"I ran track so I would go on long runs out in the country by myself. On one run I had stopped to walk for a little bit and I could feel God's presence. I just knew God was trying to say something to me. I felt that He knew me and that He loved me, and that He had a plan for me. There were going to be some scary things that He was going to ask me to do, but I just had to face my fears and if I did I would find out that He was bigger than anything I was afraid of."
Come Back Podcast
Transcription
00:14
ASHLY
I'm so excited to have you on the podcast. You sent me your story and it totally fits right in, and so I'm excited to hear more. So yeah, if you want to start by just kind of telling me a little bit about you, I'd love to hear if you have kids, or if you work or what you'd like to do for fun, just so listeners kind of have some context of who you are.
MANDY
00:37
Awesome. Yeah. So I have seven kids. I have six girls, and then our last was a boy, so he's been fun. I have stayed at home for the last 18 and a half years. But my oldest was putting in her mission papers, and I thought, maybe I'll do something. And I don't know, it was just weird, I kind of put the feelers out and something fell into my lap. So I do a few hours of property management work. And I'm getting my realtor’s license. So it feels crazy to enter back into the workforce, because I didn't think I ever would. Once I had the decision to just be a mom I didn't think I'd ever work, but now it's good. So I play sports. I like to play volleyball. I'm not very good at any other sport, but I like to try because it's a good workout.
ASHLY
Yeah, for sure.
MANDY
My husband works for the school district. That's an area that I am kind of interested in, I guess. But just because that’s what he does.
ASHLY
01:35
Yeah. Awesome. Well, I'd love to if you want to jump into your story, we'd love to hear it.
Mandy
You're so good. Okay. So I have listened to so many, almost all of your podcasts. My husband found your podcast, and we were talking about how the news is depressing. And it's hard to find things that are positive online. So he shared one of your podcasts with me. And I was like, “This is amazing.” And so I've been listening. And one thing I love as a listener is how you let your guests speak. But coming into this today, I was like, “Oh, I'm nervous.”
ASHLY
02:11
I like to keep it super casual. And you know what? I think that, you know, in my podcast listening, that's one thing that I always liked was the host letting the person sharing just kind of talk. And so I really try to do that. And I think that, you know, it's just important to kind of let the Spirit guide you with what you want to share and I don't want to hinder that in any way.
MANDY
02:37
You're awesome. Okay. So my husband, he was the one, he kept … We were both listening to your podcasts. And then I would say, “Did you hear the latest one?” and we would talk about it. And it was so good, so many good conversations. And he kept saying, “You need to tell Ashly your story.” And I was like, “Well, I don't really have a comeback story. I just have a coming into the church story.” And he kept encouraging me. And then today, his parting words as he went to work, he said, “You know, the reason you're a perfect fit for the Come Back Podcast is because embracing the gospel helped you come back to who you've always been.”
ASHLY
I love that. I love it.
MANDY
I just loved that so much. So I was raised in very rural Kansas, I told my husband that I grew up in the middle of nowhere. And then when I took him to the farm, he was like, “This really is the middle of nowhere.” So looking back, it's so fascinating to me that the missionaries found me. I was raised in a home that was very much not a religious home at all. I would say my parents and my siblings are very spiritual, and they believe in God and seek to be good people and have a relationship with God. But organized religion was never a part of my life at all. I would sometimes go with friends, like when I was 16, everybody was going to this nondenominational youth group. And the couple, he was like a youth pastor. And he created a really fun environment. And he would let you come hang out and have fun with the agreement that at the end, you had to listen to one of his sermons. And I always thought, “Yeah, I'm not a church person,” but I would kind of sit through it. And then he basically just bore his testimony of Christ. And as I sat and listened, I had this desire to, in his words, “give my life to Christ.” And I did not know what that meant. And so I thought, “I better figure out who Jesus Christ is if I'm gonna give my life to Him.” So I started searching a lot. I tried to read the Bible. I found an old Bible that my parents had, and I think I turned to the first page, like Genesis chapter one. And I thought, this does not make any sense. I felt so clueless. And I went to church with friends. And then my senior year, my grandpa died, and a couple of classmates died by suicide. And that really, I started having a lot of questions, and I would talk to all my different friends of different faiths, because I had Catholic, Methodist, and Baptist friends. And I would ask them, “What do you think about this?” or “What do you believe?” And so I had a lot of great conversations, but I always just felt like I was very much on the outside looking in. I grew up believing that if you weren't baptized when you were a baby you’re going to hell. That was just kind of the standard Christian belief that I assumed everybody had I guess. So I didn't ever even think of joining a church.
05:29
So I went to a junior college there. As I was graduating with my associate's [degree], the summer after I completed two years of a community college, I was getting ready to move to Tampa, Florida, and go to an art school there. I had really big ambitions. And that summer, I was working a lot of hours. But I ended up meeting a young man who had just gotten out of rehab. He was addicted to cocaine. And I had done all the typical things a teenager does in Kansas–the Word of Wisdom was an adjustment for me. But cocaine was like a whole different world to me. And he had come to stay with a family that was in the church, they were members of the church, and he was too. And I thought he was such a jerk. He was so rude to everybody. And so there was one night he was just saying he wanted to leave. And he needed to know how to get onto the interstate. He wanted to just get out of that small town. And I was like, “I will show you how to get out of town.” I was very bold when I was younger. And so I got in my car, and he followed me in his car, and I was just going to show him how to get out of town. And I had this really overwhelming feeling that I should share something with him that I had written. I was an English major, so I wrote a lot. And it felt really corny and very dorky, but it was a really strong feeling. And I thought, “Well, he can't leave town unless I show him.” So I drove to my house, and I got this paper. And I went to him and he was sitting in my driveway with his car running. And he was very annoyed. And I said, “Well, I just feel like you're supposed to read this. And if you read it, then I'll take you to the interstate.” So he read it, and he started crying. And I said, “Why are you crying?” And he was like, “I want to be clean. I just think I can't.” And so I turned his car off. And I took his keys. And I was so bold. Why did I do that? And so we went into my house, and we talked for hours. And he told me his whole story. And he kept saying, “You sound like my church,” when I was talking to him. And I was like, “I am the least churchy person. There's no way.” I don't know what I said, now, that he thought I sounded like his church. But he stayed, and the next day he called, he had left his ballcap at my house. And he said, “Can you bring it by around dinner?” So I took it to this family's house. And the sweet sweet mom was cooking dinner. And she was of course, like, “Just stay for dinner.” And so I did because I was living on my own and a home cooked meal sounded great. And they had the sister missionaries over. And they asked me if I wanted to stay after dinner and hear a message about faith. And I was so curious about other religions. And I thought I didn't have anything to lose, so I stayed.
08:25
And I think they read from Ether, about faith. And I remember them reading these verses, and I thought, “I have tried to read the Bible. and nothing that I’ve read makes that much sense.” And so I asked him, I was like, “Where are you reading that?” Because it looked like a Bible. And so I started taking the discussions with Josh, this kid. But then eventually he flaked out. And I had to decide, “Am I just holding his hand and helping him find his way back into the church? Or am I really interested?” And I was really interested. And so I had the sister missionaries come and continue to teach me. It was a pretty beautiful experience. There were so many things I could feel like the Lord had put into my life previous to this moment that were just preparations that I couldn't see until that moment. They asked me if I wanted to be baptized at a certain point. And I was so shocked, because I didn't know I could. So I think I said, “I can be baptized?” And so they set up a baptism for me and I was baptized. And I had already planned on moving to Tampa. So two weeks after my baptism, I was driving to Florida and I was just totally embraced there. The sister missionaries were so worried that I would fall away that somehow they had contacted everybody there and let them know that I was coming. And I actually–kind of a caveat to the story: the family that this kid stayed with, my best friend was dating the son. And she and I were friends and coworkers and we decided independently to go to the school in Florida. She was going to study fashion design and I was studying advertising design. And so we were moving together and we ended up getting baptized together. So I feel like the Lord definitely prepared that relationship too. So I don't know, that's the short, short, short story of how I ended up joining the church.
ASHLY
10:28
Well, a question that I have for you– I think it's interesting because I see a lot of things online about people who are discrediting the church. And they have a lot of different facts and things they find online, or facts. And I'm curious, as you're doing all of this searching, through all of these different religions. I mean, did you ever come across information that was antagonistic to the church?
MANDY
10:59
Oh, yes. Oh yes. Yeah. So, kind of interesting. I have several friends who are members of different churches. I had three friends who were Catholic, and I talked to them about their beliefs a lot, and a lot of what they said, I thought that everything that … I knew the Bible stories. I mean, in Kansas, especially at that time, Christianity permeated everything. I feel like my teachers in school, what often they would refer to, like Noah or Jonah, in different stories, giving context to things in school, it was very natural. So I knew all the stories. And I remember saying to my Catholic friends, “But that didn't really happen. There wasn't really a person named Noah. And there wasn't really a guy that got swallowed by a whale.” I was like, “Those are just parables.” And in these discussions, they would challenge my thinking, like, “Well, why do you think that?” And I remember, Mark was one of my friends, and he said, “God created the world. If He wanted to do something that seems impossible to us, don't you think He could do that?” So kind of along the way, I would have these discussions with friends. So I studied Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam, Judaism, I studied them all, because I thought, “I don't want to just only study Christianity, because I was raised in a Christian environment.” So I studied all of them. And so then to encounter things that were anti-Mormon, was almost comical to me, because I thought they're so limiting, right? When you study other major religions, there's so many threads of truth that find their way through all of the major religions. And I even read books like people's commentary on what are the threads that are common in all the religions? I remember one guy saying that the one common thread in all religion is that “the very God we're seeking is within us.” And I loved that. And I felt like there were just certain truths. And I had some really spiritual experiences. And that's part of where my family, I think, was very spiritual and open to things. So it wasn't weird to me. I ran track, so I had gone long runs out in the country by myself. And on one run, I had stopped to walk for a little bit. And I just felt God's presence. And I wouldn't have known how to have words for it. But I knew that God was trying to say something to me. And this was in high school, when I was really searching. And I felt that He knew me, and that He loved me. And He had a plan for me. The best words I can give it, were just that there were going to be some scary things that he was going to ask me to do. But I just had to face my fears, and if I did, I would find out that He was bigger than anything that I was afraid of. When I started talking to the missionaries, I felt like they would teach me a principle. And I would think, “Well I already know that. I figured that out for myself.” And I was shocked that there was a church that embraced all of these truths that I thought were very outside of mainstream Christianity, but it just made sense to me.
ASHLY
Mmhmm.
MANDY
Another example was my senior year, this friend of mine that committed suicide, he was Catholic, and his mom and his aunt were talking afterwards. And I overheard them having a conversation about purgatory. And one of my Catholic friends was– and I don't know if she's speaking for all Catholicism, but her opinion was that suicide was an unpardonable sin, and that he would be stuck in purgatory forever. And again, I don't know if all Catholics believe that. That's just what my friends said. I was thinking “That's horrible! Who could …?” Because my encounters with God, I didn't think that was the kind of God I knew. And so I went home and I asked my mom, I said, “Do you think that he committed an unpardonable sin? Do you think he's in purgatory forever?” And she said, “I don't know what all the religions teach, but I believe that God takes all children and Mandy, he was a child.” And I just felt like that's true. Just hearing about the difference between infant baptism and baptism when you're accountable, it just made so much sense to me because I thought, “Why would I be condemned by God for a decision my parents made when I wasn't even old enough to have an opinion?” That never made sense to me. So those kinds of things were so huge to me that all of the arguments against the church seemed so small.
There were several of us that were learning from the missionaries. And one of my really good friends wanted to be baptized, but her family was Lutheran, and they said, “If you get baptized, you're dead to us. You can't come to our church anymore. You can't be a part of our family.” And they gave her a bunch of anti-Mormon literature.
16:00
And so the night before my baptism, she called, and she was telling me all of these crazy things. And I didn't know where to put all of it. And so this was this a long time ago. We had pagers. So I paged this guy that was, he was out of the church currently, he was struggling with drug addiction. And so I thought, “Well I can ask him, because he doesn't have any ulterior motives. He's not trying to baptize me for him,” you know? So I paged him. And he called me. And he just talked me through what makes sense, and what doesn't make sense. And I was thinking, and then as he's talking to me, I just felt that peace from the Spirit again. And I just knew. At different times, I've encountered, I've had friends that have decided to leave the church, and they share things on Facebook. And I always try to consider myself a fair-minded person. So I've read quite a bit of it. And I've listened to so many of the things that people on your podcasts have talked about. And I think, yes, those are the same conclusions I've come to where I think it's so incredible, not credible. If that makes sense?
ASHLY
Right.
MANDY
I think it would take so much more for me to embrace that. And then I love the question that the Savior asked Peter, “To whom shall you go?”
ASHLY
Yeah.
MANDY
Where would I go? The things that I longed for and care about the most are in the church. And I think for me, really, it goes back to … because I always believed in God, but I wasn't sure about Jesus. That was the thing that I had to come to in process of time. And so joining the church, it was for me this big deal of, “Okay, this was my invitation to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.” And so trying to cultivate that, that's always the thing that I can come back to. And I pray. And in those moments, I know that my Heavenly Father, and I know that Jesus Christ want me here. And sometimes they'll give me all of the answers at first, you know? But I just know through the Spirit, that's where I'm supposed to be. And then if I'm just faithful in process of time, things work out. And that's how it's just always worked for me. And maybe that's just super simple for too many people. But for me, it just works.
ASHLY
18:26
Mmhmm. Yeah, when you're talking about your friend that he was on drugs, and you're like, “Okay, well, he's gonna have an unbiased opinion of this,” it reminded me so much of when I was on drugs. And it's like, the church at that time, when I was in that dark phase, any people that I encountered that were members of the church, it was like they had such a glowing light about them. And it's so distinguishable when you're in such darkness. The glowing light is so obvious. And so I was putting myself in his shoes for a second, of how he felt at that time.
MANDY
Yeah.
ASHLY
Coming to him asking him questions, and he probably with a lot of fondness was like, “There's no way that this couldn't be true,” because of the peace and light that he saw, in contrast to his current situation.
MANDY
19:25
Yeah. And I've thought so much too about that question, like having children and teaching them. And I thought to myself, “What does that even mean? ‘The Book of Mormon is true.’ ‘The church is true.’ What does that even mean?” Just to go back to when I was taking the discussions, I was living with a high school friend, we lived in this little house in Great Bend, Kansas. And it was a hot summer, I was taking the discussions through July. I still have the pamphlets they gave me. They gave me these pamphlets, and they would ask me to read certain passages from the Book of Mormon. And then the next time, I’d have so many questions. They joke with me now that I don't look like a golden contact. I did things the way the world does them. And that's one thing I tell my children, like "I’ve tried all that.” They have the benefit of having a mom that can say, “Okay, I've been there, done that,” it's not as appealing as it seems. So I would read the Book of Mormon, and then I would ask them my questions. And those poor sister missionaries, they would research and research those answers for me. And that was one of the first things that opened my heart to the gospel, was because they cared. Because at first I know, my approach to missionaries was they’re like salesmen, you know? And I was thinking, I don't know if I'm buying what you're selling. But when they kept returning, and they kept saying, “While I was studying in my scriptures, your question, and this is what I found.” It floored me. I felt like going through high school, I was always friends with guys, there was so much drama and pettiness with girls, that I just had never had a ton of really close girlfriends that hadn't, at some point, done something really ugly. And so I thought, “Who are these girls? They really care about me. And they have my interests at heart. And they're spending their free time trying to help me find deep answers to deep questions.” And it was so touching to me. This process went on and at some point in the discussions, the challenge was, “Will you pray to know if the Book of Mormon is true?” And I was thinking, “Okay.” I was very obedient. Because in my mind, I had tried things the world's way, and it hadn't been great. I wasn't happy. I didn't have a lot of excitement about my future. I felt so confused and weighed down by the world. So to me, it was just like, “Well, I will give this a good faith try, and what do I have to lose?” You know, I kind of think you said that, too. About when you came back, it was like, “Well, I'll try it.”
ASHLY
Yeah. Yep!
MANDY
I mean, if there’s nothing, I end up back where I was. And so I remember, I can go back to that night in that room. My roommate wasn't home. And I thought, this is the night I can pray to know if the Book of Mormon is true. And I now I can smell the smell in my room. I can feel the heat of that July night, and I just knelt by my bed. And I think I said something really profound, like, “Okay, Heavenly Father, the missionaries asked me to pray if the Book of Mormon’s true, and I kind of already know it is. But they asked me to so I'm asking you.” A most silly prayer. And I just felt this peace come over me that I don't think I've ever felt in my life. And I just felt, and it was just like the feeling I had on that road that one day where I just felt like God knows me, He loves me, He has a plan for me. And I thought, “This is it.” That moment in high school, when He was saying, “There's going to be some things I'm asking you to do that might be scary. Just do it.” Joining a church, when I was not from a religious family, that's a big thing.
ASHLY
Yeah.
MANDY
A big commitment. And I thought, can I commit to doing something that I'm not really even sure I understand what they're asking. So that night, I just knew. I don't even know how to describe, but so many things in my life, I go back to that night. And I remember the missionaries teaching me, “If the Book of Mormon is true, Joseph Smith had to have been a prophet. Because how could that book have come into being, if he wasn't a prophet?” And that made so much sense. I was like, “Yes.” And so those were, you know, those pillars of my really early testimony, and I had a ton of questions, and not very many answers. But I thought, “Okay, this is familiar. This is the God that I have felt before. And I know this is what He wants me to do.” So it was a simple faith, “I'll do it.”
23:56
And then later, when I learned about garments for the first time, it was from a girl who was not fully committed to wearing her own garments. And she framed it in a way that was really negative. And I drove away. I was driving back through Tampa to my apartment, where I, at this time was living with two returned missionaries. And they were phenomenal. We had apartment prayer every night. And they had always had questions and they would go through my questions. And just on the way home, I was really disturbed about this new information. I do this a lot–I drive and I pray. So I was driving and praying and saying, “Heavenly Father, what is this?” And I had that memory come back of that night, in my room where I prayed about the Book of Mormon, and I felt like the Lord asking me, “Do you remember the answer I gave you?” And I thought, “Yes,” and I could feel the peace all over again. And He said, “That's all. Just hold on, hold on to that, and the rest of this works out.” And so that night, I asked my roommates, I said, “Tell me about the temple garment.” And they both were in doubt. And so they answered all my questions and they bore their testimony to me about the blessing of wearing the temple garment. And then we said a prayer. And at the end of that night, I wanted to go through the temple so badly! And I went through my wardrobe and all I owned were tank tops and short shorts, because I lived in Tampa, Florida. And that was what I owned. And I got rid of everything in my wardrobe that wouldn't cover the temple garment. And this was two or three years before he even went through the temple. But you know, I look back now. And I think I'm so grateful for those friends and their testimony, and the Spirit just bore witness to me. And that has been the pattern every time I've had a question. I just go back to that, that same night when I prayed about the Book of Mormon. And there have been so many challenges as a new member. Even just simple things, like I didn't sing, and we had to sing hymns. And I thought, “Oh, this is horrible! I don't know how to sing,” and I felt so self conscious. And then we would sing things like “Families Can Be Together Forever.” And I would just want to cry because I would think, “Well, not my family,” which is a very immature reaction, but that's where I was. And so I always just had to go back to anchors in my testimony. And then over time, it grew. You know, as I asked questions, you know, I felt like I was blessed to have friends and ecclesiastical leaders who were not afraid of all of my questions. And they bore testimony, I think that was just the best thing. When somebody asks questions, if my children ask questions about things like polygamy, I don't have any brilliant answers.
ASHLY
Mmhmm.
MANDY
And sometimes I wish I did, but that was another one where I learned about that, and I went to my roommates. And one of them, she asked me about tithing. She said, “Do you remember the first time you were taught about tithing?” She was also a convert. And I said, “Yep.” And I remembered, because when they told me about tithing, I was thinking, I knew about the offering plate in the Methodist Church. And I thought, “Oh, that's for people with jobs, not college students. How can I afford to pay 10%?” I was trying to save up money to move to Florida. So it was a huge leap of faith for me. The girl that was joining the church with me, she had made an envelope system. So she knew how much money she needed for everything if she'd put money in envelopes. And she said, “I just added a tithing envelope.” And we didn't even know how to pay tithing. It's so funny. We just started saving our money for tithing. And I remember the day I thought, “Okay, I'll make an envelope system.” And I put all my money, like “This is first month's rent, this is gas money to get there, this is grocery money, this is tuition money.” I had all my money in envelopes, and I was working two jobs and tucking all the money away and a little nervous that I'd have enough. But I had to because I didn't want my dad to be right.
28:13
So I remember the day I put the money in the tithing envelope. And I sealed it, because I was so afraid I was gonna take it back out because I was scared. And I tucked it away. And then I thought I'll have to ask the missionaries, “Where do I give this money to?” And then that day, I decided to go back to my parents’ house in the country and get my mail. And so I drove that long drive out there. And there was a stack of mostly useless mail. But then on top, my mom said, you have a letter from JC Penney, which is where I worked. And I opened it and it was a $1,000 scholarship that my manager had applied for, for me, and I didn't even know it.
ASHLY
Oh my gosh.
MANDY
When I opened that, I just felt the Spirit say, “Mandy, if you'll pay your tithing, I will take care of you.”
ASHLY
Wow!
MANDY
I thought, “Okay!” And I know, some people will say, “Why don't I have those amazing experiences?” And I think I needed those. I call those the training wheels. I feel like the Lord was–
ASHLY
Oh my gosh, you're so right. That is a good way of putting it!
MANDY
I needed training wheels. And there was a moment where I felt like the Lord put his hand on my shoulder, and He’s like, “I'm taking off the training wheels now. It's gonna feel really hard.” You know.
ASHLY
29:31
I think about that all the time. Because when I first got sober, and I was first starting to go back to the church, I found that Book of Mormon bookmark in that Bible.
MANDY
Yes.
ASHLY
And I was like, “No way did I just find this.” Or like, just little messages all the time. And it's like, He requires more faith as you go along. Those training wheels are off and He requires more from you.
MANDY
29:53
Yeah. And I didn't like those moments.
ASHLY
Yeah, for sure.
MANDY
So my friend Devanie had said, “Do you remember your tithing experience?” And I said, “Yes.” And she was teaching me the principle that you receive no witness until after the trial of your faith. And she said, “We don't have to practice polygamy, Mandy, so I don't know if we'll get a testimony of it. But you know what I do have a testimony of?” She said, “I have a testimony that everything God asks of me, even when it's hard in the beginning, ends up for my good.” And she said, “Think about tithing. Think about how He took care of you and how He said, "First do the hard thing.” But then how it ended up for your good later. And I was like, “That's true. I know, that's true.” And so that's where I put polygamy. I thought, “I don't have to practice it, so I don't need a testimony of it. All I need is a testimony that if God asked me to do something, it will be for my good.” And that's maybe too simple. But again, it worked for me, and it gave me peace. And that's where I put those things. So I guess, as I grew in the church and encountered more things, more questions, those are just, I don't know, just the most simple answers have always worked for me.
ASHLY
31:05
Yeah, I love that so much. So tell me what advice you would have for somebody who sees people like you mentioned that are falling away; they see people sharing stuff on social media, and they're looking at it and reading it. What advice would you have for somebody that it’s affecting their testimony?
MANDY
31:25
I can tell you what the Lord told me. He told me, “Stop.” Because I had friends who were leaving, and they were sharing stuff. And I thought, “I'll read it. And I'll figure it out. I’ll find answers to their questions for them. And then I'll help them want to stay in the church, because I'll figure it out. And I can share my testimony with them.” And the Lord was like, “That's not how that works.” And so I stopped reading it. And I think, I don't know that's, and again, probably I feel like all my answers are so simple, but I just think it's not your journey. You can't find answers for people. You can't talk people into staying in the church, or coming into the church. I did a lot of that reading. And I always felt dark afterwards. I felt like I kind of had to climb back out of that hole. And I thought, “Oh, I think in coming days, it's not going to be possible to survive spiritually.” That's what President Nelson told us, unless we have the Spirit with us constantly. And I think, I can't afford to go down these dark holes,
ASHLY
Yeah.
MANDY
and jeopardize that, thinking I’m going to help somebody. But I can stay where I know I'm strong. And I can invite them to come and join me there. And I will love people to pieces there. Going to General Conference … And I always–you know, you have the shoulder devil and the shoulder angel. I had my dad angel. Everything I heard about the church, I would think about, “What does my dad think about this? How would he feel about this?” And I remember going to General Conference for the first time and being floored at how bold the General Authorities were. And I thought, “How do they expect people to have enough faith to come to the church?” and the doctrine seems so bold to me, because I think the sister missionaries and all of the members were trying so hard to just give me milk before meat. General Conference was like a roast beef meal. Oh, and I remember praying about it and thinking like, “How can my family ever come into the church if they heard these things?” And I felt the Spirit teach me everybody has to have their trial of faith. Everybody has to jump. It feels like jumping into the Grand Canyon, trusting that somehow the Lord will make sure your feet land on the other side. But you can't see the other side. He just says, “Leap.” That's what it felt like coming into the church. And I thought, every single one of my family members will get that same invitation. And nobody comes to a testimony without leaping. Maybe it's a savior complex, where I felt like I was going to help everybody. But I felt like I just have to let everybody travel their own journey.
ASHLY
34:15
Yeah. So where is your family today? What were their thoughts after your baptism? And where are they today with your relationship with the church?
MANDY
34:24
Yeah, I’m sure they thought it was a phase. I was always a seeker. I always had a ton of questions. And I think they were like, “Oh, good for her.” You know, they were very supportive of my decision. When I was sealed in the temple, that was hard. And there are still some hard feelings about that. Sometimes that comes up. They support me, I think, especially seeing my oldest just turned 19, and she's going on a mission. And seeing the lives my children live. My dad has even said to me, “I think the biggest mistake I made as a dad was not raising you in a Christian home and introducing you to Christianity.” They were hippies. And so they thought, “I’ll let my children choose for themselves.” And you know, he has said, “Oh, in retrospect, I didn't give you choices. I didn't expose you to things to choose from.” And so I think that's a compliment, that he feels like, “Oh, this has been good for your life.”
ASHLY
35:20
Yeah. I love that so much. Well, do you have any final parting words of wisdom before we wrap up?
MANDY
35:28
Yeah, I feel like the thing that I've been thinking about the most, and that's what I was printing off, was there's this talk from, his name's Carlfred Broderick, I think is his name. It's called “The Uses of Adversity.” The hardest part for me coming into the church was I felt like it was imposter syndrome, I guess, is maybe what you would call it. I felt like I wanted so bad to be this good Mormon. And I would see these people that had been in the church their whole lives, and I struggled so much with self doubt. I thought of my life as this journey through this dark tunnel. And then I came out into the light, like Plato's allegory of the cave. And I wanted my growth in the church to be just like this constant upward climb. But it was not like that. I fell back into old behaviors a lot after I joined the church. And I really struggled with that. And I had been in the church– I'm trying to think of how long it was, it was at least a year, and I had fallen back into bad habits again. And I just remember thinking, “I don't think I'm cut out for this.” I had kind of been assaulted by questions, like with polygamy and stuff.
ASHLY
Mmhmm.
MANDY
And so I had grappled enough with stuff because as I tell the story, it sounds like it was just this light switch turned on, and everything was happy and fine, but it wasn't. I struggled. And I remember feeling just so weighed down, feeling like I am never going to be one of those good Mormon kids that I saw at the singles branch. I remember the Sunday, our church was at two o'clock in the afternoon, I woke up and I just kind of thought, “I'm done. There's no way I'm gonna make this work. There's no way I'm going to ever really be a good Mormon.” But I couldn't shake the feeling that I knew I'd be missed if I didn't go. There were friends, and our branch president, I knew they would miss me. So I went, but it was really hard. I was not feeling the Spirit. I was not living in a way that I could feel the Spirit. And I was not feeling the Spirit. I was in a dark place again. And I remember sitting there in sacrament meeting, I slipped in and I sat by myself. And I could just feel somebody's eyes on me. And I looked up and the branch president was looking right at me. He just had so much love in his eyes. And I felt like He was saying to me, “I know this is hard.” I knew He understood. And I think in many ways, in my conversations with Him, He had tried to communicate. And I just felt it in that moment. “This is really hard, but I'll carry what I can for you for now till you feel stronger.” And it was such a beautiful moment. Because I remember thinking, “How does he love me so much? How does he see me failing and falling and he still believes that I can do it?” And his belief in me gave me the faith to keep trying. And then later I came across this talk from Carlfred Broderick, and he talks about giving this girl a priesthood blessing. And she had been abused by her father, and I think even by her brothers; she had this horrific upbringing. And she got married and had little boys. And she was at church one Sunday, and she saw a little girl with her sweet, loving, happy dad. And she thought, “It's good I didn't have girls because I think I'd be so jealous of my own daughters having a loving dad because I never did.” She talks about having this thought like, “What did I do so wrong, that I had these terrible things happen to me?” And this man, as her priesthood leader, gave her a blessing and he told her, “In the premortal existence, you volunteered to come to this family, that into you will flow dirty water, but from you will flow pure water.”
ASHLY
Wow.
MANDY
I read that. And because that's kind of how I had always felt coming into the church, like I was “less than” because of the dark places that I had been. I believed in the Atonement. And I loved Jesus, and I wanted to accept the Atonement, but I don't think on a really deep level, I really believed that I'd ever be pure and clean again. Or ever, ever. You know? And I remember thinking, sitting in the temple, “You must be so disappointed in me.” And I feel like in those moments, the Spirit communicated. I felt the Lord saying to me, “You're more beautiful to me now because you went to a really dark place, and you still chose me.” And so those kinds of thoughts, to me, I think those are the most important part of my story is that the time and the space it took me– it was not just this lovely, “and she lived happily ever after, after she got baptized.” It was a process. It was in the process of time, I came to really understand the Atonement of Jesus Christ. And I came to accept and believe that I could truly be pure. And that came as I met my husband. I adored him. He's amazing. He's pretty close to perfect. And I thought, I want to marry somebody just like him. But I didn't think it'd be him because I thought there's no way that he would have any interest in somebody like me considering my past. And as we dated, and as we were getting more serious, I thought, I have to tell him. I told him everything. I was like, “You have to know all the things that I've done.” And I don't know why I did that. It's really stupid now that I think about it, but I felt like I didn't want to let him marry me, and then find out that I was like this dented can in the clearance section, you know?
ASHLY
Mmhmm.
MANDY
41:20
And he looked at me and he said, “I don't know that girl.” And he said, “You, the girl I know, wouldn't do those things.” And he said, “Mandy, when you knew better, you did better.” And that's the gift he's given me, you know, all these years. And I think even after our marriage, it took me a long time to really accept that. And that, to me, I don't know … to me, that's the most important part of what I would want to share of my testimony, is whether or not somebody's a convert to the church, or if somebody's gone off the path for a while, and they find themselves in dark places … And I think Elder Holland just said it, I wish I could quote it exactly, but there's no place so dark, that Christ's light can't shine, and there's no place we can go to be too far away from Him. And I love that about your podcasts. I hear the stories of these people that you interview, and every single one of them, I think, when they were at their darkest and lowest point, if they did anything even to turn toward God, He just fills them with His love. And all of their stories, oh, He put that person in their life, or, oh, He provided that opportunity for them. And that was His way of saying, “I’m not afraid of the dark. I know that if you just choose to follow me, I can bring you back.” And not just kind-of back, not just partly back, and not back with some battle wounds. But 100%.
ASHLY
42:52
As-if-it-never-happened back.
MANDY
Yes.
ASHLY
Yeah.
MANDY
42:55
And that, to me is amazing. And I sometimes I hear members of the church, talking about other people who are struggling in a way that I think I hope they never hear you say that. Because if I would have heard somebody say that about me. And at certain points in my journey, I would have given up on myself. And I needed people who kept believing in me when I was so sure that there was no way that I could really be clean. So that to me is this full circle moment to be able to have a time to be on your podcast and to bear testimony of the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. And to be a witness that– I wish people could see where I was. And to know that if you would have seen me then, there's no way you’d believe He could ever do with me what He has done with me. There's no way. But that's the power that He offers us. And it's beautiful.
ASHLY
43:54
Yeah, yeah, I can relate to that. 100% I think that that is so true. And I see that commonality in the stories on the podcast. And people just you can see, you know, they just make that one small turn towards Him. And it's like all of the miracles follow. And it's so beautiful and amazing. And I'm so glad that you came on the podcast because it truly is an example of how God can work all things to the good of those who love Him. And you're here and able to share this story that's definitely going to help other people. And it puts all of those hard things that you went through for a purpose. So I just appreciate you so much taking the time to hop on the podcast. And yeah, you're awesome.
MANDY
44:40
Oh thank you, Ashly. You're amazing. I'm so grateful for what you're doing. And you are to me an example, you are such a beautiful person. You have that glow. You have that light and I just love how you're bringing it to the world. And you're just offering a platform that everybody who wants to, to share that light too. It's such a good thing. I love it.
ASHLY
Thank you so much, Mandy. You're awesome.
