There is absolutely a place for LGBTQ+ in the church. That is because this is Jesus Christ's church and they are children of God, it is that simple. There are a lot of facets to it, but it really is that simple. My testimony of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is founded on my testimony of Jesus Christ being my savior. He is the savior of all mankind. Of everyone who is living, who has ever lived, and who will ever live. Anyone in LBGTQ+ community is not excluded from that. It doesn't make it easy, but I know it is possible because of Him.
Ashly Stone
Come Back Podcast
Transcript
ASHLY
00:18
Well, it's so nice to have you on the podcast.
ALICIA
00:22
Thanks so much for having me.
ASHLY
00:24
Yeah, of course. Why don't we go ahead and just start. I'd love to hear a little bit about you and your past. Maybe a little background on you today.
ALICIA
00:35
So, I'm Alicia. 34 live in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. I'm a disability support worker, and I do music therapy for a lot of my clients, as well. I love my job, and I'm upgrading my bio so I can go back to school and do therapeutic recreation.
A little bit about me, now: I am a convert. I joined the Church when I was 19. I kind of grew up not really knowing if God existed or not. I didn’t put a whole lot of thought into it until I went to art school, and I was taking some philosophy courses. Those like essential questions came up like, “is there a God”, “what's the purpose of life”, “what happens after we die”, those sorts of things. And so that's kind of what brought the interest.
I started going to this Christian Church for about nine months. And there were some really life molding experiences that I had there. There were some really dark, spiritual experiences, like spiritual abuse that happened there. I was pretty naive to Christianity and everything that came with it, I didn't really have anything to put that up against. But that was also the beginning of the foundation of my belief in Jesus Christ, and things were just really rocky for me. And so, I ended up moving two hours south in with my sister.
My sister had the missionaries check up on me because she was worried about me, and I ended up just falling in love with the sisters, and some of my family members are members of the Church. I started meeting with the sisters, and eventually, they asked me to pray about everything. And I kind of thought going into it that, just based on everything that that other Christian church would preach like anti-Mormon stuff in church, sermons and stuff. So, I was kind of scared of reading the Book of Mormon, but every time that I read it, I just really connected with it.
So, after joining the church, I had never felt God's love for me before in my whole life, and so that was really magnificent to have that experience. And I just wanted everyone to be able to have that experience, too. I just wanted to share that with everyone. Pretty much right after I was baptized, I decided that I wanted to serve a mission. I have depression with features of psychosis, I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to serve a mission because of that. But I was able to go out.
One thing I should mention, though, that's kind of a huge part of my story is when, before I was baptized, I had to be interviewed by someone. I have same-gender attraction and had had interactions before that. And so that was really hard on my mission, just to have that attraction for women and be around women 24/7, 365, for 18 months.
I loved my mission, I still would say that it's the happiest that I've ever been in my whole life, and just so close to the Lord. And I just love seeing people change and make choices that would bring them closer to Heavenly Father.
2011, I got home from my mission. I kind of kind of had this experience the last transfer of my mission where I just knew that I would become inactive, which was so strange. I don't understand why Heavenly Father gave me that experience. But I was just so determined not for that to happen, you know? And I was really strict. When I came home, I didn't watch movies or listen to normal music for three months. Until after three months, then I started to do that and I just wanted to be so close to Him, and I felt like the attraction that I had for women was just like this secret that some people knew, but it was just too much. I was ready to burst, I just wanted everyone to know, and my intention was to be like the “gay Mormon”, you know. The adversary got in my head and just making me think I don't belong there. But I'm like, “No”, I recognized that it was from him. So, I'm like, “No, I'm still gonna go, I don't care what you're going to try to say to me. I belong here. So, I'm going.”
Being in church just felt really different. I guess the adversary continued to work on me a lot. And I ended up moving to the west coast of Canada and just kind of ran away from everything. Kind of amazing, in a not good way how fast things can digress. I was away from the Lord, away from the church, I would still try to go here and there, and it was just so painful to be there because I felt like, there was just this inner battle in me for so long, like, over a decade, this this war in my soul.
And so there was a lot of things that happened there. But I was drinking, I was smoking weed. And just like having relationships with women, and each step that I took, these poor decisions that I made, I just lost a portion of the Spirit. And I tried to come back, and I guess, I wasn't quite ready at that point. I was offended by something that my bishop told me. And so, then I just kind of went into party mode for a year.
And then I had this crazy nightmare of a dream that there was this dark war, and there was blood and carnage and war, all within an arm's reach of me. And I wasn't fighting in this war, but it was as far as the eye could see, and in the background, there was this mountain. And then I woke up, and I just remember feeling like this is this is going to happen. And it wasn't just a dream, but it was like a vision of something that would for sure happen. And I just remember being so afraid, and just terrified. And it kind of woke me up. And I ended up meeting with the missionaries. Actually before I met with the missionaries, I watched this Christian movie called God's Not Dead. It helped me to realize that faith is a choice. And so, I'm like, “Well, if it's a choice, then I can just choose to believe and then heal, then I can climb the ladder backup.” And so, I did, and I went through this repentance process.
ASHLY
08:32
You said that you felt like faith was a choice, but I'm curious to know in all of that time, were you doubting that the Church was true?
ALICIA
08:42
That why I was always hurting so much inside my soul, because I knew that I was going against what I believed and why this war was existing inside of me, because I knew that it was true, but I just really didn't want it to be true.
And I thought I could just do it my way and it doesn’t work that way. Then, after I went through this repentance process and was able to take the sacrament again, and it was so amazing. And I had the opportunity to speak at this LDS Women's Retreat in Salt Lake in 2016. I went to Utah, I met with a companion of mine, and we were catching up on everything. And I was telling her about this dream that I had. And then she told me like, “Sister, I had almost the exact same vision as you.” She told me her experience. And in her dream, she saw the war, but she was on the mountain that I saw in my dream. And she saw people coming up the side of the mountain and coming to where there was light and peace. And then in her dream, she saw me come up the mountain.
We were both like, “this is just incredible.” I just like felt this like fire in my soul to be a missionary again. I went back home and just wanted to share my testimony, and I served in the temple for a few months. And around 2019, I thought that because I was doing my best to live a righteous life, that somehow it would be, not easy, but easier. And I would like find my husband, and the same-gender attraction would just go away, and it didn't.
And then I turned 31 and had to move into a family ward. And that felt like the end of my life. Now I'm in a family ward, and I love it, so nothing against family wards, it was just hard because everyone was married and had kids, or most everyone, and I didn't, and I still had this attraction for women. And the adversary is always working. But I felt his voice saying, “Well, you don't have to be LDS to be Christian. Just go find a different church, and you can be a Christian lesbian and have the best of both worlds.” And I'm like, “Oh, yeah, that sounds like a good idea,” which it wasn't, but I went down this path, and it steeply declined again, it just amazes me to look back at pictures in my phone, it's just a matter of months from going from full activity, or working in the temple to, drinking again, and partying, and being with women.
I just kind of made my exit and found a different church, just a really awesome church, I learned a lot from it. Learned to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and different ways to worship and stuff like that. And we talked about breaking chains of sin and stuff like that. But in all my searching, in different times in my life, when I was away from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I would try to find a place that had the same measure of the Spirit as this Church has, and I could never find it. And it frustrated me so much. “Why can’t I have the same spirit, it's not the same.” But, and I always knew, that it was because this is the true Church.
And then COVID hits, and then there's the option to watch the sermons online, and I decided not to do that because I just don't get as much from it. And then I just keep going on route in darkness, and losing more and more light. A lot of the Christians that I know are not on board with a lot of LDS doctrine. And so, they weren't too upset about me not being in that in the Church anymore. I was even actually baptized in their church. I thought that I accept Jesus Christ, and I'm saved. Good. It just didn't bring me the same purpose, the same joy, the things.
And so, all the while, I'm dating women, and drinking, I started getting back into smoking weed, which is terrible for my mental illness, it just makes everything so much worse. Then I make the decision to have my name removed from the records of the Church. Worst decision of my life. Just increasing darkness and losing more and more of my identity and who I am in God, and I'm just losing myself.
Fast forward to that talk given by Elder Holland at BYU. Everyone was up in arms about this, and I was trying my best to stay away from members of the Church because it just reminded me of who I used to be. And even though there were these scales of darkness that came over my eyes. I always knew in my soul that it was the true church, and I had gone against that. So, I just separated myself from members of the Church to stop myself from feeling as much of that pain.
Anyways, I had a lot of friends on Instagram that were members of the Church, who used to be and who are gay, and they were posting all this stuff. And I was trying my best not to be a part of the Church or anything affiliated with it at that time, but when they were posting this, I'm like, “What the heck is going on.” And I watched 20 minutes of that talk, not even the full thing to get the full context. But the part that everyone was mad about, and I jumped on the anger bandwagon and just became so, so angry.
I met with a friend, actually, she had looked up this anti stuff, and she was teaching me all this stuff. And our anger was so fueled by each other. I learned about tactics of mind control and started thinking that the Church was a cult, and I had wasted so much of my life on it. And just became a very angry person, which is totally out of my character. I've never very angry.
And then I started applying the principles of mind control to the world around me and conspiracies about COVID and stuff and just went like deep down this rabbit hole of conspiracies. And one of my good friends was living about seven hours away from me. And she was having a really hard time during the pandemic, because they were putting on all these restrictions that you couldn’t basically do anything, not even go to the grocery store, without having a vaccination. So, she was having a really hard time. And she was also into the conspiracies and stuff. And she asked me to go out there, and I did. And it was like me and her fiance, and her son who's just a baby, but the three of us just went headfirst into these conspiracies and it just became the darkest place. It was so awful. And it was to the point where I couldn't see my hand in front of my face spiritually. There's just a whole lot of fear, and doubt, and anxiety. Not a good time. I went to a couple protests, like freedom protest. I became really aware of my gratitude for the freedom to choose, which is maybe the first step which brought me back.
18:05
It just got me thinking about Satan's plan versus Christ's plan in the pre-existence, and I just really wanted to fight for that freedom for everyone. And I went to these protests. And it just became so dark. And we didn't know who to trust anymore to be honest. I didn't even know if I could trust the police which might sound kind of crazy to say, but the police or doctors or psychologists. I was just really in a messed-up place. That's what I believe those things kind of do to your mind.
While we're out there, my friend's sister had made a trip out there. We didn't even know she was there. She lives in the same city that I do. I was telling her about this really dark experience that I had. And she told me to stop. And she's like, “I just feel something on you.” And she just took like 20 minutes and taught me. She's got a medical background and quantum physics knowledge. And so, she took 20 minutes to explain about quantum physics to me, and she said, “everything is vibrations and frequencies. And there's low vibrations, which is fear and anxiety and depression and all these sorts of things. And then there's things that are higher frequencies, like happiness and joy.” And then she said, “Scientists can actually measure these frequencies now. And the highest frequency that they can measure is love.” And I thought that was the most beautiful thing that I've ever heard. And I'm just resonated so much with me.
And I'm like, “Well, I know that I'm on this low frequency right now. But how do I get to this high frequency?” Then I'm like, “Well, what about God?” And she's like, “Well, God is love.” And I'm like, “Ah!” I just felt that kind of pierce my soul. And it's true. I know that's true. But then I'm like, “What about Jesus Christ?” And she's like, “Well, Jesus Christ was a Divine Master that performed many miracles.” And I'm like, “Well, that doesn't have the same resonation as ‘God is Love’ does.” And so, I’m like, “I don't know about that. It doesn't feel the same.”
So, that kind of stayed with me. And after our conversation, I called my mom. And around this point, I started to pray again. All of these platforms that I was on where they're sharing different conspiracies, I was just always kind of saying to everyone, “just connect how you can spiritually. Whether that be through prayer, or meditation, or grounding, or good intentions. Different things like that.” And I decided to call my mom, and she was telling me about the fact that we, even before our spirits were created, we always existed as intelligence. And I kind of knew that before, but it never really sunk in, it just really hit me. And it made me feel like approval for who I was, I’m like, “If I always existed, then God doesn't want to change me. Because He made me.” It just was this huge aha moment for me. And that brought me to tears. And just knowing that God doesn't need me to change, He loves me how I am.
And so, the next day, I wake up, and everything's still just as dark and I don't know what to do, but I need help. This is just the worst. And so, I'm like, “Who do I turn to? I don't know who to trust.” And then I thought about the missionaries. Definitely God put that in my mind. I don't know if I can trust members, never mind missionaries. Then I’m like, “Well, when I was on my mission, I was trying to be as close to the Lord as possible. So, there's that.” Sol, I called like Utah and got the number for the missionaries near me, and had them come over, and they taught me a lesson. I think it was the beginning of the restoration or something like that. I thought, at that time, a fairly typical lesson. I was very attentive and humble. I was listening. I was ready to hear. I didn't feel like I got that big revelation. I said goodbye to them, and like, I guess that wasn't it.
Later that evening, I started thinking about that dream that I had. And I'm like, “this is happening right now. This war is happening right now. And it's all around. It's everywhere, as far as you can see. But it's not like a physical battle, a physical war, but spiritual.” I couldn't even remember the mountain in my dream, or in my friend's dream, but I knew that this was key. I knew that I needed more for this. And I hadn't talked to talk to this friend in like two years, because she was trying to get me to not drink and I didn't want to hear it. So, I kind of pushed her away. But I texted her and said, “I know we haven't talked in forever, but I need your help. Will you please help me remember the war visions that we had?”
And she responded a few hours later, and she said, “I’ve been thinking about that this week. And I prayed for you two days ago to remember our war visions.” And that was just light to me. I'm like, “Okay, I cannot deny that God exists. He is helping me and there's no way that I could have had this experience without Him, He's divinely orchestrating this.” And that night, I said a prayer to Heavenly Father. I know that if anybody knows who Jesus Christ is, it's Heavenly Father, it's God. So, I'm just gonna ask to Him. And so, I prayed and said, “Will you please help me understand the importance of Jesus Christ?” And that's when so many miracles started happening.
So, the next, maybe two days later, I decided to call this friend, and I just asked her every question on my heart. And she seemed to understand everything that I was going through, this darkness that I felt, this spiritual war and everything, all the darkness, but from like a more spiritually higher plane.
So, I just asked her I'm like, “is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints the only way to return back to Heavenly Father?” And she said, “Yes.” I said, “Is the Book of Mormon the word of God?” She said, “Yes.” And I said, “Was Joseph Smith legit?” She said, “Yes.” And I said, “Do I have to marry a man?” And she said, “I don't think so.”
In between the time that I prayed that prayer and the time that I talked to her, my testimony of Jesus Christ came back. And so, I said to her, I'm like, “I know that Jesus Christ is the Light and Life of the world. And I will get baptized again tomorrow. But I just need to know that it's from Him.” And she told me that she's like, “You can do this, Alicia. You just have to be willing to sacrifice.”
I woke up my friend who was sleeping, and it’s like midnight at this time, and we were telling each other everything about different conspiracies and things that we would find. And so I'm like, “This is the most important thing that I could ever tell you. Can we just have a conversation?” and I prayed, and it just felt like the whole living room was just like this white space. And there was just like nothing there, just this vast space, and her and I. And that was the spirit, but I didn't know how to recognize it at that time. But I told her, I'm like, “We need help. And there is help. And that help is Jesus Christ. And He is the Savior of the world.” I told her about the Book of Mormon and just testified of Him. And she's like, “Do you want me to be baptized?” I'm like, “Well, yeah, but that's up to you.” \
I called the missionaries after that. I’m pretty sure I called them and didn't text them, even though it was past midnight. But I'm like, “Can you please call me when you get this? I want to get baptized.” And so, the elders, they call me in the morning, and they're like, “Well, I don't know when the next time we can meet with you is because we have church.” And I'm like “Church! I forgot about church. Can I come?” And so, it was actually that day, which is a miracle in itself, I called and got the Relief Society President to pick me up and we walked in to the chapel, and she turned to me, and said, “you’re home.” And I just started crying and felt the Spirit so strong, like the best thing ever.
And in that sacrament meeting, they talked about Jackson County, Missouri, which is where I served my mission. And then I really wanted to talk to a stake president or somebody that had some understanding about what it's like to come back to the Church and the stake president was actually there, which was another miracle. And I asked for a priesthood blessing, and they gave me a really powerful blessing. And I asked them to pray for my friends that I was staying with, and specifically by name, and he did, and it was really powerful. And when I got back to the house, it was like the equivalent of going from like a haunted house to a normal house. There was so much darkness that had left, and it just felt like a completely different house. And I went up the stairs and I talked to them a bit and told them about my experience and that I had asked the stake president to pray for them. And they said, “Oh, that's probably why we stopped fighting.” I'm like, “Yeah.” B
I was really anxious about my flight the next day just with some things that happened with a protest that we went to. I didn't know if we were either just spiritually in danger or like physically in danger, but it's kind of sketchy so I was really worried about going through security and just flying. And I had anxiety about going back to Calgary because of all my influences. I went on this trip and I was totally against the Church, and then I come back and I'm ready to get baptized. So, everything was completely different.
ASHLY
30:37
Your whole trip, how long was the span of that trip?
ALICIA
Maybe a week or less. So anyways, I just pray for everything on this trip. And I decide to meditate on the plane and just had a really revelatory experience with Heavenly Father. He spoke to me, and just showed me a lot of spiritual things. And that was a massive miracle. I can't share too much about it. But one thing I do want to say though. When I heard Elder Holland's talk, when I was really angry about it, I like to write music. And usually it's good music. But I used my anger towards him, and I wrote a song about this talk which I completely regret.
But I wrote this song about how he used the words musket fire, and I thought that it was kind of an attack on the LGBTQ community. And so, I felt like this passion to defend the community and said that he was speaking out of violence and out of hatred and all of these horrible things. And I made this video and shared it with thousands of people.
And then I came back from this trip and just felt absolutely ashamed and horrible about it. And so, I immediately called everyone that I could and asked them to take down this video. Then I was talking to my mom about it, and she's like, “You know that you can write the apostles, right?” And I didn't know that. I wrote Elder Holland a letter, and I told him that I had strayed from my covenants and left the Church and that I had attacked him. And basically, told him what I had done, and that I was so sorry, and asked him if he would forgive me, I wished him the best. This was like right before October conference last year. And I felt just this huge desire to have my letter possibly reach him before General Conference. So, I sent it express mail. And then, when I watched conference, it really felt like his talk was an answer to my letter.
The Thursday after conference, I was at work, and I get this call, and it was 801. Utah. I was like “I better answer this.” And so, I answered the phone, and it's this woman's voice, and she said, “this is sister so-and-so. I'm calling from the office of the 12 Apostles, and Elder Holland wanted me to let you know that he got your letter, that he was grateful for your honesty and sincerity, and not to worry about those things anymore.”
ASHLY
That's cool.
33:40
ALICIA
Yeah, it was pretty incredible. I felt like that was the closest thing that I could ever get to a phone call from Jesus. It was pretty incredible that he took the time to do that for me and felt inspired to do that. And I was so grateful for that. And just so relieved that he forgave me in. So much was taken off for me from that.
But coming back, I went through a disciplinary council which is incredibly spiritual. But every day was a battle. It was so hard to come back. And it just took every ounce of faith in me and grit to fight against the adversary with Jesus Christ. There are a million miracles in the process.
And I just want to tell you about my baptismal day. I remember just opening that door into the baptismal font, and there's this wave of the Spirit that hit my soul. And I remember just touching my foot into that water and it felt like holy water. It was just the most sacred experience. And there's honestly nothing greater than having the gift of the Holy Ghost again. That is something that we should never take for granted. And like going for a time without it and then having it again, it's pretty incredible. I was baptized again on February 26th last year and February 26th or maybe a couple days after that, I'll be able to have my temple blessings restored.
35:57
ASHLY
That is so amazing, and what an incredible story. I think it's super interesting to hear your experience with COVID and the conspiracy theories and all the things. It's interesting. I just interviewed somebody last night on the podcast., and he was also talking about how that was something that really led people away from the Church on both ends, whether they were really far on one side or really far on the other. And it's interesting, because when you were talking about that, it reminded me of this experience that I had, when all of that was going on. My husband was on one side, and I was on the other side. We just had our own thoughts and opinions about it. And I had this distinct impression that the danger lies in being way too far on one side or the other. That is where the danger is, on being so far extreme on either side that you can't reason with people. That was just kind of a really distinct impression I had.
And I think that it's just interesting to hear how that played such a role in taking you away from the Church for getting so far caught into that world of conspiracy theories. I think that's super interesting. And just your story of coming back.
I do have a question for you. What advice would you have for LGBTQ members that feel like there's no place for them in the Church? What is your advice for them?
38:14
ALICIA
Massive question, but I appreciate it. I think absolutely there is. And that's because this is Jesus Christ’s church, and they are children of God. It is that simple. There's a lot more facets to it. My testimony in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is founded on my testimony of Jesus Christ being my savior. He is the Savior of all mankind, everyone who has ever lived, who is living and who will live. And anyone in the LGBTQ+ community is not excluded from that. This is His church. And it's His restored Church. It is the same church that existed in the Old Testament. That doesn't make it easy, but I know that it's possible because of Him.
39:35
ASHLY
I love that. My other thought was when you were talking about how you were going to the other churches, and you were just like, “I just can't feel the same feeling at these other churches.” I related to that so much, because when I was getting sober, I went to the Salvation Army, and they have their own church, and I love the Salvation Army, by the way. I was in the praise band, I love the music, and I love learning from the Bible, and I loved it. And there were a lot of times where they would talk and say things specifically about the LDS church, and I would just be like, “what?” But I don't hold any resentment or anything, but I did think that was kind of interesting.
But I felt that same way. There was something missing. It just wasn't the same spirit, that same Holy Spirit that you feel in the Church. And I just remember when I went to church after not going forever, and I was actually still in the Salvation Army program, but I just went one time to the LDS church, they let me go. I just remember feeling that same feeling of coming home, like you described the Relief Society President, “You're home.” I just relate a lot to parts of your story, it's so beautiful. Do you have any last, final thoughts before you wrap up here,
41:14
ALICIA
I was blessed to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost by the mission president, and it was the most amazing blessing ever. It was like a minute or two long, it was really abnormal in that sense. But in it, I was promised that I would be able to marry man in the temple and have children. And I really believe that, and I have faith in that. When I came out, I came out as a lesbian. But I don't identify that way anymore. I'm just a daughter of God, and that’s my identity. I do sometimes have attraction for other women. But that's not who I am.
42:10
ASHLY
This church is for everybody. And I love that you said that. Your identity is that you're a child of God. And that is what's important. And I love that. Thank you so much for being on the podcast. And thank you so much for your time tonight. And you're amazing and just so brave. I appreciate you being on with us.
ALICIA
I’m so grateful for you. Thank you for all that you're doing. It's pretty amazing.
ASHLY
Thank you.
