A Conversation with Samuel Bennett

Hello and welcome to a very special episode of Inside Out, because usually I say I'm here with Ian Wilk, but this time I'm here with Ian Wilks. Ian is sitting how many inches away from me?

About 30 inches.

Is it 30 inches?

That's a bit too close.

It's a little bit too close because we're huddled around one computer. So we're trying to make this work. And there's also a third person that we're going to be introducing to you in just a moment. But Ian, Ian is down here for a missionary reunion.

I am.

We are going tomorrow to visit Ben B. Banks.

Yes.

Our mission president at his home. He's 92 years old. And just this evening, Ian was here having dinner with us and looking at old mission pictures. And we pulled up a picture and I said, hey, I know her. She lives about a block and a half away from me. And so we walked down and saw an old friend. Ian, you hadn't seen her in what?

36 years. So Sister Lobsiger.

Yes.

Her and I were in the Edinburgh zone.

Yes.

Back in '88, I think it was.

Yeah.

And I'd not seen her for ages. And I— you said she's like 2 blocks away. I'm like, prove it. And you did.

I did.

We went over there and I— it was amazing to catch up all those memories.

Yeah, it was a lot of fun. So we thought we'd talk about missions, but we have a very special guest here. He's smiling like, oh geez, I'm about to be put on the spot. His name is Samuel Bennett. He and I are related. He is actually my— I think you are my oldest son.

I am your oldest son.

You are my oldest son, but by what, 2 minutes?

2 minutes.

Yes, Samuel Bennett and Jetty Bennett were born 2 minutes apart. They are identical twins. And right before COVID they were both called on missions in Argentina, 2 different missions in Argentina.

Jetty, Sam's brother, was called to He went to the Buenos Aires South Mission and I went to the Neuquén Mission.

There you go. Buenos Aires South and Neuquén. And Sam, can you just kind of give us a brief overview of your mission experience? Because in talking about your mission, so you went on your mission. I'm just going to give a thumbnail here. You went on your mission. You came home 7 months later.

Yeah.

Because of COVID Yes. I mean, you hadn't done anything wrong.

No.

But you came home and you were home for how long?

5 months.

For 5 months. And then you were reassigned to Cincinnati, Ohio. Cincinnati, Ohio. And you finished your mission there.

Yes.

Jetty came home. He was reassigned to Tampa Bay, Florida, but he was able to go back to Argentina.

That is correct.

And finish his mission. So you talk about your mission with great affection, but also with great frustration.

Yeah, that's a good way to put it.

And you have sort of become, I think, since your mission, I describe you as a mental health advocate, particularly with regard to missions. Can you sort of elaborate on that a little bit and lean into the microphone? Because I'm not sure how much this is recording, but I think it's there.

Meaning elaborate on Why I started advocating for mental health or just the mission experience in general?

Uh, why not both?

Okay, try it.

Start with the mission experience because I give it some context. Okay, because on a mission, you know, like when we were serving together in Scotland, knocking on doors 10 hours a day, yeah, that was grueling mentally, right? Yeah, I think, you know, that was, you know, had mental health challenges back then and things have changed, missions have changed, You went out to Argentina, you know, just recently, really within the last few years. And again, a very different missionary environment, different experience. So if you give us some missionary experience context and then how that relates to mental health would be great. What do you think?

Okay, sounds good. So I went to Argentina, like was said, and there we first went to the Mexico MTC, and in there there's these little houses And so you're staying with two different districts, which is just like groups of missionaries that work together. And we're learning the language, learning how to be a missionary. And in that, we were just, you know, we're all— most of us were 18 years old, 18 to 20. So just these teenage kids trying to have fun because it's our first— most of us, it's our first time away from our families.

What year was this?

This was 2019.

2019. Okay.

And because of that, we just started having fun. So one night we decided to roll up our shorts and turn our suit coats inside out and take funny pictures one night before we went to bed. We went to bed, we thought nothing of it. And then we got to the mission field. And all of a sudden, we all started— all the missionaries in our district started getting interviews with a mission president early on. And the mission president started asking, like, were you involved in these certain things that other groups did? And they thought we were because we took these silly photos.

Okay, can you get specific about what these other groups were doing? Or is that just too off-color?

I mean, it's kind of graphic.

Well, I, you know, when we were back home hearing about this, they wouldn't tell us what they'd found. They would just sort of give us the, oh, it was too graphic. But to me, it sounded like it was just kind of silly. They were taking pictures of themselves without any clothes on, and they were sort of measuring themselves.

They were measuring penises.

Like, there you go.

And then streaking through the halls, apparently. I never saw any of this. Yeah. They, I think, put poop under another missionary's bed once. There was like a list of like 12 things they did.

Okay, so these were kind of gross and childish and silly. Yeah. And you didn't— weren't involved in any of it. No. But you had taken some silly pictures that were entirely good-natured. We saw those pictures. I saw the picture with you with your suit jacket inside out. And I thought, oh, they're having fun. They're being silly. And, and, you know, I didn't see anything wrong with that. And so when Jetty got out on his mission, his mission president looked at that and said, hey, this was silly and who cares and get to work and don't worry about it. That was not the reaction of your mission president.

Nope. My mission president said, "You will be lucky to stay on the mission," which as an 18-year-old is pretty scarring, because getting sent home is not a pretty thing in the LDS culture. Most people ask why, and they're not very accepting of people getting sent home early for different reasons. And so he was threatening to send me home. He said, "There's most likely you're going to be sent home." And then he had me do a repentance study. And so he gave me this big list of scriptures and stories to read of just ideas focused on repentance. And he said, read through the whole Book of Mormon with a focus on just repentance. And so as a good missionary, I did that. I read through all those scriptures. I read through the entire Book of Mormon, highlighting every single idea that had to do with repentance. And that set off a cycle an obsessive-compulsive cycle called scrupulosity, or religious OCD as I now know it, but I didn't know at that point. And so I began my unhealthy cycles on my mission. So I say the first 2 weeks in Argentina were really good. I had an amazing trainer, he was really nice to me, and we were having lots of fun. And then the mission president called and everything started. And then I would wake up in the middle of the nights, I have to go to the bathroom, like, just go pee, regular things, and I just have these blaring headaches. I just— it hurts so badly, I just wanted to fall back asleep. I then would get up, and if someone— and I'm learning a new language, I could never really get the accent down. If somebody didn't understand me, I would blame it on not being worthy enough, I wasn't doing something correct. Um, if I was tired, it's because I wasn't keeping my missionary promise, so I wasn't getting renewed spiritual energy. Um, and so if I was doing— really, if anything bad happened, it was— had to be the reason I wasn't worthy enough to be there, because that's what it felt like. I would replay everything I'd done in my life and just go over and over and over again, and it just couldn't seem to figure out what I had done. Like, I ultimately felt like I shouldn't be there. And at one point, even my mission president— because you have to do these weekly email reports and say how you're doing, what's going on, who you're teaching— and I emailed him, said I wanted to talk to you. But luckily, he didn't reply. He just sent the normal, like, copy and paste. He's like, good job, Elder, you're doing great work out there. He didn't actually read that message, luckily. And so I spent the next 6 months in Argentina going through these cycles. And like, if I wasn't working hard enough, it's like it was my fault. There was always something else I could be doing. And it became just mentally draining. Like, I remember one time in my second area, I woke up in the middle of the night just to go to the bathroom and cry because I just wanted to be alone and didn't want to be there anymore. And then it got worse with my third companion. Third? Fourth. Fourth companion. I moved areas. And at first he seemed really nice. We seemed to get along. He liked sports as well. And then he started like, I considered bullying. Remember during lessons he'd kick me to start talking even though the other person, like people who were teaching were talking to us. I'm like, I don't want to interrupt them. And then, like, for instance, one time on preparation day, which is like our one day of relaxation, we get ready to go and we like do our laundry, we speak to our families, and he wanted to get up early and run. I'm like, sure, okay, I like running, but I wasn't sleeping very well because stress was causing really bad acne and I was having headaches. And so I just couldn't sleep. So every little bit of sleep I could get was good. And then all of a sudden at 5:30, he pokes me. He's like, "Elder, are you ready to go run?" I'm like, "Elder, no. We said 6:00 AM. I'm not getting up till 6:00 AM." And then we got up and ran. And then he wouldn't let me take naps, like on P-day, because he wanted to go do stuff. And so I was pretty much just exhausted the whole time. And then we got a call saying, "We're going home." And I'm like, please. But the thing is, they were trying to send all the missionaries home. They started with like the Philippine missionaries. And then they— and because different countries had different regulations on how they manage COVID, it became very strict. Argentina was first. We couldn't shake their hands, then we couldn't knock on doors as missionaries.. And then we just had to stay in our apartments and couldn't go out in two pairs, which is a big deal as missionaries. You're always with a companion. So we had to go about by ourselves to buy groceries. And then at first, Jetty's mission got sent home first, my brother. He was in Buenos Aires, which is right by the airport, and we couldn't get on that first plane. And so at one point, our mission president called and said, you're gonna be here for another 3 to 4 months waiting. And I just said, I can't be here for 3 to 4 months. Like, I cannot do that. 2 weeks later, though, they snuck us out of the country on a bus. We hid out in a church for 30 hours and then eventually got on the plane and I got home. And then that's when they started reassigning really fast. I was hoping to get like 2 or 3 months. I'm like, I'm going to confess everything to my bishop and tell him everything I've done. Maybe I'll have to stay home for a couple of months. See what happens.

You haven't done anything.

No, but I felt like I had. That was my OCD saying that. And then they started reassigning people really fast. And I just started having panic attacks saying, I cannot do this. Jetty got sent out and I had an assignment to go to Ohio. And I was like acting excited because I knew a couple of missionaries that got reassigned there that I had served with. And the day before I got sent out, well, 2 days before, I had gone and talked to the bishop and told him everything, like how I was feeling. And he turns to me, he's like, Sam, because he had known me growing up. And he's like, you're a really good kid. Like, you were working hard, you were helping people. You are perfectly fine. Like, you've done nothing wrong. You're perfectly worthy to go on a mission. The next day, I told my parents and broke down to them just how I was feeling. My dad gave me a blessing. And I'm just like, I'm just gonna stay home. And so we emailed our stake president. And at that point, he said, okay, just let me know when you're ready to go back out.

Yeah, I called, I called him that day.

Yeah.

And he just said, absolutely, he should stay home for as long as he feels like he needs to. Yeah, I mean, I think our bishop and stake president did a good job on that. Yeah, we're very sensitive to the reality here. But I think that what you're seeing here to some degree is leadership roulette.

Yes.

You know, your mission president and Jetty's mission president really set very different tones for what your missions were going to be like.

Oh, yeah.

And if we hadn't had, I think, a very thoughtful bishop and thoughtful stake president, the outcome might not have been as desired, as desired, even though the outcome was really kind of frustrating. I mean, yeah. So, so were you diagnosed? You were diagnosed with scrupulosity?

Couple months after that, like a month after I decided to stay home.

So you were after you decided to stay home?

Yeah.

There had been no diagnosis on your missions?

No, at that point, I was just like, I'm gonna go to therapy and get treatment for depression and anxiety. And then my mom listened to a podcast and she said, this sounds like you, Sam. And I listened to it and it went through just symptoms, what this person was experiencing. I said, oh wow, this is exactly what is happening to me. And so we began doing treatment specifically for OCD. And that's when things started to go way up for me. I stopped having the headaches. I stopped like crying in my bedroom. And I was just able to like function again rather than just breaking down every other day because it just sucked, put it mildly.

Can I go back to something, um, what you're saying earlier? Because it's an important change point. So, um, these missionaries are the missionaries that had behaved inappropriately.

Yeah.

And done those things that you had nothing to do with.

Yeah.

Um, did you communicate that to your mission president? Did he think, uh, that you were involved in that? And then what was your response? Did you make it clear that you were not and, and tell him what you, you know, like the jacket inside out and stuff? And so what was his— so how did that conversation go? And, and was he not clear about your involvement or lack of involvement in that?

So with that, he only spoke Spanish. Okay. I didn't know Spanish, so he had a translator. And because of that, there's a language barrier. And pretty much all he said was, he said, there's this list of 12 things that these missionaries did, and if you were involved in any one of them, then you could be sent home. So he listed all 12 of them, right? And I said, yes, I took silly photos with these missionaries, like these other missionaries, but I didn't do any of the other 11 things. And he said, okay, you're gonna get sent home. Like, what? I didn't do anything else. And Jetty's mission president spoke English, and so they could actually talk about it. Mine just said, well, you'll be lucky to stay here.

Helpa ben.

So there was a communication barrier.

Yes.

And he bundled, you know, that one thing of the 11 things that you did, which is the minor thing, really.

Yeah.

And it doesn't warrant, in my opinion at all, you know, I've been a bishop stayed. Sure, there's no way that warrants, you know, things like that all the time. All the time. Yeah, I mean, I mean, I mean, yeah. And so that— he bundled the whole thing in.

Yeah.

And then— and their communication was a barrier as well.

Yes.

Okay, right.

Yeah, that's how that went. All right. Um, and so where are we now?

Well, so you've just been diagnosed with scrupulosity, so you, you eventually decided to go back out.

I did decide. And we told you you didn't need to.

You didn't need to go back out.

There's probably some scrupulosity in that decision. Good. What scrupulosity is, if you don't know, it's religious OCD. So my obsessions were about around worthiness, like sexual purity. Did I see something wrong? Did I say, like, think something wrong? And then the compulsions were like confessing to an authority figure or saying a prayer in my head for forgiveness or reading the scriptures. Or like quoting scripture in my head to block out what I considered an inappropriate thought. And so those were my compulsions, and that was my obsession, kind of what that cycled around. So then I decided to go back out. I got— it was still Cincinnati, Ohio. I got sent out around late September, went back out there, and it was okay at first, but eventually I reverted back to the same obsessions and compulsions. But like, I could deal with it in a way, like I could handle it more.

Well, they assigned you a therapist.

I asked for the therapist.

You asked for the therapist.

Yeah. So at first I went and confessed to my mission president again, the same things I confessed to the bishop. When I got home, he's like, Elder Bennett, you are fine. I think you should talk to a therapist. I'm like, yes, that would be amazing. But the problem is, And it's like the LDS family therapy, they have to say very specific things in therapy. Like they aren't allowed to just say, like, sometimes it's okay to not believe this thing in the church. They have to like be 100% like, no, Elder Bennett, you have to keep doing all these things, you're doing good. And so in the first meeting, my therapist cried. And I'm like, Aren't you? I'm not giving you therapy. You're giving me therapy. And so that— and she didn't actually know what scrupulosity was or religious OCD. So I was explaining that to her.

Well, also, you really don't have confidentiality with this therapist, right?

I think I did.

Oh, did you?

Yeah, I did.

I thought the arrangement was that they have to be able to give their notes to the mission president.

Maybe?

If it's the same on the ward and the stake level, the stake has access. You know, if it's a stake counselor, then that information is disclosed. I think that's the pattern across the Church. Oh, okay. Because the reason being is that, if I understand it from professional counseling, yeah, there is a level of confidentiality, but if they feel that you could be at risk, or, you know, they might need some more support or additional professional advice to help you, by disclosing that and opening that up to, you know, to the church, um, they might be able to help a little bit more. So there's a great gray area in my opinion in regards to confidentiality. There's some black and white areas, but there's some gray area where it can spill over and people might, you know, leaders might end up reading about— oh, okay, and it may not, I may not decide to say. Um, and then, and scrupulosity, uh, you know, you're talking really early about your, the obsessive behavior. How frequent was that? Um, for the obsessions and compulsions, like your prayers and your thoughts and your scripture reading in your head, all this stuff.

So the compulsions, those ones happen pretty frequently. Like the prayers in the head is like every— at first probably every 10 minutes, so they got down to maybe once every hour, right? But like most people aren't thinking about that. They aren't saying prayers in their head constantly throughout the day. Most people, I would say, say one prayer in the morning, one prayer at night. Or sometimes not at all, like the multiple I was doing. And as a missionary, you're told pray all the time. So it's just these, these mission habits that turned into obsessions that became unhealthy. And the, and the mission culture fuels it because they want you to be obsessive about working, obsessive about constantly studying if you have break time, figuring out ways to share the gospel, share the message about Jesus.. And so they reinforced a lot of these obsessions and these compulsions that I had. And so the mission environment just wasn't a healthy one for me, I felt. But luckily, my second mission president was really understanding. His wife had struggled with depression. So she always was like, Elder Bennett, you don't have to say this is okay. It sucks. To be frank, this sucks.

Okay? She said this sucks.

She says depression sucks. Mental health is you suck. She said that to me, which was very nice. She's like, you don't have to say this, it's fine. And then the mission president was very understanding. Like, I would go to him. I went to him a couple of times saying, I still don't feel worthy. He's like, I had a couple missionaries like you, but you're doing good, Elder Bennett. And it's very like, go forth tone. He was very nice. Like, you're doing so good, Elder Bennett. I love you. And it's very like, calm, but almost patriotic tone.

Patriotic.

Um, how do you describe that?

I don't know.

But, but it's worse than you were, you were thinking, having these intense thoughts and, and feelings. Yes. Every 10 minutes. Yeah. Which was reinforced by the doctrine.

Yeah.

The push to do missionary work, follow the rules. Yeah. And the other question I had for you is, by the way, I think you're incredibly brave doing this. Okay. It's going to help so many people. I'm starting here with you right now. I think you're amazing. Thank you. I mean that. And so how, you know, and when you're going through this, when there was undoubtedly there were times on missions, we've all experienced it where things didn't work out with an investigator or it wasn't going as well, the mission work wasn't going as well at certain points. Did you connect the two? Did you connect your, how you were feeling and thinking, you know, with your, you know, your mental health? And did you— if something didn't work out, did you blame yourself because it wasn't working out? Oh, absolutely. And can you tell us a bit about that?

Yeah.

Or an ex— an experience, a specific example where something didn't work out and, and that, you know, we teach them, you know, they dropped you on them or whatever and it weren't progressing. Did you blame yourself in those situations?

Oh, absolutely. Um, like I mentioned in the beginning, uh, learning a language in Argentina, if somebody didn't understand me, they said the Preach My Gospel, the little booklet that missionaries have that teaches them how to be a missionary, said that there is one language that everyone understands, which is the language of the Spirit. But the thing is, they don't know what they're feeling if they don't know what you're saying. And so, but I would say if no one understood me while I was learning the language, it was because I was unworthy. Or in Ohio, when I was actually speaking English there, if I felt like I wasn't feeling the Spirit, that means that I was the one inhibiting the conversation, discussion, progression of this person. And if they decide not to listen to us, it was never they just weren't interested. It was never just a different time of life.

It was always your fault.

It was always my fault. Never my companion's fault either. It was always my fault.

Well, I remember, so I remember telling you about coming home from my mission and breaking all my Rolling Stones records. And that's when you said to me, "Geez, I didn't know you had scrupulosity." And I mean, as I listen to you talk, Ian, I don't know if you feel this, but there's just so many flashes of recognition. I mean, I felt, I always felt like, geez, if they're not accepting the gospel, if we're not baptizing, it's because I'm not righteous enough. I'm not doing enough. And as we talked tonight, as we were talking to Sister Lobsiger, all three of us were saying we worked. I mean, you know, if I woke up at 6:35, I can't remember ever waking up at 6:35 because I would have been in sackcloth and ashes for the rest of the day. I would have been punishing myself for being wicked and for being, you know, I just— my entire mission ran on guilt. And shame.

Yeah, same.

And, and I mean, Ian, did your mission run on guilt and shame?

I, before I went on a mission, I, I already had self-esteem, self-worth issues, and I, I can't imagine now that what you went through impacted how you felt about yourself, you know, like confidence and self-esteem, don't believe in yourself. Like, I had those before I went out, so I kind of was fighting my own, you know, thing before I went out. And I saw my mission as a, you know, as some kind of rescue of me, right? You know, give me something that I never had, some structure, some meaning, purpose in my life. So I came to the mission probably a little bit, you know, quite different background and probably a different perspective. But the doctrine, the teachings, and the culture, I was already fully embracing of all that before I came out. And, um, was the first mission president we had. He had this, um, phrase he used to use all the time called 'live with exactness.' Yep, live with exactness, right?

You did— did you hear 'live with exactness'?

It was 'obey with exactness' for us.

Oh God, we had to live with exactness, and that meant you have to follow every single rule to the letter. We had the, the conventional mission rules, right, in the white handbook of— yeah, etc.

So still a white handbook?

They have a handbook still. It's not the white handbook.

We had the little white, little white handbook.

We had to read from it every day.

Read from it.

I did have one of those at the beginning, but they redid it. So I had a handbook that I had to read through every day.

So we had companion— so our day was structured, you know, and we had half an hour's companion study together. And there were a few minutes in there where one of you had to read from the little white handbook, right? And so you had these traditional mission rules, but with the first mission president, and I think with President Banks as well to some extent, we had a whole set of other layers as well. We had to tick off, you know, got up on time and did this, did this, except pray, etc., have a scripture. We were told to live with exactness, have a scripture in your heart, in your mind, all the time, constantly, always thinking about the gospel, serving, etc. It was just drilled into me. And so I became a— as I was talking with you, Jim Bennett, Sister Lobsiger earlier, it just reminded me that there were periods of time on mission where I felt like a robot. Yeah, I mean, I was just going through the motions. Um, I was a bit numb at times. I'm just doing it. I'm just, um, existing.

Well, from in my mind, if I was having fun, I would must be doing something, must be doing something wrong.

But the thing that, the thing that kept me out there, uh, for different reasons, um, probably from what you guys were, uh, was I couldn't go back home. Not because of— I wasn't worried about what people thought of me. Yeah. 'cause I didn't come from the church, I didn't grow up in the church, but it was, I'd made a commitment, I'm gonna do this, no matter, you know, hell or high water, I'm staying out, I'll die first. It wasn't shame that kept me out. It was a lack of, the thought of me failing personally. But the shame bit for me was on other things like, If I broke any of those rules, um, you know, like not reading the scripture or not following the strict structure of the day, then I was a disobedient missionary. And I was told by President Dunn— and this is really, I want to highlight this because it really bothered me, because this— I was out there for the right reasons. I wanted to help people. Yeah, it was part of saving myself as well, I get that, but it's also to share the gospel and bring people to the Lord Jesus Christ. I really believed that and, and knew that in every fiber of my being. And President Dunn said, look, if you break a rule, if you make a mistake, or if you deviate one iota, one slip, no matter how big it is, that will impact, uh, the ability or the interest of someone joining the church. And if they don't join the church because you've not been worthy enough, uh, it's on you. That hit me like a ton of bricks. Uh, I'd never heard that before. I was thinking, oh my goodness. I remember in my entire mission, Sam, I slept in once in my entire mission. Yeah, I got up at 6:43, something like that, right? I have never felt so guilty. Yeah, I remember calling the mission home because it wasn't enough with my mission, my companion. He said, Elder Wilkes, don't worry about it. I said, no, no, I have to tell the AP to tell President Banks I slept in. I felt absolutely Uh, it was awful. And I called him and I told him what's going on, and they said, uh, just don't do it again, right? And they were fine. And it was me kind of beating myself up, but I had this thing drilled in by President Dunn that if I'd slipped one thing, somebody wasn't going to join the church, right? And, and, and, and, uh, you know that scripture, how great shall be your joy, uh, that we read in the scriptures?

You remember that one?

How great shall be your guilt?

How great should be your guilt? And I'm like, all this responsibility, I just thought You know, I felt awful. And so I vowed, and I, I was, I lived with that much exactness. And, and what it did to me, Jim, is that it turned me at times into a robot. There was no room for deviation, no room for being a human, no room for having fun and being flexible. I have a little bit of fun, which you did. You did nothing wrong. He had a little bit of fun. Yeah, you're being frivolous. I thought Joe Smith was frivolous. Yeah, it was accused of being frivolous and jovial. They're the words, right? And he was rebuked, I think, for being frivolous, right? He was having fun. Well, I didn't have enough fun, I think, in my mission. I was like a robot a lot of the time. And I think that was down to the teaching, the doctrine, live with exactness, follow every single thing to preciseness, right? And then if I mess up, then, oh my goodness, people are going to lose their souls. Can you relate to that?

Oh, damn. Is that scrupulosity, you think?

Yeah.

Have I got scrupulosity?

Yeah. Have we just diagnosed me with scrupulosity? Um, you probably don't have it anymore. You're like, I think the mission environment—

I don't give a crap, I'm not in the church, I don't give a crap anymore. I've healed myself, I have saved myself.

There you go. But yeah, I, I very much relate to all of that. If somebody didn't want to listen to you, it was because you weren't doing something correct. It's not just because— I mean, it's these 18-year-olds at your door trying to tell you This is how you need to live correctly.

99% of people just don't want to listen to you.

I mean, a lot of it is like, how good of a salesman you are is what you really learn. Are the like really good missionaries is there's these personal people that go up and they can be very good salesmen. And that's what you don't accept though, as a missionary, you're like, no, anybody can do this. But really, a lot of the time it just becomes the people who are the best salesmen. Um, and so yeah, I relate to everything you just said. Um, eventually I made it home and then my mission ended, and now my dad calls me a mental health advocate, and I believe that started in between the two missions. And do we want to go there now?

Well, sure. Well, the thing is, you You made a decision to be very open about this.

Yes.

I mean, at one point, for instance, I was talking about you sort of obliquely on the podcast and somebody said, "Uh, does your son know you're talking about him like this?" And I came to you and I said, "Do you know I'm talking about?" And you said, "Yeah, please do it. In fact, I'd love to go on your podcast and talk about it." I mean, you decided— you mentioned it in your homecoming talk.

Yes.

You discussed this, you made several social media posts where you talked about the importance of good mental health.

Yeah.

And the importance of— yeah. So, so just explore that a little bit.

So I got home the first time, and I didn't know I had mental health issues. I didn't want to accept I had mental health issues. And then when I got diagnosed, starting treatment, I started looking back and I'm like, there's a lot of people that I can't remember why I started sharing it out loud, but I'm like, I want to be somebody that shares it out loud so that other people don't feel like they're alone. Because a lot of the times with mental health issues, you feel like maybe yours is worse, so you shouldn't complain about it. There's other people going through worse things. But mental health is very important. And that's when I started, like, posting about it online, was probably in the— in between the missions. And I started talking about how It's not actually bad if people come home early, because they're prioritizing their mental health. It's not a healthy place for them. Like people say a full and complete mission. But in reality, that's whatever your mission is to you, like, whatever, whenever you decide to be done, you're done. And then when I went back out, I knew there was a bunch of missionaries who had struggled with mental health. I had met a couple growing up that had come home and they were my friends and they— and I decided I wanted to share it. So if there were missionaries struggling, they could come to me and talk about it with me and like I could sympathize with them and empathize with— for them. And so in Ohio, we started using more Facebook in there. And I decided on sometimes on Sundays, I would just post something about mental health and the gospel.

While you were on your mission?

While I was on my mission and talking about how, for instance, one of my favorite posts was how the word repentance itself gave me anxiety. And I was teaching repentance. It's one of the main things we focus on.

Trigger word.

It's like a trigger.

Trigger.

Yeah.

What comes with these feelings and thoughts?

Yeah. So I decided saying, this is how I look at it now, rather than saying I've done something wrong, All it is is I'm coming closer to Christ. If I have Christ more in my life, I find a way to put him in my life. That is repentance to me. It's change. I'm not gonna really say the word repentance that much. I'm just saying all it is is change. And then I had a couple missionaries come up to me and they're like, have you gone to therapy? I'm like, yeah. Like, I was thinking about it. I'm like, it's an amazing experience. Therapy is very good. I— one of my companions asked me, do you think this therapist is good? I told him, I think she's very good for generalized anxiety and depression. I don't think she knows very much about the specifics of more niche, um, branches of anxiety and depression.

And scrupulosity specifically.

Scrupulosity specifically, but like other forms of OCD or maybe eating disorders. Um, but he decided to go in and he said it was a really good experience. And then I had a district leader then decide to go in and he opened about it. And so I started meeting all these missionaries who started to open up to me about how they just were struggling. And I would give them talks that helped me, and I would give them scriptures, or I would just say, like, just relax, let yourself relax, which was hypocritical. I wouldn't let myself relax, but I would be okay with other missionaries relaxing or sleeping in or taking a nap. I was perfectly okay with anybody else doing it, but I wouldn't let myself live that standard for some reason. But I think one of the biggest things that really showed that it was working was at the very end of my mission, I had one missionary come up to me, like text me, says, 'You have scrupulosity, Elder Bennett?' I'm like, 'Yeah.' He's like, 'I didn't know anybody else had that ever. I have it. I've had it since I was probably 15 years old.' And we just started chatting over Facebook about it, and probably till like 10:30 at night we were chatting about it. He's like, 'It just feels so good.' to talk to somebody else about it and not feel weird. And he had mentioned this missionary said he had struggled with the obsession that he had committed the unforgivable sin somehow and that he couldn't be forgiven. And this guy was— he was so fun to be around. Everybody loved being around him and he loved having fun and people loved teaching. Like, the people he was teaching loved him too. Like, he was an awesome missionary. But he felt like he could not be forgiven. And whoa, yeah, exactly. And you just don't know why, and he couldn't know why. And then I got home, that's when I'm like, I'm gonna just start talking about with everybody, like I'm gonna post about it. So I started posting suicide awareness posts. Um, by first May I was home, which is Mental Health Awareness Month. Every single day I posted about different different mental health issue from OCD.

I remember that.

Yeah, anxiety to eating disorders. I remember one time my aunt texted my dad's like, Sam, have this eating disorder? I'm like, no, I don't have that eating disorder, don't worry. Which I have. Um, I think it was Heather. Oh yeah, Heather texted and said, just eating this one. No, I don't have this one. Oh, funny. Um, but it was just Really, I want everybody to know, like, it's okay to have mental health problems because honestly, everybody, almost everyone goes through one mental health challenge over the course of their life. Like, there's these pretty huge statistics that I think at least it's like at least a quarter or half of adults go through like major depressive disorder at least one point in their life. And so just speaking openly about it, I think opens doors to other people. And so I had friends coming to me like, should I go therapy? I'm like, it's amazing. Find the right therapist. And like, I gave my homecoming talk, a lot of it was about mental health, how I asked to come home a couple of times. I was— the president wanted me to just go out another week, so I stayed out. But I did ask to come home probably 2 or 3 times in Ohio because I was perfectly okay with it now. I was like, it's okay to go home and prioritize our mental health because in reality you can't help anybody if you can't help yourself. But if you're not okay, how are you going to go help somebody else be okay?

And that's what— you cannot lift— you cannot lift anyone higher until you yourself are on higher ground. And yeah, is that— that's what— yeah, that's the same thing, is it?

Yeah, you can't lift somebody up if like you're not strong enough to do it on yourself.

Yeah, yeah.

And so I mentioned in my homecoming talk, I had other members come up crying like I think like a bunch of them needed it. They're like, I so glad you opened up about this. And it's kind of reinforced the idea that people just need somebody to open up about mental health so that they feel comfortable opening about it, or just getting help and knowing that there are resources out there. Or like suicide awareness. Sometimes, um, people have a stigma about suicide. I remember This is a very— the story that I feel like I need to tell. It's— I was teaching with a missionary, and we were teaching this really funny guy in this area. I stayed there for like 6 months, and he had been taught there for like 10 months. And the missionary just kind of went to him because they couldn't find anybody else. And he was a very interesting fellow, to put it lightly, put it gently. But he talked— he's like, Well, he was depressed. He's like, but I can't die because I'll go to hell. And apparently a missionary before him had tried to say, no, you don't go to hell if you commit suicide. And my companion at that time said, but I wasn't— so my companion at that time turned to the guy and said, but I don't agree with him. I think you— we don't actually know because you're killing yourself, which is like murder, right? After the last time I turned him and said No, suicide is so complicated. You do not go to hell. They are in so much pain. Like, that's just an awful thing to say to somebody, to say you're going to hell if you commit suicide. Like, it's just not true. It doesn't— you can't convince me otherwise. It's just— I had to tell him that.

Well, we had a missionary friend, actually. I went to their funeral. Ian, you watched the funeral?

I did, online, yes. And you knew this person quite well?

We knew him quite well. He was an AP.

And very successful missionary.

Very successful missionary. And Matt Holland, who's now a General Authority, was his companion. They were the APs when I arrived in Scotland. And Matt Holland spoke and he talked about suicide. And he did sort of mention what you just said, which I think is 100% correct. But he felt like he had to couch it. We did a whole episode on this, but he felt like he had to couch it in the idea that, well, the church is very clear, suicide is a sin. And I just thought, you know, that isn't helpful to anybody. And it's, it's nothing but hurtful. Because exactly what you're saying, the idea that suicide is murder, and the way that we consider murder, when you murder somebody, you know, we talk in the scriptures about the great secret is that I can murder and get gain. You're trying to get something. You're doing something evil to take somebody from something. And when you kill yourself, it is because exactly as you say, Sam, that you're in so much pain that you don't see any other way out. And so I am so grateful for you being willing to say that publicly because that's such an important message. And I sit here and listen to this. Ian, can you imagine having any kind of these resources or any kind of these discussions when we were missionaries? Because I can't— the idea of even vocalizing any of that, even to the mission president, even in my most— I mean, I remember when I first got out there, I had an experience where I was— we were teaching an evangelical Christian. And he said, okay, I'll read and pray about the Book of Mormon. I was with Elder Hansen, who was also your companion. He was my trainer. Wonderful, wonderful guy. I put him through hell because I was such a difficult missionary. And I can remember, so we were in this guy's house, and he says, "I'll read and pray about the Book of Mormon." He was this young, handsome guy, and he had this very pretty wife. And he was just, it was like, yeah, the Lord wants him to be a member of the Church. I was absolutely convinced of that. And so we went back and he said, "I've read and prayed about your Book of Mormon, and it isn't true." And And it's getting— and he could see, I just collapsed. I mean, this was like within the first 2 weeks of my mission. So I didn't have any other frame of reference. And I'm like, what do you mean you read and prayed about it? It isn't true. Of course it's true. And I was like, well, I don't know what to do here. And Elder Hansen just panicked. I mean, when a missionary is like, well, geez, maybe the Church isn't true. I'm sitting here in this investigator's room. And this guy looks at me and he's got this very piercing gaze. And he says to me, "This book is interfering with your relationship with Christ." And I was like, "Maybe it is." And I said so in front of, you know, you're not supposed to say so. And Elder Hansen got me out of there as fast as he could. We got home and I was just a mess. And I called President Banks and he— I was in Livingston, Scotland, which is what, it's about 20 minutes or half hour from Edinburgh.

Yeah. West.

And he says, I'll be there in 45 minutes. And he was there in 45 minutes. And I start talking to him about this and he gave me a blessing. And it was— but it's the only time on my mission where I felt like I could be vulnerable because I was like, I may have to leave. I can't believe that. I don't know that this is true. I don't know what to— And I just felt lost. And President Banks, I can't even remember what he said. I can't remember. There wasn't any kind of magic counsel to it. But there was patience and understanding. And that was enough. That was enough to say, okay, well, if I'm pinning my testimony on this guy, this handsome young evangelical guy, his name was Mike Mason, by the way. Yeah, yeah. Who was also the name of our home teacher forever. Yeah, but I can remember when we met Mike Mason. I'm like, "Oh, that's the same guy that almost got me to go home." And he gave me a blessing. It was a very sweet blessing. I remember he said, "The tears that you cried today will turn to tears of joy." And I remember when that was fulfilled on my mission. And I thought, this is a direct fulfillment of the blessing. But the thing is, even though I was vulnerable, and I was going to talk about it, the idea of talking about this in mental health terms, saying all of these rules. I mean, we were talking tonight, Sam, about we had a rule in our mission that if you stood up in your suit, you had to make sure your suit coat was buttoned or you, you couldn't have the Spirit with you. I mean, that was a rule. Ian, like you talk about every single stinking rule. That was a rule. And I remember after President Banks left, President McConkie came, he stood up in zone conference. And he very purposely unbuttoned his suit coat and just let it fall open. And there was an audible gasp from this whole conference. It was like, whoa, whoa, please, you can do that? How do you do that? You know, the kind of scrupulosity that you're describing was built into the system 35 years ago in a way that hopefully is trying to be dismantled today, but it's still there.

Oh, it's so very much there.

It's still there. And I just think I mean, the idea, the idea of talking to a therapist, the idea of saying, you know, I'm frustrated with this, it was just unthinkable. I mean, it wasn't. Am I right?

Yeah, you are. And that was your experience, what you went through, Sam, as often. I'm so sorry you went through that. I think as I listen to you and you're talking about it, I get the feeling it helps to talk about it.

Oh, yeah.

You know, when you start talking about it and you speak, you've got amazing courage to be able to speak so openly about it. And you know, I mean, we've got listeners here who are going to listen to this, and I know, I guarantee, there's going to be people who are going to be helped tremendously because of what you're sharing. That must make you feel good, right? And good will come from this. More good will come from this, even though you went through all this difficult time. And so I think the church has made, would I say it goes as far as leaps and bounds? I don't know, because I've not served the mission.. But I think it has made some progress. I can't speak to that definitively like what you can, you know. I think there's some, you know, when you came, you went back to Ohio and, you know, came back home and you went to Ohio and you had a different experience. Yeah, a little bit more support, etc. So when I hear that, I think, well, the church is making progress and I think hopefully it will continue to make progress. But go back to your experience, um, you know, I wasn't affected like you were. If I was in that situation, that individual would not have budged me one bit, would not have shifted me one iota.

Would you just assume he was evil?

Well, yeah, uh, or wrong. Uh, I could not be moved. I was immovable when it came to my faith. But, um, any thought of talking about any, any of the points in my mission where I was down and depressed— and there were a few, quite a few actually— and I struggled. And inside there was, um, a, just a battle going on with my emotions that I couldn't make sense of. No one to talk to. And the culture in the mission, for me at least back then, was if you talk about anything like that, you're weak. You're a failure. You're weak. You could even get sent home. And I could not get sent home, Sam. There's no way to get someone, right? Just for my own— I had to succeed at something. I felt such a failure in my entire life up until serving a mission. I could not see this through. You have to carry me back in a box. Yeah. So, but I bottled up all these feelings. And, um, and the thought of being able to talk to somebody, uh, even then I would have felt, um, you know, you know, scrupulosity. I thought, well, the very, the very fact that I'm thinking about that means there's something wrong with me, means I'm not strong enough, means I can't hold it together. And I, I made myself, I forced myself to be ironcast and like, you will do this no matter what. You don't deviate, you don't talk about it, you don't share your feelings. There's no forum to do that. There's no medium in which to have those conversations. The whole culture around that just back then just didn't exist. If you did start to talk about those issues, you'd be seen as a weak missionary. And also, I had, I'll be honest, I had leadership ambitions, right? I did early on, not later on in my mission, aspire to, you know, be a zone leader.

You weren't allowed to say that.

No, you weren't allowed to say that.

But it's so obvious for everybody. I know, I certainly had them.

Yeah, I think many of them had them. But when I got as only I didn't want it, by the way. I thought, what have I asked for it? And so I had to be this perfect missionary, right? And I slept in, I couldn't deviate. I had to be this totally independent, totally dependent, reliable Elder Wilkes, right? Who followed the rules, followed the rules, followed the rules. But that turned me into a robot. But the thought of even trying to talk to somebody about it was a sin because it meant I was weak. I didn't have the spirit with me. I wasn't strong enough. And then, I mean, who do you talk to? You couldn't talk to anybody about that because it was just— there was no process. There was no therapy. There was no counseling. There were no counselors. If I spoke to President Dunn, the first mission president, he would probably think, oh, we've got a missionary who was on the edge, right? And are we going to be sending him home, right?

Without—

you know, I don't think President Dunn had very much professional or any counseling experience. Forget professional, scrub that. Any counseling experience whatsoever. Banks, President Banks did. With President Banks, I felt loved and listened to. And, um, yeah, it wasn't professional, but I felt I could talk to him.

But it was genuine.

It was genuine. But I always bottled up my feelings. Yeah, I didn't tell— I didn't write home about them. I didn't write to my friends about them. I didn't, uh, write and talk to my companion because my companion might tell my mission president. I certainly told my mission president, right, because I didn't want to— I didn't want to be a failure missionary.. And now I just kept it. I had it like a— mentally it was a lock and a key. It was a vault. I describe it as like Fort Knox, like a vault. I had all these feelings and all these struggles, right, myself. But no one knew I went through that. They thought Elder Wilkes, I don't know, steady as he goes, right, the steady ship. But I got that lock and I chained it and I bolted it. And there's another door and I locked that one and I hid it all away. So compared to that, I'm not saying the church is perfect by any means, but I think the church— and if I'm wrong, correct me— uh, fast forward 35 years to a mission in the Ohio experience. Ohio experience, sorry. It sounds like it has— you've got counseling in, in place, which we didn't have, right? You mentioned that earlier. There's some processes, some systems in place, etc. I— to me, that's like night and day, even though the church has still got a long way to go. Yeah, you think it has made some progress?

I think it's made progress. I still think mission environments themselves aren't healthy for individuals. Um, you're— these young kids are going away from home, they only get to contact their family once a week still, which is a few. It's like, I, I could call—

I'm not kidding, I, I had to make— I made one call, it was 10 minutes, it had a duration of time, and it was Christmas time, and that was it.

Like, I have been zero Zero calls. I was not allowed to call Christmas, not allowed to call Mother's Day, nothing.

That is awful.

Yeah, absolutely no contact with home other than the letters.

Did that change happen a year before I went out or something?

Couple of years, I think.

Couple of years?

A year, yeah.

I think a year or two at all before I went back out, went out the first time. I just think mission environments aren't healthy. They almost feel, I always say you don't feel like your normal self because you're—

That's what Louise was saying the other night.

That's what she said.

Yeah, you're just kind of suppressing yourself to try to be this, like, black and, how do you say, this mold, this mold of a missionary that everyone's told you to be. And they show you videos. If Jeffrey Holland, a big name in the LDS Church, Gordon B. Hinckley, a previous prophet, they showed videos of them, how Jeffrey Holland almost went home. His mission president made him hamburger and he said, go out and work, Elder. And Gordon B. Hinckley said he almost went home once and his dad wrote him back and said, just go out and work. So if you just work, you know, everything will get better. But mental health issues don't get better if you're just doing 12 hours of physical labor and not getting enough sleep. Like you're supposed to get— it says you're supposed to sleep from 10:30 to 6:30. And but the thing is, a lot of missionaries aren't getting that. Like my brother talks about how he was calling people till 10 o'clock at night, 10:30, like different missionaries in his zone, his district, and getting updates from them, texting people, making sure they're progressing. And so most missionaries are not sleeping 8 hours a night. And if they are, it's not a good 8 hours because you've just done 12 hours of physical labor all day of just walking around and knocking doors, which is mentally and physically taxing.. And so these people are just setting themselves up to have a mental health problem because you're just exhausted both mentally, spiritually, and physically. Like, you just can't do that for 2 years and be okay.

I'm listening to you, it reminds me, and, and by the way, this is, uh, one of the most amazing podcasts and actually just conversations I've ever had. Um, I just want you to know that. Um, there was a missionary, um, that I served with before you came out. He, he was the— he had a reputation of being the hardest worker in, in a decade.

That was your trainer, right?

Um, you're my trainer. You're my trainer. He had a nervous breakdown, an official, formally diagnosed nervous breakdown. I was actually in hospital for a month because he went— you know, I described my situation, you know, you've got your own Jim Bennett, you've got your experience. Mine was, um, just this— at times, this robot and putting everything into following the rules and hard work. That's— that was my, you know, that thing I focused on. This guy, you know, I think you can do that and you might last— you might last 2 years. And I did. I'm one of the lucky ones that got through it 2 years. But my trainer didn't. He had a nervous breakdown and he was in hospital, uh, and on the therapy in Scotland for a month, he had a real nervous breakdown, right? He, he lost— he was losing his mind because he'd gone— he'd lived like that, but his body's mind— because we're all different, he just couldn't do it. He then came to me, uh, as my trainer, and I'm told he, he continued to live like he used to after his treatment because he just worked. We worked all the time, you know, the last It nighttime, 9:25 at night, because you know you have to be back by— I was at 9:20, I had to be back by 9:30. Um, I think you had to be back at the apartment by 9:30, flat at 9:30. And so the last, uh, few minutes before he can get back, uh, he said, 'Elder Wolfe, would you— should we knock this one last door or go back?' I said— and I was so exhausted— I said, 'Let's just go back.' He went, 'No, we'll knock that door.' He'd always, always test him. And to make the time up for that conversation, would run back, would sprint back, right, to get back in time. So even that therapy he— and counseling he got, whatever that was, in a very rudimentary form, I'm sure, very basic form, um, hadn't changed him. And I heard he had a lot of mental health issues after he came back, including, you know, in his relationships, because it— going through that on a mission, it is not automatic that once you go home you, you say No, uh, could you speak to that? So yeah, you, you, you had this experience, you went to Ohio, there's some support that you got, you came home, and how did you get stronger, if you did at all? How did, how do you make yourself strong?

When I first got back, I said I'm going to keep the missionary habits up, so I would pray all the time, and I was still having the obsessions and kapolei inside. I did work in the temple. Was it after you came home? After I came home, yes. I worked in the temple, waking up at 5 AM to work in the temple. And I was really— my first semester back in school, I was a mess mentally. I went off my meds. And then just tried to do school. But I was reading the scriptures, I think, 3 to 4 times a day. I was saying a lot of prayers before homework, before tests, before every event I did. And I would constantly panic about getting bad acne again because I had really bad acne that occurred on the— when I was in Argentina. And not until my second semester I decided I'm gonna go back to therapy. I went to the BYU CAPS therapist, which is their mental health BYU has. And this guy, I walk in there and he has this pride flag, a Black Lives Matter flag. I'm like, I'm gonna get along with this guy.

Um, at BYU?

At BYU. And he was a bishop as well, which for me actually helped because I would tell him about my experiences. I'm like, I was at this place called Liberty Square at BYU. And if anybody, any of your listeners have been to BYU or their kids have, Liberty Square is known as the social spot for new missionaries, new people coming home. And the bishop there was awful. He— we had a different event every single day.

Oh, I remember that bishop.

Yeah, he was terrible. I sent him a big letter about how he's not a good bishop and how he's like, you are going to be damaging young kids' mental health. But I was really struggling. And this bishop, This therapist though, he's like, we're gonna try some things. I'm gonna be devil's advocate. I want you to read your scriptures once a day. And I'd start panicking, like, what?

No.

What? No. That can't be a thing. And then, read your scriptures once a day, you're fine. Like, okay, we're gonna only pray twice a day now. Like, what? No. No.

What? No.

And, and now Everything's fine. And he would just have me do these little skills to like test the OCD, test the obsessions. Like, are you actually a bad person? And I remember like I watched a rated R movie on a plane and I felt an awful human being, even though my sister had recommended it to me. And I told him that, he's like, oh, I know a sick president who watches rated R movies all the time. I don't personally. Like he said he does it. He watches PG-13. I'm like, I have a state prison, watches rated R all the time. Like, you're fine, dude. I'm like, oh my gosh, here's this authority figure telling me that it's okay to watch rated R movies. And like, just all these things, he would just continually test me. And then I got back on time medication, started taking a sleep medication as well. And all of a sudden, things just immediately got better again. And all it was was just like becoming a normal human being again and allowing myself to escape the mission environment and letting myself experience life again. Almost.

So where do you feel like you are now?

I think I'm in a very good spot. Like, I still have OCD. I go to therapy right now for it. Um, OCD itself, like, if you— what my first therapist says, it goes into remission And so it will always be there. Like, it can sprout back up in certain instances, maybe stressful instance. So I still get anxiety sometimes, like at school. Going back to school gives me anxiety. Um, for instance, sometimes I don't have as much scrupulosity now as I did, but sometimes my OCD goes into like relationships. Like, do I like this person? Do I not like this person? Like, OCD can just morph and take forms. But now I'm doing really good. I like reading books on mental health, and really I just continually share stuff. But overall, I'm in a very good spot now. Just meditation, therapy, and just allowing myself— I think the biggest thing was just allowing myself to almost distance myself from the church a little bit and let myself live inside the church in my own way. And that has really helped me to like stay in the church. Because I think if I had kept doing those things that I was so scrupulous about, I would have left. But allowing myself to like disagree with things in the church and like sleep in on occasion— like today I slept in because my body was tired and that's okay— and like not going to family home evening because I like being by myself sometimes when I'm studying, or I like doing schoolwork over going to family home evening with a bunch of kids in my ward that I don't really get along with anyway. So it's just allowing myself to live inside the church in my own way as hope.

Well, Sam, I can't thank you enough. I mean, I knew pieces of this story. I mean, but I've never heard you sort of disgorge the whole thing in one sitting.

I've done it many times to many therapists. So I got the whole story down now.

Yeah, yeah. So But I can't thank you enough for this. And I can't tell you enough. I mean, how proud I am of you, how much I love you for this.

And I love you too, dude.

I just, I just, I really, I think Ian's right. I think this is going to be very helpful because there's just not enough conversation about this. There's still not enough talking about this. The one place I wanted to say one thing The one thing that has changed, I think, that the church has changed positively is that the stigma for coming home early is still there, but it has lessened considerably. The thought of coming home early for me, I mean, I imagined like escaping because they had my passport, so I couldn't come home whenever I wanted to. So I imagined escaping like, going through Russia and crossing the Bering Strait. I'm serious. I've had all these fantasies of how I was going to get home and maybe start a new life and a new name. I mean, I seriously— but the idea of just saying, oh, I'm going home early and facing my parents and facing my ward was just completely unthinkable. I mean, it wasn't even an option. It wasn't even, well, I could do that. And that has changed to some degree. Actually, the numbers show that somewhere between 20% of missionaries now are coming home early. Interesting. For health reasons.

Maybe that will put some sense in them and make them change their mission.

Because that was— sorry, Jim Bennett.

No, no, that's right.

That was my, but probably my final question. Before I ask you the question, I just want to say, I think you're amazing in your vision. You probably hear that a lot. You should feel good about, you know, being able to have the courage to talk about this, because I'm a person that I haven't got that courage. I just, I still bottle things up. I haven't got the courage that you've got, and I don't know how you do it. It's amazing. And also to what your dad said, you know, there are people out there that this will resonate with. You'll help people, and that's going to make you feel good as well. Yes. Right. So you are an extraordinary individual. My question is, to all who are listening, you know, missionaries going on a mission, even missionaries who are out right now, bishops, stake presidents, because I've got people in my family who are bishops, stake presidents, or in senior leadership callings, but even the Church general leadership, leadership as a whole, what advice would you give to them, if any, in regards to helping missionaries go on, you know, prepare to go on missions, to prepare, but also missions who are having these experiences while they're out and even coming home as well?

I think one of the big things is don't tell people to pray away their mental health. I think the church has lessened its stance on that, but like my first step, my— the therapist I had on my mission told me to do that. I'm like, I pray 15 times a day on the mission, it's not going away, dude. Um, but I think lessening that and just giving them resources to get help. Another thing, I've had a cousin, they, their bishop has their missionaries like go get counseling before they go on a mission, which I think is really important. But also, I think pushing service missions more, because I think those are healthier environments. Those people already have mental health issues going into it. I just don't think the mission like the proselyting mission, the one where you go out and knock doors, is good for them. So they should go do a service mission. I think that should be more widely accepted than like the secondary option.

And I think that's fantastic advice. And would you also agree that that service mission has the same level of respect and esteem as proselyting? In terms of—

I think it's getting to there.

It's not there yet, is it?

It's not there yet.

But you think it should be the same?

It should be the exact same.

Evaluated to the same level. Yeah.

And then allowing people to come home and go serve 4 months, and if that's good for them, that's good for them. I think allowing people not to go on missions is a big thing as well, because sometimes missions just aren't for people. Like, just like Russell M. Nelson, the current Providence Server Mission, Herb Eyring, I don't think served a mission.

Dallin Oaks doesn't.

Dallin Oaks doesn't serve a mission. Ben B.

Banks.

He didn't serve a mission.

Our mission president didn't serve a mission.

There are several apostles, like high-ranking people in the Church that didn't serve missions. And then they go tell people like, you have to serve a mission if you're a male, and you strongly encourage the woman to serve a mission. But like, you didn't serve a mission, and look where you are now. So it's just changing how we talk about missions and why you go. It shouldn't be a force, it should just be— and it's supposed to be a good experience, like a spiritual experience. But if you're forcing these young adults to change exactly like who they are, then it just won't be a good experience for them. So letting them do that and being okay as maybe a bishop or stake president saying, "Maybe the mission isn't right for you and just go grow spiritually in a different way." Words of wisdom.

Words of wisdom. We'll let those be the final words. Thank you very much, Sam.

Anytime.

This has been delightful. Ian, you need to just move down here so we can do this live and in person. Her return.

Son, thank you so much.

Yes, and thank you all for listening. We hope to— hope you'll join us again next time for Inside Out.