"I remember listening to the story "Seventeen Points of the True Church" and thinking that I believe this is all true. I don't need the proof. I knew the church was true and that I needed to come back. That was the beginning of my journey."
Come Back Podcast
Transcript
ASHLY
00:14
Bruce, I'm so excited to have you on the podcast. I'd love to hear a little bit about you, kind of like where you're from, and we can jump into your story.
BRUCE
00:23
I was born in Los Angeles, Downtown LA actually. But we lived in the suburbs. Not that I will know that affects anything or not. But my mother did not have any drugs for my birth. She was hypnotized. And she told me that years later. But I have two younger sisters, and she took drugs for both of those. So you know, she wants her normal birth with that, but it was something experimental in the early 50s. When I was born, I guess. We lived in Southern California for about my first eight years, till 1960. And then we moved to central Florida, which Winter Haven, Florida, lived there for four years, and then moved to West Coast of Florida where I lived much of the rest of my life up until the late 90s. I lived in Clearwater, Florida. My mother and father–both converts to the church, in their teens, both in their teens. My mother, she was always very devout once she joined the church. She stayed very faithful her entire life. My father, on the other hand, by the time I was young, had stopped coming to church basically, and doing his own thing. Became a jazz musician. Occasionally when I was young, he would come to church, you know, a couple of times a year–Easter and Christmas. But then I remember one day I asked him probably when I was about 10 years old, “Are you going to come to church with us?” It was either Easter or Christmas. He said, “No, I don't want to be one of those Mormons that just goes to Christmas and Easter.” So he chose to be one that never went at all basically. You know, good parents, though. Neither, you know, no real, I had a pretty normal upbringing. I didn't like moving from California to Florida, I had a lot of good friends. And of course, when you move, you have to start all over again. When we went to Central Florida, Winter Haven, over the four years there I made a lot of friends there. But then when we moved to Clearwater, though, I had trouble making friends. Winter Haven at the time was a very small town. So you kind of knew everybody. Clearwater is much bigger now than it was then. But still, it was a bigger, bigger place than Winter Haven. And so it took me– I had made friends with my next door neighbor, John. And he was not a member of The Church, and later made friends with a couple others but never had other than two or three close friends in Clearwater. I look back on it now, and I am convinced that I would have gotten into drugs earlier if I stayed in Winter Haven, being that crowd with the in crowd, you know, when you're 12, you don't know anything about this stuff. But I kept in touch just with a few of them for a while. And most of them by the time of high school, they were into it. I didn't really get into drugs till I was out of high school, till I graduated. I was very active. My mother took myself and my two sisters to church all the time. I believed I had a testimony. I think at that early stage, it was more–it was as much leaning on my mother's testimony as anything. Interestingly enough, whenever, if I would ever stay home from church, which was very seldom but every now and then, my dad would always you know, he wouldn't be at church and he’d come by, says, “Oh, you being a slacker today,” which really annoyed me. So it motivated me to go to church. But after I graduated from high school, I had just a couple of friends, Tom and Alan. Alan, I hadn't, would become friends with him about the time we went to high school. But our senior year, Alan's family moved to California. And Tom went to stay with him, so for our senior year, I lost my two close friends. I had friends in the church that I went to seminary for four years. My mother was my teacher for three of those four years.
ASHLY
Oh, wow.
BRUCE
And so I didn't really have that excuse that I couldn't get a ride. It was early morning seminary. And we lived back then in Florida, the church was much smaller than it is now. I think we were maybe 10 miles from the chapel, from our house. And so my mom would go and we'd pick up other students to get to early morning seminary at the church building and then we basically take us all to school afterwards. Seminary was a great influence on me, because when I honestly didn't think I was learning anything, because I didn't think I was paying much attention–I wasn't really interested in seminary. I went more because of my mom than anything else. I found out later that I really picked up a lot of things. I remembered things when it came time to come back into the church. I remembered things that I had been taught, I had learned in seminary, so I was somewhat amazed. But that's getting a little ahead of the story. So when at the end of the, well, the summer after my senior year in high school,
05:32
Alan, who had moved to California, Tom, who'd gone out there to spend the last three years, just maybe the last semester with him, Alan's parents got a divorce. And he asked if he could come live with us in our house. And my parents knew him well, because we had been friends for three or four years and done a lot of things together, he and Tom and I were–those were my close friends, basically. Well, when he came back, he brought the marijuana with him. And I was at the point where I was still kind of going to church, but not really wanting to because mostly because it just wasn't fun. And so we're out– I don't even remember the first time, but it was Tom, Alan and me, and we were out somewhere and he pulls out a joint and I smoked it with him. And so for over that summer, we got into it, you know, we’d do it a few times a week at first. I remember saying “Oh, I only do this once a week, only on weekends.” So they didn't, because I was working, of course, to earn money, and didn't want to mess up my job. But I couldn't tell you how quickly, but it went from, you know, weekends to every day, by the end of that summer. I had enrolled in what was then a junior college, which was within five miles of my home. I was really into just, you know, doing everything I could to smoke weed whenever possible. And so I was still trying to do that and go to school. And I would go to school, but I would skip. I mean, I pretty much get my car, drive towards campus, and then just not go to school as much as I could. But I knew that I had to go a certain number of days. And of course, I had to pass my courses to stay in school. So I kept track at that point, enough to stay that first semester, and the first semester of junior college was enough like my senior year of high school. And in high school I was a good student, not a great student; I never made straight A's but I made A's and B's. In fact, if I didn't even, with B’s my father would get on me about “Why didn't you make an A?” It wasn't real hard, no verbal abuse, or certainly no physical abuse or anything like that. But just enough pressure that I had to at least work some to do well enough in school. And I found that the first semester of junior college was close enough to that, that I'd have to study hardly at all. Now I got C's and D’s basically, but made it through that first semester. And so I passed and failed. But then the second semester, I again didn't study and I was basically smoking weed every day. And I would just skip school, I’d just like, I’d go to PE because I really enjoyed it. I took basketball and volleyball and the things I like to do. So I go to those classes that I'd skip everything else. Well, at the time, you could go up till six weeks before the end of the semester at junior college and drop out as if–you didn’t get your money back, but it was as if you had never gone. So my grades were so bad. I wasn't going to make Ds the second semester. And so I dropped out with about six weeks to go, just like a day or so before. And I don't remember the discussion with my parents, but I'm sure it wasn't a pleasant one. But at the same time, this was the early 70s. And the Vietnam War was still active, very active, and the draft was active. And back then the draft was a lottery based on your birth date. And they would basically take the 365 days of the year–I don't remember for absolute certainty, but I was in the top 10 of the date. So I was going to be drafted. Living in Clearwater the place you had to go to get drafted, the army to get tested, your physical and everything, was done in Miami. And so I had to get on a bus and ride from Clearwater, which is not the center of the state, that's about 200 miles north of Miami and on the opposite coast. Miami is on the east coast Clearwater is on the west coast. So I got on a bus, and rode down to Miami to go through my physical, and I passed the physical just fine. And so I decided I didn't think I wanted to be drafted in the army. So I joined the Air Force instead. I volunteered for the Air Force. That was how to get out of ending up in the army. I still have the possibility of going to Vietnam, which my mother was just, you know, she, she was mortified. She did not want me to go into Vietnam. I'm sure her prayers had a lot to do with it. So because I know that when I went into, I went and joined the Air Force, and I went to the recruiters’ office there in Clearwater and signed up, and they gave me a date out, it was sometime in early April of ‘72,1972, as I remember, because yeah, I celebrated my 20th birthday in basic training in Texas. So that was a great celebration. I was bald, because they shaved your head, you know, your head was shaved, totally saved. Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas is where the Air Force basic training was then. And you know, you get there and I had long hair, had hair down my shoulders by that time. So do several other people. And I remember they took his very first morning took us to the barber, and they sat us in the chair, and they just took that and zipped your hair right off. And I had met a few of the guys, talked to them. Before that we came out and none of us recognized each other–we did, we just looked so different, with no hair on our head.
And then you go to basic training, which, you know, oh, gosh, it's not the most pleasant, although the Air Force has got to be a lot easier than the army or the Marines, I suppose. And I don't know anything about the Navy. But they really just try and belittle you and make you, break it down. And so you'll listen to everything they say. And I remember I had a shirt that had two pockets in it. And I had kept some joints in the pocket. Now I was smart enough to have taken the joints out and throw it away. And I'm there for the first day in our barracks. And the barracks is just a big room with two rows of beds. You know, one set on each side of this long room with about 50 beds, and that's each one gets her own bed. Our tech sergeant as they're called, they're called a drill instructor, I guess the DI, he said “all right, everyone empty all your pockets out,” and I had some paper and stuff in the pocket, then, “put it right on the bed right on your bed, empty your pockets.” So I pulled stuff out and put it there. And of course some seeds and a little bit of grass fell out right on the bed. Oh, man, did I get it. Didn’t do anything, you know, they're not about to kick me out of the Air Force yet for that. But boy, my DI, he was pretty tough on me. If he'd said hi, and he said Rebeck, I thought you would be the leader. But you're just going to be in the back here for this whole thing. And then I went through and went through the school. In school, they give you tests and decide where you're going to serve in the military. And the job they gave me that I ended up getting, qualifying for, instead of five or six other of my squadron, was one that would keep us out of Vietnam. In other words, it was working with equipment that they didn't want in Vietnam. And looking back, I'm pretty sure that had a lot to do with my mother's prayers, because had I gone to Vietnam, I've, you know, met several people who did. And drugs were just, you know, water was harder to find than drugs in Vietnam. And that would have been disastrous for me. I am convinced. Nonetheless, out of basic training, we went to tech school, and that was in at Lowry Air Force Base, which was just outside of Denver, Colorado, in Aurora, Colorado. That was, I was there in the summer of ‘72. And, of course, in basic training, I wasn't able to get any drugs at all, I perhaps could have–there was one day, near the end of basic training, you could go into downtown San Antonio and I decided not to because I had heard of people getting busted there for doing things, and so I decided I'm just staying in the barracks, which I did. But when I got to Denver, it was very easy. And of course some of the other guys knew where to go exactly to buy things. And again at this point I still just on marijuana is the only thing I had tried at this point.
14:37
And we would go to a park there. I don't even remember exactly where it was. We just went to a park there and you could just look around and find the place where to buy marijuana. Well, we did. I enjoyed my first trip enormously. It just was great. The second one though, which was later, it started out good, very similar to the first one, very enjoyable to me. And then it turned. And this was what was, it was as if I could hear voices, and those voices were Satan’s angels, and they were mocking me and laughing at me. And, you know, I don't know how much of that was real, how much of it was my mind for the LSD. But all I know is the LSD is what caused it. And it was horrible. It was absolutely. And I couldn't of course stop it. Yeah, I couldn't get it to quit. And I just went and sat by myself for three hours, just didn't talk to anybody, because I wasn't sure if people were talking to me or not, it was, it was horrible. When it finally quit. It was a relief. You know, it didn't, just the trips don't end immediately, but they go from this high intensity to less, and then it eventually wears off.
ASHLY
15:54
I have to tell you, Bruce, that I've had a very similar experience to that. I had a very similar experience where I was attempting to have a great time. And, you know, mine was I was doing ecstasy with my friends. And I'm like, 15 at the time doing this, but I was–sat by myself alone in a bathroom saying my prayers for hours because I thought I was gonna die. Like, it was the worst feeling ever. And it was like, I just wanted to get out of that experience that I was like, out off the high, and I was stuck. I couldn't get out of it. And I literally prayed in the bathroom for hours just hoping that I would make it out. So.
BRUCE
16:39
Yeah, yeah, I know. You want to be able to take something that will make it go away. But it's just,
ASHLY
Oh, yeah, you're stuck.
BRUCE
You're stuck. You're stuck and it is just the grace of God that it goes away at all that I just don't didn't die. Oh, yeah, it was horrible. That being said, while I was in tech school in Denver, one of my squad mates, he was into hard drugs. And he knew where to score heroin in Downtown Denver somewhere, and I had bought a little motorcycle. I had some money, so I could get around, you know, and drive. Just bought this little motorcycle. So he asked me if I’d take him down there to do it. And I was kind of naive. And so we went. The first time we went downtown and this– I found out later that this was a restricted area for military personnel. We were not allowed to be in that part of town. I rode down there, you know, I don't have any clothes other than my uniform. And so I'm riding my little motorcycle, wearing my little airman's uniform, in Downtown someplace. I don't know exactly where it was now, I have not tried to go back, but then he shot me up with heroin. And then I got really sick. And just, it was pretty bad. You know, and that was the only time I tried heroin. It was again, a blessing from God that I got sick, because I didn't really want to get sick again, another time a little later, I took him–I agreed to take him a second time to that area a couple of weeks later, or something like that. So he could score somewhere. I just said I didn't want any this time. I think he also said he could get me some grass, so I probably, reason I took him down there. And I let him off and said, I'm gonna go in there. And you go up around the corner, just drive around the corner and come back, pick me up in 10 minutes or something like that. And so I went and drove up to the stoplight and stopped there. And I'm sitting at the stoplight on my little motorcycle, and I hear a siren, just a bleep from a police car. And I looked at my mirror and there was a cop right behind me. And he has lights on. And so he gets out, actually two of them–they get out and they come up and they start talking to me. Again, I'm dressed in my uniform. And I'm in an area that I'm sure they know, and I might have known by then that I'm not supposed to be there as a member of the military. They search me and they find marijuana on me. And they take me to jail. And they put me in jail in the holding cell. And this is one of those times it's really, gosh, I remember well, I again, I was supposed to have reported for duty at 11, that morning, I'm in jail. And in this holding cell with 10 to 20 other inmates basically. And I remember I just didn't want, I wanted to be out of that situation. I just knew my life was over. You know, I was gonna get a dishonorable discharge. And who knows what else would happen? Yeah, I also remember there's one guy in the holding facility while I was sitting by myself, I just wanted to be away from everybody. I was sitting over in one corner and a guy comes over to me, he says, “What are you in for?” I told him I said they busted for drugs. He said, “I'm in for arson.” And I just thought oh my gosh, get this guy away from me. I just didn't talk to him and went over and sat there all night. I don't I don't remember if I slept or not. I just, because I just was in dire straits, but I didn't pray. You know, I just, I wasn't praying for the Lord to get me out of there. I just thought I thought my life's over for now, that I'm never gonna get a job, be kicked out of the Air Force, whatever. Well, the next morning, they come, they call my name and they take me out. And they stay we're releasing, you know, I guess they didn't say why. They didn't give me my grass back, but they did give me a few other things, sunglasses, my wallet, stuff like that they had taken from me. And they just said, “Don't do this again.” But I hadn't learned anything.
I think I had to go pay to get my motorcycle out of impound, I think it cost $50. Back in 1972 for all the, costs a lot more now. But I rode to the park, where I store bought grass and I bought grass that day. And I had learned absolutely nothing. But I feel because I felt like I was kind of on top of the world. I had dodged this bullet. I had to go back to my … that was a Saturday. You know, I had missed Friday, but I didn't miss two days. And I went, reported, they asked me what happened. I told them, I sold some line– I had ridden to Boulder Colorado on my motorcycle, half died, or something like that. I lied to him. And they slapped me on the hand. So they're all, “If it ever happens again, call us.” Now obviously this was well before cell phones. So it's not like I had a cell phone or anything. I said “Sure. Absolutely. Sorry, never happen again.” But I got out of it and just went and finished tech school. Interestingly enough, they tell you when you go into tech school, they say they ask you, “Where are the three places you want to serve after you get into the regular military?” -no longer in training, now you're gonna go do your job. And they say one of the things they said is, “Put the three places you don't want to go because they never send you to do places that you put on that list.” So I am in Clearwater, across the bay is Tampa, and Tampa Bay–there's an Air Force base. So I put Tampa as one of my three because I didn't want to go to Tampa. But that's where they sent me right out the tech school.
22:22
They only kept me there for three months because my job that I did–they were phasing it out in the Tampa area. And so after about three months–so basically when I was in Tampa, I mean I went home every night. I never slept once on base in Tampa, because it was only 30 mile drive to my parents’ house. And I slept there and of course got back in with friends and had some other experiences with other drugs. One of the things I'm convinced that the Lord blessed me with was that the hard drugs weren’t as available to me, as accessible. Had I had them I don't think I'd be alive today. I don't think I'd be, I don't think I'd be alive 40 years ago or 50 years ago, I would have passed away and moved on because of drugs. But marijuana was just a constant. And so after three months, they shipped me out to California, Central California, Merced. There it was Castle Air Force Base. That base has been closed since then. But it was a training base for pilots for flying the large planes, the B52s, and the KC 135. And the KC 135 is the ones that refuel planes in midair. And so they would trade pilots on that. And they had what I didn't have–anything to do with flying, amazing. In the Air Force, I never once was on a military plane the entire time I was in the Air Force, because my job was working with hardware and things and so they had me in another part of the base. And of course, got back into the drugs, mainly marijuana occasionally other things but mostly just marijuana. And I was there in Castle for about a year and decided that, and we got a place–
24:10
I had two roommates in my squadron, that we decided to get a place off base, rent an apartment with the three of us. And we got a nice place that wasn't too far from the Air Force Base. And of course there you can have parties and do all kinds of things that you couldn't do on base and weren't so worried about him having emergency inspection of your locker there on base because you never knew where to keep any of the drugs when you're on base. So after approximately, I don't know eight, nine months of living off base, I decided it was a great idea to start selling because I could make profit. I'd saved enough money, I can buy a kilo of grass and sell it you know, little individual ounces bags we call it and so I did that once and I sold it, kept some for myself, sold some of it. And you know we had parties not often but I'd say once a month.
And then one day the police showed up along, well it was the military police, but with the local county police because since we lived off base, military police had sent people to our parties and knew what we were doing and they knew where to go immediately to find the marijuana, had hidden in this big canister like thing where you just lift the top off. They walked right in, opened the top and there it was down there.
25:35
And they took us to jail. And that was the second time. It was really, I can't say at least this time I wasn't by myself because my two roommates are with me. Along with one other guy who happened to be there that night with us. It wasn't a roommate. Poor guy, he luckily, but he, they released him because he wasn't one of the sellers. So basically, that was me mostly. But my two roommates got busted, because they lived with me. And so I had to call my dad. I think it was about probably two in the morning, his time. I called him to tell him I needed to be bailed out of jail. Because I was going to stay there in jail until someone bailed me out. I think it was like about $10,000 is what he had to put up for the bail. And so that was not a pleasant conversation. And he said I could be out there a little over a week from now. I spent I think 10 days in the county jail again with the other guys who’ve been busted with me. We're all in the same cell. You know, really demeaning thing, terrible food, just just not a pleasant place. You have no exercise and when you're in the county lockup like this, they don't even let you out to walk around, you just basically have a big cell with beds on one side and a bathroom on the other, and the bathroom has no doors on it whatsoever, just a toilet, basically. So everybody can see everything that's going on. When I got out this time, my dad came out to bail us out. He bailed me out and one of my roommates because his father would not bail him out. He said you can stay there. And so my dad volunteered to bail my friend out Rick too and so that we can all get out. And they took us to court, gave us a court date of I think a couple of months in advance. And you know, we're free on bail. I got permission to go back to Florida. And at this time, I think yeah, this I had I said I have two younger sisters. Like I like to say they're much younger than me. Because I'm old. They're not. But they were both students at BYU at the time. And so I flew from California, to Salt Lake. Well, I guess to Salt Lake, and then I think my sister picked me up and drove me down. And I stayed with, at her apartment for one night to just see what BYU was like. And I remember earlier, back when I was still thinking about going to college before I went into the military, I had, there was just one college that I was not going to go to and that was BYU. I just don't want anything to do with the church, BYU anything. But I spent one day there with my two sisters, and you know, some of their friends and I just kind of fell in love with the campus. I thought, “Oh, this is not bad.” And at that point, I was thinking about, you know, I need to do something different in my life. Maybe, maybe what I've been doing with drugs is not so good. It's not so much fun anymore. Now, if you smoked weed every day for a few months, the highs aren't the same, you know, you just can't get as high anymore. It's just kind of like, well, I'm just doing this because I'm doing it, and it started to mess up my lungs. I started to cough and hack a lot. And so, of course I'm facing jail time. And so I go, I spent that day or so with them and then flew back to Florida. I haven't really committed to anything yet, certainly to my parents. My mother, as I said earlier, was still very devout, goes– she's more church–she’s been a seminary teacher from my second year through my youngest sister’s last year. And she’d been a seminary teacher in Winter Haven before I was even old enough to go to seminary, so about 10 years, as well as, if you have any other callings from Relief Society president, Young Women’s president and counselors. She just was very faithful. I remember going back and I had been in this ward, it was called the Uneven ward, was what it was called. And I had, of course, been in that ward since I was 12 years old. And now I was 22 I think, 23, something like that. And so I knew most of the people in the ward, and I’d been gone for about three years because I quit going to church. And then I went off into the military for two years. And I think this was more desperation on my part. I never doubted the church, never doubted that there was god, I just kind of didn't want Him to have anything to do with me, because I was having fun. I was enjoying life. But I wasn't enjoying life anymore. And so I feel bad. It's not like all of a sudden I felt like, “Oh I need to love my Savior,” was more like “No, I need help. I want out of this. I really don't want this situation to continue.”
30:17
And so I remember I told my mom sometime during the week, I said, “I think I'll go to church with you on Sunday.” I think she probably almost fainted because I’d given her no indication I was ready to repent or do anything. Like I said, I think it was more my part out of desperation, but the Lord doesn't care. He just wants you to turn to Him and repent. And so I went with her. And my mom, as I said, she being a seminary teacher, all those years, she had two or three file cabinets full of subjects to teach lessons and to give talks and all those things. And because she'd been asked to do it many times, as well as you know, teach classes–and I remember her telling me that while we're there at church, the next, the following Sunday, she was giving a talk in sacrament meeting. And she didn't know what to talk about. And that was like, unheard of for my mom. She, of course, like she could take any topic. And I said to her, “Well, how about I give your talk?”
31:18
Again, she looked at me, she said, “Well, I think the bishop would have to approve of that.” Now, the bishop had not been bishop before I stopped going to church, but I knew him well. He was a big basketball player, and he had helped organize a city league team for our ward and I loved to play basketball. So I would always play. Even when I was not going to church, I would go to the basketball games. I was quite a rebel. But by that time, before I left to be in the military, I was playing and he was the coach on the team. But he’d been called as bishop for a year or so before I came back. I remember Ron Chapman was his counselor, and I had not met Ron–he had moved into the ward before, but he was conducting that month. So then obviously, “You gotta go tell Ron, you want to give my talk” to him. It's okay. And I still remember, Ron and I became good friends after that. Ron has since passed away. But what I said to him, “This is who I am, and I'd like to give my mom's talk next week.” His mouth just dropped open and he just, “I’ll get back to you on that.” And so he called me later that night, and he told me later he talked to Bishop Montgomery, and Bishop Montgomery had said, “Let him talk.” He said, “I trust him.” And so the next Sunday, I got up and told the congregation what I've been doing for the past three years, you know, all the drugs. I said, I remember saying, “I want to believe that this is the true church. That this is the Savior's church.” And you know what else I said? I was probably up there for five minutes, maybe whatever, but sat down after and afterwards, some good friends, I’d known, Walt and Rose Benson. Walt had been my home teaching companion all my years, from being a teacher through a priest. He'd been our home teacher for many years. You know, he was my church dad, I called him, because when there were father-son camp outs, my dad didn't go on those, but Walt would take me, and so he and his wife Rose invited me over that night. And I remember they played a recording of a man named Floyd Weston, it's called “17 Points to the True Gospel.” You can still get this on, you can find the recording on YouTube if you ever want to listen to it. It's about his journey into becoming a member he and four other three or four other friends of his that all got together one day and wrote on a chalkboard, all the things that the true church needed to have. And they had never heard of The Church of Jesus Christ at that point. Three of the four, yeah, there were four of them. And then this was during World War II time, they all went into the war. And Floyd tells his story about how he found the church. And then his other companions also found the church too, all but one who was killed in the war. He was the only one that didn't join The Church. And he found out about that later. Anyway, very interesting. Now, it was interesting, because I loved listening to that story. But I remember thinking that and listening to it. Yeah, I believe this is all true. I don't need the proof. It's nice. And I know that I can listen to his story and have the same kind of thing. But I knew that the church was true. And I knew I needed to come back. And so that was kind of the beginning of my journey.
However, a few months later, I had to fly back out to California, and stay there for a week or so to find out whether I was going to be put in jail or not. I remember fasting and praying that I wouldn't be put in jail. I just, “Heavenly Father, you know, I don't need to be in jail, this won't be good for me.” To make a longer story short, I ended up in jail. They put me in jail. I got a, I think, if I remember, I had a nine month sentence along with like, you know, the two of my friends who were busted with me, we all got a nine month sentence but they, it was a work release program where you can, if you can get a job, you get someone to hire you on the outside to you can work a job from eight to five, and then just spend nights and weekends when you weren't working in the compound. And it wasn't in the jail, it was an outdoor compound with wire fence and a least a yard with a basketball hoop, and they had a day room with a television set and you know, you could walk around as long as you stayed inside a fairly big compound. So it was much better than being in a regular jail. But you know, it was jail nonetheless. And Walt Benson, who happened to be an insurance agent, found a fellow insurance agent who happened to be bishop in one of the wards in Merced. And they took me in. I had to meet with him because they had young children, children my age too, or just a little younger, maybe teenagers. And he wanted to interview me, make sure I wasn't going to be a bad influence that they take me in their homes. They had to be there pretty much for a week to go to court a couple of times before I went to the final hearing. So they took me in and they also happen to run, for business, a lumberyard there in Merced, California. And so they offered me to be able to work there in the lumberyard while I was on this work release program, so I didn't have to actually go into lockup and spend my time there was a very good time I had committed to, you know, to the Lord, I'm gonna stick this out. Even in that facility, there were drugs available. And only once did I fall back into my old habits, but I did. And I, you know, of course, feel terrible about that. But the wonderful thing is the Lord, He accepts repentance, you know, he didn't, you know, I didn't get out early. I mean, I got out in six months, but that's timeout, if you don't mess up. For the six months, they take off a half a day for every day you spend in there. So you get out early. So we, all of us all–myself, and the other two got out in six months, instead of spending the full nine months in there.
And after that, I went back to Florida. Got a job. You know, even back in Florida, I still, the drugs were around. I had to get myself out of the culture, because I fell a few times even back there. But I never had fun again doing it, because I knew that I’d been given enough chances that, you know, because really, I could have been locked up for a lot longer than six months. And I could have been with hardened criminals. I could have been dead if I'd had more access to the hard drugs. The Lord had protected me, to some extent, given me enough to make me know that I needed to truly repent. Evil that repentance, as President Nelson says, it is a lifelong process. And the Lord loves effort. He wants us to continue that effort. And when I got back to Florida, I applied for BYU because I thought I now wanted to go there. And it was really interesting. I got a rejection notice, because going back, I had to send my transcripts from the junior college. So I had two semesters with about a 2.0 average. And so they rejected me. They just said, “No, it's not right for you now.” And so I thought, “Okay, well, I've got to come up with something else.” And about two weeks later, I got another letter saying we've reconsidered and we've, you can come, but you will be on academic probation. You must keep your grades–I forget–I think it might have been B or better or something like that. But I was just ecstatic. Well, I don't, I honestly don't know what happened. I do know that one of my sisters marched into the registration office and told them if anybody needs to be at this school, it's my brother.
ASHLY
That's so cool.
BRUCE
She said they paid no attention to her whatsoever. Now, but what’s probably interesting is my wife's roommate was dating and is now married to Neil Anderson. Now he was student body president at the time. I've talked to him about this. And he said I didn’t have anything to do with it. Because actually he moved to Florida when we were in the same ward together for a couple of years. I actually was, he was Young Men's president in our ward. And I was a problematic advisor. Basically anyway, he said, he told me, he said flat out he had nothing to do with it. But oh the Lord, whatever, the Lord took care of it–put me in there and I had no trouble keeping my grades up now because I had decided I was going to study. And, I graduated four years later.
40:28
That being said, I had other things. I got married in 1976, my first wife, and 10 years later, we were divorced. I was active in church, she had a lot of pressure from her parents. She had been raised well, she didn't really–raised Catholic, parents were Catholic, but didn't go to church. No one went to church, until she joined our church, because we were sealed in the Washington, DC temple. But her parents put a lot of pressure on her, and she, and I was not a perfect husband. And I didn't do anything other than didn't pay enough attention to her, basically. And anyway, we're still, I wouldn't say we're friends, but we share grandchildren now. And we have no trouble getting along. I mean, I enjoy being around her now. She's remarried, and I remarried. Well, I met my current life about six weeks after we were divorced. And we were married four months later. And that was all, next month it’ll be 36 years ago.
ASHLY
Wow!
BRUCE
So we’ve been married thirty six years now. Well, as Nephi says in, you know, near the end of second Nephi, he says, “Once you're in the path, is all done?” And the answer, of course, is no. There is much to do, much left to do. And, my wife and I, we just finished a mission. Warsaw, Poland 2020-22. We went there, right in the middle of COVID, which was, that's an amazing story in itself, and how we got called on that mission. But it was just, we had a wonderful mission. And now we're back in St. George, for now for at least the next year. Because we've rented a place here now. We live with our daughter at the moment, but we, just as of April 1, we're renting a place. After we get back from, we're going on a cross country trip with our little camper trailer that we had planned to do before we submitted our mission papers, so to speak, back in mid 2022, or 2020. And our stake president said, “Oh, they're not calling anybody.” And sure enough, we got a letter back saying, “Now we won't be calling anyone out on missions for at least six months.” So we bought a camper trailer. And then two weeks later, we get the email, “You have received your mission call. You're called to labor in Warsaw, Poland.”
ASHLY
42:54
Oh my gosh. Wow. That is amazing.
BRUCE
It was a wonderful, absolutely wonderful experience. Didn't really learn much Polish, but learned to love the Polish people. And most especially the young missionaries, we were the office couple. So we got to work with every one of the missionaries at very least when they came in, when they left, but also those who were in Warsaw, and apartment inspections. And it was just a wonderful time.
ASHLY
43:20
So awesome. It's interesting to see how somebody like you, who just got back from a mission with your wife, and in Poland. And it's just so interesting to see, how God can completely transform somebody's life. And it's, it's just so cool. Like, what the story that you have and where you were and where you are now. And it's pretty amazing.
43:47
BRUCE
It is. I mean, I chose not to serve a mission as a young man. I could have, I had lots of excuses. I found out later that the bishop came and asked my father and if I could serve a mission, my father said no. Not that my father really, he just, you know, my father just wanted to be contrary. It also, being the Vietnam War, there was a policy at the time that only one missionary per ward could be out at any given time. Now, we just didn't happen to have any in our ward. And the bishop did come to my house and asked me to go on a mission but I had stopped going to church by that time. And I told him no. And I have regretted that, since that– I lived in Florida from 1960 until 1998. When my job moved me up to New York and we lived in New York for almost 17 years. And I remember telling the story in the branch we were living in that you know that I just really I still hated that I chose not to go on a mission. I had that, one of the sisters in our ward come up and tell me she said she prayed about it, and that God told her to tell me He has forgiven me. And that felt, I still regret it, but she was just an angel to tell me that. While we're in New York I met– Well, when we first first moved up there I met a young man named Drew. He was 12 years old at the time I met him. He just was a stalwart kid. I knew this because I gave a talk once in his ward. And he gave a talk the same day, and he's sitting next to me. And he's told, said, the scriptures that are just beat up really, really, you could tell some read through them. And he spoke before I did. And I finished my talk by saying, you know, something in there, I said, it's really nice to meet this young man, I said, he's got, I love to see scriptures that are well used. And I said, they're probably his grandfather's hand me down or something. So, you know, after I closed my talk, I sit down, I sit next to him, and he elbows me, he holds out his book to me, and his name's engraved on it. Here's a 12 year old boy who's just he's, you know, he really is into this. Well, fast forward seven years. And I hear that he's chosen not to go on a mission. And I do a double take. I said, are we talking about the same Drew? There’s only one Drew I knew of in the stake, but just in case, and the stake president tells me yeah, he's not falling away from the church. He just doesn't think a mission is for him. You know, he's got other priorities. Well, I'm on the High Council at that time. And so you know, high counselors go and speak at the various wards and branches. And I find out very next month, I'm speaking in Drew’s branch, and I get to pick my topic. And so I, of course, pick the topic of why young men should serve a mission. And I look up every prophetic quote, every scripture, I can think of, everything about this and build my talk on this. But there was one thing I was not gonna say. And that is, I chose not to serve a mission, because Drew's gonna say, “Oh, there's brother Rebeck. He's fine. And I don't have to serve a mission either.” So comes the Sunday, I get up there and Drew’s speaking again in the ward. He's 19 now though, and he gives his talk. And so you know, I get up and give mine and I'm in the middle of reading and telling you every story I can think of reading everything I could think of about this. And I've got a couple of minutes left in the talk. And the thought comes to me just as strongly as anything. Tell everyone, you chose not to go on a mission, and that's been the worst decision you ever made in your life. And I start arguing in my head, I was still giving my talk. And it was amazing words were coming out of my mouth. But in my head, I'm going, “No, I'm not gonna say that. No, I am not.” And that honestly went on for a minute or two. And finally, it just was so strong. And I've learned to, when the Spirit talks to me, I better follow. And so I finished my talk with something like, “You know, and I just have to tell you that I had the opportunity as a young man to go on a mission. I chose not to, and I regret it to this day.” And I sat down and you know, afterwards, I asked, “Was that a good talk?” And Drew's father, Ed, he and I are good friends. And I knew him well. Later that week, Ed calls me and said, “Man, loved your talk. But Drew came to me afterwards and said, “Hey, brother Rebeck didn’t go on a mission. See, I don't need to.” I'm thinking, “Oh, I have ruined this. Why did this happen?” Well, a couple of weeks after that, I hear from the State President, that Drew’s decided to go on a mission. And I’m going, “Oh, thank goodness, the Lord saved him from me, from my bad example.” But I meet Drew, I don't know, some time after that. And he says to me, “You know, after your talk, I started thinking,I plan to stay active in the church. And I don't want to have to go around telling people all my life that I chose not to go on a mission. So,” he said, “it's not the only reason I went, because after I prayed about it, I realized I should,” but he said, “That's what got him thinking about it.” And so, you know, trust me to, lean not unto your own understanding, you know, trust the Lord, because I would have never thought that would be the reason that Drew would consider going on a mission. I was positive that was a reason not to say it. But the Lord told me there for the right reason. I had all these great logical reasons. But it was that one statement that impressed him enough to start really thinking about it.
49:34
ASHLY
Wow. Yeah, my husband, he came home early from his mission. And his episode is episode two on the podcast, but
BRUCE
49:44
Yeah, I've listened to every episode. Yes, I've heard his.
ASHLY
So he decided to, well he didn't decide, he got sent home early from his mission. And he has wished and I mean, he just, he's lived with regret. And so we look forward to the day that we get to serve a mission together and come full circle with that. So.
BRUCE
50:06
Yes, well tell him from me, that the Lord's forgiven him.
ASHLY
I will! I will.
BRUCE
That you know, good things happen even of bad choices on our part. But yeah, keep that in mind where you get a chance. Because it's been a goal of my wife and I since, you know, since well, since we got married.
ASHLY
Yeah.
BRUCE
I have wanted to go and there are all kinds of obstacles overcome, but the Lord has–there's so many miracles that happened in 2020 to get us on a mission. It just, it will happen if you just keep it in your mind, the right time. It'll happen at the right time.
ASHLY
50:44
Yep, yep. Well, Bruce, you are so awesome. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast and sharing your story. And just you are an incredible example of what somebody can become if they choose to come back to the Lord's church. And yeah, any final thoughts before we wrap up?
BRUCE
51:04
Well, first thing I want to say is that your podcast is enormously important. I mean, I don't remember exactly how I heard about it. I mean, it's either on another podcast or LDS Living, or something. I just remember when I heard it, I thought, you know, there are so many voices, so many loud voices out there that are just so negative about the church, the CES Letter, oh, gosh, other things like that. That just, we needed someplace when I heard it, I thought, I've got to, I've got to listen to this. And I listened to your first episode–you with your father, interview your father, but really about you, about your journey. And then your husband's, and then everyone else through I think the most recent one is Maddie, I believe. And there are just so many, so many wonderful stories of people who’ve gone through so many diverse things that would drive you away from the church, and did in many cases. And yet, they all have the same reason to come back, they learn that the Lord loves them, and wants them back,
ASHLY
Mmhmm.
BRUCE
and wants them back. And it is. I mean, those voices out there. I mean, I guess one thing I would say, you know, I had actually never heard of the CES Letter until I listened to one of your on your podcast, one of the first ones were you mentioned, your–
ASHLY
52:30
My biggest fear is that by bringing it up, but like, yeah, I have a fear of bringing it up, and then having people be exposed to it, because we're talking about it. But also, I think it's better to have it be talked about with the lens of faith, than it is to encounter it somewhere else. And
BRUCE
52:49
Yeah, you have to. I’m glad, I mean, I haven't read the whole thing. I decided, at first I said, “I'm not gonna read it,” because I'd had an experience, oh, probably a year or two after Carol, my wife and I were married, were still in Florida. And we went to the state fair. Love going to the state fair, mostly to eat the food. But we were just walking around, and I was on a spiritual high. And I went into a booth where they had Christian literature, you know? Just looking at the books, and one of the ladies comes up to me and said, “Oh, are you Christian?” “Yes.” And, “What church do you belong to?” So I said, “To the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” She had this puzzled look on her face. And she walked away. She came back a few minutes later and said, “Do you say you're a Mormon?” I said, “No, I said I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but also known as the Mormons.” And she said, "Here read this,” and gave me a pamphlet. And I just stuck it in my pocket. I think just stuck it in my pocket and didn't look at until we got home. And I don't remember exactly what it was about, other than it was about Joseph Smith. It probably had something about polygamy and may have had other things. You know, I don't remember. I just remember how dark I felt when I read the thing. I just didn't feel good at all. It took me a couple of weeks to get over it. It's not like I was saying, “Oh, I'm gonna quit going to church,” it was like, I just don't want to feel like this anymore. And I couldn't answer some of the questions that were in that pamphlet. At the time I've since, you know, I've learned a lot more over the past 30-some years. But the CES Letter is just like that. It's just longer than this pamphlet. But I tell you, I have to tell you that, when I looked at it, this is what I think of: anyone who's had teenagers and preteens too, with kids. When you tell them they can't do something, or they can't have something, they will say “Why?” And they don't, they're not asking why for you to explain why they can't have something. They're saying why? Because they want to argue with you and change your opinion. Well, that's what the CES Letter looks like to me. It's just someone who wants for whatever reason, they've got their opinion, that's fine. But they want me now to believe any of those things, and it's just, I mean, as I said, I read it and what I think is such a dark feeling as I was reading through it, I just I got this feeling, this poor guy who wrote this thing. If he's sincere, it’s sad. If he's not sincere, then it's just that sad too.
ASHLY
55:12
Yeah, for sure. I think that It's been really cool to hear the people who have had the experience of reading it, and then coming back, they had the questions and then theY came back after a faith crisis of reading that, and then their experience of coming back. And it's been, I think, really good because I know multiple people that that was something that completely just challenged their faith, and they left over it. And so, you know, I still have not read it. And I don't have any desire to because I already know everything that it says, because I've heard from people on the podcast and other people. And the reason that I don't read it is for that exact reason of just that, the darkness that, you know, accompanies it. And I think that it's been so interesting to hear all of the just all the conversation surrounding people who have, you know, really dug into it, and then come up with their response to it. And, and I'm grateful for all of the people that do all of this work to bring light to, you know, why it's so, you know, ridiculous.
BRUCE
56:28
Well, I can't remember who it was, one of your guests said he's halfway through answering all the questions. And God bless him for that.
ASHLY
Bridger. Bridger, yep.
BRUCE
Yeah. Because he, you know, he has the personality and, this is a challenge to him, you know?
ASHLY
Yep.
BRUCE
And I think that's great. I think it was marvelous.
ASHLY
56:48
I do, too. He's awesome. Yeah, he has a whole response that he's putting together which I think is awesome.
BRUCE
Yeah, me too.
ASHLY
Well Bruce, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. You are so awesome. And I just appreciate your sweet testimony so much. So thank you.
BRUCE
57:06
Thank you, Ashley. I truly appreciate it and you are truly doing the Lord's work. Thank you very much.
ASHLY
Thank you.
