"I was at a friend's house and on my way to a church activity and I had my scriptures. My friend asked me "What are those?" And I said it's my Bible, Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price, and Doctrine and Covenants. These are our sacred books in my faith. And he goes "What's the Book of Mormon?" I started to describe what we believe about the Book of Mormon. I specifically said, we believe that some ancient Israelites left Israel and migrated to the Americas. As I was talking with him about this, I got my witness and felt like my whole body was on fire."
Come Back Podcast
Transcript
00:00
Ashly
Dan, I'm so excited to have you on the podcast. Yeah, like I mentioned, I found you on Faith Is Not Blind. And I know that you have done work surrounding overcoming faith crisis based on your own experience. And so, Faith Is Not Blind is like my favorite book. It is so good at illustrating, you know, how we can take hard questions and use that experience to gain a more mature testimony. And I love that. So, without further ado, I would love to hear your story.
00:36
Dan
Okay, my story. Well, my story has evolved a little bit, as, as I've kind of learned more about how life works. okay? It might be a little bit different in some respects, then then I've told it before, because I just kind of like see some things a little bit differently than I used to. But, you know, I, I grew up in Southern California. I grew up in the church, had a couple of experiences during my teenage years that really kind of showed me some realities about the gospel. To begin with, I had a testimony. I received a witness of Christ when I was like 13,14 years old. And later on, like, in seminary, we read the Book of Mormon, I think, my junior year in high school. And I just remember going to seminary. I actually, that year, we went to seminary at a Jewish synagogue in our area. We traded buildings with some with a Jewish community in our area. Our building went under renovation and they let us use their building. Their building went under renovation, and we let them use our building. So, I attended that year of seminary in a Jewish synagogue, it was really cool. Yeah, I just felt something happen during that year, reading the Book of Mormon, every day for seminary. By far, my best year, school wise, and I just felt happier. Every single day, I felt, like, more positive. And, it was just different. Doing the Book of Mormon every day, right? I, at the end of that seminary year, I decided to try the Moroni 10: 3-5 promise and I prayed for a witness that the Book of Mormon was true. Nothing happened. Like I really prayed. Said, “Give me this witness.” Absolute radio silence. Nothing. And I, I said, Okay, you know, I, but I've felt that it's true, but I still want like that thing that they call the witness, right? And so, I just kind of put that on the back burner. And, the following year. So, on the last day of my junior year of high school, I came home after school and I was about to go to a party to celebrate the end of the school year. Went into my house and my family was gathered around. And they said, “Dan, you need to sit down and hear something that we're going to, that we have to tell you.” And they told me that my mom had just been diagnosed with cancer. So, my senior year of high school, you know, everybody's kind of partying having all this fun celebrating, like, this is our last year of high school and stuff. You know, I'm going to school with just, you know, my mom is wasting away from cancer and just a very different school experience than everyone around me, right? But during that time, we had a couple of very powerful sacred experiences around that. That also, you know, kind of deepened my testimony of the gospel. And after high school, I was in a situation once where I was, I was at a friend's house, and I was on my way to a church activity and I had my scriptures. And my friend asked me, he's like, “What's that you're holding?” I said, “It's my scriptures.” And I told him, “You know, Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price. These are kind of our sacred books in my faith.” And he's like, “What's the Book of Mormon?” And when I started to describe what we believe about the Book of Mormon, I very specifically said, “Well, we believe that some ancient Israelites left Israel. They migrated to the, to the Americas.” Right? And as I was talking with him about this, I got my witness. Like, I just felt like my whole body was on fire. I was like, “Whoa. Okay. This is what these people have been talking about.” But there was a message there like, “Dan, you know, like, get out in the world, and talk and, and try to bless other people. And then you'll feel the fire. Then you'll feel these, these things happen.” So, I had some reasons to have some gospel conviction when I left on my mission, I still kind of struggled, to some extent with the decision to serve a mission, just because I've always had kind of a rebellious soul. I've never been one of those people who like the gospel just comes super easy all the time. You know? I've always kind of struggled. I've always kind of been jealous of people who, you know, everything's super straightforward for them. Right? I prayed several times, like, “Lord, I know you want young men of the church to serve a mission. But you know how I am? Are you serious? Like, so this background that I use for my presentations, I, this is the, the audio, podcast listeners can't see it. But this is a mountain in Southern California that I used to hike up to say these prayers, right? It's kind of a sacred place for me. It's, it's something I use. But I had a good mission. It was really tough, really hard. And, but I had, you know, I saw miracles. I served in Brazil. I saw just, you know, not every day, most of the time it was just struggling through mission life, but there were a few times where I just legitimately saw, like, New Testament power of God miracles. And so came home from my mission, went to BYU. And started getting some exposure to the complexity. Like we talked about in The Hafen’s Model, right? I started putting things on a shelf. You know, difficult gospel questions and brain teasers and stuff. But you know, towards the end of my 20s, and into my 30s, I just had some struggles with career, with dating, and a lot of things. And I kind of turned sort of negative, you know, in my, just my basic, I don't know, my attitude toward the church, toward the gospel. I just became negative and cynical. I don't know if you've given much thought to, you know, what it means to be cynical, right? But among church members, well among not just members of the church, but cynicism is where you just take a negative view of everything and you're trying to, you're trying to protect yourself from being, being disappointed, right? If I take the most negative view of everything then nothing can disappoint because I'm viewing it in a negative way. And it's something that we do, it's a mechanism that we do to kind of comfort ourselves and protect ourselves from disappointment and hurt. And I just really adopted that in my 30s in particular. Even after I got married, that was kind of unique. Like I met my wife and then I took off and went to work in Baghdad, Iraq during the war, right? Yeah, so our first year being married, we were not together. Except, you know, a few times that I came home on, kind of vacation. And that was an interesting time, because I was in kind of that cynical way of being toward the gospel. But at the same time,
09:22
Dan
I knew that where I was going to be, I was going to be among a lot of, kind of, you know, in it when you work in the defense industry and military environments, there are some rowdy characters who don't behave very well. And I kind of knew, you know, that there would be a lot of bad influences where I was going to go. And so, I decided during that year that I was going to fast every week. And I said, you know, “I'm going to fast every week just so that I can make it through this with my faith intact. and not, like fall into bad habits and, and whatever, whatever might be going on there.” Right? And that was a really important decision that, like, came back to be a huge blessing to me later on. I've heard a couple of stories on the Come Back Podcast where a couple of people that you've interviewed have talked about fasting weekly. And both times I've heard you know, the times, I've heard that I've just wanted to scream so happy. Like, it was such a blessing to me. And so, to hear that other people have tried that, too, and they've been impacted by it. So anyway, I came home from Baghdad, and not very long after that, like I had a really severe back injury. And I started taking opioids. And, like, I don't know, I, I just went to a really dark place a lot of the time, when I was in constant pain, and medicating and just, it was bad. I lost, really kind of, all enthusiasm for the gospel. My convictions were kind of a distant memory. You know, they're just in the rearview mirror. And as I was approaching, like, the age of 39, 40, I was teaching gospel doctrine, and there was, there was coming up a year where we were going to study the Old Testament. And I realized that I didn't really understand the Old Testament. Very few church members do understand the Old Testament. And I decided to start studying Bible scholarship about the Old Testament. And I have a very distinct impression that I still remember to this day. I had an impression, and it just felt like a communication from God, “You need to involve me in the process.” Okay. And I ignored it. I just disregarded it. And I just charged in and said, “I'm just going to read whatever.” And I did. And I read a lot of Bible scholarship written by brilliant, brilliant scholars who don't believe in God. Don't believe in our faith, obviously.
Ashly
Yeah.
And said a lot of really difficult and challenging things. Oh, my gosh, I mean, just like really kind of wrecked my faith, right? You know, if these brilliant, intelligent world class Bible scholars believe these things that contradict my understanding of Scripture. I don't know what to believe about anything. You know, and I still remember turning to my wife one night and just being like, “I don't believe in the Bible. Like, what do I do with that?” Because our whole faith, I mean, the Book of Mormon arises from, you know, the story of the Bible. Right?
13:24
Ashly
That was, what was her reaction?
13:28
Dan
She said, she was stunned. And she said, “Maybe you should ask for a priesthood blessing.” And I was like,” No, I just don't even want to.” That might have actually been a good idea for me to do, but I just didn't want to I was just so like, “No, I'm tired. I'm, I'm, I'm just burned out on like…” You know, so it was just like this crash. And, you know, looking back on it, at the time, I was like,” Oh, I'm, I've kind of lost my faith. And I don't know where to go from here.” Right? But now that I look back on it, I can see so many other factors, right? Just coming out of like, that dark period of my injury and taking all those pills all the time. And just, like there's so much that contributed to that. Right? Not just reading stuff. And, and sometimes you can only see all those other things with some time under your belt and you can look back and say, “Okay.” And you hear stories of other people who have gone through those things, and you can see, “Okay, you know, we had some similar factors that kind of steered us in this direction.” Right? I just came to a decision point and it was a hard decision point. And I said, “I can't keep going like this.” And I, I, I've known people who have left the church, I've known a lot of people have left the church. And I had never, ever considered that possibility before. Like, seriously considered, but at this point, it was like, “That is a real possibility. I can't keep going like this, and like, pretend forever.” You know, and go to church and just pretend that like, I still believe and everything's normal. I said, “Okay, I'm gonna do an ultimatum. And I'm going to, I'm going to actually, I'm going to fight. That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to fight. I'm going to start fasting every week.” Like I did in Baghdad, right? “I'm going to pray fanatically, even if I don't like really feel the conviction, I'm going to pray anyway. I'm going to read my scriptures. I'm going to read the Book of Mormon every day. Even if I don't even know how to think about the Book of Mormon anymore. I'm gonna do it. I'm just going to, and I'm gonna do this.” This was like, summertime-ish. And I said, “I'm going to do this till the end of the year. And we're going to see where I'm at, at the end of the year. And if nothing changes, there is that possibility that I'll be like, “Okay, I can't, I can't do this anymore.” But if something happens, which I don't know what it would be right? Then maybe I'll just keep going and see what happens.” Right.? And so, I did that. And I don't know, I didn't have like, a lot of really powerful experiences at first. But there was one pivotal experience that I still remember to this day. And I've, I've told it in several other places. There was a lady in my ward, who just a quiet lady from a foreign country, and convert to the church. And she got up and told her life story in sacrament meeting. And it was a life story that involved like, really, really difficult relationships with her parents and her stepmom, and resentment and anger issues all throughout her life over that. And but she joined the church, as I guess, a teenager, maybe adolescent or teenager. But she said there came a pivotal time where she was like, “Okay, do I do my temple work? Do I do the temple work for these people who mistreated me? These family members who mistreated me, who have led me to have all these, you know, deep anger issues throughout my life?” And she decided to just kind of take that leap of faith, and maybe, “I'll just go do their temple work.” And she didn't share the specifics of it. But she said, when she went to the temple, something happened. And just changed everything. And she said, she came away from there felt like a, like a whole different perspective about those people, about her whole family, you know, and whole different perspective about life. She's like, “You know, I had this temper problem all throughout my whole life. And I don't even know how to like, be mad well, anymore. Like, I'm bad at being mad now after that experience.” But she didn't get specific, but something really sacred and powerful happened. When she did that. And just listening to her witness testimony. I was like, “I want that.” Like, I don't I don't know how to think about scripture. I don't know how to think about so many things in the gospel right now. But that was awesome. And I want that, like, whatever that was that I just heard, that's what I want. That’s something I want.” And so, it was a spark for me, right? And I took some leaps of faith, like I went out with the missionaries and had, just like this, crazy cool experience one time. And then, did my home teaching. Just had a powerful experience there. And I was like, “Wait a minute, you know, I am feeling things that I used to feel. I'm, I don't have these answers yet, but I'm starting to feel things that I used to feel.” And in my fasting, I started involving my daughters. So, my daughters were five and three at the time. My girls. One time we were driving home from church and we were just talking about, “Okay, what's going to happen when we when we get home?” And I said, “Well, I'm going to change my clothes and break my fast.” And one of my daughters said, “Can I help?” And I was like, why not? “Yeah, I guess you can help.” And my other daughter said, “I want to help, too.” And I'm like, “Okay.” So, when I knelt down to say my prayer to break my weekly fast, both of my daughter's knelt down with me. And it was a raw prayer. You know, like, “I'm struggling with my faith. Help me to get, you know, little, little more solid ground under my feet.” And, and it just occurred to me, like the value of my daughters seeing that. Right? Seeing that, if you're having a hard time, this is something you can do. You can fast. Right? And, so I'm starting to have these little experiences and, and they start, you know, coming together, and I'm definitely turning a corner, right? There came a point where we got some, and I stopped fasting every week at this point. I was like, “Hey, I feel like I'm, you know, I'm doing okay, enough now where I don't need to be fasting every week. But, you know, I'll probably fast more than usual more than once a month, but not necessarily every week.” But there came a point where I was starting to feel pretty good. And then we got a phone call that one of my siblings and her family, they had a really awful family tragedy. And I was like, “Wow, you know, we're going to a funeral soon.” And, like the shock of it, like all the lights went out for me. All the lights were just completely out. I was like, “I was doing so well, you know, and then all of a sudden, this. And I just feel nothing. I don't, I don't want to pray. I don't, I like I just feel nothing.” And that Sunday, I decided to fast again. And at the end of my fast, my daughter volunteered to help. Help break my fast. And I was like, “I can't pray. I just don't feel it. So, I'm going to have my daughter pray for me.” And she prayed. And I said, “Just tell the Lord that your dad needs help with his faith right now. He needs help with his testimony.” So, she said that prayer, and she asked the Lord to help me with my faith and testimony. And that night we went to stake choir practice. And after stake choir practice, I walk out into the parking lot of the church and sister missionaries come up to me and they're like, “Brother Ellsworth. Thank you so much for what you did this week. You answered our prayer.” I was like, “What are you talking about?” So, there was this situation where like, I was driving by a gas station.
23:29
Dan
and I wanted some Diet Coke. And I'm like, I'm just gonna go stock up on diet coke at the gas station. And then I see the sister missionaries there. And I'm like, “Okay, if I come out with a big old stash of Diet Coke, are these sister missionaries going to judge me? Like, I don't care. I'm going to get my diet coke.” So, I pull up and these sister missionaries are there and they're talking with a group of guys. And I go up and I'm like, “Hey, sisters. How you doing?” And these guys like scatter. And I didn't think anything of it. And I just talked with the sisters, went and got my diet coke, and came out. Well, what had happened was they had contacted some guys who were in their area book. And they didn't know that a couple of these guys had just gotten out of prison and they were very violent. And like, after and but they wanted to meet them. And they said, you know, “Why don't we meet at this gas station and just kind of introduce ourselves?” And so, but they knew shortly after that they were in danger. And they were praying for help. And right then I showed up.
Ashly
Wow.
Dan
Yeah. And so, these guys scattered, took off. And they were like, “Wow, that was awesome.” Right? But I didn't, I had no idea that they were in danger or anything that they were praying for help. But when they said that to me, when they told me that in the parking a lot, that was an answer for me to my daughter's prayer, breaking my fast, right? That her dad would have this little spark of faith and testimony. I was like, “You know, like, that's pretty cool. I think I'm gonna be okay.” I still don't have all my answers. But at this time, I was reading and studying voraciously, like digging into so much biblical scholarship and really wrestling through a lot of things. But, you know, I started just having these insights come to me, and I'm like, “Wow, you know, this is revelation. This is like here and there, just these insights coming to me.” And we were driving home from church one day, and, or maybe we're this, we're driving to church. I was driving my daughters, my, my wife was on a church assignment. And I'm driving along with my daughters. And I said, “Hey, girls, what do you think about Revelation? Do you think God can talk to you? Because I think that's what's happening with me now. It used to happen, like on my mission more regularly. But there was a time when it didn't but, but I think it's happening now.” And my youngest daughter, she was either, I don't know if she was still three, or maybe she had turned four by then. But she said, “Dad, sometimes I lay in bed and I ask Heavenly Father questions. And then I sit and wait and he makes words happen on my heart.” Yeah.
26:36
Ashly
Oh, my gosh, that is amazing.
26:40
Dan
Yeah. So, I was like, “Wow, you know, this is so cool.” Like, I'm kind of sharing this experience with my daughters of learning revelation again, you know? And just such a cool experience, you know? And so, I'm actually starting to feel good in the Gospel again. I'm still having some difficult experiences here and there, you know? But receiving revelation, like there was this one time I, I just became aware of a disappointing thing that a church leader did. You know? Which is something, if you live long enough, guess what, you're gonna find out something that's kind of disappoint you that a church leader. And I was angry, I was angry, angry, angry, and I prayed about it. And I just had a one-word revelation come into my mind and the word was grieve. Grieve. And I was like, wait a minute, “I don't have to be angry; you know, I can grieve.” And that's a different process. And that's a process of growth. And like, that's just different. And I think that's what God wants me to do in response to these things, you know, not be in denial, but also not be consumed with anger. I can grieve difficult things as they happen, right? Or as I find them out. But there were other experiences, you know, where I just, I had these insights and, and things that pointed me to more and more confidence where I was like, “Okay, I can work through these questions as they come.” There were a couple of times where I had really difficult questions, and just received very direct answers to prayers about them. A couple of times, I would pray over things and like months later, something would happen, that would be like, “Okay, now I have an answer for that.” So, it was a long process. It was a couple of years. And, you know, there was this shift of having mostly bad days in what we call faith crisis, to now having mostly good days. And then like, almost all good days, right? But there came a point where, you know, I still I still kind of viewed myself as different and you know, I'm kind of in a different place mentally, and, and emotionally then people at church around me, for example, you know, that's when you go through something like this, you feel you might even feel like an investigator at church when you're 40 years old. I still kind of felt that way. Like I'm different. I'm weird, because I have all these questions that other people don't have and it was awkward. But then I had an experience and I've told in in a couple of other places where I went home to Southern California. On a trip. And there's a place near Los Angeles where they have a big boardwalk that goes out into the ocean, and they have like carnival rides, and restaurants and stuff. And it's a place I used to go when I was a teenager and young adult. And I decided to go visit there. And it was at night, and I go walking on this boardwalk. And there's lots of stuff happening. There are street performers, and you know, just lots of stuff happening. And I'm taking pictures as I go along. And I walk past a bench and there's a woman sitting on the bench kind of hunched over and mumbling to herself. Now in Los Angeles, when people are mumbling to themselves, it often means that they're, they've got some really severe mental illness. You kind of, you know, avoid eye contact, walk by them, avoid them. Because, you know, otherwise, sometimes these really bad situations happen, right? So, I was kind of nervous. I walked by her. She's sitting there mumbling to herself, and she's holding in her lap, a spiral notebook. And I walked by her and I had this impression, “You need to go talk to her.” And I'm like, “What? No, come on. This, this can't be, this can't be a prompting. Cuz she's crazy, right?” But I said, “Wait a minute, what if it is a prompting now?” I'm, I said, “I'm gonna walk by her again, and see if this same feeling happens again.” I walked by her again. And, you know, I look and she's mumbling to herself. I walked by, and boom, it happened again. “You need to talk to her.” Like, “Oh, this is gonna be so weird. I don't know what's going to happen.” So, I start walking by her again. Again, there's just prompting, “You need to talk to her.” So, I just walk up and I'm like, “Ma'am, are you okay?” You know, not knowing what does is, “Ma'am, are you okay?” And she had this spiral notebook. And she had written on this page that she was hungry. And I'm like, “Oh, yeah, let's fix that.” So, I took her to a restaurant. And, you know, I'm like, “Get this lady, whatever she wants. She's hungry.”. I sat down with her and we're talking and she had just had some difficult life situation that had left her kind of, you know, hungry, on the streets. And on the boardwalk that night, she had written that note, and she had held it up as a sign hoping that somebody would stop and help her out, but nobody was. So, she put it in her lap. This is the part where I always get emotional. She put it in our lap and decided to pray for an angel. And that was when I stopped. And so, you know, I'm like, “Whoa! Like, I'm not weird. Like, God is talking to me. I, I can go to church. And yeah, maybe I have some different questions and other people. But I'm receiving revelation, you know, God is pointing me to good things. He's pointing me to good opportunities to help people and I'm good. I can do this. Right. I can work through this.” And that was the point where I said, “Yeah, that was a really hard couple of years, for me at least, right? But I'm not there anymore. I'm good, I'm gonna be fine.” And around that time was when I, I just started feeling I needed to start helping other people if I could. And so, you know, I joined some online groups and, and just started, you know, doing some podcasts and reaching out and, and taking special assignments at church for people who are struggling in their faith, you know, to minister to them. And that's what I've been doing for the past few years. I started a YouTube channel to kind of talk through some ways of thinking, I don't do like direct apologetics where like, “Okay, here's this Book of Mormon question. And here's my answer to it.” I don't do that kind of thing. I'm a lot more interested in helping people learn to understand what's going on inside of them. As they're asking questions, as they're working through things, right? And that's why I love the The Hafen Model of simplicity, complexity, and then that simplicity beyond complexity. Because I want to help people to understand like, when you're in the thick of complexity, and you've never been exposed to it before, that's a developmental thing. And there's no shame in development. You're developing as a human being, right? There's no shame in having that frustrating experience of developing.
35:29
Ashly
We don't really talk about that a whole lot, like we don't. When I read Faith Is Not Blind, and when they talk about the complexity phase, it's like, in the church, we don't really talk about like, you know, “If you experience really hard questions, and it shakes your faith, like, this is normal. And actually, it's part of the process of developing strength and faith.” Like we, we just don't really. It's not common knowledge. And so, people feel blindsided by that complexity phase. But right now, if you're reading Faith Is Not Blind, you know, that, you know, this is just part of part of your process and part of, you know, part of your faith and part of your faith journey. And I think that, what a gift to be able to know that and to be able to talk about it, and, you know, and help other people through that complexity. And..
36:27
Dan
Yeah, well, I think about like, Okay, if I could go back and talk to the me of, you know, 2015, or 16, I guess, was the timeframe when I just like, hit rock bottom right? I wish I could go back and talk to him and say, “Hey, don't panic. You're normal. Like, this is normal. A lot of really great people have gone through difficult things. This doesn't mean you're, there's something wrong with you. This is normal. You're gonna be okay.” I wish I could tell that me, of a few years ago, all those kinds of things. And I don't know, it's I, just being able to make that transition to view it in developmental terms. This is a normal human experience. You're not like, you know, you're not cursed. You're not, you know, you're not destined for unhappiness in the church the rest of your life. You can work through things and it's gonna be a workout. Don't get me wrong. It is hard sometimes to work through tough questions. But man, I mean, when you develop and your perspective expands and your ability to, like, think through things when that expands over time. It's pretty great. You like, look back and like, “Wow, you know, I feel different, I think different. I, I'm stronger. I'm, I'm more resilient, I'm more flexible. I don't shatter when something difficult happens.” Right?
38:13
Ashly
I think it's interesting, because when I, prior to doing the podcast, like, things like the CES Letter scared me. Like, I would think, “What could be in that that is so earth shattering for people?” And it scared me. And I just stayed away from it. And then like, anytime people online would get, you know, feisty and spicy and want to, you know, get into it, I would be very just, “Oh my gosh, like, I don't want to see anything they're saying. What could they possibly be saying?” And after doing this podcast, and like hearing pretty much like, I mean, now I've seen it all, because I, people, you know, are very excited about coming and letting us know their thoughts about what we're doing. So, you know,
Dan
Yeah.
Ashly
At this point. But the thing that I'm realizing is that, it has pretty much zero effect on my testimony at all. Because, first of all, by their fruits, you will know them. And the feeling that I have when I'm participating in Gospel related activities.
Dan
Yeah.
Ashly
Versus the feeling I have when I'm listening to people giving me their, you know, facts, or whatever online. There's a sense of contention that follows that and it's like, a lot of things I'm realizing that they say are just so totally off base, and I'm like, “Wait, you have no idea what you're talking about right now.” You know? But I used to just be so just afraid and sensitive to everything. But I realize now that like, my testimony is something that's, you know, I've, I've seen things like I've, I've had questions that I have personally sought answers and receive personal revelation about and so, some person on the internet is not and I really shake, you know, if they have something to say about polygamy or whatever it's like,
Dan
Yeah.
Ashly
That doesn't affect me, because I've already been through my own question and answering process. And I've turned to the Lord to find answers to those questions and those questions are, they've been resolved in my heart. So..
40:39
Dan
Yeah, I so I, when it comes to things like CES Letter, and, and those kinds of materials, I feel so lucky. I took three philosophy classes in college. And where you're actually like, forced to confront how people reason through things and assumptions that they make and like, your, your you, it teaches you to challenge your own thinking and a lot of ways and there's one class I took called deductive logic, where you actually like, look at a paragraph from a book. And you break down the different sentences and parts of sentences, and you assign them mathematical symbols. And so, it looks like this big math equation. And you analyze whether the thing that they're saying is, like, does it check out with, does the math checkout? I was my favorite class in college was deductive logic. So, I've, I've had coming out of that, I've had the ability to look critically at things that people say. And oh, my goodness. Like looking at the CES Letter, for example. It was just, I felt embarrassed. And I felt sad. I was like, I wish that people could go and take the philosophy classes that I took, so that they could see this document the way I see it, like, “Man, if you're going to, if you're going to attack my faith, you had better to so much better than this.” Oh, my goodness! I, so I took, there was a book that I was terrified to read. Terrified. When I started, like actually seeing light at the end of the tunnel in my faith crisis. There was one particular book of biblical scholarship that I had heard about, and I knew that the, the scholar who wrote it was 1000 times smarter than me. And just, you know, one of the top biblical scholars in the entire world. And I'm terrified to read it. And my family, we were up in New York City, and we're wandering around, and we come near the New York City Public Library. And I just have this feeling like, “Go in and see if that book is in there.” And I'm like, “No, no, no, no, no.” But the feeling comes back, like, “Come on, you know, you want to open that book.” “No, I don't. I'm gonna get slaughtered if I open this book. It's gonna destroy me. And I think I'm doing a little better. I don't want to, you know, wreck all my progress.” But no, like the curiosity won out, and I don't know if it was a prompting or not, but I, I just kind of wandered into the New York City Public Library. I saw they had a biblical Jewish section with a lot of Biblical stuff. Wandered into there and just walked to the opposite side of the room and right in front of me was that terrifying book. And I'm like, “Oh, do I even want to touch it?” You know? “Yeah, I do.” So, I grabbed the book. I opened it up. And I'm like, “Okay. Maybe God wants me to read this. I don't know if this is a prompting or not.” But I'm thumbing through it and I'm like, “I don't know, maybe I can learn to make sense of this stuff. Maybe I can.” So, we come home and I actually checked it out from the Library at the University of Virginia near where we live. And I sat down by my pool and I got little sticky tabs. And I said, “Okay, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to look at every place where this scholar makes a claim about something and I'm going to highlight that one color. And if it’s a claim that's like, supported with, like objective evidence, I'm gonna highlight it one color. If it's a claim where he's just making a judgment call, and saying, “Here's what I think.” I'm gonna do that a different color. And I'm gonna identify if he's, you know, how much of what he's doing is really factual versus kind of his take on things and stuff.” And I went through that exercise, and I was like, “Oh, this isn't that scary. This isn't that bad. I can actually, like, pick apart some of this thinking and, like some of it, yeah, I don't know how to process but a lot, man, this is actually a lot more doable than I thought.” So, I started checking out more books and more books. Like stacks of books. And I'm bringing my daughters with me to the library to check out books. Again, I want them to see, “You can fight. If you're struggling, you can fight. You can do these things.” Right? And I'm just going through this process book after book after book, you know, crushing these Diet Cokes while I'm studying this stuff. And over time, you know, and it was really expensive. I bought a lot of books too. But over time, it was like, “This is not scary. This is actually really, like, I can make sense of it. I can, I can see why people take the positions they do. But I can see why other people take different positions. I can see choices that I can make about how to process this stuff.” So, after a while, it was like, “You know, I'm not bothered at all.” And that's where I am today. Like, no, I don't have every question answered. But, man, there's nothing about that whole field that even troubles me at all anymore. And that, I mean, I was shattered by this stuff years ago. Shattered by it.
Ashly
Yeah,
Dan
Now I'm like, whatever, I can, like, “Throw whatever you've got, that does not worry me at all.”
47:13
Ashly
Um, it's interesting, because we had somebody on our Instagram page that's, you know, very loud ex-Mormon and posted something about our podcast or whatever. And so, I just was kind of snooping around to see, you know, what they had said, or whatever. And I saw that there was a post about how about the way that you feel after you leave the church. And all of these people were commenting about their existential crisis is that they were having like, all of a sudden, it hits them, and they're like, “What am I doing here on this earth? Where do I go when I die? What's the reason for all of this?” And they're kind of like coaching each other through this, like, “It's okay, that's happened to me.” And, and I thought, “What a place to be. To not have any sense of where we go, when we die, or what the purpose of this life is.” Like…
Dan
Oh my word.
Ashly
When you were talking about the feeling that you felt, you know, when you were going through this and your shelf crashed. That's the sense you said it was just this dark time. And, you know, I imagine that, you know, a lot I've, there's people that are very happy after they leave the church. And that's, you know, that is there. Where everyone's on their own faith journey. And sometimes, that's what you are. And we respect anyone's faith journey. And I want to make that…
48:49
Dan
I don't have to place any judgment about where anybody is. I don't have to do that.
48:56
Ashly
Exactly. Um, but I will say that feeling that way, it has got to be very challenging to live your life wondering, “Where do I go when I die? And why am I here? And what's the purpose and even, you know, all these things.” And so anyway. And then my second thing I wanted to ask you was, what advice would you give to somebody that's recently encountered the CES Letter and their testimony is shaken by it?
49:29
Dan
Okay. There are a lot of good resources that address the CES Letter. But before you dive into those, take a deep breath. And here's what I would like you to know. Whoever you are. Okay? There are ways of thinking through these things. And everybody has, if you've never heard the word paradigm before it it's just kind of a way that you process the world, right? Everybody has their own paradigm. And your paradigm is shaped by, you know, where you grew up and, and a lot of other different factors, right? Your culture, popular entertainment, all these things really shape our paradigm. And there are some things that the CES Letter and materials like that there are some areas where they are going to challenge your paradigm. And they're going to point to some things that might have some truth to them. Like, there might be something that you thought was totally crystal-clear cut. But actually, there's a little bit of ambiguity, in terms of how you work through the historical sources. Or part of working through these things is, you might end up having what's called a paradigm shift. And a paradigm shift is a totally normal human experience. Scientists have major paradigm shifts, for example. There's a whole book about paradigm shifts among scientists. It is a very normal thing. If you're, like processing the world around you and processing information in different ways. I'll give you an example. So, leadership of the church right now, the First Presidency, the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and the governing committees of the church that include the, you know, the general Relief Society Presidency, Young Women's Presidency, and Primary Presidency. So, they counsel together and the process by which they seek revelation is through councils. And as part of that they do research. Like they, they actually like really research issues in depth. Okay? They sometimes pay organizations to develop research reports on various topics, because they want the best possible information. You know, how, like Doctrine Covenants nine says, “Study it out in your mind. And then ask me.” Right? So, they do a lot of studying at church headquarters. But some people when you tell them that, it, it's like this shocking thing. It's like, “Oh, I thought they just gathered together and prayed, and, you know, it's like this lightning strike of, here's your answer.” And that's the paradigm that they've been operating with since they were in primary. And it's a comforting paradigm. It's simple. It's easy. It's so understandable. “They gather, they pray, there's a revelation. And now you're telling me that there's like, all this deliberation and research and this, like, really wrestling through things and, and…” You know, for somebody to make that transition from the simple paradigm to the more complex paradigm of revelation, sometimes that can be a painful thing, right? Growth is painful. But it's, this is what it is. It's growth. It's, it's having this paradigm shift. Now, if you grew up in the Church, and you know, some of the people around you maybe in your family or, or elsewhere, thought in terms of shame, you know, and it's shameful to be wrong about anything or whatever, you might have internalized some things without even knowing it, where you're faced with a paradigm shift, and now you're feeling shame. And that makes everything, it takes everything like to level 20, right? Now, you're like, “Oh, I'm horrible. And I'm, this is shameful. I don't want to make any adjustments.” And so, there's so much that goes into these different questions, right? Part of growth is just kind of becoming aware of what you bring to the process of questioning and, “Okay, I'm feeling this. Well, why am I feeling that?” And, and not shaming yourself over things. Not shaming over things that you think and feel. Just kind of having that self-compassion and grace to say, “Hey, this is a workout. This is a marathon. And I might trip and fall sometimes along the way, but it's gonna be okay.” Right? You can work through these things. And you're, you may not work through them perfectly. I've made tons of mistakes along the way, right? But it's gonna be okay. It's gonna be okay. A lot of us have done this. And we're here to help. And, you know. So, years ago there wasn't this support system that there is now. But now there's a lot of us who have kind of been through the fire and we're like, “Okay, this is so doable.”
Ashly
Right. Right.
Dan
So anyway, that's the advice that I would give.
Ashly
I love it.
55:31
Ashly
Well, any, any final thoughts before we wrap up here? Anything you want to leave listeners with?
55:37
So, there's, there's an analogy that I would give. Okay? When, when you're in a situation where, you know, you're, you've got these doubts and things like that. I, I love what you just said a moment ago about paying attention to the difference that you feel. So that was one of the first things that I noticed when I said, I'm gonna get serious about fasting and prayer and study, I just felt different. Like I like, all of a sudden, you know, I'm just feeling different. It's not these big, dramatic experiences all of a sudden, but I just feel better doing these things than I did yesterday, right? And what, what our tendency sometimes is to do is to dwell on things that we can't really access. Like narratives of the past, you know? I believe in our sacred narratives of church history. But much more than those things, I look at my lived experience in the present day, as that's the lens through which I see the other things. That's my bias. My bias is I'm receiving revelation right now in the church, in my church participation. So why would I doubt that people in the past were receiving revelation? Why would I doubt that, you know, these miracles that attended the Kirtland Temple dedication, for example? Why would I doubt those, if I know that miracles are happening in our temple work right now. And what a lot of these critics are going to try to do is take your focus on these questions about what is happening right now, in terms of miracles, and the power of God, the gifts of the Spirit, in the church in the present day. And they'll try to just get you to focus on these abstract, competing notions of what might have happened in the past, right? So, I think there's a tremendous amount of value in asking these questions. Because I can ask you right now, “Are miracles happening in the church now? Are the gifts of the spirit alive and well? Is God involved in our temple work? Is God involved in our missionary…?” I can ask people in the present day these questions. I can't like, you know, send an email back to Eliza R snow and ask her, “Oh, did this thing really happen? You know, because a critic of our faith said it didn't happen. Are you sure at how…” You know? I can't do that. But I can ask people in the present day, “What's going on right now?” So, I think there's so much value in focusing on these basic questions. And once you have those settled, then those are the lens through which, you know, I asked these other questions about the past. But at the end of the day, you know, I sometimes have felt like, the dialogue between me and God has been like, like standing in front of a car and opening up the hood and me telling God, “You know, this shouldn't work. Because look at the engine that looks out of place to me and that.” And God is saying, “Sit down in the car and drive. Turn the key and see if it drives. Stop complaining about the wiring. Stop complaining about there's rust on this. See if it drives. And if it drives, then we can start talking about how it works.” Right? So that has been, like, you know, kind of my big shift in focus is I'm always going to come back to this question of “Does this car drive?” and the answer is “Absolutely yes. Every day. Day in and day out my life is just wonderful when I live the gospel.”
Ashly
Yeah,
Dan
Doesn't mean it's not sometimes hard. But, man, you know, these experiences are really amazing.
1:00:10
Ashly
Yeah, I love that so much. And I agree 100%. I think I look at my life, what it was 10 years ago, and it was a hot mess. And I can look at my life today and just think how amazing it is. And it's like, “What is the big thing that really changed my life? And it was coming back to the church.” And I feel forever grateful that I made that decision to come back into experiment and see if it was going to make me happy. And those subtle, you know, subtle, like, yeah, “This feels good. I'm just gonna, you know, it's not a lightning strike, but…”
Dan
Right.
Ashly
“It feels good. I'm just gonna, like, see, see what's going on and just keep going.” And, and I'm so grateful that I did. Because, you know, over the years, it's like, I'm just so blessed. And I, I just keep, you know, my life keeps getting better and better. And I just, I'm so grateful for the gospel. So…
1:01:15
Dan
I agree. Me too. It's, it's pretty amazing.
Ashly
It is.
1:01:21
Ashly
Well, Dan, thank you so much for being on the podcast. Can you tell us where we can find your YouTube channel?
1:01:28
Dan
Yeah, it's called Latter Day Presentations.
Ashly
Okay.
Dan
And so, I'm a PowerPoint guy at work. So that's kind of my language. So, if you want to get PowerPointed to death on some gospel issues, that's where I'm at.
1:01:44
Ashly
Well, yes, we're excited to have a little collaboration with you coming soon and share one of your presentations on our YouTube channel. So, cool. Everybody, stay tuned for that coming soon. Very excited. Thanks, Dan.
1:01:59
Dan
All right. Take care.
