CONTENT WARNING: This episode contains sensitive content that may be triggering or offensive to some audiences. Parental discretion is advised.
"These miracles that I have had in my life will never lead me astray from the church again. I cannot deny these things and it is because of the strength and relationship that I have with my Heavenly Father."
Come Back Podcast
Transcription
ASHLY
00:14
Kyle, so excited to have you on the podcast. I've known bits and pieces about your story. And obviously we know each other, have rubbed shoulders through work stuff. I love stories that are addiction recovery/came back to church, because obviously that's my story, but because I feel like the transformation is so profound. I mean, the transformation in your life, like the transformation in your heart, and just all the things like when there's addiction involved and, you can be in some of the most dark places. So I'm just excited to have you on and to hear your stories. Why don't you start by just kind of introducing yourself, kind of what you do for work maybe tell us a little about your family, or whatever, so we have some context before you jump in.
KYLE
01:04
So my name is Kyle Hickman, I am a licensed clinical social worker, I had my LCSW for around a year, actually. And it's through my journey that kind of actually led me to this profession. I grew up in Oklahoma until I was 11. I have been a member all my life. I am the youngest of six kids. My father was a convert. The church was a huge part of his life. Unfortunately, when I was 11, he passed away. He was diagnosed with mesothelioma when I was eight years old. And so from eight to 11, there was a period of time where he and my mom were just kind of absent doing treatments, like in Boston, Houston, different places because it was so new. So we had a lot of family and family members and family friends stepping up to kind of hold down the household. And I didn't really understand everything at the time. So as I said, he passed away when I was 11. And at that point I didn't really understand either. I knew that he passed away. Like everybody in my family was grieving. And I didn't really know what grief was. From that point, there was a series of deaths in my life, between really close family, friends or family, friends or family members. From the age of 11 to 16, I ended up losing my my dad, my cousin completed suicide through her own mental health and addiction. My grandfather died, my grandma died. And then one of my dad's best friends passed away that was another father figure to me. And to add to the trauma of my dad, my mom had family here–I live in Logan, Utah–and my mom had family up here, our family from Lawton, Oklahoma to Logan, Utah in the middle of the winter, which was absurd. So I kind of uprooted from my roots and didn't really have a lot of friends here. Luckily, I'm an identical twin and I have an identical twin brother. He's been my best friend. He's one of my biggest supports through my addiction. And if it wasn't for him, I probably would have struggled a lot more. But I didn't really fit in. Moving here, oftentimes we were referred to as the fat twins with the funny accent in middle school. So it was a difficult transition for sure.
03:27
Fast forward to high school, meet a group of kids that made me feel like I fit in with them, and not really grieving this trauma, I found alcohol and I found weed. It started off is here and there type of thing, experimental stuff. I really, looking back on it now, it really helped me escape from my own issues that I was dealing with at the time. Here and there kind of experimentation and stuff led to like every weekend, and then eventually it became like an everyday thing. Fast forward to 18. It was kind of the cool thing at the time to go on a mission. My brother and I were struggling to stay away from the kids that we were associating with. So we moved down to Mesa, Arizona to prepare for a mission. So we were down there, right around 19. We moved back up to Logan. Both sent in our papers. Looking back on it, I really wasn't feeling it a whole lot, I just kind of did it because that was the thing to do. And I felt like my family wanted me to do it. And I’ll actually share a little bit about my patriarchal blessing too, that I got when I was 18 that kind of plays into my whole story too. The funny thing is that I turned in my papers, and I get my mission call, and I get called right back down to Arizona. I had a lot of family down there. It was the Tempe Spanish-speaking mission. I had actually kind of partied with a lot of the guys on the ASU campus and that was part of my mission. So there's a lot of temptation while I'm down there. And I didn't fully understand it at the time. And I was supposed to leave November of 2002. My brother was set to leave in October of 2002.
05:15
In September of 2002, I was with four of my friends. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, trying to have some fun, just stupid teenager stuff, you know. Breaking into my high school the night before their homecoming, and decided to spray paint our student center, the rival school’s colors that they were playing the night after. And it was just a joke, nothing serious. But a few of the kids that I was with, wanted to take a little bit farther. And there was a popcorn machine that was in the concession stand that they wanted to take. And since there were five of us, two of us wanted to do it, two of us didn't want to do it, I was in the middle, I just wanted to get the heck out of there. So we ended up following through with it, and it wasn't there. So we ended up taking some candy and Gatorade and stuff like that and hiking it up to the car that we had. And as we were leaving, we were pulling off a dirt road, and a car was coming towards us. And that car happened to be a cop. And it was one o'clock in the morning. All this kind of plays into the story to the cop pulls us over and pulls us all out. Asked if he can search the car. My friend said no. He took all of our names, numbers. And long story short, said, “If I find anything happens, I'm coming straight for you guys.” So us being scared teenagers, we actually broke back into the school and cleaned up the mess. But we left some stuff behind, ended up getting arrested the next day for a third degree felony and 2 class A misdemeanors. And at that time, I don't know what church policy is right now, but they take your mission call away if you have a felony that's pending. So that kind of devastated me a little bit. But the worst part was that there's a label. Our local newspaper put out an article saying “five prospective missionaries accused of vandalism” and put our full name and age and everything in there. And that kind of made statewide news and really placed this label on me that … Growing up I'd kind of heard that I was a bad kid. I never felt like I was a bad kid or anything like that, but this kind of validated this negative self belief. Having that mission call taken away from me and everything, it really affected my overall sense of well being and sense of self. One of the hard parts was that one of the kids that had his– there was only two of us that had mission calls. And we were supposed to leave around the same time. Somehow he ended up getting his mission call back and I didn't get my back. So his dad helped him get it back and I'm here like, I don't have anyone to guide me through this. So I'm just kind of stuck. Luckily, in January of 2003, we went to court and they ended up dropping all the charges because the police officer pulled us over illegally, which was definitely a bonus. But I'm still stuck here while this other kid gets to go. And all this kind of has a purpose too because there's a big picture at the end that I didn't see in the moment.
Fast forward to April of 2002. I had gone down to Arizona with my mother to see my sister, I think she had just had a baby or was about to have a baby, one of the two. And we were coming back into Cache Valley and it was raining. It was about 10pm, and my mom was driving. And there was only us and a semi that was on the road. And we were following the semi and he pulled into the left hand lane. It was a two lane road on each way. And my mom continued to go but he was slowing down and ended up making a wide right turn from the left hand lane, and running us off the road. So I don't know how well your camera is but there's a scar that runs across my face.
ASHLY
09:09
I have noticed that scar before, but I didn’t know what happened.
KYLE
09:14
I ended up taking my seatbelt off a minute before it happened. My knees hit the dashboard and I kind of folded in half like a pancake
ASHLY
Oh my gosh.
KYLE
and my face was filleted by the windshield and ended up having 156 stitches in my face and my eye was bloodshot red. That really affected me too. Because I didn't leave my house for quite a long time. Anytime I would leave my house I’d get looks from people that really killed my self worth and my self confidence. Before that I was a pretty upbeat person, and it was actually at that point that I had actually been clean for a little bit from alcohol and weed. But it was at that point that I was introduced to painkillers. And I loved it. I loved the way it made me feel. I loved the way it made me not feel. This euphoric feeling that just made everything else go away. And I was overprescribed at the time. That's when the opioid epidemic started to take off a little bit. The OxyContin came out. And all those things. I didn't really have a connection to that as much, but I started drinking a lot more, the more I was able to seek it out, the more I found it. And so that's when my opioid addiction started to take over. I just kind of fell into a deep, dark place at that point too. Like, really disconnecting from the people that I loved. The bigger purpose of this too, the accident was not necessarily a bad thing. At the time it was, but I didn't really focus on that. I wasn't obviously the only one that was involved in this accident. My mom was too and the airbags didn't go off, which ended up being a blessing. Because her chest hit the steering wheel, she was wearing her seatbelt. And so they ended up taking her in, doing a lot of CT scans and stuff, ended up finding out that she had breast cancer
ASHLY
Oh my gosh.
KYLE
and did an emergency mastectomy within a month. And that actually prolonged her life for quite a long time.
ASHLY
Oh my gosh. Wow.
KYLE
But yeah, definitely blessings involved. But I didn't see it at that time. And the crazy thing too, is that my brother was on a mission, and he was serving in Edmonton, Canada.
ASHLY
Your twin brother?
KYLE
Yeah. And it was just me and my mom there at the time. And I was so far gone at that point that they actually asked him, he came home for a surgery, and our stake president asked him to stay home and not return to his mission, and to kind of take care of my mom because of the spot that I was in and she needed that extra help. And I wasn't there emotionally, I wasn't there spiritually. I wasn't, I was just kind of this dark hole. That kind of fueled everything. For me moving forward, the more and more I was able to find these painkillers. And I always told myself, I started off with Lortab 10s, Percocet 10, stuff like that. And even told myself, I'll never touch an OxyContin, that's what addicts touch. Lo and behold, there's nothing else there. And the only thing that’s there is an OxyContin. So I was withdrawing, I was hurting and I tried it. And again, that took it to a whole other level. That feeling of euphoria. It was crazy. And so I started becoming more addicted to these heavier painkillers. Again, telling myself, “I’ll never touch heroin,” you know. And, “That's what dirty addicts do,” stuff like that, labeling that, trying to justify and rationalize my use. And again, there's nothing there, but heroin. So over this period of time, I progressively started to get worse and worse and worse, and I would try to leave. I would leave Cache Valley to go get clean. And then I found this pattern. And this pattern, kind of, it was throughout my whole addiction, is that I'd come back two weeks later, I was right back where I was. Making this progress. And not really, it was funny because my older brother Ben told me one time, “You gotta quit running from your problems, face your problems.” And didn't really understand what he was talking about at the time. This pattern of two weeks, so I moved down to Arizona five different times for a year about each time when I started going to school and stuff, I tried to be productive. But coming back, that two weeks, I'm right back where I was over and over and over again. And it just kept progressively getting worse and worse and worse. And we know that addiction is a progressive disease. Luckily, I never really got in any trouble when I was using heroin, and opiates. I kept disconnecting and kind of making this false narrative in my head that my family didn't want me around. So I kept disconnecting from the people that loved me the most, and that I have this deepest connection with the most and connecting with these people that just keep pulling me further and further away, into the adversary’s grip. It's crazy, because in July at the time, I didn't realize it but, a pretty toxic relationship. She was clean at the time, I was not. I was lying through that relationship and kind of got honest a little bit, told her that I relapsed and she tried to justify and say, “Hey, because you did, I get to.” And her drug of choice is meth. So at that point, I started to cross-addict to meth, but I was addicted to opiates for about eight years. Cross-addicted to meth. That was like a whole new ballgame for me. At first it wasn't too serious but I got introduced to needles. And needles made it like, I just get, my skin crawls when I think about it because it's a whole new addiction.
ASHLY
15:06
And it just sucks the soul from you. It really takes your soul.
KYLE
15:09
Yeah. If I had one trigger, it would be that needle. And I still have that fear. And I know it's an irrational fear. But it's the one thing that scares me about always going back. But it was a very short lived addiction. I really started using heavy in probably like March/April of 2012, and by July of 2012, I was catching felonies. I got a third degree felony and two class A misdemeanors on July 5th of 2012. And July 17, of 2012, I caught another felony. September of 2012, I caught another felony. So here I'm sitting felony on felony on felony, get picked up on a failure to appear warrant and sitting in jail. And I always thought of jail as a spiritual rehab for me, because it gave me time to escape from the outside world. And I got to self-reflect. Moving forward, when I was in jail again, I made a goal myself to start reading the Book of Mormon while I was in there. But at this time, I was going back, I felt really hopeless, and helpless too, because I was asking for the drug court program up here. There was no availability, the prosecuting attorney at the time. I went to court every week, trying to come up with some kind of plan to help myself, to better myself, and something the prosecuting attorney really resonated with me because we were talking about a DUI that I got. I actually totaled my mom's car and took out a tree. Luckily, no one else was hurt. And he called me a danger to society to my face. And that one hit me hard because I was like, “That's not who I am.” Like, “How can you sit there and say it?” And I actually wrote a letter not too long ago, because he's a judge now, and told him, I was like, “You were right. I was a danger to society. I was not just a danger to other people, I was a danger to myself and I didn't care.” Luckily, I was able to get out right before Christmas, and my pattern, two weeks, I was right back at it. Luckily, in February of 2013, I was able to sign on to the first district drug court. Didn't really know what I was getting myself into, I just knew that I could get rid of my felonies. I knew at that point, I wanted to get clean, I just didn't know how. And not just that, like most other people struggling with their addictions, I was afraid. I was afraid to live life on life's terms, and know what it was like to just to feel my feelings and everything, and really connect with other people. There's five phases on this drug court. Drug courts throughout the state are a little bit different. But I sat on the first phase for 13 months, and you max out at three years. Normally, in phase one, on this one you could get through in 30 days. But through this process, I was very grateful– I would go to jail, two weeks later, back in jail, go to jail two weeks later back in jail. But the one thing, and I hope my judge is listening to this, because I love this man more than any. He was like a father figure to me, and I've never really been able to tell him that. And he was able to see– I get emotional right now just thinking about this guy. He was able to see something in me that I didn't see in myself at the time.
18:43
But the one thing I did was I was able to go up there and hold myself accountable. And in reality, I should have been kicked out on multiple occasions. But he sent me to rehab. I was there for eight days. And here's one of my miracles right here is that on the seventh day, they came to me and said, I had a dirty UA for opiates. And I was like, “What are you talking about? I'm on a lockdown. I can't even leave. And you're telling me I have a dirty?” And they said, “If you don't admit to it, there's nothing we can do to help you.” And I was like, “What does that even mean? Does it mean if I don't admit to it, you're gonna kick me out?” And they just said, “If there's nothing, if you don't admit to it, there's nothing we can do to help you.”
19:21
So this is kind of where my recovery took a drastic change too. It’s that I went back to my bunk and I said a prayer. And I asked Heavenly Father, I said, “What do I do? I want help, I need help. Do I lie? So I can get the help that I want and I need, or do I tell the truth?” And immediately I got an answer that said, “Tell the truth.” The next day my PO came and picked me up and took me back to jail. Again, I don't know why this man did not kick me out because he specifically said, “Do not leave early, do not get kicked out.” Luckily my probation officer when he came to pick me up, he asked me, he's like, “What happened?” And then I told him he had a dirty for opiates. And he looked at me with this confused look. I was like, “I know, all my dirty had been for meth, and I think that might have given me another chance but I sat in jail for another seven weeks, and they got me into Odyssey House. And that changed my life. That was exactly what I needed. I lacked structure in my life. I will be forever grateful for that place. I wanted to stay and graduate the program, but they wouldn't let me stay. The drug court made me come back, and I struggled coming back because I was placed in this environment where I had used for so long.
I remember shortly, another kind of one of those miracle moments. And I might get emotional on this. I had a very vivid dream, shortly after I got home. I remember it was everything, to the point where the needle went in my arm. The next thing I know, I went to push it and I shot up and I was just like, it was almost like I did it. And I was so scared. And I was like, “No, this is not what I want.” So I remember rolling out of my bed, I said the Serenity Prayer, I said the third step prayer. There's a poem that I highly recommend if people haven't heard of this poem, it's called "The Race" by D. H. Groberg. But if you're struggling with an addiction, please go read that poem because it changed my life. Come to find out that poem, my dad used to read to us when we were younger. So there's a connection to this poem. I rolled back into my bed and I said a prayer. I remember this overwhelming warmth come over my body, and a voice that said, “Everything's gonna be okay.” I immediately knew it was my dad. From that point forward, everything was different. I was not going to church at the time. I was heavily involved in Narcotics Anonymous, and I'm forever grateful for that program too, the community up here is amazing. I needed that community, I needed that connection. And it really helped my spiritual growth. I was about 18 months clean. I was content, I was pretty happy with life. But I felt like something was missing. And I really took some time to self-reflect. I looked at everyone in my family and they were authentically happy. And I'm like, “What am I missing here?” And I started to realize it's the gospel. So I told myself, I was living with my oldest brother at the time. He's been a pretty influential person in my life, too. I don't express that to him enough, but he has been. But I told myself, I'm like, “Alright, I've never really given this a chance.” You know, I've kind of dabbled my feet. And I told myself, “Alright, if I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do it 100%. I'm going to dive in headfirst.” And fully understanding too, like, I'm probably going to get excommunicated or disfellowshipped or something like that. And I was ready for that. Went and talked to my bishop, started the repentance process. And I was disfellowshipped. Started that whole process. And my twin brother ended up moving back up, he lived in Arizona, he moved back up here. And I moved out of my oldest brother's house and then moved into my twin brother's house. Kind of helped out with childcare and stuff like that, and rent. Changed bishops, wards, everything, it was it was a pretty good experience. And I'm very grateful because the bishop that I had was very compassionate and empathetic. The ward that I was in like, it was very, they were connected. I've always been involved in sports. And like, I would go play church ball with them. And they just made me feel really welcome. Oh, man. I’m going to get super emotional here in a little bit.
23:59
And my wife's probably listening from her office. And I was there and I was still in drug court. I was kind of in and out of relationships, and eventually told myself, I'm not going to be in any relationships until I'm done with drug court. I need to focus on my recovery. I need to focus on finishing this. At the time I just applied to go back to school at Utah State.
I ended this relationship and my sister-in-law was like, “Why don't you try online dating?” I'm like, “Ah, nah, that stuff’s crap.” This is another miracle right here too, it is crazy. Like, go figure. I'm sitting on Facebook, and a few weeks later, I see this thing for LDS Singles pop up, and I’m like, “Yeah, what the heck.” So I started checking it out, connecting with people. It's kind of set up like Tinder a little bit, and was talking to these girls and stuff like that. And all of a sudden, I see this one girl, and I'm like, “oh man, she's pretty attractive.” So I clicked on her name, and she had already clicked on mine, so it matched immediately. So I started talking to her, and I looked at hers, and I had this rule of like, I'm not driving longer than two hours for a relationship. So Provo was my max, and it said that she was 80 miles away from me. I’m like, “Okay, cool.” But on the other end, it showed that I was 10 miles away from her. So we started talking actually. And I felt like we really clicked– hit it off and clicked. And come to find out, she's in Woodbridge, Virginia. I couldn't stop talking to her. It was hours and hours a day. And this was in October of 2015. I’d given her my history, kind of like the spiel of like, “I'm not messing around, I'm trying to date to find a companion.” So I let her know everything. And if she wanted to stick around, she could have stuck around. And she did. December of 2015. Actually going back a little bit too, I guess, I really want to touch on my mom, because she was my rock. She was everything to me. So my mom was in remission for five years, she missed a checkup and ended up the cancer came back and then metastasized from her breast to her bone. And through this whole process, I was able to connect with her more, and be there and be present for her. And it helped our relationship grow a lot, because I know, working through the 12 steps … I don't know if you're familiar with those steps or not. But well,
ASHLY
Oh, yeah. I’m definitely familiar with the 12 steps.
KYLE
So, making an amends, I couldn't make an amends. I had to make a living amends with her because I’d taken so much financially from her that there was no way I was gonna be able to pay that back. So I started working this living amends with her and really taking care of her, taking her to her appointments and stuff like that, making sure that she was okay. And that really strengthened the bond between us. She ended up collapsing one day, and hit her head on our baseboard. And I rushed her up to the hospital and found out that it had metastasized to her brain.
ASHLY
Oh my gosh.
KYLE
She had these lesions all over her brain. And it was only a matter of time. She started doing radiation and stuff like that. And it got to the point where she just just wanted to live life. I made a promise to her that I wasn't ever gonna go back. She would get angry with me sometimes. Towards the end, she was kind of nonverbal, but she would mumble, and I’d just tell her, I’d reassured her, “I'm okay. I'm okay.” Like, “I'm not doing anything dumb. I'm fine.” And she ended up passing away in December of 2015. About a week after I met my wife for the first time, my wife flew to California, had a layover here, took her up to Temple Square to the lights and stuff like that, and was able to really strengthen that relationship with my wife. This long distance was actually really good for me because it allowed me to understand her and get to know her, like in a spiritually and emotionally intimate way. The last time I flew to Virginia, in May of 2016, I actually proposed and we drove back here and moved her here. And through this whole process, I'm actually still disfellowshipped and continuing to work on gaining my membership back and starting to take temple prep classes and stuff like that. I ended up getting my full membership back I think in May. Was going to receive my endowments in June 2016. And we were actually getting married in August. That’s another pivotal point in my life. And these are the things, these miracles that I've had in my life will never lead me astray from the church ever again. I cannot deny these things. And it's because of this strength, this relationship that I have with my Heavenly Father.
ASHLY
29:02
Oh my gosh, that is so true. It's like, once you have experienced that change of heart and those little, I mean, that is why this podcast is here. Once you've experienced that you can't deny it.
KYLE
29:18
No. And I will never– this next one I haven't shared with many, but I feel like it can help a lot of people who might be struggling too. It’s that most, if not all of my siblings had some kind of dream about my father after he passed away. I had one of the most vivid dreams I've ever had. And I know it was real. It was shortly before I went and received my endowments. I'm on this spiritual high, and I had a dream, and my mom was there. I looked at her and not even communicating, no words, no nothing. And she's just this beautiful person and I asked, I said, “Where’s Dad?” She looked away and I looked over where she looked and he was standing at the top of these stairs. And I just fell to my knees. And I started crying. And I woke up from this dream, just in tears. From that point on, I knew. I knew that my parents were there. And there was a bigger purpose for everything. That was probably the most spiritual moment of my life. And hopefully that resonates with someone that can help them through their own struggles. But I know that there's something after this life. There's been a few other times since then that I've had these spiritual experiences, but none as strong as the ones that I've shared. Fast forward, we end up getting married. The cool part was, is that my drug court judge ends up showing up to my temple sealing.
ASHLY
30:49
Oh, my gosh, that is so cool.
KYLE
30:53
Yeah. And I am forever grateful for that. That was another big, big moment too, going through the temple. The feeling that I get there, like in my sealing, I didn’t even pay attention to what they were saying, because I was just kind of soaking up that moment. But afterwards, this overwhelming joy and this overwhelming warmth just over my body, like knowing that everybody's there, being able to carry this on. It talks about being sealed and my patriarchal blessing and stuff like that. And it's crazy to go back to my patriarchal blessing a little bit, too. If my brothers are watching this thing, correct me if I'm wrong, but in every one of their patriarchal blessings, it states that they will serve a full-time mission. In mine, the wording specifically says you will have the opportunity to serve a full-time mission.
ASHLY
31:44
So that's so interesting.
KYLE
31:47
Yeah, I never really read that until afterwards. And understood it, and realizing that's what I'm doing right now. That's why I do what I do is to help bring people back. My passion is working with people with their own addictions and helping them not even necessarily bring them back to the church, but helping them strengthen that relationship with God, because that's what it's all about. And it talks about service in there. And basically, having the skills to do service using my talents, and my experiences to help other people is what it is. I love my job, I love the line of work that I'm in. I get to relate to people on an intimate level and help them kind of build this spirituality, regardless of who their higher power is, you know, just to help bring them back, understanding that it's God, you know.
ASHLY
Yeah.
KYLE
32:44
I don't ever push my own agenda or anything like that on other people. But I mean, I firmly believe we only have, what? I purposely kind of sat here too, because in the background, you see a picture of my family. My wife and I have struggled with fertility issues. Shortly after we got married, we ended up getting pregnant. And eight weeks later, she had a miscarriage and we have not been able to have our own kids since then. They put us in a category of unexplained infertility. My wife, I love her. Being the kind of impulsive person that she is sometimes, we were driving to California and talking about adoption and stuff.
33:23
And the next thing I know when we get back, she's like, “Hey, I signed us up for foster care.” I'm like, “What?! This was just a conversation, and why are you pulling the trigger?”
ASHLY
Ha ha.
KYLE
But it ended up being a huge blessing. We were placed with a beautiful set of twin girls, the first placement, and that was really difficult to let them go home. We had them for about eight months. After that, we're both wrecked emotionally. And kind of, I don't know, resentful, we were salty is what it was. Like, screw this. We're gonna have a Christmas with the Kranks type thing. And no Christmas for us, we're going to Disneyland. December 23 of 2019, we get a call that said, “Hey, will you guys be willing to accept a sibling group?” We were like, “Give us some more details.” They were like, “It’s a teenager, and then a 20-month old and a five-month old.” And we're like, “Oh, man.” The teenager part was
ASHLY
Scary?
KYLE
difficult. But it's Christmas, you know. So Christmas Eve 2019, we brought these three kids into our home. It's been a pretty cool experience. Our daughter ended up asking us to adopt her.
ASHLY
Wow!
KYLE
That's kind of a roller coaster. But we were able to be sealed to our boys less than a year ago.
ASHLY
Oh my gosh.
KYLE
It's just been a cool journey.
ASHLY
That is so cool.
KYLE
It's funny because it talks in my patriarchal blessing a little bit about posterity and stuff, and being sealed and I never would have guessed that was the journey. I always assumed I’d have my own, but realizing like had we had our own children, these kids would not be placed in our lives too. So it's definitely been a blessing, and a miracle to have them. And they're crazy. They're crazy kids. I freaking love them though.
ASHLY
Mine are, mine are too. I love that.
KYLE
Yeah, ha ha ha. They're my little buddies, and my daughter, she's about to turn 18 in January.
ASHLY
35:32
Wow. So was the teenager thing not as scary as it seemed?
KYLE
35:35
No, no, not at first, until she went to high school. And then it was really scary.
ASHLY
Yeah. Oh, man.
KYLE
Tested my patience. God helped me out through that for sure.
ASHLY
Totally.
KYLE
Yeah, that's kind of my story.
ASHLY
35:54
I love it. So good. I am so happy that you came on the podcast to share your story and shout out to your mother in law who's–
KYLE
36:02
Lynette Brunson, that's her name. I love her.
ASHLY
36:05
Awesome, I love to hear it. So as we're wrapping up, tell me what advice would you have for somebody that might be just on the edge. Like, maybe they're going through addiction? Or maybe they're going through a faith crisis? Or maybe they're going through something like that, and they don't know what to do. They're thinking maybe they would take a chance on the church. What advice would you give to them?
KYLE
36:28
Pray, is one thing. I don't I don't care how you strengthen your spirituality. And I always go back because, I tell people that you can have spirituality with no religion, but you cannot have religion without spirituality. Spirituality is the foundation of every religion, strengthen that spiritual aspect, you know, like, whatever you need to do to strengthen that relationship with God? Do it. If it's being outside, if it's being with your family, you know, like listening to music. Focus on that, build that connection with Heavenly Father, with God. If you're on the fence about it, you know, just … Oh, you when you mentioned the faith crisis. Because I just listened to something not too long ago about never letting a good faith crisis go to waste.
ASHLY
37:12
Yeah. Jared Halverson.
KYLE
Yeah! I love that!
ASHLY
So good!
KYLE
Creation, fall, and Atonement.
ASHLY
37:18
Yes, he was on the podcast. So everyone listening, check out Jared Halverson’s episode. I just relistened to it with my husband a couple of days ago, it is so good. But that particular, “Don't let a good faith crisis go to waste,” man that that changed my life.
KYLE
37:36
It was awesome. I absolutely loved it in the way that he had it is like, it's not a cycle, it's a linear thing. It's just like the Stock Exchange, you know, like, you have to go through it. If you're not testing your faith …
ASHLY
Yep.
KYLE
You have to. Otherwise that strength is not going to be there. We all have to do it in some way or another. Test your faith, reach out. Ask. Yeah, and connect with other people. If you're struggling, and it's something you want, surround yourself with people who have what you want. Then that's through my story, is like, NA [Narcotics Anonymous] was my thing, because those people had what I wanted. They had clean time, they had recovery, and I wanted that. And then I got to that point of being content and I'm like, “Okay, these people have what I want.” I don't really attend NA anymore, because I have what I need. And it's my spiritual connection with Heavenly Father. And I have my family, like, I know that program’s there. And it will always be there if I need it. But surround yourself with people who have what you want.
ASHLY
38:42
I love that. That is such good advice. Well, Kyle, you're so awesome. Thank you so much for being on the podcast.
KYLE
You’re awesome. I want to give a shout out to you and Portia Louder for doing what you guys are doing because that's making an impact. You guys are amazing.
ASHLY
38:57
Portia is the bomb. Yes, we love Portia. Well, thank you. I appreciate it so much, and I'm so excited to release this episode.
KYLE
Thank you. Katie Bronson. Get your butt on here.
ASHLY
39:09
Katie, we're gonna come after you.
KYLE
Yeah, ha ha. I love it.
