S1:E9 - Dusty Smith: From Anti-Mormon, to Coming Back to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Dusty Smith converted to the church, served a mission, and was pen pals with Elder Perry. After encountering "anti-Mormons" for the first time, he started researching church topics that he had never heard before in Church history. Dusty left the church for 26 years.

He spent those years doing everything he could to tear down the church. He debated In online forums with members, trying to prove the church wasn't true. After many miracles, including a priesthood blessing and a miraculous healing, Dusty came back. One of his favorite people to debate the church with had been putting his name on the temple prayer roll for years. Dusty says his love and prayers led to his coming back. Dusty baptized and was sealed to his wife. Now he does everything he can to make up for his years of attacking ... including having his story of redemption told by Elder Uchtdorf in Conference.

Dusty's message to you: "Remember, Heavenly Father loves you as much as if you were the only person on the planet. No matter what happens in your life, Heavenly Father will always believe in you."

ASHLY

00:14

So Dusty Smith, I am so excited to hear your story and to share it with the world. Dusty you are a managing attorney, correct? 

DUSTY

Yes. 

ASHLY

Managing attorney, former city councilman and former lieutenant colonel. Anything else you want to add? Do you have kids, family, pets?

DUSTY

00:40

I’ve got a beautiful wife, I've got three children. I have three dogs, one is 210 pounds. 

ASHLY

Oh my goodness!

DUSTY
I have three snakes and four lizards.

ASHLY

00:50

Wow, that's awesome. Well, cool, awesome. Well, so Dusty, I'm just going to kind of let you take it away. I know your story is amazing. And I'm so excited to hear it. So go ahead, start wherever you want.

DUSTY

Well, let's, as we said in The Sound of Music, “Let's start at the very beginning.”

ASHLY

Perfect. 

DUSTY

I was born in 1960. My dad left when I was five. Before he left, he was not a nice man when he drank, and he drank a lot. When I was five, my mother would come in and she would hold me and I told her, “I'm not going to ever drink.” And I never have. I just didn't want to ever become like that, you know, I never wanted to become an alcoholic. And I was raised then by my mother, my grandfather and my grandmother. Now my grandfather was Catholic. My grandmother was Baptist. And my mother was Lutheran. And I went to all three. I wasn't ever sure if I should stand, sit, kneel, sprinkle, dunk or pour, but I did learn to love the Lord. And I think that was the most important thing in my life, was the fact that I've always loved the Lord. Now, when I was in college at the University of Texas, there was a thing that happened that made me angry at God. A family friend, she was about 13, running home from school, thought the glass doors of her house were open, they were closed. She ran through the glass door, fell on a piece of glass it pierced her throat and she was killed. And I got very angry with God. Stopped going to church. This was my third year of college, my junior year. And I just had nothing to do with God. I graduated from University of Texas in 1982. The following year, I had gone home to visit my mother. Well I went home to wash my clothes. It was free and the fridge was always full. And I went to my old bedroom. I used to collect Louis L'Amour westerns. And I wanted to read a Louis L’Amour western and my mother had been to Salt Lake City on business and somebody had given her a Book of Mormon and she had put it on a bookshelf in my old bedroom. So as I'm going through the Louis L'Amour books to pick one to read while I'm washing clothes, the Book of Mormon falls off my bookshelf. And I sat down and picked it up and opened it up, just opened it and it happened to open up to 3 Nephi, and I began to read and I was very intrigued. So I got the phonebook, and at this point in a lot of my firesides I have to explain that a phone book’s about this big, 

[Ashly laughs]

and it had names and phone numbers in it. And if you're really short you use it to sit on the chair at the dinner table. But this is where you know, y'all are really strange. Because, you know if I want to call a Catholic church, it says parish if I want to call a Baptist church, it says you know, church, but not y'all. There was wards and there was stakes. I had no idea who to call, but it was lunchtime, and I was hungry. So I called the stake. True story! Somebody answered the phone. They said, “I'm never here during the week, but I forgot something on Sunday. I came by here at lunch to pick it up.” And it was the state president. So we chatted for a few minutes and he got me in touch with the missionaries who I met at the university ward in Austin, Texas. And a few short weeks after that I was baptized. It was 1983. I was a college graduate and I had a job, and immediately people would walk up and say, “You know, you should serve a mission.” And I would say, “Ha ha ha! No. I'm an adult now. I have a job, I have a degree, I’m not going to serve a mission.” Then somebody else would walk up and they'd say, you know, you should serve a mission. And I would say, “I'm adulting! Not going to do the mission thing. I have a job.” Somebody else would walk up. And this went on for several days. I would say, “I'm never going to go on a mission!” So anyway, while I was at the MTC– 

[Ashly laughs]

I was 24 when I went on my mission, and I quit a job to go on my mission. And of course, my family thought I was crazy. A lot of my family and friends turned their back on me when I got baptized. Well, then when I quit a job making money to go on a mission where I was going to work for 18 months and not make any money, they thought I was absolutely insane. And I felt like I was babysitting at the MTC. Here I am 24 years old, a college graduate, with a lot of 19 year olds who have never been away from home before. And they're running up and down the halls in the dorm. I finally asked, like, “You know, what, if nobody cares if I’m here, I'm going home.” So I went to the payphone, and I called the Church Headquarters in Salt Lake City. And the lady answers the phone. I said, if nobody cares, if I'm here, I'm going home. And she said, “Would you hold, please?” And I said, “Sure.” A few seconds passed, and a voice gets on the phone and says, “Elder, if nobody else cares if you're on a mission I do. My name is L. Tom Perry.”

ASHLY

Oh. Wow.

DUSTY

He and I had a chat, and he realized that I didn't have a lot of family support, no background in the church or anything, so he asked if he could be my pen pal on my mission. So Elder Perry was my pen pal on my mission. 

ASHLY

Wow.

DUSTY

When I got off my mission, he wanted me to come up to Salt Lake and give him a mission report. So I did.

ASHLY

Oh my gosh. 

DUSTY

After my mission, I went to law school. I went to law school in a foreign country. Well, Michigan. In my third year of law school, I went to Palmyra to the [Hill Cumorah] pageant. This was 1989. I discovered something I had never encountered before. That was anti-Mormons. I debated with them, and I thought I did okay. But I came back from that experience, and I wanted to know more about the Church, because I only had about six years experience in the church. Not a lot of experience, and some of that was on a mission. So I didn't have a lot of background of history and doctrine other than what I had learned at the MTC, et cetera. So I began to read all these old doctrine books, all these old history books, trying to learn more stuff. And I began to read things that I had never heard before. And the more that I read, the more questions I had. And back in ‘89, if you had questions, you were kind of out of luck, because you were told, “Don't worry about it. Just have faith. Just have faith, don't worry about it.”

ASHLY

Mmhmm.

DUSTY

And I always felt like if you're gonna hide the truth from me, if you're gonna hide stuff, then it's not true. And I woke up one day, in November of ’89, and I realized that I no longer had a testimony. And I wrote the church, the stake in Michigan, and I said, “Take my name off church records.” And a few weeks later, I got a letter from the stake saying, I'd been excommunicated. And that made me very angry. And I became an anti-Mormon. Anybody who knows my past knows that I don't do anything halfway. I was a very vocal anti-Mormon. I wrote articles, I went to churches and taught about the LDS church, how bad they were. I would stop missionaries on the street and argue with them. In about 1999 I discovered that I could go on the internet and, and argue with people from the comfort of my own home. I found a board called “What Do Mormons Really Believe?” and I went to go tell them. I met a guy named Mike on that board. And the people on the board hated me. Because I'm not a nice debater. I will go for the jugular. I'm absolutely not nice when I debate. Well, back then anyway. 

10:36

I met a guy named Mike. Mike and I had these really bad debates and didn't like each other very much. But we, over time, began to like each other, and we became really good friends. And I told him that I would never join the church again, but I liked him, as you know, as a friend, he was my friend, and we could talk. But he began putting my name in the temple every week. And I got mad at him for that. I said, you know, “False god, false temple, stop doing that.” But he never did. He put my name in the temple every week for 20 years.

11:13

In 2009, I went down to Mexico to do a deposition. And I came back with a souvenir, the swine flu. I mean, it was bad. And I'm a disabled veteran, so I get my care at the Veterans Affairs hospital. And I called the VA. And I said, “I'm dying”. And they said, “What symptoms do you have?” And I said, “The ones you get when you're dying?” And they said, “Have you been to Mexico?” And I said, “Yes.” They said, “Don't come here.” I could not get a doctor to see me. They were too afraid I'd get him sick or get their patients sick. So I'm laying on my deathbed, in Dallas, Texas, on the second floor of my home, and I knew I was going to die. People were dying everywhere, they will never know how many died from swine flu. We know it's hundreds of thousands around the world, but we don't know how many because everybody wasn’t getting tested like they did for COVID. We were just dying. And I knew I was gonna die. I was really, really, really, really sick. There was a knock on my door, and it was two LDS missionaries. And my oldest boy inexplicably lets them into my house. Worse—he brings them up to my deathbed. And one of them looks at me, and he says, “You're sick.” And I remember thinking to myself, “The Spirit is really strong in that one.” And one of them said, “Can we give you a blessing?” And I said, “Will it get you out of my house?” And they said, “Yes.” And I said, “Then give me your blessing.” So they laid their hands on my head and gave me a blessing of healing. And I was immediately healed.

ASHLY

13:13

Oh my gosh.

DUSTY

13:15

I'm not saying that I got better over the next few days. I'm saying in that moment, my fever broke, I stopped sweating. I was able to stand up for the first time in several days. I was able to stand up. And I walked him downstairs to the front door and said, “Do not ever come back to my house.” That's how much I hated the church. And in 2014, I joined a different board to argue with Mormons. My screen name was CountryBoy. I'm on this board arguing with people and this girl messages me. Her name is GardenGirl. And GardenGirl says, “I feel strangely drawn to you. Do you mind if we communicate?” And I wrote her back and I said, “That would be fine, GardenGirl. However, I must warn you I am married.” And she wrote back and she said, “I'm 75. Get over yourself.”

[Ashly laughs]

14:26

And one day, she said, “Do you mind if we have a chat on the phone? I don't want to type.” And I said okay. I still only knew her as GardenGirl. I didn't know her name. She didn't know my name. And so we're talking on the phone. And she says, “Do you have any family in the church?” And I said, “I do not.” I said, “Well, I might. Back when I was a member in the 80s, I heard of somebody that was a family member, never met him, never talked to him, but his name is Dean Jessee. And he's a big mucky muck in the church, but I've never met him. If he's still alive, then yes, I do.” And there was a long pause. By the way, before I say this, Dean Jessee—if you don't know who he is, is the church historian, emeritus. The book series The Joseph Smith Papers is his baby. But anyway, there's a long pause, and she says Dean Jessee's your cousin? And I said, “Well, if he's alive, yeah.” And she said Dean Jessee's my cousin. Turns out that this woman is a cousin of mine who I never knew existed. And she was strangely drawn to me. 

ASHLY

Wow. 

DUSTY

Also in 2014, my wife was given an opportunity for a promotion, but it would require her moving to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I don't know about anybody else. But the words promotion, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana do never belong in the same sentence. But she said, “Should I take this job?” and I said, “You know, it's your dream to get this promotion.” So we made a plan. And the plan was this, that she would go to Louisiana and live there, and I would visit her once a month, we’d meet in Shreveport. And because her district ran from Texas to Florida, and they wanted her there, and she would travel around. We would visit and then she would keep that job until the same position opened up in Texas. She moved back to Texas, and I would in the meantime, stay in Texas. I had a good job with a law firm and we got to be at a nice house. So she did, she went. And in January 2015, she had taken that district from in the 40s in her company up to the top four. And her reward for that was they called her and they said, “We're going to close your district, we're going to send you your severance paperwork.” So she called me, she says, “What do I do?” I said, “Come back home, we'll figure it out.” But the very next day, the vice president of the company called her and said, “Don't go home, there's an opening in Baltimore, Maryland. We're going to send your paperwork up there. It's a two week vetting process for any of these moves. But stay in Baton Rouge until we get you that position in Baltimore.” So she said, “Should I do that?” I said, “Sure, because we have the plan–I will visit you once a month in Baltimore. But you will do that until the position opens up in Texas and you can move back to Texas.” So I called Mike, my friend, and I said “Mike, do me a favor and pray for Susan to get this position in Baltimore. We'd like her to stay with the company at least till she's vetted.”

17:51

And Mike said, “I will pray for that.” Now at this point in my life, the smart thing would have been to say, “Thank you, Mike,” and hang up the phone. But no. I said, “However, Mike, ha ha, if God really wants me to come back to the church, he will send Susan to Utah.” Now, I was very comfortable with that because there were no openings in Utah. I knew that. But the very next day, the person in the Utah position retired. And the very next day Susan's paperwork was transferred from Baltimore to Utah. And she was hired immediately without the two weeks vetting.

ASHLY

Wow. 

DUSTY

And I called Mike and I said, “You're not gonna believe this. But Susan's going to Utah.” And Mike said, “Well, you know what you told God.” And I said, “I was just joking!” And he said, “God wasn't.” So I hit my knees and I said, “Okay, if this is what you want, that's great. But for 26 years, I've had issues and none of your apologetics work. The apologetics that I hear from people do not work. I need answers.” And over the next several weeks, I'd wake up in the middle of the night with a new answer that I'd never heard before. Until I woke up one day in March 2015, and I had my testimony back and I called Mike and I bore my testimony. And Mike wept. 

A few weeks later, I went to see Susan here in Salt Lake. She was living in an apartment. It was a three-day weekend for me. It was Easter weekend and my office had Good Friday off, so I had a three-day weekend. And it was our anniversary. Susan and I were married on April Fool's Day, April 1st, we thought that was appropriate. And I came to visit her. I can't run because of my bad knee from the Army, but I walk, and I walk five miles every day. I was out doing my walk and the Lord said, “This is home now.” And I said, “No, it's not. I live in Texas.” And I heard it again, “This is home now.” And I said, “No, I have a job paying me a lot of money. And I have a house. You may have seen it, Lord.” And the Lord said, “This is home now.” And I said, “No, no, it’s not. Susan doesn't want to live here forever. We have a plan.” And I get back to the apartment, and I said, “Hey, Suz, out of curiosity, what do you think about Utah?” And she said, “I've been wondering how to bring it up to you, but I don't ever want to leave.” So I said, “Okay.” So I went home, and I called a realtor to sell the house. And I quit my job with no job here. If the Lord said, “Move,” you move. And a realtor came to look at my house, and he said, “You're never going to sell this house.” And I said, “Why?” He says, “Well, it was built in 1929. It has a lot of issues. If you fixed up all the issues, you'd never get what the house is worth, but you can't sell it like this. It won't pass inspection.” I said, “Okay.” So I called Suz and said, “Maybe we can just rent it out.” Well, I got rebaptized. The week after I got rebaptized, I got a knock on my door. And I answered the door and a guy says, “I want to buy your house.” And I said, “My house is not for sale.” And he said, “I don't care. I want to buy your house.” And I said, “Sir, I appreciate that more than you can possibly imagine. But I can't afford to fix it up to sell it to you.” And he goes, “No, no, no. I'm gonna buy it as is.” And I said, “How much?” and he told me, and it was a lot more than the house was worth. 

ASHLY

Wow.

DUSTY

I called Susan and I told her, and she said, “Man, when God wants you someplace, He really wants you someplace.” Now, the rest of that story is about a year later, I'm sitting in the apartment, here in Salt Lake. I get a phone call. And a guy says, “I want to buy your house in Texas.” I said, “I've already sold this house.” He said, “Are you sure?” I said, “Pretty sure, I was there.” He said, “Did you get the money?” I said, “Yes, and spent it.” And he shuffled some papers around. He goes, “Huh.” I said,”What?” He said, “The person that bought your house disappeared. That house is abandoned and in foreclosure.” When I was doing a fireside at the women's prison, the oldest woman in the prison, sitting in the front row, little short woman. She says, “You should have sold it again.” And I walked over to her and kneeled down, and said, “That would be against the law.” 

So anyway, I moved to Salt Lake from Dallas, and Susan and I go down to Moab. She wanted to show me the Arches. Because up until then the only arches I knew was McDonald's. And I'm waiting for her to get ready. I'm in my hotel room. And I get a phone call. And a woman says, “I see you’ve been on this church website, and you want information on church. I said “No, it wasn’t me.” She said, “Well, your name and phone number popped up on my screen when you wanted information.” And I said, “Be that as it may, it was not me.” And she said, “Well, then how do you figure I got your name and number to call?” I said, “I don't know. But my computer is in Salt Lake and I'm in Moab.” And she said, “You’re a member of the church?” I said, “Let me tell you a story.” So I told her my story. I get done. She's crying. She said that she was in the MTC having a crisis of faith and going home. And they put her on these phones to call people that want information on the church. And my name and number popped up. And after hearing my story, she wanted to go finish her mission. 

ASHLY

Wow. 

DUSTY

A few weeks after that another phone call. Woman says, “Is this Dusty?” And I said, “Yes it is.” And she said, “Would you please hold for President Uchtdorf?” And I went, “Yes ma’am.” And he gets on the phone with me. And he says, “My understanding is that you were anti for 26 years and came back to the church. And I said that's true. He said, “Would you come talk to me?” So I did. And we chatted in his office and he said he wanted to use my story in General Conference, but he wouldn't use my real name, and I said that's okay. And so October General Conference in 2016 in the priesthood session, he gives a talk on Alma and Amulek and he tells my story. In January of 2017, Susan and I go on a date. Well, we went to a gun show. And I don't know how people in Utah date, but in Texas, we go to gun shows. And well, I needed a holster because everything we owned was in storage, you know, big house, little apartment. And so I see a table where they're selling holsters and I go over, I'm talking to the fella. And he says, “You're from Texas.” And I said, “Yeah.” And he says, “What are you doing here?” I said, “Let me tell you a story.” And he says, “Wait, that was you that he talked about in General Conference?” And I said, “Yeah.” He goes, “Can we chat?” I said sure. So he and Susan and I walked over to a quiet little spot in the Sandy Expo Center. And another fella followed us over. I get done telling my story and the fella that followed us over says, “You’re from Dallas,” and I said, “Yeah.”

26:19

And he said, “Oak Cliff?” and I said, “Yeah.” And he said, “You don't remember me. But eight years ago, you had the swine flu.”

ASHLY

26:34

Oh, my gosh.

DUSTY

26:37

I gave you a blessing.

ASHLY

26:40

Oh, my gosh. That just gave me the chills all over.

DUSTY

26:45

The rest of that story is after his mission, he went inactive. Before the 2016 priesthood session, his bishop said I've had about enough of your inactivity, here's a ticket to the priesthood session. He goes to the priesthood session, here's the talk on Alma and Amulek. And it reactivates him, not realizing that the story was about a person he'd given a blessing to eight years earlier.

ASHLY

27:14

Wow. That is amazing.

DUSTY

27:19

Now, at this point, in my firesides, I typically go into doctrine and things to look out for and things like that. But I'll be glad to answer any questions you have about any of this.

ASHLY

27:31

Yeah, yes. And I have actually several questions from followers on Instagram. The one question that really comes to mind is, with those hard questions in the church– I think nowadays, what I've seen is a lot of people leave because of those hard questions. Obviously, you have a lot of experience with hard questions. And you've been on both sides and debated those questions. What advice would you give to people that have those hard questions that are shaking their faith?

DUSTY

28:13

Typically, what I tell people is, okay, hard questions are a funny thing when it comes to the church. Because so many times they deal with issues that really have no bearing on today. Okay, let me give you an example. I've had thousands and thousands of emails and messages from people who have heard the story. I did one video that has had a million views. And, you know, tons of people that commented and talked to me, and the biggest question I get is, what are my feelings on polygamy? I always tell him, I love it. I’ve got 14 wives. 

[Ashly laughs]

Now I tell you this at the women's prison, I said that, and two women, two of the prisoners in the front row stood up and said, “Where do we sign up?”

[Ashly laughs]

And Susan stood up in the back row and said, “You don't!”

ASHLY

Ha ha ha! I'm sure she did!

DUSTY

No, here's what I say about hard questions. Number one, we’ll use polygamy as an example. There's only two options: it's from God or it's not from God. And now if it's from God, as we said in the Army, it's above my paygrade. But let's say for argument's sake, I'm not saying that polygamy wasn't from God, but for argument's sake, let's say it wasn't. Then it would be by definition, a mistake. Now, the question you have to ask is, “If a prophet makes a mistake, is he still a prophet?” Yes! Peter denied, Abraham lied, Moses killed. Let's not even start talking about what Jonah did. The job description for prophet isn't perfect. So what I tell people is prophets are gonna make mistakes. They're people. Okay? But if I go as an attorney and make a mistake in court tomorrow, which would never happen, but if I did, I would still be an attorney. Okay. If a school teacher says something wrong about a history thing, gets the dates wrong, she's still a teacher. If a prophet makes a mistake, he's still a prophet. So I tell people, “Go back to the basics. Go back to the basics.” Did he have the First Vision? Yes. Did he translate the Book of Mormon? Yes. And I tell people, “Look, I have a college degree. My degree was in journalism. My minor was an English. I'm an attorney. I've written briefs. I'm a published author, a published poet. I've written songs, I've written poetry, I've written stories. With all of my education. All of my experience, I could not write the Book of Mormon. And yet, detractors want you to believe that an uneducated kid managed to do that very thing. I don't buy it. It's impossible.” Read 2 Nephi, that rich doctrine in 2 Nephi and tell me that that came from the mind of an uneducated man. A young man, by the way. No. Go back to the basics. And if you go back to the basics, what else matters after that? Did he make mistakes after that? I'm sure he did. Did that mean he wasn't a prophet? No. It means he was a human. I don't know if anybody that's going to hear your podcast really understands a doctrine, that there's a doctrine in the Protestant world called sola scriptura. And sola scriptura means if it's not in the Bible, it doesn't exist. You can't argue it. So they will never accept the Book of Mormon. And they don't believe that, that they believe that God talking to prophets ceased when the last apostle died. There was no more prophets. Christ was the last, you know, blah, blah. So I had a friend ask me one time, he said, “I can't believe that you believe in prophets.” And I said, “I can't believe you don't.” He said, “Really?” I said, “Well, you got three kids, right?” He goes, “Yes.” And I said, “Here, do this. When they turn 18, bring them into your office and say, ‘Now that you’re 18 I’m never going to talk to you again. If you have questions in the future, you can look back to things that I said, look at your journals, think about our traditions, but I'm never going to talk to you again.’” And he said, “I can't do that.” I said, “So what you're saying is you're a better father than Heavenly Father?” He said, “Never said that.” I said, “Sure you did. Because you believe that's exactly what God did– He said, ‘After the New Testament, I'm never going to talk to you again. Everything you need to know is in the Bible as sola scriptura.’ It's what you believe, everything needs to be in the Bible. You don't need anything else. I'm never going to talk to you again.” He said, “I never looked at it that way.” I said, “You got some time.” 

So that's what I tell people. You're going to hear negatives about the church, you're going to hear things. And look, the church isn't perfect. I had a guy with me one day, he said, “I need your help.” I said, “Okay, I'll do what I can.” He says, “Can you help me find the perfect church?” I said, “Sure.” He says, “Really?” I said, “Absolutely.” He says, “How can I find the perfect church?” and I said, “Die.” You're never gonna find the perfect church on this earth. It's not possible. We're not perfect. You don't look for the perfect church. You don't look for the church that made no mistakes in its past. You look for the church that has the keys, the prophet, because we need a prophet. You look at the church that has the eternal marriage, the keys to the kingdom, and we're in that church. That doesn't mean it's perfect, but it has perfection inside it. And that's what you look for. You know, I had another couple walk up to me at a fireside. The girl points to her husband and says, “We're recently married. He wants to leave the church because he heard some things that he'd never heard before. Can you help me?” And I said, “No, I really can't, but I do have a question for you.” She said, "What?” I said, “Okay, y'all are newly married?” They said, “Uh huh.” And I said, “Okay, so you moved in together?” “Yep. Just moved in together.” And I looked at him. I said, “Okay, so now you've discovered that she doesn't put the cap on the toothpaste. She squeezed the toothpaste from the middle of the tube. She doesn't put the toilet seat down. She doesn't cook like your mother, and she’s kind of a slob.” Now I don't know which of those were true, okay, but she was bowing her head and hiding her face when I was saying that. And I said, “Now you found these things out, you don't like them. These are brand new to you, you didn't know this before. So is the love good enough that you stay in the marriage anyway, or do you divorce her?” And he said, “I love her enough where I stay in the marriage anyway.” I said, “You just described the church.”

ASHLY

35:39

That’s so good.

DUSTY

And he looked at her and he said, “We have some praying to do.” But that's kind of what I tell people, You people tend to try to look at the past, using their 2022 moral goggles, and try to judge the past, using their goggles of today's morality. And you can't do that. It's not fair to do that. And the people that do that better hope that in 200 years, people are looking through their moral goggles and judging them, what they're doing today. 

ASHLY

Mmhmm.

DUSTY

I think they're going to come short on a lot of things based on what the standard may be in 200 years. So, you know, people run into the danger of trying to judge the 1800s using 2022 ideals and morals and values. And it's a different world. You can't do that, it's not right. Nor is it fair.

ASHLY

36:40

So, question for you. This is a hard question. So if you feel like you want to pass, no worries, but a lot of people have a really hard time with the LGBTQ community in the church and where that aligns. And it's, it's something that shakes a lot of people's testimony, and I'm curious what your thought is on that.

DUSTY

37:04

My thought is that I will follow what the Prophet says. You know, because if you accept that he's a prophet, and I do, then he's getting his instructions from God. Now, we don't always like our instructions from God, we don't always like to hear what God has to say. But what the Prophet says is what we follow. And I don't expect that God's going to change because my values change, I expect that I'll change my values, because God has His. And I don't expect that I'll change the rules because I want the rules changed around me, or because I may have family who's LGBTQ. I may have family, and I love that family, I love them. They're my family. But I'm not going to change the rules, because I have that family. Okay? That doesn't mean I love them any less. But I'm going to follow the rules that God lays out through his prophet. And the minute that I start chipping away at that and say, “I'm not going to follow that,” then I've started chipping away at the Prophet. And then once you start chipping away at the Prophet, then you end up chipping away at God. When you chip away at God, you're lost. When all the rules have gone, and we've changed the rules to meet our personal needs, and there's no laws then to protect us, how do we stand against the winds that blow?

ASHLY

38:49

I love that. So, okay, a couple questions. Today do you still have any doubts or concerns or things that bother you?

DUSTY

39:02

Yeah, I have cancer. Or do you mean about the church?

ASHLY

I do mean about the church. But if you want to elaborate on cancer and what it's taught you, we would love to hear it. 

DUSTY

I'll get there. No, I don't. Because I put things into the perspective where they need to be put. And because I've gotten the answers that I needed, and they're not answers that worked for everybody, I'm sure, or that would work for everybody. But the Lord knew what I needed his answers, and thus the answers that I got, and they worked for me. Let me just give you an example. One of my issues was archaeology. I would tell Mike, “If I could walk the streets of Jerusalem, I should be able to walk the streets of Zarahemla.” And that was a big argument that he and I would have. It was a big thing. And I would never budge from that. And I didn't like his apologetics. “Well, because the cities were in the jungles in Central and South America.” “No. I've lived in Central America. They're not going to build their cities in the jungle. They're going to build them by the lakes and by the beach, where they have food, and there's not all the bugs and snakes everywhere. They're not going to build their cities in the jungle.” Okay, didn't work for me. But I had a dream. And in this dream, God says to me, “If you walk the streets of Jerusalem, does that make the Bible true?” And I said, “No.” And He said, “But if someone's doing some archeological dig, and they find a sign, and they wipe the sign off, and it says, ‘Zarahemla, Population 400,’ what does that do to the Book of Mormon?” And I said, “It makes it unequivocally absolutely true.” And He said, “Why would you need faith?” Now, that works for me. It means that we're not entitled to know everything right now. Maybe never, because we have to take some of this on faith. If there's no need for faith, then there's no need for God. And if we're given everything, that if we're not required to have faith, then we'll never have those blessings that faith brings us. 

And I'll give you an example, using my cancer. On January 2, I discovered a lump in my throat, that turned out to be a lymph node that was infected. And I went to the doctor and they said, they looked at my throat, they could see the tumor in my throat, it had spread to my lymph nodes. And they did the tests and found out it was malignant and that it had spread to my lymph nodes. Not once have I asked to be healed. Not once. What I asked for, and what I continue to ask for is I said, “Lord, I know You have the power to heal. But Your will be done. If You think my time here is done, that means you've got plans for me somewhere else. If You don't think my time here is done, then I'll be here.” And when I got my blessing, I said, “Please do not ask in your blessing that I be healed, ask for the Lord's will to be done, ask for the doctors’ hands to be guided.”

Now I will tell you a little story. So one of the things they did was slice my throat open and took out 20 lymph nodes. And the doctor told me your nerves surround the lymph nodes. So it's unavoidable that we're going to be cutting nerves. So when you come out of surgery, it's very, very, very likely, if not probable, that for example, you won't be able to raise your left arm over your shoulder, you won't be able to smile. These nerves, they're gonna get cut, and we just can't avoid it. I go to surgery, four hour surgery. I'm in the recovery room, they take me out. The doctor comes out and talks to my wife and says it was incredible. And she said, “What?” They pulled out 20 lymph nodes. She said, “We’d take a lymph node and the nerves just fell off of it. And we cut it. We took another lymph node, the nerves just fell off of it. We cut that one, take another one.” They did that 20 times and the nerves just fell off the lymph nodes. 

ASHLY

Wow.

DUSTY

They did not cut a single nerve. Now I didn't know all of that. All I knew is I come out of out of anesthesia, and the first thing I did was lift my arm over my head, and then try to smile and see if I could feel that I was smiling because I was still drugged up. But how does that not increase your faith? 

ASHLY

Yeah. 

DUSTY

That's and it's not the miracle that increased my faith. It's the fact that you left it in the hands of the Lord and the Lord did His will. And when you're doing the Lord's will and not demanding the Lord do something, the blessing comes from that. And look, the answer may have been that I die. I was ready. I've lived a great life. You know, I've lived an amazing life. And if the Lord had something planned for me somewhere else, so be it.

ASHLY

44:44

Wow. That is so amazing. Thank you so much for sharing that. Okay, I have a couple questions that have come up. Where's Mike today? Are you still friends with him?

DUSTY

44:57

I hate his guts. No. Mike and I are very good friends. He's in Springville,

ASHLY

Awesome!

DUSTY

where he has lived the whole time. Let me tell you another little story. When I got rebaptized, my wife, Southern Baptist, said, “I will support you. I'll go to church with you. I'll go to functions with you, but I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever get baptized.” And I said, “Okay.” And I never pressured her. Well, I would say, “You know, Baby, my patriarchal blessing says, I get sealed in the temple. I'd like it to be with you.” When I met with Elder Uchtdorf, he spoke to her. And he had a chat with her about the church and about bringing what you know, and we’ll add to it. And he talked about that fact. He said, “I know that Dusty wants to be sealed to you; we'll save a place for you in the temple.” The next day, she said, “I'm ready for the discussions.” 

ASHLY

Wow.

DUSTY

And a few months later, I was able to have that exquisite and very unique opportunity of baptizing my own wife. 

ASHLY

Wow. 

DUSTY

Then a year later, we were sealed in the Salt Lake Temple.

ASHLY

Oh my gosh, that is so cool.

DUSTY

46:41

And Mike was there at my sealing. He's been to several of my firesides. I get to point them out and say, you know, there's the guy who put my name in the temple every week for 20 years. You know who would have thought? But think about that. Think about the fact that here's a guy, he puts my name in the temple every week for 20 years, never gives up, never stops praying. Despite the fact that I was so adamant that I would never join the church. The fact that I was such a vocal anti-Mormon, he never gave up. He never ever gave up. Because of that. Think about this. I don't know how many people are going to see your podcast. But there are going to be a few, right? There's people that have seen other podcasts that I've done. The one video I did with over a million views, the Saints Unscripted YouTube video I did with Saints Unscripted, it's had 78,000 views, the over hundreds of thousands of people that saw the article online and in the hardcopy of the LDS Living Magazine. Think about how many people have been touched by the story, because he never gave up. Think about that. And think about the ripple effect of that. I've had people contact me and tell me that they got rebaptized, that they were going to leave the church but stayed because of the story, because of the firesides, because of the book, because of the magazine article– that they've come back to the church. I had one guy come to a fireside and he said, “Was a member, not a member now. Will never be a member again. Had faith, will never have faith again.” And during my fireside, I opened up to questions which I don't always do, but I did at this one, and he said “How could you have faith? How can you prove faith exists?” And I said, “I don't know. But let me ask you a question. Do you love your wife?” He said yes. I said, “How do you show her that you love her? How does she know you love her?” He says, “Well, I'm nice to her.” I said, “So everybody you're nice to, you love?” He said, “Well, no.” I said, “Well, let me ask you this. Do you believe that she loves you?” He said yes. I said, “Sounds like faith to me.” The next day, he emailed me, and he said that he had already contacted his wife's bishop and was coming back to the church. A few weeks later, I got a message, an email asking me to come speak at his baptism. 

ASHLY

Wow.

DUSTY

He is the great great grandson of Brigham Young.

ASHLY

49:23

Oh my gosh! Wow.

DUSTY

So you think about how Mike doesn't give up, and the things that it's done–the people that have heard the story, the people that have been touched by the story in the various forms I've given it. People that have come back to the church. I'm corresponding with a missionary now. He came to a fireside and he was deciding not to go on his mission. And he said that the fireside changed his complete aspect. That he went ahead and went on his mission and he and I are pen pals on his mission. He's having a great mission and he says that the fireside changed everything for him. And it's not me. It's the story. And it's the story of hope, the story of love. The story that God loves us so much that he brought me back to the church. That the Atonement works. When I met with President Uchtdorf, he asked me, “Do you have a testimony of the Atonement?” And I said, “That's a trick question.” He said, “How's that a trick question?” I said, “Because I believe in it for you. I believe in it for all y'all. Don't believe in it for me.” He said, “Why not?” I dropped my head. And I said, “Because I spent 26 years doing everything I could to hurt the church. I don't deserve the Atonement.” And he softly said my name, “Dusty.” And I looked up and he had that smile on his face, you see at General Conference, that kind of a half smile. And he said, “Your sins are forgiven. If that Atonement can work for me, it works for everybody.” And that's how much the Lord loves us. It's just that amazing love. He loves you, Ashley, as much as if you were the only person on this planet. How incredible is that? 

ASHLY

Mmhmm.

DUSTY

That all the stuff He has going on, and He loves me. And He took care of my cancer, or at least the surgery, and, He caused these miracles that happened in my life, to bring me back to the church. As busy as He is, He took his time to do that for me. And look what He did for you to bring you back! 

ASHLY

Yeah.

DUSTY

Of all the billions of people in the world, but He took you in the palm of His hand, and brought you out of something bad into eternal life. How amazing is that? 

ASHLY

Mmhmm.

DUSTY

I mean, you can't do anything that takes you out of the reach of Heavenly Father's arms, you can't do it. You can't do it. And I'll tell you a little story I always tell at my firesides. I talk about a play I was in when I was in high school called The Company of Wayward Saints. And it was a group of improvisationists who went around, and they would act out whatever scene the audience gave them. And in one of the scenes I played an old time doctor who was doing a house call to deliver a baby and I'm sitting on the front porch with the prospective father and he said, “Shouldn't you be doing something?” And my response in the play was, “When God's ready, He’ll let us know.” And He asked me in the play, “You believe in God?” And my response in the play was this, “That's a difficult question for a man of science to answer. But I will tell you this, I know that God believes in me. And no matter what you do to God, no matter what you say to God, no matter, turn your back on God, no matter. He will never ever, ever, ever stop believing in you.” And that's kind of cool. To think that the most powerful being in all creation, our loving Father believes in us whether we believe in Him or not. He believes in us. And that kind of gives you a perspective, doesn't it?

53:14

ASHLY

Mmhmm. Mmhmm. Absolutely. I love that so much. Okay, so we've got about seven minutes left. I have a couple more questions for you. I've had several people reach out to me and say, “If you have a spouse that's leaving the church or having a faith crisis, what is the best way to approach your spouse?” Or you know, maybe even a family member that's having a faith crisis, or maybe they're just out of the church, anti-Mormon–what is the best way to approach them, from your perspective?

DUSTY

54:11

Love them. Do what Mike did, never give up. Call me. I can't tell you how many people have called me over the last several years. Because I'll talk to anybody who wants to talk and I've talked to spouses before. And sometimes you can help, sometimes you can’t.  But I always believe that they're going to come back. At some point, they're going to come back and you just love them. You don't argue with them. You invite them to the functions and don't get upset if they say no, you invite them to church and don't get upset if they say no, be joyful and cheerful. Don't argue, don't fight. Pray for them, love them. And again, if it helps to talk to a third party, a neutral third party, not a bishop, who's not a bishop, not their bishop, not their stake president. I'm not saying ignore those people, but a lot of times the last thing that a spouse leaving or questioning the church wants to do is talk to the bishop, you know, because they know the answers are gonna get. And bishops typically don't have that experience of leaving the church and coming back. 

ASHLY

Mmhmm.

DUSTY

So find somebody like me who has left and come back. I'm available. You have my email. If anybody messages you and wants to contact me …

ASHLY

55:40

Yeah.

DUSTY

55:42

I have a Facebook public figure page where you can contact me. This podcast will be on there and the link to it, and all the podcasts and videos, the books, the magazine article, Elder Uchtdorf’s talk in General Conference, all linked on my on my public figure Facebook page. Not my personal page. I have two, a personal and public figure. You can do both, if you want to. I have hundreds of friends I don't know, they just friended me because they saw a fireside or something. You know?

56:19

ASHLY

Yeah, yeah. Awesome. Okay, one last question for you. You've had a lot of really incredible experiences in your life that have happened. What advice would you give to somebody who maybe doesn't feel like they've had major experiences that have anchored them to the gospel? Or maybe they struggle to feel the Spirit? Or to recognize those miracles? What advice would you give to those people?

DUSTY

56:50

I get that a lot. I get people who walk up to me and say, “I pray for one miracle in my life, and you've had so many.” And my answer is always the same. “You have them too. The difference is, I see them. I don't believe in coincidence.” And I say “Little miracles happen in your life every day.” Think back to how you met your spouse, if you're married and you're in love. How'd you meet? Was it just a chance meeting? They just happened to be someplace when you were there? Hmm. Is that coincidence? Or is that a miracle? Were they put there in your space, that moment, that day? You think about it–if you just go back 12 generations, how many hundreds of thousands of people. I mean, how many thousands of people had to do the right thing at the right time for you to be here today. They couldn't die, they couldn't get sick. Not until they had their children, to have children, to have you, at that branch goes out. It's literally thousands and thousands of people over 12 generations that had to do the right thing at the right time at the right moment, with the right person for you, you to be on this earth at this time. That's a miracle.

ASHLY

Mmhmm. Yep.

DUSTY

If you just look back at things that happen in your life and say, “Why did I do that? Why did I choose that over that?” Because you were guided by something. What was it? And if you recognize, sometimes the Lord parts the sea, but usually He just whispers. And you have to tune your spirit to hear those whispers and to recognize, and then to thank Him for those whispers. Thank Him for those miracles. Thank Him that He loved you enough to grant you that little piece of heaven for that moment, that miracle. I haven't told you half the miracles that have happened that I could point to that have happened since 2015. But again, I see them. 

ASHLY

Yeah. 

DUSTY

And anybody can and they look hard enough, but people are willing to bet, “Oh, it’s just a coincidence.” Coincidence is God's way of staying anonymous.

ASHLY

59:04

Yep. I love that. That is so beautiful. Well, Dusty, thank you so much for taking this time. I’ve had chills the whole hour here. And I'm just so so grateful that you took this time with me and I know this is going to help so many people. So thank you so much.

DUSTY

59:23

You're welcome. If anybody wants to chat with me, I still do firesides. If anybody has a question, they can contact you to get in touch with me. I'll be glad to speak with anybody through email, through telephone, whatever. I'm always available, or I'll make myself available. Because that's what we do. We help. We become that light as best we can. I've got a lot of making up to do for 26 years of hurting.

ASHLY

59:58

Love that. Well thank you so much. And I will link everything so that people can be in touch with you. I appreciate you. Thank you!