A Conversation with Irene Gilmour

Hello and welcome to another episode of Inside Out. I am here with Ian Wilkes. Ian, how are you, sir?

I'm doing great.

We have a very special guest here, we'd like to welcome Irene Gilmore to Inside Out. Irene, very glad to have you here. How are you?

I'm really good, thank you. Had a good Christmas with family as well, um, and looking forward to doing this. Uh, it's taken us a couple of times to get here, hasn't it? But we're here now.

That's correct. We, we already had a conversation that nobody else has heard but we had some technical difficulties with it. So Irene, I'm very glad you're a good sport. You're willing to come back and have this conversation with us again. We would very much love for you to share your story with us. Now, you, you had joined the church in your teenage years, is that correct?

I did. I joined the church around 1978 when I was 18, and I was engaged at the time to a boy, and it was a very violent relationship that I was in. So, in joining the church, the missionaries came to his flat. So, what we did was, I had had some experience previously with the church. My granny was a member years ago, and my Uncle George, George Stewart, that you've spoken to, was also a member. So we, as young children, used to go to church events in Pollok Ward, and we used to meet up with Jean and George when they were unmarried, and they were just a loving young couple. And people, you know, Danny Clark was the bishop at the time. You might know him, Ian, but Danny Clark was the bishop at the time. But we never joined the church per se. When my mum remarried, we left the church, and we went, you know, on with our lives. So And when I was 18, it kind of was revisited. The missionaries were fabulous. Elder Robert Hutch, who I still speak to, we reconnected through Facebook, and we are still— we still chat. He's on a mission at the moment with his lovely wife. And then Elder Tidwell, and I was baptized into the church again through that.

Uh, well, and so it wasn't long after then that you went on a mission.

2 years, yeah, 2 years after that I went on a mission and separated from, um, my boy, my fiancé. I think a lot of it was being in the church and the young adults gave me the impetus and the courage to get out of that really bad relationship. And so it was really sort of helpful in that respect to have the courage to kind of break away from a really nasty relationship. So, um, about 2 years later, I decided— I had worked in a kind of welfare services, social services background, worked with young people in care, and had heard of a welfare services mission, and I really thought that this would fit very well for me and for the jobs that I had done in the past. I had been in nursing as well, so it sounded like it was perfect, really, but I didn't realize that I could go on a mission because I didn't have the finances, my family were not members of the Church, and I couldn't see how that would happen until my bishop, Bishop Jimmy Greer, told me that I could be funded by the church on request. So he did that, and I was called to Panama, Costa Rica, San José mission, which we had no clue where that was in the world. I thought I was going to Spain, um, and I looked all over. I was like all over the maps trying to find it, and I thought it sounds Spanish, San José, um, and couldn't believe when I saw where it was, that it was Central America. So I was called to that mission. I was actually engaged to my now husband just before that, but I did tell him that I was going to continue on with my mission. I was going to do that first, and he supported that 100% for me.

So your husband waited for you on your mission?

He did. He was— he had been baptized into the church about, I would say, about a year and before I went on my mission and I had always planned to, to do this and he was happy. Yeah, of course he just honored that, you know, he was happy to wait.

Wow. Yeah, I had a girlfriend when I left on my mission and she did not wait. So usually that's the story I hear is that— so you are the exception to the rule. So, um, so Costa Rica, Panama, San Jose, uh, what was that experience like?

It was incredible. Um, it was the most incredible experience of my life that I can look back on now. The most adventurous. If you ever, you know, if you were looking for an adventure, there it was. It was exciting, it was terrifying, but it was also traumatic, and it also caused not the mission itself. Um, it caused a fair bit of trauma in my life after, after the effect. But it was— when I look back now, it was incredible to have had that opportunity. Um, but sadly, um, it didn't go very well, and I had to come home early because, um, I was really ill and had dysentery and had other viral infections. It meant that I had to go into hospital in Panama City and come home shortly after that.

I really wish it— we want to get into more detail with your mission, uh, because you've shared more of your experience on the, uh, an earlier conversation. But which MTC did you go into?

To, uh, Utah, in Provo.

In Provo. Okay. And so, and so did they Uh, did, in contrast, did they, did you feel they give you, give you enough training during the MTC?

No, Ian, we were totally unprepared for what we were going to. This, this was a culture that we were going into that you couldn't equate anything to. There was nothing you had to hang on to that made any sense or that worked for you. When I went to the MTC, we were there for 6 weeks and we did learn some Spanish. That was difficult for me because at school in the UK, French is your second language. So everything sounded French. My Spanish sounded— I was speaking with a French accent. But picked it up. I mean, my tutor just found it really funny because he said, you sound French, you know, your accent's French. Because it's quite a leap to jump from a French accent to a Spanish accent. There, met a lot of lovely people, but there was no real preparation. I remember there was a cultural meeting, I think it was only once, and it was nothing. It showed you nothing. It didn't prepare you for the health issues, for the emotional trauma, and even dealing with things like mosquito bites, which were absolutely— I was head to toe covered in. Even how to deal with those health issues. Sadly, it was more about, while you were there, they wanted you to lose a bit of weight and get a bit fit, and there was a bit of kind of fitness involved. But at the same time, we went to the temple quite a lot in Provo, so it was quite a spiritual time. But I would say that in preparation for this mission, definitely not. Absolutely not.

Was, was the conversations about the— during the, on the MTC program, any conversations or meetings about the culture? And also, had they— had you met anyone at the MTC who had been to the mission prior? No. Could share their experience specifically on that mission?

Not that mission. Bearing in mind though, Ian, there was missionaries going all over the world, you know, so it was It was very much the two sisters that I was like working with in the MTC, and we were in the same room, and they were both going to my mission. So, um, but other than that, definitely not, definitely not prepared. We had no sense of what we should be wearing, and that was quite important, as I learned later on, um, and basically how to deal with food issues, boiling water, taking care of your health, bacteria. I think all the stuff that we learned during the COVID periods, that should have been in there, you know, about washing your hands and making sure you were safe. But it just wasn't. No, there was definitely not enough preparation. I had to spend 4 weeks with preparation and 2 weeks learning about Spanish, but 6 weeks were more devoted to a bit of Spanish, and basically other bits and pieces, but mostly Spanish. That was every day we had a Spanish class.

Well, when you talk about trauma on your mission, are you— um, I mean, I don't want you to have to relive anything that you don't want to discuss, uh, but, uh, was it, was it generally culture shock? Uh, was it the health issues. Um, I mean, I think we can discuss any of that that you're comfortable discussing.

I mean, I can give you, I can give you a couple of examples of situations where I felt traumatized. I actually felt scared. So not, not the culture. No, Jim Bennett, the culture itself, I was just soaking that up. That was amazing. I knew what— I knew it was going to be poor. I knew there was going to be issues over food. So It's not— it's not— I wasn't being a bit of a snowflake. It was basically the situations that I was placed in that were dangerous and that actually caused me mental trauma. I was told later on after my mission that the psychiatrist felt I had PTSD because of some of the situations I had found myself in. Um, but an example of that, it was I hadn't I had very quickly went into the mission field, and I went to a place called Chitré in Costa Rica. Now, normally you stayed in your, your, the first place you went to for a couple of months at least to settle you in. It's a small village, and it was fine, it was great. But the one thing I was aware of was my companion kept ending up in hospital during the night, and that was something that kind of just thought, what's, what's this? She ended up twice going into hospital and getting— I don't know to this day what they injected her with, by the way, but they always gave her an injection. And to this day, I'm not sure what that was, but she was always quite poorly. And it's just something that just sort of sits out in the back of my mind. I wonder why she's so unwell. Well, within 2 weeks, um, one of the mission— 2 of the missionaries came and said, "You're going to the San Blas Islands today." I didn't know what they meant by that, where this was. And one of them said to me, "You don't normally go here till you're at least 6 months to 8 months into your mission because it's such a difficult place to be." So 21, didn't ask enough questions, didn't stand my ground and go, "Hold on, what's this?" That was fine. I had other issues that were more about— because I was supported by the church, my bishop would send a cheque once a month, but it never got there because I was away out in the sticks. There was no banks, so there was no way to access any money. So at this stage, I actually didn't have anything, and my companion was helping buy me food because there was— I had no money at all because that cheque had not arrived. Well, it had arrived in Panama, but it hadn't come to me. And even if it had, you can't get to a bank. So there was— it was twofold. It was just a nightmare. Um, but anyway, I did say to the elders, I I hate to say this, and I felt quite humiliated. I said, "But I don't have any money." And they said, "Oh, don't worry, don't worry, the elders will get you to the other side, so don't worry, just on the bus." At that point, I didn't know this was a 14-hour journey on this bus all the way through Costa Rica, up through the mountains to Panama City. So I had no clue, I had no clue. Contact details for anyone at the other end. My Spanish was pretty rubbish at the time. I'd only been there 2 weeks, but here I was. I had always been assured, 'You'll never be alone. You're a missionary. You will never be left alone.' But here I was on a bus heading towards Panama City in the middle of the night. So I thought, right, okay, suck it up, it'll be okay, it's a big adventure. Got to Panama City, I think it must have been around about 1 o'clock in the morning, and there was no one there. Everyone got off the bus, and I got off the bus, and there was no one there for me. I had no clue what to do. I was terrified. Here I was in this big city with no money and no way of saying, where I'm going, how I'm going to get there. I was absolutely terrified. So what happened was I just thought, "Take the initiative, Irene," and I saw a taxi. I thought, "I'm going to have to." Got in a taxi and tried to explain, you know, the Mormon Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and it all came out in all broken Spanish. And he was going, "Yes, yes, yes, of course, yes, of course." And he went, "I'll take you, I'll take you." So we— I got in the back, and to this day, my family can't believe I got in a taxi like that, but I did. And what happened was then his friend jumped in the back with me, and he was almost sitting on my knee. He was right up against me, and he was touching my hair, and he made me feel extremely frightened and uncomfortable. Sorry, Ian, did you want to say something?

No, no, it's good. I'm just listening to that.

I was really frightened. I didn't know where they were taking me. I had no clue where to go. But after some time, now they did seem to take an awful long time to get there, they got to what looked like the Mormon Church. So I said, "I'm sure that's it." They woke up the elders, and the elders were really angry and upset. About being wakened in the middle of the night. They both came out in their PJs, extremely upset. So they did pay the taxi driver, and they literally said to me, "You'll have to sleep in a room in the church building. We don't have anywhere for you to sleep," and put me in a room, and it had one chair in it, and shut all the lights of the whole building down. And I literally, that was me for the night. I was covered from head to toe in mosquito bites. I really think they loved my Scottish blood, by the way, because they got me more than anyone else did. Everyone else was a bit better than me, but they got me. I don't really remember. I remember waking up in the morning. I just lay on the floor, and I woke up in the morning and I thought, this is, this is crazy. But I thought, ah, it's a one-off, it's a one-off, that'll not happen again. Straight from there, we had to get over to the island. So we had to get a plane over to the mainland and then a small canoe over to the island called Playa Anchico. You canoe? Yes, yes, it's a small canoe, and the Indians were in the canoe. And I was like, what? I've got to get into this canoe? And there was one at each end sitting there with the whole dress, the whole kuna dress on, painted noses and little bowl-cut haircuts. And they were just getting in, and I was just like sitting there terrified I was going to tip out of this canoe. We got onto the island, and this was about the size of a football pitch, and it was full of huts, literally huts. And we were somewhere about the center. And when I got there, I was aware that there was a Baptist church at one side and the Mormon church at the other side. So it was all quite exciting at the time. I was like, I had forgot my past experience on the bus, really, and got quite excited about all of this 'cause this is just what I was looking for. I'm gonna help people, I'm gonna help these people, and I'm gonna do something really cool here. And that's what I wanted, to make a difference. But nowhere in there was there any structure around the welfare services side. There was no one saying, 'This is what we want you to do, this is what we need you to do.' We were very much like a kind of second fiddle to the proselyting missionaries because we didn't have any real sense of what we were there for and how we were going to help people and how we were going to change things. But I went to my heart, and the first thing that happened was I was told I needed a hammock. Now, I had to say to the elders, "Look, I'm sorry, but—" I said, "Have you got a hammock?" Because I was aware that I was on a dirt— it was a dirt floor in the hut, and there was nothing else. My companion said, "You need a hammock because there's rats and spiders and all sorts of vermin running around the floor at night." So I'd said to one of the elders, "I do need, and have you got a hammock?" And he said, "Well, it's $15. You'd have to pay $15 for one." And I I'm sorry, I haven't got any money. I imagine that by this time, you can imagine, I was really embarrassed by all of this. I really felt quite humiliated. I didn't know I needed a hammock. I didn't know it was going to cost $15. So the elder said, well, I'll give you one, but you'll have to owe us that. You owe us that. So I said, that's all I can do is tell you that when I do get money, but here was an island that there was less chance of getting money. It was even worse now. So, I got my hammock, had to cover yourself up at night with a sheet. You felt spiders and rats running down your body during the night. Water was a major issue. I'd heard from my companion that numerous missionaries on the mission were going home. That many, many were getting dysentery, that many were struggling with their health after that as well. And she said, "We've been told to boil our water." And I said, "Oh, well, fair enough, we'll make sure we boil our water, that's what we'll do." During the day, the Indian, one Indian would cross over back to the mainland, run up a hill, turn on a tap, run back down again, cross back over to the island, and for 2 hours the island had some running water. So already that water was pretty contaminated before it even got there, and we all filled up our buckets, and the Indians all filled up their buckets as well. Then you took the water back, and that was your bathing water and water for boiling. So we did boil water, But again, it's back to that numerous hands, as we know through COVID, numerous hands had been touching taps, touching the buckets. So you can see why dysentery was rife at that time. That kind of alarmed me at the time that so many young people whose families trusted the church were kind of putting them in these situations without— I know health and safety wasn't a thing then so much, but Really, it could have been looked at much more closely, but it wasn't. So on the island, I was then really keen to know what my purpose would be. What is it I'll be doing here? Um, I saw women being baptized who had scabies on their breast and who were feeding their babies, and the baby had scabies on its mouth. And I saw them being baptized in filthy water. And that was one of the first things that struck me, is, "What are you doing? Why are you baptising a woman in filthy—" and this was water that had human waste in it. So immediately, you can imagine, as a welfare services missionary, I was like, "What? What are you doing? This is filthy. She's got scabies." And, um, but then it was at that point the elders, you know, kind of intimated that they were under a bit of pressure to get baptisms done. Now, this is all sort of well documented now. This was 40 years ago, so it's known that the Central American period was a bit of a bad period for the Church. It's not particularly something they like to talk about. The mission president at the time, I felt, I felt was very matter-of-fact. He didn't rate the welfare services missionaries at all. Didn't see what point there was to us at all. He actually, at one point, he decided we were to be proselyting missionaries because he thought we were— it was a waste of time. Now, I struggled with that because one of the things I did say to him was, well, if I was called to do this, and that's what I believed, I believed I was called to do this, 'How can you just change it? How can you just decide that's not happening now?' And he just basically said, 'Do what you're told.' On the island, there was lots of issues that I encountered, but there was also lots of things I heard from other missionaries that really, really shook my faith, that made me think, 'Have I What have I done, joining the church? Because bear in mind, we were in Scotland, this was all new converts. We were all new, pretty new to it. So we didn't really know much about the church. Here we had missionaries who had been in the church their whole lives, so they knew everything, or pretty much everything. And they liked to tell us about the celestial kingdom and about plural marriages, and, you know, this was going to happen when you, when you're, when you go to the celestial kingdom, you'd be popping out spirit babies and I was just like astonished. I thought, what are you talking about? So things like that were kind of filtering about in the background. One day we, in the Sunday morning, we blew a corn shell, big shell, and that's how you got the Indians out of bed basically. Um, and I went out this morning, blew this shell, and it's like a huge trumpet sound. No Indians came at all. Church was empty, not a soul in the church. So I tried again. No, I thought, try the Baptist minister, see what's happening here. So I went to the Baptist minister, and they were all there because they'd all been Baptist in the back. They'd all been baptized in the Baptist church as well. So basically what we had was an island full of Indians who were pretty smart, do you know what I mean, and pretty clever. And thought, wait a minute, we can get from both of these. Now, he had got Coca-Cola in from the mainland, and that's what took them in that direction that day, which I think is brilliant because I loved them. I thought, amazing people. Couldn't speak to them. I didn't know their language. They spoke Kuna dialect, so we couldn't speak their language. So there was lots of really exciting experiences, but quite quickly I became really ill. I began getting lots of pains, started to feel really, really sick, couldn't eat, couldn't sleep. So at that time, the missionary said, 'We might need to get you over to the mainland.' Now, went over to the mainland, went into hospital, During that period, I was 4 weeks, I think 4 weeks in hospital, and the only visitors that came were maybe a couple of missionaries from the mission office for a couple of minutes. And to this day, I honestly can't remember much about what happened in that whole— how can you not remember 4 weeks? I cannot remember. I was so disorientated, I was so traumatized by the whole experience. Then after I came out of hospital, we went back to San José in Costa Rica, and we went to the mission president's home. This was Christmas time. Now, my fiancé had sent me some money to buy a camera. Now, by the time I got to San José, I was able to pick up a couple of checks, and I thought, that'll, that'll be me covered, because by then, up till then, I had pretty much nothing. My husband, my, my now husband, had sent me separately, and it wasn't even an expensive camera. It was just enough to take some pictures of my mission. The mission president was absolutely awful. He, in front of everyone, said, "Where did you get that?" And I explained, and he said, "You have no right touching that money." He said, "That's the Lord's money." I said, "No, my fiancé sent me this to get this camera." And he said, "You had no right doing that. You're using the Lord's money." And I was horrified. And he then took me aside and spoke to me about the San Blas Islands, and I explained to him. He said, 'How did you feel there?' And I explained I was really concerned about the baptisms. I had major concerns about how many of the Indians were being baptized who didn't even speak Spanish, who didn't speak the language, who didn't seem to understand it in the slightest, and in fact, who were also almost certainly 'in the Baptist church as well.' And he shut me down. He was very upset with me, very upset with me. And he said, 'The reason—' he said, 'The reason I took you off there, Eileen,' he said, 'because I—' he said, 'I saw it. I had a vision that something bad was going to happen. So that's why I took you off.' And I said, 'I came off because I was ill.' And he said, 'Well, I'm not sending you back.' And I was really— that night I just thought, what is going on? Can't I see? Now, at 21, you haven't got a lot of confidence, and when you do speak up, quite often it's difficult to maintain it. You know, if somebody kind of pushes you back down, you think, well, I better not, he's the boss, he knows what he's talking about, it must be me. But unfortunately, um, I think that was enough. I think it was enough. He then decided, as I say, we were, we were going to be proselyte missionaries, that welfare services was a waste of time. I later found out that other missionaries had gone to Panama City and been left in the middle of the night in a park, and that no one had let them know, the missionaries know they were coming. It wasn't just me. My health deteriorated a bit again, and he then said, I think you should go home. He said, like I said, I feel like something bad's going to happen if you stay.

And how long— I'm sorry, how long have you been out by this point?

I think it was about 6 months in total. Yeah, and being moved around quite a lot. And most of the things that happened to me, I could say to you, were okay. Um, the thing that caused the most trauma that I can now look back and through counseling and support that I had to get myself in the future, you know, and further down the line, um, we were in, um, Chi Tri in the town and we were picked up by the police. Now, we were picked up by the police because we could not hold passports. We couldn't. They had to hold our passports. I've now found out that's illegal for them. They should never have taken your passports off you because it means that you're effectively being held there. You can't go anywhere. So they did it because they said you would be killed for your passport. Someone would kill you to get your passport off you. So that was the reasoning. So we were taken into a prison, uh, to missionary— to Sister Missionaries. And to this day, I can smell the smells that— it was like every bad smell you could put in one place. I can hear the guys in, in the cells shouting at us and swearing at us and saying disgusting things to us. We were then taken into the room with the boss guy, and he was everything you'd expect him to be— terrifying, absolutely terrifying. We were there for, it seemed like hours, before the elders turned up with our passports. And to this day, I still have nightmares about being in there. Absolutely horrendous experience. And again, if I look back on my mission, it isn't all of that that made me leave the Church. But if I was to tell you that I can't imagine any organisation being so disorganised with the resources the Church has, and so unable to look after these young people safely, and make sure that they were safe. It's astonishing. It astonishes me to this day, but that's not why I left the church.

I just, I got a couple of questions, Irene, if I may. Um, did anyone sit down with you at the beginning, like in the MTC, or shortly after you arrived at the mission, like your mission president? Did anyone sit down with you and explain the scope of the duties and responsibilities of a welfare missionary?

No, not at all. There was no— what was that supposed to be?

What was your understanding of what that—

my understanding is that I was walking into something that was like social work, already set up, already a system in place. We would connect with their social work department, we would connect with their health services. And that we would support people, you know, like all they did, they did one thing, they gave us a flip chart and it was a jokey little comedy thing about, and I remember it, it was called Margarita Cocinita and it was about washing your fruit and vegetables. That was what we had to do, was to literally wash your fruit and vegetables. Washing your feet in what, sorry? No, washing your fruit and vegetables. Okay, that's it. That was the sum total. We also, um, did puppet shows at some of the fairs. So we made puppets and did puppet shows, and this was to encourage people in and to encourage children around. And the puppet shows were around making sure your fruit was clean, making sure your hands were clean. That wasn't anything, that wasn't touching anything, that wasn't doing anything. In the islands, they couldn't wash their fruit and vegetables, they couldn't, it was impossible. So I honestly felt that the role, it just wasn't there. But then I thought, well, surely we must need to try and develop this and try and do something with it. Unfortunately, when I was moved back to Costa Rica, I was then put in proselyting with two other missionaries who were proselyting, and it, it just shifted me right away. And I'll be honest with you, I thought, what is this about? I don't want to do this. I never did want to. That's not why I'm here. And the mission president I was told when I was on my way home, he asked me again, he said, "I think you should go home." He asked me again, and I said, "Whatever, I don't see any purpose for me here, I'm ill." And I was taken to the airport quite quickly, and one of the elders from the office, from the mission office, said he just wanted rid of her. That's what he said. Because I said, "I don't know what I've done wrong. I don't know what I've done wrong." And I was so upset and traumatized. And he just said, "It's not— it's not what— it's not you. There's stuff going on in the background you don't know about." And I was told that later a General Authority came down to Central America to sort out some of the mess. So that was years later I found that out. But I carried that, I carried that for— going— and I know you'll understand this, going home from a mission early is not something you want to do. A lot of people all have a lot of opinions about what you've done wrong. It's always that, "What did you do? What did you do?" And it was really hard to go back because no one wanted to know, including the Stake Presidency. They didn't want to know anything about the mission. They basically— the first thing one of the, one of the Stake Presidency said to me at an interview was, well, you obviously can't go back out into the mission field because of your health. 'So now just go and get married, and your God comes first, your husband next, your kids next, and then you.' So my self-esteem hit the floor, absolutely hit the floor. And I recall, I mean, now it's all grown up and everything, I think, what a thing to say to a woman, to make her feel like she's nothing. I already felt like that. I already was devastated by the whole experience. I was thrilled by the experience, but certain parts of it— and, you know, now when I look back, I had been in a very abusive relationship when I was quite young, and here it was happening again. And then, believe it or not, when I joined the church, I believed that the men who would take care of me in the church were good people. Who would not do anything that would be detrimental to my wellbeing, because I did believe they were speaking from God. I believed that. So therefore, whatever they said to me was so important, because then it became, it was me. It became that it was me that was wrong. So that was really hard. Again, I didn't leave the church at that point though. I went on to—

Go ahead, Ian.

Sorry, what year was this, Irene, when you came back? And also—

'82, that would be about when I was back, yeah.

And what stake are we talking about?

Glasgow stake. Glasgow stake. Yeah, that was Glasgow stake. Go ahead, Jim.

Well, so how long did you stay in the church after your mission?

I stayed in the church after remission for— now, after 6 months, I had to go to hospital and get tests for infectious diseases. I had to get blood tests for 4 months, and I had to go and get other tests for a stomach ulcer that seemed to have appeared from nowhere. I then got married within about 6 months, and then Jim Bennett and I got married, and we went to the temple in London. And then we went to Hamilton Ward. We went to live in an area, and Hamilton Ward was our ward. We— that was just natural for us both to do that. We lived out in a place that was quite far away from Hamilton Ward. My mental health just took a decline. I just was so devastated by the whole thing. It was all too much. And I took an overdose. I went to the doctor and I said to him, "I don't feel right. I've come back from this mission, got married, my health, I feel like nothing. I feel like I'm not important. I feel like I've done something wrong." And I know it sounds a little bit childish as I'm saying it, 'cause I do feel like it does, but I was a child. I was. I was just a young woman. So he said, "It sounds to me like PTSD," because when I explained some of the things, he said, "Can you imagine one of those things happening would be enough to traumatize you?" And he said it was like one after the other. He at that point said, "You must have not felt safe," and he was right. That's, well, look back, that's it, I wasn't safe. So, he then gave me tablets, and I went home, and I couldn't function at all, and I overdosed. Jim was at work, my husband Jim was at work, and he phoned one of the Hamilton ward members to help him. We had no car at the time. And she picked him up and took him to the hospital. And then that was the last contact, that was the last we heard of it from the church at all. Jim Bennett, bless him, decided that I was more important than any of this stuff, than going to meetings and sitting chatting to other priesthood holders and whatever. He said, "I will go to my work and I will take care of my wife. That's all that matters. You're first." And he made that clear. "You are the one I'm going to take care of." And he did. And we moved to Merseyside, he got a promotion, and we just drifted. It didn't end like a big final end, but we just drifted. It was almost like we got there, we were so busy trying to go on with our lives. I was pregnant with my son, and it was almost like it just drifted, it just disappeared out of our lives. And that was us, and it went on for years and years. And as I say, my Uncle George was still a member of the church, we still had connections, but we were in England, they were in Scotland, so there was no real connection in that way. So I moved on with my life, and I became a counsellor, I had two wonderful children, and I had a wonderful husband who did put me first and who didn't put me down a long list of importance. Um, and I actually started a charity in England for— to support people and counsel people who couldn't afford counseling. So all of the things that I went on to do, I believe I got there because of illness. I believe I got there because this is where it led me, this is where God wanted me to go, and this is what he wanted me to do. He wanted me to counsel people with drugs and alcohol and sexual issues. He wanted me to do those things, and that's what I did. So we had, we had a marvelous life, and we eventually moved back up to Scotland here when my daughter was 16 and my son was 18. I had a knee operation and I was in bed and I thought, found the pearl of great price in the drawer. And I had a lot of time in between— don't laugh— between Breaking Bad episodes. Um, I'm sorry, you said don't laugh and I laughed. But they were much, they were much more interesting. But between Breaking Bad episodes, I found this in the drawer and I didn't read it really. I just thought, oh, do you know what, maybe I need to be sure, maybe I need to be certain. We kind of drifted. Maybe I need to be certain. Was this just because of all that experience? Was it because of this trauma that I went through at the time? Or is it not for me? So I went online. Good, the bad, the ugly. I wanted to know all of it. All of it. Because I wanted to know that if I walked back in that door, it was because I chose to do so, no matter what was going on or what was, you know, was happening in the church. So I did. For 2 years. And it nearly killed me. It mentally— wrecked my head. But in the end, it just never felt right. It just never felt like it was the right thing to do, was to go back. So I didn't. And that was— it was just— I got a feeling in my gut, this just isn't right, this just isn't for you. So that's where it ended for me, my connection really with the church, until recently when my Uncle George was going through quite a traumatic time. And we visited him probably about once a month, and that's when it all kind of raised back up, and that's when my mission came back up again because I hadn't talked about it for years. But then I was very aware of the lack of support that a young woman at 21 had from the church itself, and with the resources that the church had If I look back now, it's dreadful, absolutely dreadful that a young woman at 21 was not supported better in that situation. The organisation of the mission was just terrible. But, and I'm going to say this to that mission president, two countries, what was that about? Imagine putting them in charge of two countries where there's so much risks, so much danger. To these missionaries. How could you, how could you do that? So for him, that must have been horrendous. Had he had any training on how to communicate and counsel people or young people? I don't know, but it wasn't, it definitely was not evident. And had the, the, the, the person, you know, from the stake had he ever really been counseled, trained on how to deal with me, or how to deal with someone who'd had an experience like that, or people who have had similar experiences? And what I saw was no. And then 40 years later, there's my Uncle George, and it's still the same. Nothing's changed. The things that have been said and the things that have— the way they've been said and the way that he's been dealt with and the way he, you know, was scapegoated, exactly the same. And I thought, how's that? That was— and when I came to do this, I spoke to my daughter, who's amazing, and I said, I need to know there's a reason for me doing this. I can't just do it because it's just a story, isn't it? It's over for me. And she said, it isn't over for you. You've been carrying it your whole life. You blamed yourself rather than blame these men who said the wrong thing at the wrong time when you trusted them. And that's why I think it is important to say it.

I think your mission had a profound profound experience on you, you know, your entire life, you know, negative but also positive. I think you got positive things from the mission as well. And then post-mission, you had little or no support from the leaders. And I think that was, um, that was probably very, very painful. We went through a very difficult emotional time. And now with your, you know, conversation with, uh, Uncle George, who came onto the podcast, as you know, a few weeks ago, this has, uh, you know, opened up your thoughts and your feelings on the past and the experience of the church. Um, and I think you're very— Jim Bennett, I think you're very courageous and very brave and very resilient individual to come on and share your experience. You feel that this sharing your story will help you in some way?

I mean, yeah, oh, absolutely, 100% has, 100% has. And when I spoke to you the first time, you know, when there was sort of issues with it When I left you, I had a huge lump in my chest. I felt as if there was something stuck there. I didn't realize how profound the effect would be on me. Since then, I've been free. I feel free. I feel free of all that blaming myself. I don't want to blame other people, but the reality is There's a church who had so much ability and resources even then to keep young people safe. And keeping young people safe has got to be the core of what they do, of any organisation or any church. That's what Jesus Christ would do, keep young people safe. And we went out there and we were not. And it was like no one cared. And it was almost like, "Get rid of her, get rid of her. She's going to say something. We don't want her to say anything." And that, I can look at that now and go, "Wow." I'd have stuck my guns and I'd have been in there going, "No, let me speak to someone." Not at 21. At 21, no, sorry. It's me. It's got to be me. It can't be them. Well, but I—

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you. I just, you know, I'm very curious. It sounds to me like since you left the church, since you sort of drifted away, that you still have found God and had sort of a personal faith that wasn't sort of grounded in the church, but that you didn't leave your personal faith behind when you left the church behind. Is that correct? Absolutely.

Never, never at any point. In fact, I would say I'm more spiritual now than I ever have been. I'm someone who thinks about God all the time, who thinks about what I'm doing. And yeah, like everyone, we're all sinners, we all make mistakes and get it wrong. But I truly believe that the things that I've done in my life, and how I've taught people to work in social care, and people have said to me, "You changed my life by speaking to me, by doing that." But that took years of training. Jim Bennett took me 6 years to train to sit down with a person and support them to deal with their own issues and not give advice. And I think I actually see the difficulty for bishops because that is what's expected of them, to give advice, and that never works. Do you really want somebody to take your advice from your perspective? Do you know what I mean? You could do them some real harm. And yeah, please, Morven Church, get— I suppose looking at how hurt my Uncle George was when he asked some questions, and what happened, and the stone rolled down the hill, and he became ostracised, and all of those things. That no one was willing to really just sit down and talk to him. Please be more— be more open, be more open, talk more about these things. And I know from the internet people are talking more about these things, but it took him looking for that. He didn't find that in his own ward or in his own stake, and that should be there. And I would always say, in anything and in any organisation or any church, The core has to be the young people. You damage a young person, you've damaged the adult. You have. You've got a damaged adult. And I can prove that because all my life, and this has trailed along behind me, all that sense of guilt that I'd done something wrong, that I shouldn't have challenged my Mission President. That I shouldn't have said to him, "What's going on?" So, you know, don't. Like, church, a lot of resources, get something in place. I'd love, I'd love to see that, not for me or for me being a member, but for the members who are people, and they're people who deserve to be listened to and understood. And not criticised or ostracised because they say something that no one wants to hear. And let's face it, the truth of it is scapegoating, isn't it? You scapegoat people because they're telling you something you don't want to hear. They're telling you something that makes you have to do something about it, doesn't it? The church members should be able to mix and hear and understand that other people are hearing things. I mean, a lot of the stuff I heard in my mission, I was just astonished. I was astonished. In fact, I don't think I believed most of it because I thought it was too off the wall. The layers of the onion were being peeled off in front of me, and I thought, no, what have I done? Have I joined this church and I don't know enough about it?

Can you give us an example, Irene? What was one of some of the basic doctrines that you had difficulty believing or accepting, uh, to that point?

I think the, the thing that sticks most in my mind, and affected my husband as well, was we went through the temple at the time where, where, um, you know, you went through the whole sort of rigmarole, if you like, and then that was changed and things were taken out. And I know that that truly affected my husband's opinion. He's very pragmatic and he can't— still to this day, he will go, "You can't just change it because of public opinion, because people don't like it or it makes them feel uncomfortable." And if we went through that, does that mean nobody else has to go through that now? Do you know what I mean? There was just a lot of confusion about something that we did it. As strange as it felt to us, but we did it because we felt, right, this is what God wants us to do. But then for someone to just change it and take it out, that was just a thing. And then there was other examples of that happening. But believe it or not, it was when the missionary said about the celestial kingdom and that, you know, I'd get a husband and, you know, he'd be my spirit husband. And if it wasn't my husband now, which he wouldn't be, would it? And some other guy would have me, and I'd be popping out spirit babies and living on this planet with him. And I thought, is you talking— what are you talking about? Now, I know that our minds are not open yet. I understand that. I understand that a tiny part of our brains are currently being used, so we would have no understanding of what that meant. But at that time, it was pretty shocking to hear. And it just made me think, what else don't I know? And then later found out I didn't know an awful lot. So that's why when I did investigate again, I was not— there was no holds barred. I wanted to hear all the good stuff, the bad stuff. And I didn't just look at the negative. I balanced that right out with all the positives, because I was aware, you know, that it's too easy on the internet, and you know it is, to find loads of rubbish about anything. But I did look at that and I just thought no. And I think a lot of it was the money side of things in the church and the financial side of things in the church, um, around tithing and money going from the UK. And, you know, like Also, even the churches in the UK, and even, even down to paying tithing and going over and Salt Lake building big malls and all sorts of stuff going on. And as we know now, big investments that have been— that the church has, has been putting here, there, and everywhere. Um, all that stuff just doesn't sit right for me. I went to, um, Croatia with my sister a few years ago, and there was a tiny little church on one of the islands, and it was probably the size of this room. And I walked in and it was— it felt amazing. And I thought, this is where Jesus is at. This is where he's at. Not in these big opulent temples. And this is where he's at. So yes, you know, Jim Bennett, you're right. I, I do feel very spiritual. I do feel as if I brought my children up with amazing principles and kindness and caring for others. They— if they choose religion, that's entirely up to them. It's not for me to make that decision for them. But they are both lovely human beings. And if that's not enough, in the end, I don't know what to say. If I don't get into heaven, I'm not sure that I'd want to know that, God, anyway. And I know I've been horrible, like other people are horrible, and I know I do stupid things, but I have invested a lot of my energy and time in caring for other human beings and making sure that they feel safe and they feel loved and they feel listened to, and I feel like that is enough.

Well, I think that's a good place to end. I really appreciate you sharing your story. I think it will help a large number of people who listen to it. And, you know, it's from my perspective. I mean, I'm still an active believing member of the church, and I think for so long we have sort of buried these kinds of stories. We don't want to talk about the bad experiences. We don't want to talk about the places where the church has let people down. And I just don't think we have any choice anymore. I think we have to talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly and bring it all out and let people make decisions as a result of that. But I just don't think that there's anything to be afraid of when you confront the truth. You know, Jesus once said, you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. And I think the fact that you're willing to share the truth of your experience, I think it's helped set you free. And I think it will help set others free. It has. Listen, it has. So I want to thank you very much, Irene, for joining us for this episode and wish you a very happy New Year. Thank you. Always fun to be with you again.

Yeah, yeah, I always enjoy my time with you, Jim, and these items, these issues, these topics are really important, I think, to help people. And Irene, I just want to just add to what Jim said, and on behalf of Jim Bennett, I'm sure all of our listeners, that you are an extraordinary human being. You're a wonderful, kind, thoughtful, caring individual, and I'm so sorry you went through all the trauma I think it could be described as drama, actually. But you've come out in many ways stronger. You have an amazing family, wonderful husband and children. You're spiritual, you're more spiritual. And I think your story and parts of your experience there will resonate with a lot of people. So thank you for joining us today. We really are grateful for your time and just want to wish you a Merry Christmas and the very, very best for 2024. Okay, thank you.

Thank you very much.

Take care. And to all of you listening, we'll see you next time on Inside Out.