A Conversation with Roy and Emma Hann

Hello and welcome to another episode of Inside Out. I'm here with my partner in crime, Mr. Ian Wilkes. Ian, how are you, sir?

I'm doing very well today, Jim.

How are you? You know, I'm doing just fine, and I'm very excited about the guests we we have on. We have the best guests, and they're even better when they come from the great land of Scotland. And we've got two wonderful guests that we both knew in Scotland when we were missionaries. We have Roy and Emma Hahn. Am I pronouncing that correctly? Is it Han or Hahn? I'm pretty sure it's Hahn.

Hahn.

Hahn. So I screwed it up. I'm thinking Han Solo. Yeah, that's a great way to start it, is to mispronounce your name. Sorry about that. Well, I knew Emma when Emma was Emma Campbell on our mission before she, she had married you, Roy Han. But, but Ian, you, you knew Roy on your mission.

I did. Yeah. But my time with Roy goes back way back to January '87 when I was trained as a missionary. In the ward of Dumfries in the Edinburgh Estate going back. And the Hand family, Roy's dad was the bishop, George was the bishop, good bishop and great wards and very friendly. I think the only reminder of keeping me in place and keeping me grounded was a reminder, from many of the members in Dumfries that I was English. And, uh, so, uh, but George is English as well, I think. I think Bishop Anne is born in England. So yeah, fantastic experience. And we used to go to the Hannan family for dinner. So I met Roy way back when he was just a wee bairn. We had dinner just outside Dumfries. The family were amazing, wonderful, loved them, fell in love with them, and just very grateful, uh, to the family, you know, new missionary, being from England and just feeling welcome and warm. It was cold January and they looked after us. And so, so I've got a lot of affection and love for the Han family. Pronounced correctly.

Yeah, yeah, correctly. My apologies on that. Well, you and you, Roy, you and Ian went tracting together, I understand.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, like, before I went on my own mission, Um, obviously I was hanging out with the missionaries trying to get as much experience as I could, um, so I could go out.

And does that mean Ian's older than you?

Ian's older than me.

I'm older. And I'm surprised you went on a mission even after track day with me, so that's—

yeah, you know, that's good.

He's older than everybody, so, so that's really not that hard.

I've worked for all my gray hair.

I paid a heavy price for this Yeah, I got mine earlier than you did, and I think I have more of it. So, but so, Roy and Emma, we really are very excited to be able to talk to both of you because I think you have— Emma, I know that when I was serving in Dundee, Scotland, your family was sort of the centerpiece of the church., in that ward. They were, they were the strongholds. We, we baptized a, um, a woman. We can't remember her name, uh, but she was engaged to your cousin and apparently never married your cousin.

Nope.

Uh, but, uh, all I remember is that she was very pretty, and I probably shouldn't have noticed how pretty she was while I was a missionary.

Karen. Karen.

Karen. That's right. Can't remember her last name though.

Neither do I.

Which is probably better because then if she hears this, she won't try to sue us or— but both of you, my understanding, so both of you were active, faithful members of the church who had 11 children. Am I counting that correctly?

13.

13? Oh, jeez. My goodness.

11 girls.

They're all girls?

11 girls.

Oh, 11 girls. Maybe that's where I got the 11 number. Um, so yeah, I mean, you guys, uh, but, uh, you are now no longer members of the church, and I very much like to hear your story and, and hear what led you to that point and, and get a sense of where you are now as well. So that's kind of a tall order, but I want to sort of turn the time over to you, and, uh, what can you tell us about the, the hands?

Well, both of us were born under the covenant. I mean, we were, um, I suppose like our parents' time, there were very few members of the church that were even born, that were even sealed in the temple.

I think the story goes that my birth, or my mom and dad's like they got married and sealed right away, whereas a lot of members hadn't had that opportunity. And then I think that when I was born, it was mentioned in the Millennial Star that I'm the baby born under the covenant, because it was really quite rare back then.

Are you the oldest member? I'm the oldest kid in your family.

Yes, I'm the oldest Campbell. Yeah.

Yeah. So we were, we were both born under the covenant, grew up in the church. Didn't I? I'm one of 9 children. Emma was one of 8.

Um, so we were kind of two big families in Scotland, which there weren't a lot of, you know, big Mormon families in or out of the church.

That's a very, very unusual thing to have a family that big.

Yeah.

And away from Utah, like in Scotland, these big families were quite rare.

Yeah. And most people were converts, like above. Like older than us. Most people were converts to the church. Um, uh, so, so it was quite, uh, different because there'd always been a mass exodus from Scotland to Utah and America, or people had just fallen out of the church and left. So it was rare to find people who were second or third generation in the church until more recently.

Yeah.

So, yeah.

Well, prior to World War II, the instruction from Salt Lake City was join the church and then come to Zion.

Yeah.

And leave Scotland. I mean, the church has been in Scotland longer than it's been in Utah, but so many of those early members, including my ancestors, almost all of my ancestors are Scottish, and they joined the church and they came to Utah. And that's why My accent is not anywhere near as cool as yours is.

Well, I don't know if you had this, Roy, but like when I was growing up, my dad would often talk about we may get the call to leave to go to America. Like, I think there was this belief that that may still happen.

My dad definitely was very much belief of the apocalyptic, you know, end of days. And if I would, if I could find a word to describe him now in modern-day language, he was, he's a prepper.

Oh, sure. Yeah.

Yeah. Very right-wing. Very much, uh, he has guns. You mean, um, keeps to protect his food storage, um, so that nobody can have it if they come to the house.

Guns, guns in the UK, I thought were completely outlawed.

He has a farm, he lives out in the middle of nowhere, you know what I mean? It's like, I mean, we kind of grew up with that, you know, we go shooting, hunting, all sorts.

It's quite rare, it's a rare thing, you don't see it so much nowadays.

Well, but so, um, how did you two meet?

Well, I think that like, um, Scotland's such a small place, there's only like 5 states Um, and they would have regional, um, seminary days and regional events. So I kind of was aware of the hand that you might have.

Yeah, kind of aware of each other. Uh, before I went on my mission, a couple of nights before I went on my mission, um, we, I was out with some other members and it was the first time I stood up. Um, and Emma and I got talking. So that was the first time we really had talked. And I went on my mission.

You got stood up?

Yeah, I got stood up.

Yeah.

We were meant to meet up.

He was going on a mission and she had had a fallout with— Make up a story.

She'd had a fallout with one of her friends and never came. But they, um, so we— but then I went on my mission a couple of days later.

And I was going—

Where did you serve?

I remember that conversation and then we came back and they had a thing, it was called Aberfoyle, which was like a big kind of gathering of young people came from all over the country.

Did you go, Ian?

I lived for Aberfoyle. I used to, at that time, you know, I came back in '89 and I was very active on the YSA convention for up and down England from Hyde Park to Merthyr Tydfil. Huddersfield, the state that I was in, etc., had big successful events. But my favorite by far was Aberfoyle, and I, I just, I just loved it, and I just didn't want to leave. And I met so many people there.

So it was like an outward bounds kind of, um, adventure, adventure kind of place in the, in the kind of lower hills. Yeah, in the Trossachs Hills.

Yeah, yeah.

Um, and, uh, We—

I, I was there just days after your mission.

Days after I'd finished my mission, my dad had bought a ticket for me to go, you know what I mean? So I'd come home and I went there. Um, I think the, the first time I kind of chatted to you, I was helping out with the abseiling and, um, fitting the belts on everyone, on the girls, on the girls, you know.

And, um, and then we got chatting, uh, you know, when the dance was on, and Roy started telling me like the first discussion Look, I was just off my meds. I was like, tell him, be like the Joseph Smith story. Like, it's like, ha, hello.

He's adding you to his teaching pool.

Yeah, that's the worst pickup line I've ever heard.

Building relationships of trust.

Or he called him his dating pool.

Yeah, no, I just said, I just said that's the worst pickup line.

I know.

Yeah, but it worked.

It did. It worked. Jim Bennett. Jim Bennett's inspiration.

Jim's fruit.

All right, well, if it worked, then I guess it isn't the worst.

Look, I mean, where did you—

Roy, where did you serve your mission?

Well, here's the exciting part, you see, because I got sent, uh, 30 miles from my house to the England Leeds Mission.

They're on the boundary, and we're right there, so I got sent to Leeds.

Right, right.

That's the mission where you grew up in, Ian, wasn't it?

Yeah, absolutely. That's my mission. So I, I'm really I was just interested, did you serve in the Huddersfield Stake?

Yeah, I was in Dewsbury and Bradford. No, I was my first place and Dewsbury was one of my, was my last, I think.

Right. These two wards I know really well. So Dewsbury, I was born in Dewsbury and then I was baptized in Dewsbury and my brother-in-law right now is the Bishop of Dewsbury Ward right now. And so, so Graham Stocks, do you know the Lennards from Bradford?

Yeah, yeah, I know the Lennards.

You know, big family, like, you know, big family. Massive family. So we know that a lot of— most of the people in Dewsbury Ward, Jim, and of course Bradford, because that was the Huddersfield Stake. And, and I'm, I'm still connected to the Huddersfield Stake, um, Facebook page. So I see all the old names. I've known them for a long, long time.

So yeah, so my brother was Bishop of Bradford at one point, so, okay.

Yes, it was. Yeah, yes, and yeah, yes, I remember. Yes, so yeah, uh, and then which other areas did you serve in, in the Leeds mission?

Um, so I was in Sunderland.

Okay.

Newton Aycliffe.

Do you know the Deacons?

The Deacons?

Yeah, Deacons. Yeah.

Um, so Sunderland, Newton Aycliffe, Sheffield Second Ward, Doncaster. And Leeds West Branch.

Right, right. I know a lot of people in these, in these wars. The Richardson's from Doncaster, big family down there. Yeah, so we, we, you know, we know a lot of the same people. We grew up with the same people. So, and, and was your mission a good experience for you, Roy? Was it positive?

Yeah, I mean, it was. I mean, I, I, I enjoyed my mission, you know. I really enjoyed, you know, being out on my mission. I had a lot of success. You know, I had about 19 baptisms, which is a lot for a British mission, you mean. Um, so it's quite successful. Um, and you know, I really— for me, it was, it was what I'd always grown up wanting to do, you know, because that's what being in the church is. You just think, I'm going to go on my mission. And I went on my mission. Um, I think my dad was more disappointed that I got sent to Leeds than I was. He even tried to phone up and complain about it, that they were sending me to somewhere that was so close to my house. And, um, you know, so it was— but my dad, my dad, um, grew up in that, in the Northeast, you know, in Newcastle. He's from Gateshead.

Yeah, he is.

That's right.

So like when I was down on my mission in Sunderland, I mean, everybody kind of knew my dad that was kind of older Um, but to be honest, most people knew my dad no matter where I went, because my dad used to work for the church. I mean, he used to be one of the, um, worked for the social work, LDS Family Services, and went all over Britain. Um, so it's like, for a while I couldn't go anywhere without anyone knowing him. Not so much now because the younger generation don't, don't know him, but he was somebody that everyone knew. It would always be, 'You're George Hanson, you're George Hanson,' you know what I mean?

So it's a good job he didn't get called to Carlisle, which I think at the time was it the Leeds Mission?

Um, yes, it was, but I spoke to the mission president about how close it was and he didn't send me there.

So Carlisle, Jim Bennett, Carlisle.

Yeah, my mom would go Carlisle all the time. That was the biggest town near us.

So yeah, Carlisle, Jim, is literally a stone's throw, I think, or thereabouts, from where Roy grew up, like what, 20 miles?

Yeah, in fact, it was closer, as close as Dumfries was, where the ward was that we went to.

Fascinating. Yeah, my goodness.

It had to have been tempting to just maybe hop in a mission car and stop by the old neighborhood before coming back.

Oh, you know, actually, I actually took 53, 52 missionaries out of the mission once.

By accident.

Just by accident, you know what I mean? I did warn the mission president it might happen, and he just said, just don't, make sure the bus doesn't stop or the trip stops. And they all got out, so I took 52 missionaries out of the mission. Um, because we went hill walking up in, um, the Lake District, which was in our mission, but to get to it, because it was an L-shaped mission, the bus was going to drive through Manchester, Salford, and that, and all the way up. I mean, in fact, one of the missionaries was like, oh, I can see my house.

I grew up as we drove past it, you know, it was like That reminds me of a missionary named Ian Wilkes who took an unauthorized excursion to the Isle of Skye.

I'll explain what happened there. So the Inverness zone was the biggest zone in Scotland. Huge.

I was expecting—

covered all the west side and the whole zone, including a good friend of mine, Byron Casper, persuaded me and others that, hey, let's go to Opedie. Let's go. Visit the Isle of Skye. So we got permission from one of the APs, but, uh, when we got there, I got this feeling of foreboding, and I thought I should check in with President Banks before we— it was in Caol I Blachadh. Yeah, great, great, great mission president. And so just before we—

it—

the bridge hadn't been built at that time, and I think it was the ferry. And then one of the missionaries reminded us that Satan is in charge of the sea, we shouldn't cross the the sea. I'm serious. This is just serious. So I thought, okay, so how did you get up to Stornoway to— Well, no, I was in Inverness. Yeah, I was in Inverness.

I know, but like the missionaries in Stornoway.

Oh, sorry. Sorry. Uh, correct. So it wasn't the entire zone. It was Inverness, Old Ness, Elgin missionaries. I, I, I think that was it. Yeah. Uh, Thurso might have been down with it at the time, probably. But I took— were you there, Jim? Did you come?

I was not. I'm not sure if you did that while I was in Thurso or right before I got to Thurso. It was around that time.

Yeah. And so I took most of the missionaries. We headed to Caol Blac Gáis. I had this feeling that, my goodness, it's such a far, long way. I've probably gone too far here. I then made a phone call as the seniors-only leader to President Banks, who absolutely chewed me out. And then, um, and also reminding me that we weren't supposed to cross water. And then the missionary, I think it was Byron, who actually helped encourage me— I can't blame Byron, it's my fault— uh, that Satan's in charge of the, uh, that the one that helped me.

I mean, I know about the swimming thing, but I never knew anything about boats. I've never heard that one before.

And I took a boat, totally authorized trip, when I was in the, um, Irvin zone, we went to the Isle of Arran. Yeah, to the story. And nobody raised an eyebrow about that. The idea of not crossing water. I did that. That's—

yeah. I mean, how do you think the missionaries did it in the past before planes?

Yeah, yeah, sure.

So anyway, so you and I, you and I, Roy, are in the, in the same, in the same boat. We made some unauthorized excursions.

Yeah. So you guys obviously, obviously weren't as righteous a missionary as I was. Being so, so righteous. No, that's nonsense. But so, so you served a mission, you came back, you got stood up, which allowed you to get married to the right person. And how— so how long did you stay in the church? And what was your experience like before actually leaving? Was it a positive experience? Did you enjoy your time in the church?

We were very, we were very much in the church. We were very, very active. Um, I, I'd been on the bishopric, um, high priest group leader, you know, all sorts of things, lots of different calls at the same time. Um, even like, we, we were in America for about 7 years, down in Arizona, and then, and Virginia.

And we loved Virginia. Like, we'd been in Arizona for 6 years, and it was really tough, um, being Scottish and such.

Well, in that heat, dry heat, at that time, I mean, we had a lot of kids. We had, well, we had 5 kids at that point.

But Roy did his degree. We, we, we were full on believing that, you know, this was a temple covenant, that we multiply, replenish the earth, that God would provide, that we had to be faithful. I think Roy did believe he would make him more of a god. I think that I think we really, you know, and both our parents who had big families and really, you know, had strong—

but then comes the problem of providing for that family. And when I qualified and came out of university, um, there was no— there was only temporary contracts in the NHS at that time, and the National Health Service, they weren't— you couldn't get permanent contract, um, because they were trying to lose employees. They had too many staff. Were trying to lose them. So, um, so they weren't renewing contracts, they were only offering temporary. Um, so we— I, you know, I just was— felt that, you know, we should maybe just look at— looked at lots of different options. I even looked at going into the military at one point. Um, and then we had 5 little girls at that point.

We lived in a flat above a lady who, every time the kids came home, they would call the police because the noise of banging on our floor.

It wasn't nice.

It was difficult. Um, a difficult time.

Yeah.

So we're looking at anything, and, uh, they were desperate for nurses in America, and they would give, um, green cards to the whole family before we even—

I had a green card before it even entered the country.

Yeah.

Me.

Yeah. So, um, we thought of it as a temporary thing to see.

Well, we went for 18 months and we stayed for 7 years.

Yeah.

But like, it was, um, there was also cultural differences, you know. Like, for instance, um, and, and it's things that were taken for granted as well. Like, for instance, our kids went away on a youth activity once and came back, and, and the kids were going, oh yeah, it was really good, went out to the desert, was shooting guns and stuff like that. And I was like, wait, nobody's even asked my permission here, you know what I mean? My kids are away shooting pistols, and I'm like, what the heck, you know? But that's just accepted, you mean? And it's like nobody'd even question it. And Yeah, he was just like, you know, yeah. Um, and, and, and here was the thing, probably from a, from a political point of view, our politics didn't fit anywhere, you mean. And you're so polarized over there, you're either Republican or Democrat basically, and we didn't fit in anywhere. In, in, in Arizona, they'd say to us we're too liberal and you'd be better on the East Coast, and on the East Coast to say we weren't, yeah, liberal enough.

You mean, so, so what? So it sounds like in all of this, it sounds like you guys are about as Mormon as you get.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Change. How did it change?

I think initially we had, you know, how the shell thing. And weirdly, Gary is our friend, like from years and years ago. And he had, you know, when he came out as gay, he told us he was going to distance himself from us.

And I just wanted— when you say Gary, I mean, we've talked about Gary on this podcast, and I know Gary listens to this podcast. Gary, uh, I got to know Gary very well on my mission, and my family, yeah, supported Gary on his mission. Yeah, I've kept in touch with Gary since his mission. And so this is Gary McNaughton, and yeah, uh, amazing, amazing.

Yeah, he brought everyone— like, everyone I knew, he just brought so many people into church. He was the best Mormon I had ever known in my life. He was just and so knowledgeable and so, so spiritual.

He was an acting high priest at the age of 17.

Yeah, he was, he was.

They gave him, they, they went to Salt Lake City and got permission so he could hold the calling. He was the ward mission leader, this teenage kid. When I got to, um, the drum shop.

That's, that was uncommon. Like I was Young Men's President when I was 17. In fact, when you, when, when, when Ian would've been there. No, but when Ian was there, I was the Young Men's President, but I was 17 years old. You would have been there then.

But Gary was, like, super special, and he told us— Roy was— we were only in our 20s, and Roy was on the bishopric in Dundee, and Gary told us that he was gay and he was not going to, like, hang out with us. And I kind of hurt, and I didn't really understand why, and I didn't think it was right, but I kind of did think it was right. 'cause I thought, well, yeah, you know, I was confused by it. I was like, well, you know, it's just a huge trial he has. He just has to overcome it. And I just kind of think a little bit, you know, strange about it all. But it hurt that we had had this, you know, kind of drift and our friendship had kind of drifted. And then I kind of, as time went on, you know, we kept in touch and he told me some of the things he'd been through., and it didn't sit well with me, but I didn't have a way to work it out in my head or anything. We just kind of shelved it. And then I think for me, really, there was a lot of things we were seeing that wasn't right, and the end for me really was a lot to do with, like, you know, the way that people were being treated by struggling with beliefs and questions, and seeing, you know, the members and the leaders turning their backs on them. And gossiping about them and not wanting them to come to church, and my awareness of when I think they said that the children of gay parents wouldn't be allowed to, you know, be blessed or baptized or all that stuff. Just by then, I kind of was having so many problems with the church, and I thought, by sitting myself down on the pew It's as if I agree with this because I wanted to be there to make the changes like people would say, but I didn't have a voice at all. Like, you know, I could go play the piano and I actually started reading the hymns differently. I remember playing the piano and seeing, I think it's in Come, Coming Saints, and it says something about, I don't think I can remember the phrase. It said something about that, you know, basically we are the only ones who have the happiness. I was kind of like, huh, that doesn't—

I think that's something— thank God for a prophet. Those who reject this glad message shall never such happiness know.

That phrase really stood out, and I didn't like it, and it just— I didn't like it. And I went and sat back down, and it was just ringing through my ears. I felt so uncomfortable, and by then I was just like, I don't want to sit on this chair and pretend that I agree with this. And we had all these children, and we were this huge number, and the numbers were so important to the church. And I thought, I can't. And my children, by then, some of them were feeling— and we'd done some kind of filming, um, uh, about our big family, and the church were really keen to, um, be promoted.

Yeah.

And we had to go through kind of all of the media stuff Well, the Church wanted us to go through media training, and they wanted us to, you know, kind of give their agenda. And my brother was very firm with it. He said, you know, nowadays a lot of TV stuff is fly-on-the-wall, and it's real, and it's— you don't want to, you know, have somebody given an agenda that isn't theirs. We were just a family that they were interested in knowing about. We just happened to be Mormon. But we filmed down at the temple with our daughter when she was first married and getting sealed, and it went for a children's TV program for CBBC. It was very incredible. And we did a lot of this stuff, and the church was all over it. But the members, some of the members that were kind of really, what's the word, by the book were— I mean, the church was telling us what songs we could play at the piano. This is coming from Salt Lake. What copyrighted music we were allowed to use.

We were filming in the building.

We were filming in the building, and some of the members have that, "There's to be no filming in the building." So they would not be nice to my kids in primary, and they wouldn't, like, ask them to do anything. And my daughter's in primary with them, so she's like, "Mom, their hands are up, they're ignored." And some of my kids started not wanting to go to church. I never experienced this before. We were trotting these 13 kids over to church, no bother. 'We live across the road.' We were that Mormon. We bought a house across the road. Um, and so it was just very difficult, and I started to not want to push them because I knew that, you know, there was reasons, and the reasons were right. And I, I think that—

I mean, like, there were a bit— there was things before that, or, or that were going on at the same time. Um, like Paul Topen, that you, you know, Um, him and his wife was the stake primary president, and they had left the church, stopped going to church quietly. And this is Emma's cousin, so we went to their house, you know, feeling like we wanted to try fellowship them and help them.

Right, to prove them wrong.

Looking for ways to answer their questions. They had struggled with the Blacks in the priesthood. I kind of delved into it. I only read from church sources. That's the only place I was going to. I even read, um, Hubie Brown's biography, you mean. But it became apparent to me that this was, um, a racist doctrine, you mean. And, and the racism that had existed there was very prevalent and, and still existed in the church now. You mean you still would hear and see things, um, from people even in— and like, you had a brother who came back and then dated a Black girl and got told off for dating a Black girl. I mean, it's like— and that was in 1990, do you mean? Um, so that— I just— and, and I remember where it happened for me. I was walking to my work at the hospital and the church had just come out with the essay on the blacks and the priesthood, and they had disavowed these doctrines, okay? And I was walking and I was just like, it's not true. It's not true. I can't believe this anymore. This is not true. And what I have believed in the church and everything, and that was it for me. I just stopped.

It was easier for Roy because Roy had always been, um, quite often working on Sundays, so people didn't really know whether he was, you know, just working or he wasn't going. And I, I only had church. I— that was my only outgoing.

But it was, it was a devastating thing. Like, I remember I could— I was working all night and I, I was struggling to work because of how I was feeling. And, and the the, um, and it took a while before I could even take my garments off. You know, you felt uncomfortable, didn't know what to do. You know, it was, it wasn't an instant thing.

You're how old at this point?

I was 47 years old.

Okay, so just in time frames, so the 2015 was in 2015 where they announced the policy that children of gay couples couldn't be baptized. The Race and the Priesthood essay came out 2 years before that. So it sounds like, Roy, you had a moment where you said, this is not good. Did you, Emma, did you have a similar moment?

I think that I found myself, I probably didn't have that. I think it was just pile upon pile of awful things I was seeing and the way I was being treated at church because I was defending Colin Libby, and my sister-in-law as well. She was going through the same stuff, and I was going to church saying, you know, I'm saying to them, come to church, like, and I was feeling very much— I was told by one of the most prominent leaders in Dundee Stake that everybody goes to for advice, he said, I don't want them coming. I don't want them coming. And I thought, but the sign says all are welcome, and I thought it doesn't matter what state of your testimony, even if they come for their kids to hear them, you know, do some of the primary. It's not for us to not want— no, I don't want them there, I was told. He said, I don't want my less active kid who may show up at church to hear things that they may say. And I realized very strongly, and also at the same time was the essays, and, you know, we were all kind of Facebookers back then, and Stephen Kerr, who was on the area president, he was I think he was the area president. He posted the essays as they came out on his Facebook page. So I was still going to church. I was still struggling with, you know, a lot of things. By then, I think one of our children hadn't been baptized, so in the run of kids, this one hadn't been baptized, and we were kind of— Roy was not, you know, we were just like struggling with our belief, and so I think that I started to post the LDS, the Gospel Topic Essays, and I felt frustrated, one, because the Newsroom could post a letter saying, "We're not going to stand for the congregational hymn, the intermediate hymn," but they wouldn't post on the Newsroom these essays. You had to find them. So Stephen Coward was posting them, so I posted them. And I thought this was great because I had members of my family and friends, and, you know, if they were struggling with these things, here, the church is doing something about it. But I had a lot of people talk, so there was big debates on my Facebook page about it, and some of it was beyond my understanding, and I didn't really engage in all of the discussion, but I got pulled into the bishop's office and told I wasn't to post. The essays. And I said, but, uh, Stephen Kerr did. Well, you're not like controlling the, the, the— and I said, but I don't think it's my place to do that. At this time we've got two girls on missions.

Um, so I mean, that, that was an impact on, on that transition out as well, and how long it, it kind of took because we had two kids on missions. We even had a leader of the church who was stirring things up with our kids on mission with their leaders saying, you know, they're sending anti-Mormon stuff to them. We never sent anything to them.

Yeah. I mean, and, uh, we never read anything anti-Mormon. We only went to gospel church.

We went to church, sort of.

I wouldn't go to Fair Mormon because I wouldn't go to Mormon Think. I thought, people would say, go to Fair Mormon, go to Fair Mormon. I was like, I'm not, I would feel I would have to do both. And we had a fair Mormon Scott guy, Scott somebody came to our ward to come talk to us. And I remember my dad being like, "Okay, I've sent them all on their missions, and now I've brought them to this meeting where they're, you know, gonna talk about these issues." And it was a secret meeting, and they held it in the chapel, and only those of us were invited, and it was those of us who were having these questions and murmurs, and we were invited to this meeting, and it started off in the chapel with Scott, whoever he is, from Pearmont.

John Gordon, I think.

That's him. He did this presentation, and the first thing he did, he criticized John Dylan, um, the CES letter. He criticized their, their, their— he said, this man is an atheist, and they went through, and I thought, I've never, never been taught in the church that's what we do, is just destroy somebody's character to try to say that we shouldn't listen to them. It just— and we sat in the chapel listening to this, as, you know, it just— and from then, I was just like, "This is all wrong." Yeah, very, very difficult. So, I think then I got called into the bishop's office at one point. So, I'd been told I shouldn't post these things, and by then I was knowing— I mean, I knew they, you know, there was a mark on my back, and I'm going, I know they don't want me there, I know, but I don't have anything else. This is all I have. I have just been a mom and a Mormon mom, and everything I did is the only reason, you know, besides school runs, was church and my kids.

And I think there was another side.

I'm playing the piano.

We, we had been very involved in, in like—

Some like—

Groups that were like—

Doing good in the community.

Doing good in the community. We tried to get the church involved in things. Um, like we were involved in the soup kitchen that the church got involved with, asked us to help, and then none of the members wanted to help, to me, kind of situation. We did it for 5 years.

For 5 years we fed 30 to 40 people, um, once every month, um, out of our car, out of our own pocket, which made no sense when there's all—

representing the church, we were there from the church, didn't try to fix that.

And we've got all these children and we're struggling financially, but we're doing this whilst paying tithing and It just started to just be— and then the other ward in Dundee said that they wanted to be involved and help us because it was such a huge, um, commitment. Roy works a lot of weekends, so it quite often fell to me, heavily pregnant, taking these big soup crate things, doing, doing teas and coffees for people out. We did it from the car, um, and, uh, and so the other ward said they'd like to— they had a meeting about it, ward council, and there was a staring problem in the handbook which said that they shouldn't take on any community projects that would be of a long term. Well, this is, you know, you can't like just drop it, it's feeding people. And in Dundee, yeah, all the different churches were doing something on different days of the week, and on Saturday, each of these groups, we had I think 4 or 5 groups, would take a turn so it didn't fall on them every week. And our church had got involved with this. The bishop originally had really liked it, but he said, look, you and, you and Roy make big meals all the time. You can coordinate the members to do this. Nobody— people didn't want to do it because of the cost of it and the commitment.

But you also had a problem was people would commit to do it and then leave it to me at the last minute. And then they wouldn't do it. So you— but you couldn't leave it that night where there was no food coming for these people. That's me.

So I knew that this was— so when I heard that, oh gosh, so the church will get involved in sending shoebox appeals at Christmas and do Make a Difference Day, but anything that's actually needed and it's a long-term commitment because it's necessary and these people are relying on it, we won't touch it. And that really, really hurt. And then the Dundee Refugee Support, we were involved with that in a big way, and we weren't allowed to use the building. You know, we'd gathered all this stuff together and this other church said to me, "Emma, bring all this stuff here," and we became the biggest point in—

Just distributing stuff for the whole of Scotland.

Yeah, but the other places, and I then got put on the Faith and Community in Dundee. I got put on their, I don't know what it's called, council.

Really?

And once again, representing the church, but the church were doing nothing. And it kind of became obvious that they weren't, you know, and it was me.

And the other groups, the other church groups involved in the soup kitchen, when they realized that we were never getting any money from the church to help us do what we were doing, they were like, well, the church is not good to you, take the name away from the church, you're doing it off your own back. Do you mean?

We had a bishop who was very, I don't know, just a bit power hungry, I think., and like, we had a local community group that a lot of the Mormon women were going using for a Zoom, no, Zumba, Zumba, and they had 2 Thursdays they weren't going to be able to use the community building. Said, is anyone local? And I'm thinking, well, nothing's on at our building on Thursday for 2 weeks. I'm sure we could offer. So I went to the bishop, and it had to be a quick decision because it was, you know, just going to be a little while. He says, oh, I need to go to, um, further higher up and that. And I had to pursue it and pursue it, and I thought, this is ridiculous. Eventually said, if you can send me their playlist so I can vet it and they come in appropriate church clothing, then we could do it. And I just thought, this is just beyond a joke. It's just beyond a joke. There was nothing that we could give or do for our community, and it just hurts so badly to have been—

But you were also in a very orthodox ward. Yes. Very orthodox.

And by then it just—

I remember, were you— is this the Dundee Second Ward?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, that, that was, I, without a doubt, the strongest ward in Scotland that I can remember. Of all the wards I served in, that was the one.

There was always a lot of youth, but I think the—

but it was mainly three families, man. Three families. Yeah.

Yeah. So, so at what point— okay, so all of these things are sort of piling up and piling up.

Yeah.

At what point did you resign your membership?

I got— we'll get to that in one second, but, 'cause we didn't do that until a bit later, but I got called into the bishop's office, and I got asked about my second child upcoming due for baptism, and when I was called to the office, I was kind of a little excited. I thought, oh, they've noticed Roy's not coming, you know, maybe they're going to kind of like reach out, and this is somebody who'd known me since I was born, and I had a, you know, a real love for him. And I sat in the office, and I was asked, we noticed that, you know, Enos hasn't been baptized. Enos, I mean, how Mormon can you get? That's my son. He doesn't like his name. But Eva is coming up for baptism. We're looking, you know, what's happening there? And I said, well, you know, I'm really struggling with some things, and I kind of feel like I said, "If the church is now saying that children of gay parents can't be baptized, then I think if we're struggling with belief—" I mean, Roy hasn't been at church for quite some time now. "We're struggling with belief. I think it's not going— Heavenly Father's not going to mind if we take a pause and we wait to see how we feel." And he said, "No, we don't see it like that." And I said, "Mm, okay." And I had some issue with the friendliness in the ward. And I also had some issues with adoption because I'd had a baby that had been adopted through the church, and the church had done a U-turn on that, and that had really hurt me as well. So he said, "Well, can't help you with the stuff about the gays, can't help you about the stuff about adoption, could work on the friendliness award, but basically, I got the feeling, don't slam the door on your way out." And I went home and thought, done. There's nothing more. And, uh, and then it took a good while afterwards before we, um, decided to resign our membership. Took a long time. Yeah, I think the kids— some of the kids felt like they wanted it done before they had to do it themselves, like turning 18. And I think for me it was this huge thing about numbers. Like, they just throw out the numbers all the time, and I knew we were quite a substantial part And I thought, hit them where it hurts is the numbers. So let's just take our name off the records. There's nothing for us here. And so we wrote a letter and the children all signed it. There's still a couple of ours are still in, but don't go. We have one that goes now and again. Yeah. But she's very, very nuanced in there. And I think it's probably a little bit more of It's a habit rather than anything else. But, you know, we wanted them to make their own decisions, really. And we wrote a letter. It wasn't very well handled. We got the children who were now adults that had signed the letter, because we'd asked for it not to go through the local leaders, and we just went through—

I'd emailed it to the church.

Mm-hmm. So the bishop of our ward sent letters to the older adult kids who had signed this letter saying it had to go through them, him, and if they wanted to, he had to, they had to write letters to him. And I was really upset and they were upset. And Roy says, nonsense, nonsense, this is a boys club we're talking to.

And Roy just wrote back and said, this is the, you know, I just emailed back to the to the, um, original, original email address that I had in Salt Lake and emailed it back and said I got all of them to email it from their own email accounts. And, and what I'd written was basically, you know, I just said to them, under Scottish law, they've done everything they have to to get their name removed. You know, they probably have no clue what Scottish law means in, in America, you mean. But next thing, yeah, we're off, you mean. Without contact from the church, who didn't want any contact. I mean, I remember at one point sitting there and thinking, it's been 3 and a half years, there's been a new bishop and everything, 3 and a half years since anyone has spoken to me from since I left the church, since I left the church. Didn't go, yeah. And nobody had walked across the road to even speak to me and ask me why.

Yeah, we look across out of our window to the chapel. That's the church. It is closer to my front door than it is to the car park. They didn't step over, and regardless of, you know, knowing that me and Roy were struggling with stuff, they never came to find out how we were doing or our children, ever.

And then we had the missionaries once come this last year, didn't they? And they said that they—

No, I think a few years ago. Like, we had been so involved, obviously, like, we were crossing the road, we had the key, we, you know, would let the deliveries in, you know, for the toilet rolls and the cleaning products. We would, you know, we were the key holder if anyone come clean the building. We'd go across between the buildings for a Monday night fam home evening. They took the key from us while we were still— it was bad. I mean, everything was done to just really hurt at us, and we knew it. And the missionaries came over at one point, and they said, it was quite weird, that we'd been put in one of their books as a not to visit. This hadn't come from us, you know, by that we weren't— I mean, we do drink now. We didn't then. We didn't do anything that was not Mormon. And at that point, they said that they'd been put as not to contact, but they'd had some issue with cliquiness in the ward, and they thought, "We're going to go see the people in this book it says not to go and see." And they were really lovely, and they said, "We're going to tell the next mission." Of course, it doesn't last, but yeah, it just, it was really hurtful. We were ostracized, shunned, and we live across the road, and there was 14 of us, and I think somebody, yeah, somebody once said at one point that they were sat in a meeting and they were going on about bring people in, we have to bring people in, and he said, you know, there's 15 hands across the road, has anybody stepped across to go and speak to them? And there wasn't. Nothing. But we were very much— You can't bring people in if you're not prepared to even try to help those. But there's no answers.

And if anyone says that shunning doesn't happen in the church, well, I'll tell them that they're being lied to. Absolutely, yeah. Sámhain. Sámhain. You are totally shunned.

Oh, he does, and I can testify to that. Jim Bennett, I've been to Roy and Emma's home. They are literally, you know, a few yards away from the building. I got a question. When you— I mean, you've been, you know, you grew up in the church, you were born under the covenant, you've devoted, committed your entire lives to the church, you pay tithing on money I don't even think you should have paid tithing, in my opinion, but And so you've been the, just the, uh, you know, uh, the playbook, if you like, of, of, of living, living the Mormon life. How, how did it feel the moment when you got your, the letter confirming that you were no longer members? What, what was that experience like? That moment when you read that, what did that feel like?

I think by then for me it was a relief.

Um, for me it was just a process. Do you mean I actually had been the one dragging the feet more about it because I actually didn't want to give anyone power over me. Do you mean that? That was the thing. I, you know, what, what does it matter if I stay on their records or not? You know, what does it— I don't believe in this organization anymore. I don't think it's, you know, God's church or anything like that.

So it also didn't feel safe. It didn't feel safe. We heard stories, uh, You know, when we were being a little bit more able to have our eyes open, one of my daughters told me of something that had happened within a bishop's interview, and she hadn't told me because she thought she would— we would side with the bishop. Blown away. And when we just started to realize how unsafe— when we started to think clearer and think about things like consent, we never talked to our kids about sex and consent. We just taught them you don't do it. And, you know, any of these things. And we just started to realize how you must have— also, I think I remember somebody told me, because we always believed that we had the happiness, we had the truth, we had— and then a friend of mine said, I have, you know, members that— friends that are not in the church, lovely, happy families that are successful. And that was quite shocking to me because I didn't think that that was, you know, and I realized I start now, like, now we are, like, coming through all this. I feel like we're so behind, and we've gave so much time to the church. Like, I realize we have, you know, we were not, like, abusive parents. We were kind of strict about church, but we were neglectful emotionally of them. We met their physical needs, you know, we were, we did the best we could with what we knew, But everything else we gave to the church, all of our time, all of our effort was to the church. We didn't really hear our kids. Didn't spend time with your kids.

Yeah. Oh, well, so where do you go from here? Or where have you gone from here? Because it sounds like—

It's only onwards and upwards now.

Right. Emma, you started a coffee shop. Mm-hmm. Uh, and that's been successful.

It's really good. I kind of fell into that. I didn't like aim to go. I still don't drink coffee or tea. Yeah, I tried. It didn't. It's not nice. I like coffee. Yeah. Roy's a good customer.

Oh, good, good. Are you— it sounds like you—

sorry, Jim Bennett, go ahead. No, I'm just— go ahead.

I'm saying it sounds like you're in a lot better place. You don't have to play mental gymnastics anymore. You know, you're stronger, it sounds like. You're closer perhaps as a family. You got more time together. You're richer because you're not paying tithing, which is—

We did a car payment instead. So much better.

So, Ian, I know that you have talked about how disappointing it was to you, same as what the Hands talk about, that nobody's asked you why. Nobody's tried to stay in contact with you and that, and that, uh, you know, you've just been cut off with these guys. I got a message from Gary at one point where he said that there is sort of still this wonderful network of former Latter-day Saints, but it's sort of outside of the boundaries of the church. And, and I think he included you guys in that network. Is, is that something that you've seen? I mean, Is there anybody still in the church that is still willing to be your friend and be Christlike and say, it doesn't matter whether or not you come to church, I still love you guys?

I have a couple of friends in Dundee, and, you know, we can meet up like once in a while, and they are great. But for the most part, I mean, I'm 48. I took my first steps in Lifford Chapel. My gran helped put the bricks in it, you know. We live across the road. Well, most of our babies were blessed and baptized. Besides our time in America, you know, people knew me since birth. Nobody besides a couple of people my age, nothing. I think I was done, I think I'd stopped going at 48, so it's about 7, 8 years ago now. Nothing, you know, uncomfortableness to bump into anyone, really. Nothing. Even your brothers and sisters, supposedly your ward family.

It's extraordinary because you think about all those relationships, all that time serving, you know, tracting, proselyting, serving together, you know, families, all the events, you know, for decades, for decades, and you feel close. And then suddenly this whole community, and you know, it's hard for me not to get emotional when I listen to what you've gone through because I Boy, I can relate to it. Sadly, I can relate to it. But, and then all of a sudden, it's cut off from you and you've done nothing. All you've done is perhaps ask the wrong question or you thought differently, you had a different view. It's cut off. I've got a burning question, and I know we've not got a great deal of time left on the podcast, but a question that Jim and I have talked about, and Jim and I really will connect with this question, I think, as you guys will. Uh, what's the state of the church in Scotland right now? Is it growing? Is it, um, shrinking? From your perspective, uh, from what you can see, what's the condition of the church across Scotland?

That's, um, like, I remember that was another huge lie that really hurt, was, you know, Scotland's tiny, there's 5 stakes. We went to these buildings throughout our youth, we know them, um, And I remember hearing them saying at conference or wherever when I was, you know, near about to leave, but they were saying about the huge growth in Europe and they were going on about the 2020 vision and doubling the stake and all that. And then I heard just by chance from somewhere else, not from church, that like, I don't know, 2 or 3 buildings in Glasgow were empty. And I'm like, why didn't we hear that? Yeah, why didn't we hear that from church? Like, we're hearing all this positive spin that is all doing it. We are, we went to these buildings, like, how are these mothballed, you know, is it Jordan, Johnston Ridge, whatever, all these different buildings that are empty. Drum Chapel. Yeah.

Drum Chapel's a brilliant one. Drum Chapel's old, yeah.

Yeah, one of them's sitting there mothballed, you know, and nobody's telling you this. So I'm thinking, we're part of the church, why would we not be saying, listen, we need to pray for this work.

I mean, at one point, before I came into Dundee, into Dundee, there had been 3 wards in Dundee. Mm-hmm. Yeah, they did this with the wards. So now there's only 2.

Yeah. But when you're hearing about empty buildings that are getting sold and all the rest of it, and several in a whole estate, and then you start to realise, wait, they're lying to us. They tell us it's growing. It's obviously shrinking. There's a huge problem there. Like, so for me, it's just frustrating because it's obvious to all of us. If you take the blinkers off instead of listening to what they're saying to you, It's really drastically declining. I mean, 14 of us in one ward just, like, stepped away. That's a lot to try and get back. But they don't care. They just kind of, like, then— and it's that shunning thing where they're lying about you. So they're making the members feel— I remember going through this— they've left because they're offended, they left because they're sinners, they want to sin, all this stuff.

They want to be sinning. Wow.

Yeah, none of us want to do that. And then it just— that, that's the stuff that makes them fear you. I remember my dad said to me this thing. My dad been bishop 3 times. He said, really is weird, you know, all these young ones that leave the church, funnily enough, they find each other and they go marry each other. Because there was a few, um, members who'd left in their young age and they married. And my dad was being critical but kind of slagging it like, "Haha, funny about that, leave the church, they can't leave it alone, and they end up finding each other." I was like, they share the same traumas, they share, you know, but it's like us meeting up with anyone who's gone through this, it's so criticized.

Instantly you've got something to talk about, and you do connect with these people who have left the church, you connect with them, and you do find that there is— Understanding. Understanding, yeah. Because it's really hard for me to talk to my friends at work and have them understand what I've gone through leaving the church. They don't understand it. They can't get it. They've never been Mormon. They don't understand the intensity of such a high-demand religion, you know, and having lost that.

No, the people I've talked to who are still active in Scotland tell me that there are half as many people coming to church. Yeah. In Scotland as there were 35 years ago when I was a missionary.

Yeah, I did hear, um, I don't know if you remember Maureen Thompson, and she's really quite lovely, um, but she's always been a hard worker in the church. She's a Clancy, she's one of the Clancy sisters. I know the Clancy sisters.

Yeah, so I know Paul.

Yeah, I know Paul Clancy, sure.

So Maureen's Paul's sister, and as I was kind of leaving, because I'd always been a real hard worker, I would do any— I always said yes, I never said no to anything, And Marnie said to me, "It's really hard because people are becoming less willing to do things." So the waters get smaller and these same people that are doing everything are having to do even more. And she'd said this to me and I kind of thought on it and I thought, this is the problem they've got because they kind of keeping some of the ones that kind of can make it work for themselves, but they're not fully in. You know, they're keeping some of these guys that are like, yeah, I'll go, I like going there, I like the dress and stuff.

I go to all the meetings.

Go to all the meetings. I'll go out for lunch on the way home with my kids. They're not going to be as full in, and they're not going to give it all that, you know, some of us would have. So you've got a really hard burden on the, the ones that are still super dedicated.

And, and, and no, but the other thing you've got to think about is the people who are leaving the church are the stalwarts. Okay, you've got, it's like—

I don't think the terrors will agree.

No, no, but they are, like it's members of state presidencies, high councilmen, bishops. I mean, Edinburgh had a bishop who got released and then walked away from the church and never came back again. A bishop?

I think they've had two.

Two now, yeah. That's bishop, do you mean? So you just, that's what you're looking for. That's what you're losing from the church. You're losing the ones who were the really kind of strong leaders.

Yeah, I think that's true. And I think one of the other things that's interesting to me to watch, even here in the United States, I mean, you talk about the cliché of you leave the church, but you can't leave it alone. Yeah. And you talk about identifying with other people who've been through sort of the similar traumatic experiences. One of the things that I'm seeing in the United States is that the rising generation of the children of these people are leaving the church and leaving it alone without any problem at all. They're sort of shrugging it off like an ill-fitting suit. Yeah. And never looking back. Yeah. And I think that the church should be terrified about that because, because I mean, these clichés that we keep hearing that sort of demonize the people who leave and you only left because you wanted to sin and you only left because you were offended. There isn't any legitimate reason to leave. And you were, you were a terrible person all along and we just didn't know it is essentially what they're doing. Well, they're sort of salting the earth where nothing's ever going to be able to grow again. I mean, you've got children. I don't know how old your youngest was when you left the church, but They're not going to grow up with— with— well, we've got kids that not only with not any of the trauma, but without any connection to it at all. Yeah. You know, it's— it's— they're going to grow up in a world and they're going to live their lives and the church just isn't going to be a part of it. And this is the thing that I really, you know, as I look at the church and I look at the future of the church and I look how we handle, uh, people with doubts people with problems, people with challenges. I mean, even 35 years ago, stalwarts in every ward had multiple callings. You know, you had bishops who were also ward mission leaders. I mean, Ian served as a missionary and as a branch president in a ward. You know, it's— so that was already a problem 35 years ago, and it's only gotten worse and worse and worse. And we are dealing with it in exactly the wrong way, in the opposite of how we ought to do it. I mean, the bishop, the minute you walked into the bishop said, "I've got problems and this is a challenge," the discussion should have been, "Oh my goodness, what can we do to help?" Yeah.

"What can we do to help you stay?" Well, I have a therapist and I was telling her, like at one point when I was going through all this and I said about the church saying that you either want to stay in or you're leaving 'cause you're offended. And she said, hold on, what about the offender? And I looked kind of a little shocked, like, offender, does that, you know? And she was like, and, and we talked about this just the other day, me and Vi, like, it's, it's worse to be offended than to be an offender. Like, us Mormons, we, you, it's a, a worse guilt to have been offended by something to be the person who causes the offense. Because you should, you know, forgive them.

Well, it's never the offender's fault. It's always the offendee's fault. Always. Always. Church never does anything wrong. Yeah. And it's just not— I mean, long-term, the church is shooting itself in the foot by doing it that way, because all we're doing is driving away good people and making sure that, you know, the rising generation, their children— I can't imagine anybody any of your children, having seen the way you've been treated, would at some point see a missionary and go, oh no, maybe I ought to look into this.

Jim Bennett Bennett, in some ways it's worse because they hear some of the stuff and they let you go. They criticize you, they smear your name, and then they make subtle, slight changes to some degree without giving any, you know, they try to reinvent themselves and it's just so horrible to watch. It's just, um, I mean, none of the changes are really good enough, but yeah.

But you're going back to the, the, the size of the church. I think we sat with Gary, we, and we went through the units that we knew that had closed, and I think within the Glasgow area, Glasgow Paisley, there's about 12 units over the last 20, 25 years that have disappeared. Do you know what I mean?

We know in England there's been quite a few stakes merged and, uh, wards merged. There's a lot of that going on right now.

We spoke to people down there and they, and they're, and they've got like, uh, um, they're going to a ward that only has 48 people coming to it.

My dad's a records man. My dad's always been a clean the records, which has been a really good thing for Dundee Second Ward because we always had really good, um, home teaching statistics. Home teaching statistics. Because my dad would clear out the deadwood. And so my dad, as, um, he told me at one point that he'd been told he was no longer— my dad's very, very much in the church, but he told me that, um, he was no longer allowed to submit names of people who had died, um, because our stake is very critically on its— it's critical on its numbers. We don't really qualify to be a stake, so they can't submit.

They'll probably do now because they've redesigned what a stake is, haven't they? You know, you need less members to be a stake and a ward now.

Well, I wouldn't be surprised if Scotland gets a temple. Just because. Just because. Just because temples now are no longer what they were when I was a missionary there, which is you build a temple when the membership reaches a certain number. Temples now seem to be— I mean, they're building a new temple in England, uh, in an area where they have closed several wards.

And a stake.

Yeah, and a stake. And the idea is to make— okay, we're going to sort of prop up the illusion of growth. Yeah, by adding a temple. And I know that, you know, the Scottish Saints have wanted a temple forever and were really upset when they built the Preston Temple because It was so close, but it wasn't, wasn't a scout.

But in the meantime, yeah, they can't, they can't facilitate, what do you call it? They don't have enough staff to run the festival. Yeah, so to—

They're building, they've announced the temple in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. You know, there was a couple in our ward, former bishop in my ward in Sandy, Utah, who were called as the mission presidents in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. And they described the fact that the ward, a ward in Mongolia covers, I mean, it takes days to travel within ward boundaries, let alone stake boundaries. And the idea of getting a temple, it's just, yeah, we're not, we're, we're just, I think, I am still very, I have to emphasize, I'm still very much a believing member of the church. I think the church does a great deal of good. I see the hand of God in the church, and I also see the reality that every member of the church, from the prophet on down, uh, has— still has their agency, still is capable of making mistakes, sometimes huge mistakes. And I really think the way that you've been— you've been treated, the way we're treating the challenges we have with growth and all of these kinds of things. I really think we need a course correction.

But Jim, if you see the hand of God in, you know, the church, and, you know, the prophet is, if we believe him to be walking and talking with God, this has gone on for decades. I didn't know this. Like, I remember a lady came to my mom and dad, like, back in the '80s to say they'd brought her into the church, and she came telling this stuff, and they banished her from the house and they criticized and told everyone how awful this woman was. It's not till all these years later I see her on the same, you know, groups that I'm in now. Why would God not have done something about what's going on here? Because this is so damaging to all of us. It doesn't make sense. I can't see the hand of God in this at all.

Oh, I can understand that and I can empathize with that. I think it requires a a reevaluation from, from God, right? Right. Well, I think it requires a reevaluation of what that means to see the hand of God, because I think in the way you're describing it, if the prophet walks and talks with God, and we had, we just had a discussion recently with, with Hans Mattson, who's the former General Authority who has left the church, and he talked about the second anointing and a lot of things. And I asked him about the idea. You know, I think a lot of members of the church believe that when the second anointing takes place, when people are called as general authorities, that Jesus is in the room. Yeah, Jesus himself shows up. And I think there's a big chunk of the church that believes that Russell M. Nelson goes into the Holy of Holies in the Salt Lake Temple and, you know, has an hour or two meeting with Jesus every week. Where Jesus shows up. I don't think that my faith has, has become one where I believe that the messiness and the difficulties and the challenges are the purpose of mortality, that, that nobody escapes that, not even a prophet, that we were sent here to make mistakes. We were sent here to, to look through a glass darkly and to navigate the difficulties and the messiness of it. And so the hand of God is our hands. We, you know, we're the ones who have to be able to take that responsibility. And we're the ones who also have as much direct access to God as Russell Nelson does.

I don't think— What about the damage?

What about the damage? The problem with what you're saying, Jim, is the members, is the leaders of the church don't believe that. Because if you were to sit up and say, you know, I spoke with God last night and he said such and such. They would come down on you hard and tell you off for saying things like that. Okay. Well, so there is no, you can't, you can't go down that way. You mean because they won't allow you? I wasn't on that post, Facebook post. Yeah, I think that's wrong. And, and when you've got a religion that is based on, um, someone having like walked and talked with God, Jesus Christ, you mean? No, like when you've got a religion that's based on that, and you're gonna tell us now that, oh, they don't do that anymore. I mean, at a time in a church, surely as the church gets bigger, it needs more guidance.

I can see both sides. I very much, can relate to what you said, Ryan, because that's been, you know, that's mostly my experience. The podcast is called Inside Out. Jim Bennett's on the inside, I'm on the outside. And my experience is very similar to yours in regards to the church, you know, post-church, frankly. And so I see a couple of things, two things. One, I see even now, after awful things have been said about myself and my family, terrible things, I still see good in the church. And I see that on a very personal level, people in the church who are kind or good, who serve, they help someone, you know, say a kind thing or do a kind thing within the ward or within the branch. Yeah. And I think there's a lot of good happening. And this may or may not be the thing that Jim Bennett's speaking about, but on a personal level, where someone's reaching out, helping and helping your family, or, you know, helping your family over Christmas time with a Christmas hamper that I've seen, or or being part of a food drive where the church members are involved in good things like that. I see the hand of God in that sense. The second point I would say is that I only see it now on things, matters relating to universal principles. And what I mean by that is that the universal principles that a lot of religions share, Christian religions included, where principles of service, kindness, love, generosity, forgiveness, those universal principles which are not unique to the church, which you'd find in another church. So that spirit of that hand of God that I— when I hear Jim Bennett speak about that, I think that is not exclusive to the Mormon faith. That is universal. And you can feel those spirit, the spirit of love and kindness and and service easily and very much outside of the church. That's what I get from these two points. These two points. Am I close? Am I miles away?

I mean, I just want to—

well, I just want to jump in and say that I'm not trying to disagree with you. If it sounds like I'm disagreeing with you, I don't think you've said anything that I disagree with. And I think where I am too, when I say I see the hand of God in this church, I would 100% endorse what Ian has just said and that I see the hand of God everywhere with all of his children. I feel like I have been called to be in this church and this is where God wants me and where I can do the most good. I am not in any way trying to say— trying to invalidate any of your experiences. Or any of the pain of it. I think everything that you have said should be a wake-up call for people like me and people who are still on the inside, because I think the church has let you down. I don't think there's any doubt about that. And I, speaking as part of the group of offenders, I'd very much like to see the offenders take responsibility for the offense. And so that's kind of what I'm trying to do. I'm not, I'm not preaching at you. I'm not judging you. I'm not condemning.

We appreciate that. We need like more Jims though. Yeah.

What, what I'm trying to say, Jim, is what, what, what you're calling the hand of God, I would probably just call altruism and altruism in the church or outside the church would exist outside the church as well. It's just in those people who are the one— not everyone's altruistic in the church, but they sort of explore it out for themselves. I agree. Um, you know what I mean? And, uh, I, I, I— what I realize now is we don't have a monopoly on that. We don't.

100% agree with that. 100%. We do not have a monopoly on that. That's true. Yeah. Um, so it, it's, uh, I think your story is something that every member of the church needs to hear, no matter where they are on the spectrum of belief or faith, whether they are, you know, passionately angry at the church or whether they have their blinders on and insist the church can do no wrong and has never done any wrong. I think everybody benefits when these kinds of stories are told. When everybody is able to have a voice and everybody is able to see what the problems are. Putting your blinders on and saying, well, this is God's church, so, uh, it never makes any mistakes, is, is I think the biggest problem in the church.

But the church don't want our voices.

I understand that. I hear. The higher level don't want—

they want us gone and stunned. They don't want to know. They don't want us. We're the poison apple. They don't want us to infect the rest of the apple pie.

There's no place for critical thinking in the church. There isn't. Not in a meeting, not in a priesthood lesson. There's no place for critical thinking. We repeat the things that we're taught.

And that's not healthy.

I'm not— again, I'm not disagreeing with you. I agree with that. I, I, I, I, I, I would, I mean, I think there is a place. I don't think it's big enough. I, I, I, I, I see seeds of hope. I see, you know, um, the, the newest apostle that was just called, uh, Patrick Kearney, who is a, who was an Englishman, um, which may or may not make Scottish people happy. He's from the UK. He was in our ward for about 5 years. I know him fairly well. He is a lovely, lovely human being. And, and I think what would respond quite differently to you than maybe some of the other people that are in the Quorum of the Twelve. I mean, I'm not— what I'm saying here is that Yeah, I'm not disagreeing with you because I think overall that's exactly right. What I'm looking for are seeds of hope, seeds of promise that say that the church can learn from this. And I think that you sharing your story is one of the ways that we can try to plant those seeds to going forward. To, to, to, you know, I, I care very much about the future of the church, and if the church does not change course and stop doing what it did to the Hand family, um, then the church isn't going to survive long term.

It's, it's difficult when the, like, the top 5 or 6 senior leaders of the church are so old. Do you mean— oh yeah, have dated ideas.

This is the first time in history that the First Presidency has been— all three of them have been over the age of 90.

Yeah.

And, and when you're all labeled apostates, you're all labeled apostates. So that's what they look on us as.

Because if you think about— I mean, I, I know the Catholic Church has its own history and everything like that, but I've, I've got friends who are Catholic who feel they still have a place in Catholicism despite the fact that they don't agree with everything that Catholics believe and they won't be chased out of their churches and they won't be excommunicated and they won't be shunned because they've got different ideas. Do you mean? Right. That's what needs to exist.

I think the mentality where you're either with us or against us, there's no middle ground. There's no black or white. There's no gray. And, and, and Jim, I can relate so much to these guys' stories. Uh, you find it hard for me not to emotional actually on some of the experiences that you've had. And Brian Emmer, I just want to say, and I think I know I speak on behalf of Jim Bennett as well, that we're just sorry that you had to go through all the pain and the anguish and the suffering and not to have the, you know, the church not to allow someone to have the dignity intact to leave the church, right, with kindness and love and agree to disagree and be there and be— it's so far removed from anything that Christ would do or be. I mean, as I read about Christ in the, you know, in the Book of Mormon, his character, his personality, who he is, what he stood for, he wouldn't behave like this. He would, he would hug you and hold you and, and do anything he can in his power to, to reach out and to connect with you and to, and to find— it's interesting, we're in our stake, because I was on the stake presidency here. I initiated a program called Finding— Find My Sheep, right? And the idea was to find every lost sheep, which I helped with others, of course, implement, uh, with Elder Christensen, one of the General Authorities, and Elder President Oaks, uh, Elder Oaks and Elder Cook, which we initiated that as part of the Hastening the Work initiative in, in this part of Canada. And, uh, I'm, I'm told I'm no longer part I'm not part of the program, that I'm one of the sheep that is not officially part of— well, I'm lost, but I'm not recoverable. I'm not redeemable. And so I've actually fallen outside of my own program, which I thought was quite universal. So the pain and anguish associated with that. And so I can relate so much to a lot of what you're sharing. And I can see why you would say what you said when Jim Bennett said he sees he sees the hand of God. So I can see that, I can see that, that, that point that you're making. And we're coming up to the end here, Jim, I think, in terms of the podcast.

Can I ask one final question? Where are you guys now in terms of your faith? I mean, do you have any in anything? I mean, is it, is when you left the church, I mean, you obviously don't believe it's the one true church and you don't believe all of those kinds of things, but would you consider yourselves Christians? Would you consider yourselves even believers in God? Or—

I think for me, what I realized, because we talked about like our version of Christ was through our version of Heavenly Father, and it was a Mormon version. And I mean, I feel like I still talk to somebody. I wouldn't say that I really know there's a God, but I think I feel like the only thing I know is I don't know anything.

Jim Bennett, we are Mormon. We will always be Mormon because it's ingrained into us. You know, we're just— We're just different Mormons now. I mean, that's what we are. We married out of the church. Um, it's just different.

We don't know what we really believe, but we just, um, we, we really can't find ourselves being part of another religion, another religious group. You mean, uh, we, we're really, uh, vulnerable to that when you leave the church. We got kind of hit on a few times by other religions, and we knew we would not not another religion ever again.

We had the Community of Christ chasing after us. No, haha. No, it's like—

Jehovah's Witnesses came after us.

You could become an apostle for that church if you wanted. You could. Sweetheart.

Christ has just appointed a new president of the church that's a woman. Female.

She's female. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

And every bit inside of me says it's wrong because I'm so Mormon, but— But yeah, I just, yeah. Yeah, no religion for us.

Well, I really, I hope you don't think that, uh, I don't think the world of both of you.

No, thank you. We appreciate having a voice here.

I wasn't trying to pick a fight, and I'm not trying, I really am not, because I—

It's hard for us to see the hands of God, I think.

And I can fully understand why.

Yeah, but I do agree. I see the hand of God in so many people and I love people, but not in that. In fact, I struggle to call it a church because it just feels like an institution, a money-making institution for me now that doesn't care.

Well, Ian, I think we can let that be the last word.

Well, actually, I'm going to give you the last word. Do you remember that?

I agree. Yeah, Roy showing it, a can of Iron Brew, which is, uh, you can't get those over in Canada.

You know, it outsells Coke, Diet Coke in Scotland.

I, I, I, I was assigned to serve in Dundee when the first McDonald's in Scotland was opened.

I was, I worked in that one.

Oh, you worked in that?

Yeah, in Farm Street. I worked.

Well, And I remember when they first opened, they served root beer, which is a very American drink, and everybody in the UK hates it because it tastes like Germaine.

It's just charming. So Mormons liked it because of the American missionaries. We all like that. The American missionaries.

But then they replaced root beer in McDonald's with Irn-Bru.

It's true.

And I went back. I have not yet been back to Scotland since my mission, but my wife and my two oldest children, my two oldest daughters, we went and went to London. I've got a sister living right outside of London, and we got to Heathrow Airport, and there was Iron Brew in the gift shop there. And I was like, oh, everybody, it's Iron Brew, let's get some Iron Brew! It's just gagged. I'm like, what is this? This is the worst thing I've ever tasted in my life.

Unlike the Mormon faith, the Irn-Bru drink is the truest drink. It is the truest.

I'm very excited with this. Irn-Bru is the truest.

And I'm sure the Lord is well pleased with that drink because we need spiritual drinks, please.

Absolutely. And come back to Scotland. Come back to Scotland.

I bring a lot to— I've got a friend of mine who moved to Scotland. She's from— I mean, I went to USC with her. She's not a member of the church, doesn't know anything about the church. But she's on Facebook and posts— she lives in Stirling and posts all these pictures from Scotland. And I'm like, I got to get back there. Yeah. Couldn't you?

Is there any reason you could move to Scotland, Jim?

I'm working on it. If Donald Trump becomes president, I'm going to really start working on it.

So I just want to say before Jim closes in on the podcast, it's been amazing to have you both. We love you both so much and your family. We're sorry for the pain that you've gone through. We really are. We hope that you've got some semblance of peace and happiness. And I think you have from the conversation here that you're in a, you know, you're in a position, a stronger place, a place where you're happier with yourself and your life. And I think that's great. Well, thank you so much for taking time to be with us today, for sharing your story. I know it's going to help many, many people who listen to this. And you're just two extraordinary people and two of our favorite people. So I'll hand the time over to Jim Bennett, who will close us on the podcast.

Well, I don't have anything to add except 100% agreement with that. And thank you all so much. And to all of you listening, we'll see you next time on Inside Out.