it work, make the church work for them, then we, it's a great place. And so please, yeah, look us up, Uplift Community of Faith. If you're on Facebook, you can join our group, and that's great. And there's been there's nothing in it for us. We just, it's like a second calling. We just will just help directly.
Ashly Stone
46:41
Right. Exactly how I feel with my podcast. I'm like, yeah, kind of like a second job. But you know, it's all good.
Leo
You've been called to the work, man.
46:56
It's awesome. Yeah, good for you too, like, it's, and we'll just say, you know, praise be to the Lord, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ for all the good that we can do. It's all, it's all because of him. And all the glory goes to him.
Ashly Stone
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Leo
We do this for him and, and for loving others. So I think it's great what you're doing too.
Ashly Stone
47:16
Yeah, I think. I don't know. It's like, once you've experienced, you know, living without the light of the gospel, and then coming back to it, it's, it's truly incredible to see the difference in your life. And so I'm sure that that's part of the reason why you do what you do.
Leo
47:34
Yeah, you have to, it's like, if you just sit on it, and you don't do anything, then it's like you're, it's like a burning piece of coal in your pocket.
Ashly Stone
47:45
Yep, it's so true. So I have a couple questions from some followers on Instagram, if you would be okay to answer a couple questions.
Leo
48:16
Okay, so the most basic thing is to walk with them. And the way you walk with someone is to first meet them where they're at by listening, number one, that's a very basic thing to do. But to walk with them hand in hand and walking with them symbolically through study, if they're open to it, studying things that they care about, understanding what they cherish and they value. If it's something that they, you know, cherish and value that's no longer in the church, we need to learn how to cherish or not, at least, maybe not cherish what they cherish now, but at least understand why they do. So you can express to them a desire to honor and to respect their new cherished values and beliefs. And if you can find ways to connect by studying things together, not to try to prove each other wrong, but to actually genuinely learn together, right? And parents that do that with their kids---hey, I've got a good friend now. A family where this young man was leaving, basically wanting to leave the church, right, and I talked to his mom and him but I, we talked about, you know, does he still have an affinity towards Jesus Christ. Right. Let's talk about that for a minute. And she's like, yeah, I think he still believes in Jesus Christ. He doesn't believe in the church. Like, what, why don't you focus on, rejoice in his belief in Christ, right. Don't be critical of his concerns with the church. And focusing on that on this common ground, right, and learning together about something that he cherishes still that's valuable, which is the Savior. They started to heal their divide. And now I think he's open to going on a mission and stuff because they've been able to work through their, their animosity like this. This is tension. When someone believes differently, I'm going to try to convert them. So if you're, if you're trying to convert everybody around you all the time, which we're taught to do in the church, which is like this, this tension we have as missionaries, right.
Right.
But the best missionaries are those who serve and love and listen, and then walk together. Right? Like, you have good examples of that in the scriptures, like Amman is a great example. Right? He just kind of was there serving, chop, chopping off arms, but he was there to serve. Right? So we don't, he wasn't out there right away preaching to the king, he was out there, serving humbly and so as a parent, we can humbly serve our children, walking together hand in hand, I've offered this idea is to make sure you've read "Saints." Make sure you've read the gospel topics, essays, number one and number two, right? Read these things. Follow Book of Mormon Central, follow Fair. Follow Faith Matters. Follow every thinker. And there's this website, you can go Faithful Mormon Scholars Testify or Faithful LDS scholars testify on Google, you can just Google that scholars testify, right? And there's like this, and we can send a link out for people that want to know. But, man, there's like hundreds and hundreds of these amazingly brilliant scholars in all these different fields who have bared their, borne their testimonies, right. But if we can have trust that there's really smart people who study these topics, and have come away with, you know, what, it's a difficult thing, and I, but I've been able to find revelation and answers, then we don't have to live in fear.
Ashly Stone
51:50
One of the things that I thought was really interesting in the "Faith is Not Blind" book is it says that there is a higher percentage of people that stay in the, in the church that have a higher education, the higher the education, the more likely they are to stay in the church. And I thought, interesting.
Leo
52:08
That's some data that doesn't fly with certain narratives, right? Is it right? Well, if there is a tendency for people that study more to stay in the church, but then you have all the vocal, most vocal anti, most vocal critics will say, former believers is the more charitable term, right, vocal former believers, they, they talk about often that their faith was lost by reading the church sourced materials, right, the stuff that the Church says is true, and that's good. And then they, they they've studied their way out of the church. So you've got to listen to those people and say, well, okay, well, you, you are a smart person. But if there is data that says, I don't know, not wherever your data, but if there is data that shows that people that are staying in the church are very intelligent, then maybe we can relook at that, maybe I don't need to leave the church. And there's, like I said, that website, Mormon Scholars Testify is what it used to be called. But now I don't know. It's just scholars, LDS Scholars Testify. It's oh, it's like just go in reverse, because you have hundreds of really smart, brilliant people who love this church.
Yep.
53:17
Think about it. They're not crazy. Yeah. They're paid to think.
Ashly Stone
Right. So true. It's so true. Okay, so I have another question for you. I can go on and on this with you for a really long time. But do you have any doubts or concerns or things that still bother you? And if you do, how do you work through that?
Leo
53:44
Yeah, um, let's see. Man. You know, no, no, not no, I'm at relative peace. And I've got this amazing, I just did this video for Saints Unscripted. It's been just released this week. It's, it has my story of a vision that I had. But almost everything that I was concerned about, has to do with prophetic fallibility. Right, how fallible can a prophet be and still be a prophet? And I told about this vision that I had, and you can, people can go and look that video up and I can share it now. But basically, it's like, if you understand the prophets are human, and that they can make mistakes and that mistakes can be pretty, you know, definitely mistake, like serious mistakes, and still know that God can work through these people to restore this beautiful church then that pretty much resolves everything. Joseph was a good man who was asked to do really difficult things and Brigham the same. And they're on the frontier of America and In a different time, and they did some stuff that we wouldn't do today, probably, or say today, for sure.
55:08
Yeah. Yeah.
55:11
So just understanding that alone is just, I mean, I, like I maybe dinosaurs like God, why, you know, was it for the fossil fuels? Or what about these aircraft from space? What are we calling now? It's not UFOs it's a new term. But you know, are there really UFOs? I don't know. Those are some questions I have. Evolution is pretty interesting, but I'm not really concerned. I think that there's good reasons for why God would have, you know, like, I don't know, there's lots of stuff. It's kind of interesting, but I'm, I'm not really, it's not doubts anymore. I can just, Christ has just answered my, he solved everything. I don't know. That's a good question, though.
Ashly Stone
55:57
I'm so glad I asked it, because that's an incredible answer. So thank you. Um, I guess one more question that I have is, when you're in this place of, you know, in, in the midst of all of this material and everything like that, what was the turning point that you were like, did you desire to, you know, did you desire to come back? Or what was kind of the turning point there that made you take the step in that direction to come back?
Leo
56:32
Yeah, I was so disillusioned, right, just kind of empty inside and frustrated with the institution and all these things that I had learned about. Like, with my journey back, it was, how do I re-establish some trust and having to reframe who prophets are, what they do, what kind of mistakes they can make. Reframing, you know, my concept of church scholars. Are they paid by BYU, and that's why they stay? Because of that money? Well, they don't get paid a whole lot as BYU professors compared to other professors. They get paid, okay. But a lot of them spend so much of their time and money doing good work that, you know, you know, what's the motivation of these people? So, there's all these things that you can start to look at that like, yeah, that's kind of sets you back and kind of makes you gives you pause, right, it's, and so that's what I needed to do is be able to find a way to trust my leaders again, in their humanity, their humanity, right, they're human, and then be able to trust that God can still work miracles through these humans.
Yeah.
He can, he does. And he's done amazing things through me, who, and I know me, and I know, my problems. And I know that the Lord has worked miracles through me, I've seen it. And I'm like if God can work through someone like Leo, to do some pretty good things at I'm grateful for, not because of me, but because of him. And then are, you know, I know that my personal expense, I've seen that amazing miracle. So I, I know that through this church that Christ is working through imperfect, and that's the, that's the miracle of the church. And so once I saw that, everything just made sense. Like I can, I can function in this church. And that's enough to follow, to believe and follow Jesus. That's all he asks. So all my, all this swirling whirlwind of stuff in my head, I don't think I'm going to be tested on that.
Right.
So it's the simple: Do you love, do you follow and believe in Jesus? And that's it, man, you do that. And that's all it takes. That's why the Lord I don't think has been so you know, pushing the prophets all this time to produce a fully transparent church history. I mean, the incentive was our appetite. Finally, we needed something for these young people. And for, for me, I needed something from the church to say, yeah, these are the difficult issues and this is how we see them. These are some possible answers. So that's, that's kind of how I see things now.
Ashly Stone
59:14
Yeah. Um, I was listening to a Papa Ostler podcast and one of his guests on the podcast was talking about how prophets throughout the Bible are, you know, have been through and done some really gnarly things, you know, and . . .
Leo
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Ashly Stone
Well, okay. You are awesome. What a freaking awesome episode. I am so stoked to post this because you just.
It's amazing. I think that for me, and just anybody listening that's, you know, been seeing stuff online and to hear you say, I don't have any doubts or concerns that bother me and I've seen every single thing available on the internet that could possibly---it's, it's so awesome to just, I don't know, like, thank you so much for being on the podcast. Do you have any final words before we end?
Leo
1:00:11
Yeah, I can say, my, my words, what I call my testimony 2.0.
Ashly Stone
Yes, let's hear it.
Leo
My Testimony now is different than it was. You know, before I would say, I know the church is true. And these very simple, and those were powerful and beautiful for me at the time. But, but, now they don't resonate as much for me now. My testimony is, is more humble. And I talk about my experience with my Savior, believing, I believe in him. And I felt that. I felt and experienced His love. And I felt him heal me and send me peace, even when I don't deserve it. Most the time, it's when I don't deserve it, actually. And so I love Jesus Christ, I think he's an amazing person who's very patient. And I, so I believe in him. And I believe that the prophets are good, well-intentioned, but imperfect people, and the other leaders who are trying to lead the church today and, and all the members. And I think everybody in general, who is trying to do good things in this world deserve a little more charity, from us, charity with ourselves and with others who are trying. And so my testimony now is really that the church is I call it the only true and living church. Because that's what the Lord said in D & C 1 it talks about, not that the church, I know the church is true, he says the true, the true and living church. So this church is living and the restoration continues, and I'm excited for the future when more will be revealed. There are many great and important things that are yet to be revealed. Right? So I'm excited for this restoration in the future of this church and for the, for the afterlife, I believe that there is an afterlife. I've felt of some things and seen some things that I that are pretty powerful. And I believe that there is reason to be faithful in this life. So that's just my, those are my my feelings and I, and I leave that in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Ashly Stone
1:02:26
Thank you so much.
