Ian's Story: Part I

Welcome to another episode of Inside Out. My name is Jim Bennett, and a lot of you know me. You know my background, you know my history, but you don't know a whole lot about my partner, Ian Wilkes. And before we started this podcast, we spent hours discussing Ian's story, how he joined the church and how he eventually left the church. And it's a story of faith and integrity, and it's fascinating, and I would love to be able to share all of it with you. And I thought that at this point it might be wise for us to give you the beginnings of that story. And so that's what we're going to spend this hour doing, is essentially introducing you to Ian Wilkes and helping you understand who he is and where he's coming from.

Ian, people listening to you can tell that you're not from the United States. But you don't sound like you're from Canada either.

We live in Canada. We've been here for about 16 years, but we're from the UK originally, from the north of UK. My UK friends think I sound like I've got a bit of a Canadian twang. My Canadian friends say, no, no, no, no, you're definitely British still. So yeah, we're from, you know, we're from UK, moved here, great life.

Well, I met you in the UK when we were both serving as missionaries in the Scotland Edinburgh Mission. And my understanding is that a lot of English missionaries feel that when they're called to Scotland, it's a bit like a Utah missionary being called to Idaho, that you're just being called to your own backyard. And they're very disappointed by that. Were you disappointed when you saw Scotland on your mission letter?

I wasn't disappointed. I know others who were called to the same country were, but I wasn't. There were Seveners in the ward who got our calls at the same time. I think I was the only one that was called into the British Isles. I'm in the north of England. My mission where I, in the mission area where I went to the stake and the ward there connects to the boundary of the mission. So it was only the mission, Scotland mission is only 120 miles away. It's like going from Salt Lake to, I don't know, Provo, maybe Spanish Fork, 100 miles away, right? So not even Idaho. But for me, going to Scotland was a fantastic experience, and I wasn't disappointed at all. And others went California and Philippines, and I was good. I was good with going to Scotland.

Well, I can bear testimony that you were an outstanding missionary. You were a bit of an intimidating missionary too, to some degree.

I did.

But, well, I was intimidated by the fact that every time we drove anywhere near a pheasant, you wanted to drive the car over the pheasant in order to be able to bring the roadkill into the car and eat it for dinner. That actually happened, did it not?

It did happen. It wasn't my idea originally, but I got the idea from a missionary who's from Utah originally, who used to hunt and kill pheasants. And we accidentally killed this pheasant on the road. And my companion said, look, we can take it home and cook it, eat it. I said, Okay, you know what you're doing. And I was excited. Now this is great. Pheasant is kind of a great, you know, great dish. And so we took it home and we put the bird in the back of the car. However, it wasn't quite dead. About 10 minutes into the journey, traveling back to the flat there, the apartment, the bird came alive somehow. And started flying around the car. I was driving at the time and terrifying experience. This thing was making such a noise flying around the inside of the car and it was quite a shock. So we had to stop and the other people were looking on and other vehicles were looking on wondering what the heck's going on. This bird flying around the car. But we stopped and my companion who was a trained pheasant killer got the bird and made sure second time around the bird was dead. So we took it back and skinned it and cleaned it and, and we ate it, and it tasted absolutely delicious. It was, uh, one of the best meals on the mission I've ever had.

Oh, that is, that is a great, great story. Yeah, I just remember I was driving with you at one point, and we saw a pheasant, and you, you reached out to the wheel and almost tried to take the wheel, and you finally said, there's no reason why that pheasant shouldn't be in this car.

Did I say that? Okay, so I'll trust your memory.

I don't ever recall eating any roadkill when I was a missionary, so our experience may have been different in that. But I want to back up before that, before your mission, because you have not been a member of the church your entire life. Is that correct?

That is correct, yes. I grew up in a working-class coal mining community in the north of England, a place called Castleford, in a small suburb of Castleford called Airedale. Very rough neighborhood. It was government-funded housing. They call them council estates. You'll be familiar with them having served in Scotland. And the north of England is no different to Scotland in that sense. And these are brick government-owned, operated, funded, subsidized houses, quite small, go back to the 1930s, 1940s, '50s, et cetera. So they've been these Buildings have been around for quite a while. And you had a lot of large families that were assigned or placed into these communities. These are very large communities. They're dotted all across the UK, certainly across north of England. And they, certain people, if you like, are encouraged or pushed into those communities. Through often no choice, and that's where they grow up. So these are fairly rough places, crime's pretty high, they're closed communities in many ways, or they used to be for sure. And that was the kind of environment that I was raised in. Coal mining, a lot of coal mines at that particular time before Margaret Thatcher shut them down during the, just, you know, after the strike that happened in '84. And you're expected to go down the pit, go down the mine. You know, at school there was a— somebody would come in from the National Coal Board and sit down with you, and, and you'd have a conversation about which pit you were going to go down. A lot of my friends went down the, the mine. It was coal mining, collieries everywhere in that, uh, that part of the world. So again, working class, it was tough, a tough neighborhood, but great community spirit back then. And so that was the kind of environment that I was, you know, that I was born and raised in.

Did you expect to spend your entire career and essentially your entire life working in a mine?

I didn't know. I was one of the few that wanted to go to college. So I remember sitting down with a careers advisor teacher. Her name was Miss Priest. I won't forget her. And I had these aspirations of going to college. I wanted to go to college and I wanted to get eventually a degree. And within minutes, Miss Priest quickly dashed those hopes and made it very clear that nobody in my part of the community, or certainly in our street— and we lived on one of the most difficult, most notorious streets in Airdale, rough end of the rough part of the community— but she said nobody had gone to college. In your family or in your neighborhood. And my expectations were unrealistic. I was setting my goals too high. My aspirations weren't down to earth, et cetera. And she strongly recommended I meet with the, what they called NCB, National Call Board. These were managers that would come into the school and interview the kids and try to put a plan together to get them down the pit, down, you know, when they were 16. You leave school at the age of 16 in the UK. Um, so after that meeting with Miss Priest, I was— I remember walking home from school feeling pretty devastated, uh, pretty, uh, upset. I was quite emotional. Um, but something in me, uh, didn't accept that. Um, and something in me stirred that, you know, something stirred within me that I felt I could, um, do something different with my life, be something different, do something different. No, there's nothing wrong with going down the pit of the mine, that was fine, but I wanted to move more towards private enterprise. And what was interesting, Jim, is at that time, if we know our history, that part of the world, there was a big conflict, a big showdown, political showdown between Margaret Thatcher and the unions at that particular time. She was trying to introduce private sector into the industry, trying to close the coal mines, the pits, et cetera. I was, the whole community was labor. They were opposed to conservative Margaret Thatcher's policies, et cetera. Everybody in my entire neighborhood was Labour and pro-Mines, pro-Pit, and keeping them open and keeping them running. I was one of the few that privately thought and felt that the private sector had a role to play in energy, et cetera. I couldn't, I learned very quickly as soon as I expressed a differing view or opinion, in regards to, um, you know, these political, um, uh, positions and policies that the different governments had, uh, in that neighborhood, that I was shot down and, and actually, uh, told directly, ordered directly, never to even think like a private, uh, enterprise individual. That you labor, you vote labor.

You were a closet Thatcherite?

I was. I, I mean, there's certain policies of hers that I don't accept or agree with, but there's certain other things like private enterprise investment. I'm very pretty much those, some of those principles have steered my business and investment career going forward. But in that neighborhood at that time, and it's still the same now, I believe they all voted Labour, and you couldn't even express a different opinion other than what the Labour Party position was at that time. When I tried to do that around the dinner table, it was, I was shot down pretty harshly. So I kept my views on what was going on at that time, you know, quite close to herself and didn't share those views. People that did speak out and speak up, they were met with sometimes physical violence. And any thoughts, opinions that differed from the local regional position was seen as a betrayal. And as you know, in '84, You might not know, but many will. There was a year showdown, a physical political showdown between the unions and Margaret Thatcher, and it got very ugly, actually very ugly. Sadly, people lost their lives and it was a major event. And all that was happening and unfolding right in front of me in that entire neighborhood. In fact, my neighborhood was one of the more militant coal mining communities in the entire country. My family, my brothers were going down the mine, the pit, et cetera. So me expressing an opinion or aspiration of going and to do something different, going to college and going into business was frowned upon and absolutely ridiculed and actually laughed at even by some of the teachers. So I didn't share many of my views. I didn't share my aspirations about what I wanted to do after I left school. I kept them to myself. People's opinions were so entrenched and fixed on those, uh, those, um, uh, certain positions, uh, it just was pointless to express anything other than what was the, uh, you know, the expected, um, position of the community at that time. But, um, inside, I, I always felt that I could, um, um, go and do something different with my life. And, and, uh, and, and that's what I did. Um, I made sure that I I was determined enough to not believe some of the recommendations or accept some of the recommendations and determined to go do something different. Again, not better. I don't think anything is anything wrong or bad going down the pit. I just didn't want to do it. I just wanted to do something different with my life.

Your brothers ended up going down. They did.

Yeah. Yes, I— David and Paul did go down the pits. Almost everyone did. I mean, we, we were in a triangle of three colleries or mines in that area at that particular time. These are major and biggest employers, and we were right in the middle of the, you know, you could— there was plenty of jobs. You could go down any pit in the area. And so almost everyone, I know many people went down the pit, went down the mine for a few years or even longer. My brothers went to the mines pit for about 10, 12 years. And even after that, they did start closing them down after Thatcher won the strike there. They didn't close immediately. They were kind of phased out over the next 10 years or so. But it was a very interesting time politically in the UK. And again, you know, viewers, audience here can do a quick search and they'll see all the interesting images that came up in '94 during that strike. And I think the other thing as well, as I think about, as I share this experience with you about how I felt when I, after I met with Ms. Priest there, that careers advisor, teacher, uh, um, individual. Um, for the most part, uh, growing up in that neighborhood, and I wasn't alone by any means, I, I, I always struggled with, um, uh, self-confidence, self-esteem, self-worth, uh, often doubting myself, um, not feeling good at certain things, not feeling good enough academically. And, and that position I think was reinforced, I believe, uh, by the the political landscape that was happening in those communities at that particular time. These are communities that are very socialistic in the nature. Socialism had been entrenched there for a long, long time. You had the situations where families over generations were what they called dole-dependent, dependent on benefits. Grandfather, father, son, often at some periods of their life, some more frequent than others, would be quite happy to claim dole or claim benefits because they felt that it was owed to them. That's not everyone in the community, and I'm not painting the community, you know, with that brush with everyone by any means. But there were people that I knew that were quite happy to claim benefit and not to work. I didn't think like that. I didn't feel like that. Although I fought against the— or try to find inner strength against feeling a lack of self-confidence, um, self-worth, self-esteem that was very much, um, prevalent in my life at that time. Something deep down inside me, and I don't know what it was, it certainly didn't come from my family or from any source that I can recall, but something in me felt I could do something different, something better with my life, that I was worth something. Because often I didn't feel I felt pretty worthless a lot of the time. And again, the thinking and the mindset in the community was a certain set of thinking, and you couldn't think outside of that. And you certainly weren't encouraged to think high or big or have these goals or dreams or these visions of other things other than, you know, a basic job which would keep you in the in the neighborhood or the community there for the rest of your life. Any idea of, um, going beyond what was in part of the community there, the neighborhood, was seen as being lofty and unrealistic. And, and, um, this person needs to be brought down to earth, you know, with a, a very hard, um, crash to, to the ground. Um, and so I fought against that, and, um, In the end, I managed to get into college. I got into college. That was a little bit of a stroke of luck on my part and a little bit of cheating, if I may add.

Cheating? You cheated your way into college?

I'll explain. My grades were good enough, but you needed your mother's signature to get into college, a guardian, right? And so, you know, when I went back and spoke to my mom about going to college, she wasn't happy about that. She frowned upon that. The college was 10 miles away. I think she thought, you know, me leaving home at the age of 16 or 17 to go to college was too much for me. I felt I was ready.. And so I forged my mom's signature on the application form. I don't regret that. That my grades were good enough, so I was okay there. So that was all legit. But I got this application with my mom's signature on submitted and I got into college. So yeah, that's something that I did. I was determined and I didn't feel bad about doing that because I didn't believe what what the teachers were saying about me or my mother was thinking about me, that I can actually do this. I felt I could do this and I did. So I don't regret that decision. And I actually, it was an important pivotal point going forward in terms of my education and going to the college 10 miles away was actually getting me out of that particular community. I was able to get out of that situation, move away, and, uh, and go to college at a, at a, probably 10, 15 miles away. It's a very different environment in many ways.

Very, very cool. So this is about the same time frame then when the church sort of makes an appearance in your life, is that right?

It is, it is, it is at the same time. Um, again, just to, uh, highlight that, uh, throughout my life in that neighborhood, and I wasn't alone, a lot of kids struggled with self-doubt, self-esteem, personal, uh, worth, um, worried about the future, what they're going to do when they leave school. Uh, this wasn't just unique to me, um, but at the time, uh, because my family was incredibly dysfunctional, you know, any questions or concerns I had or any feelings or thoughts about— I had about my life or problems I had in my life at the time or doubts, I, I had no one to go to. There's nobody in my family that I could sit down with or talk to. My mum was a single parent, uh, mum. We had 5 boys, uh, live in a council estate. She didn't work. We lived on government, uh, subsidized funding, benefits essentially. And we were raised with very, very little, um, growing up. The family was dysfunctional. Uh, we'd lost, uh, one of my brothers in a motorbike accident, um, which, um, actually caused more divisions, not— it didn't bring us closer together, it pulled us apart actually, um, rather than bring us together as a family. So the family dynamics were incredibly dysfunctional. You couldn't share feelings and thoughts, that was seen as a weakness. This— there's an element of this British stiff upper lip, um, that came through in the, the parental, uh, approach, if you like, of my mother. She came from a, you know, an app— the time of the Second World War and post-war, very strict, uh, conservative, um, in some ways in terms of not sharing feelings or thoughts. It was not done, uh, that was not— that was seen as a weakness, um, and there was no— I wasn't close enough to any friends to share any feelings or thoughts, or certainly no family members to talk about anything, frankly, um. Other than just general stuff. And so at my, my life at that particular time, I was, uh, quite— I look back, I was quite vulnerable. Um, I had lots of questions, very few answers, little direction, no support or helping from anyone, uh, in the family. I remember, um, you know, going to school and coming back with homework and needing help and ask my brothers or, you know, my mother for help, and, and either didn't have— they didn't have time or they didn't weren't available. They were off doing things themselves, and there was no one really to turn to for help with homework or even talking about anything. And so, you know, I struggled through all of that and felt quite vulnerable. I look back now, and I was very looking for something. I was lost on a very, very personal level. I had lots of questions and lots of doubts. And, and so all these things that were happening in my life at that time were me trying to find myself, trying to search for a direction and a purpose and meaning to my life. There were times, Jim Bennett, where things were so bad at home, things were really bad at home, that I just didn't think I could continue. I won't share too much of that right now, but there were times I just didn't feel I had any value whatsoever. And so I don't know what kept me going, but this hope that something better was around the corner, that I would find something that would make me feel differently. And by the way, I felt different and thought different to some of my friends, a lot of my friends. I didn't want to smoke or drink or— there wasn't a drug scene back then in that part of the world at that time. But I didn't want to be— do all the things, if you like, that they were doing at that time. I just didn't want to. It just didn't interest me. I didn't feel the way they did at certain things. And so I was quite like an alien in some ways. It was a different, I'd been born at the wrong time at the wrong place 'cause I had different views on so many things. And so I struggled with all of that. I couldn't reconcile that. I was trapped in this geography and only when I was able to go to college was I able to physically free myself from that neighborhood. And at the time when I was applying, months before I was applying for college, that's when I came into contact with the church. And so this neighborhood, Ayrdale Castleford, was quite notorious for nothing, no serious gangs, nothing like that, but more mischievous, more small gangs of kids like me who would play mischievous acts on, you know, different parts of the community there, et cetera. You know, the petty theft and petty break-ins and things like that. No extreme violence, nothing like that. And so when we saw the missionaries and they were always advised not to tract or to go to this particular neighborhood, In fact, they were advised to stay away. This was quite a—

Your neighborhood was off limits to missionaries?

It was off limits to missionaries and for good reason because myself, and I regret this, and we were part of a, I was part of a small gang and I was part of a family that had a little bit of a reputation for being mischievous and doing petty things and and just kind of— Did your gang have a name? We didn't have a name. We didn't. No, we didn't. It would've been interesting to have a name for sure, but we didn't. And we all, there were 3 streets actually, 3 streets that were quite notorious, Kershaw Avenue, Graham Drive where I grew up, and Mills Grove. And these were 3 streets right in the heart of Airedale. And there was a few of us, and whenever we saw the missionaries, myself included, we would play tricks on them and actually we would persecute them, but not in a very serious way. I remember one of the missionaries there, I think it was Elder Southwick, was on his bike there and he was— we had, these are council houses, red brick. They've got fixed fences at the front, curb street and they've got like in Scotland, the privet hedges, these large privet hedges. And so, and all the street, many of the streets and properties there had these privet hedges and you could, we used to play hide and seek behind them. You could, as a young kid, you could hide and crouch down and hide in these little hedges. And what I did, I was dared by my non-serious gang member, fellow gang members, to push a broom handle through the spokes of Elder Southwick's bike, which I did as he rode past. He rode past quite quickly and I stuck a broom handle through the front wheel, and that was quite a bloody experience for him. He was very angry, very bad, and chased after us, and we ran away as kids. I think I was 14 or 15 at the time. So whenever we saw the missionaries with their foreign accents, the American accents, and they were dressed in these trench coats and we would think they were double agents from America. Why are they here? And the religious cults walking around trying to kidnap people. We heard stories of tunnels that they got— these missionaries would kidnap you and actually take you into these tunnels under the Salt Lake Temple. And I thought that was ridiculous. And then I learned many years later There are actually tunnels under the Salt Lake Temple because I've been in them to some of the ceilings.

Yeah, me too. And you've been in the UK as far as I know.

No, no. But the rumor was it that they would take you to a place in the UK and there'll be a tunnel or tunnels and they would take you to America and you find yourself in these dark tunnels going into their strange religion and these buildings. And there's some, in terms of the tunnels, I think that's where that came from. So, you know, these missionaries were mostly American. They were aliens as far as we were concerned, different accents, different cultures, spoke funny and dressed in trench coats, and we would persecute them. One time they got a rental apartment above a store called The Spar. You probably remember this from Scotland, The Spar store that we used to go to as missionaries. And we found out where they lived and we threw rocks at the windows and we put a chain on the door outside so they couldn't get out. So we did all kinds of crazy things, nothing serious, you know, apart from, I think the worst we did was pushing the broom handle through the missionary's front wheel. We didn't do anything beyond that. We were just kids. We didn't want to harm them. We just wanted to be mischievous and And so we played a lot of pranks on them, and I think we made their life pretty difficult. They were advised, though, Jim, not to go to my neighborhood. And so they— I don't know why they—

So that's what you get for breaking mission rules. Is that what you're trying to say?

That's right. If you break mission rules, you get a spoke, a broomstick through your bicycle. You do. There are consequences for breaking mission rules. Absolutely. But we, we, I say we, we, we never harmed them too badly physically. It was more mischievous. Um, however, that said, there were, you know, adults at that time that, uh, you know, I was just a kid at the time, but there were people, um, in the area that were much more aggressive and threatening towards the missionaries, including, uh, members of my family. So keeping in mind they shouldn't have been in, in these, this area in the first place. And I don't blame them for this at all. They had their own reasons for being there. But when they knocked on our door, and this wasn't unique, by the way, there were a lot of families that felt as strongly as my family did about being in the— so we grew up in a Protestant area, right? So you had, well, actually Protestant and Catholic area. A lot of families, or some families that I was aware of at least, were very proud of their Protestant roots, and I won't go into too much history on that. And others were proud of the Catholic roots, but they all got along quite well. When it came down to religion though, there were people who were proud of Protestant and people who were proud of the Catholic. And if you were part of the same groups there, then notwithstanding the historical divisions between those two religions, but in our community, you were still accepted if you were Catholic or Protestant. But anything outside of that, like Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormons were seen as strange, weird, cultish, and just plain bizarre if you weren't part of the mainstream religion. And you serving in Scotland, you'll be aware of that. And that was no different in our community. And so any— the missionaries coming around knocking on doors was seen as a, at best, a pest, an unwanted pest that strange bizarre religion that we weren't interested in. And at worst, they, they would be met with at times violence. And I remember when they knocked on our door, my mum came to the door. My mum was very colorful, very strong in her political position in terms of labor and coal mines, very strong in her beliefs on the Protestant religion. Then anything anything outside of that was seen as a betrayal of the family. She was always talking about how important the church was, even though we never went to church and we never really practiced its principles. But being associated with the Protestant church was part of the history of the family and the generations.

Was there a specific church or was this just sort of a generic Protestantism?

With the Church of England. Church of England, that's right, sorry, Church of England, up and down the country, you can Google this, there's some history on this, of course. King Henry VIII broke off, et cetera, et cetera, formed the church. Catholic continued side by side with the Church of England and been a lot of issues along the way between those two different religions depending on which part of the world you're talking about. In our community, they got along. I think religion, the religion wasn't an issue unless it was outside of those religions. So when the missionaries came knocking on our door, I think I was 15 at the time. So, you know, I'd seen the missionaries on and off over a number of years growing up. You'd see them now and again. And then when they came knocking on the door, my mom came to the door and basically chewed them out for coming. You shouldn't be here. You're a cult. Um, you've got, you know, you talked about these tunnels, kidnap, um, more than one wife. In fact, Jim Bennett, quite extraordinary. My mom, um, and there's a, there's an interesting connection, I think, to this, to other conversations that we might have. My mom seemed to have a bit of a grasp somehow, for some reason, on what is now a very different narrative that we have with the church. You know, with all the new information that we've learned about the history of the church, the doctrine, the policies, certainly the history about Joseph Smith being a polygamist, et cetera, et cetera, which is something that until only a few years ago, I didn't accept or believe. My mom seemed to have, aside from some of the strange, bizarre rumors she'd heard about tunnels and other things, but there were some things that she seemed to have a pretty good knowledge on that she'd read from a library somewhere. She was great. My mom was a historian. She loved history. In particular religious history. And I think in her research, she'd come across different religious factions as it related to Church of England, you know, Methodist and, and beyond. And I think she'd found in a library somewhere some information about Joseph Smith, unbeknownst to me at that time. And I was only 15 at this time when the missionaries came around. So the missionaries knocked on the door. My mum was very reactive and very aggressive and warned them actually that if they come back to the house again, that, you know, they wouldn't be met with such kindness. And my mum was absolutely brutal when it came to— very feisty lady and a fighter, physical. She grew up as a bit of a tomboy and And she would, you know, she was 12, 15 when the war was going on there, Second World War, and she grew up throughout the entire neighborhood, you know, and the war sirens going off, and she had a bunker, you know, this military bunker at the end of the street there, the door went down, you know, bomb shelter essentially. And she grew up in that kind of environment, which is something I hope I never experience, but quite extraordinary. So a very tough lady, very religious, very focused on her religion, but didn't believe it or practice it. And warned very clearly the missionaries at that time not to come round. And what happened, what must have happened is the missionaries will have gone away and will have marked this house where we lived, 28 Grames Drive house, that was the address that we grew up in. And it should, should have marked it down as don't visit this house again. However, somebody didn't mark that down. Someone didn't make a note of this as they should have. And a few months later, they came back, other different missionaries. And as soon as they knocked on the door, and I was inside the house at the time looking through the window wondering who the strange accent was at the door, my mom called David, my oldest brother, second oldest brother, who was had left school and was down the pit, a tough guy. I think it was David or Paul, I can't remember. And my older brothers, and they came down and I think they had, my mom woke them up. They were on shifts and they were really pissed that they had been woken up and they came down half asleep into this, what sounded like an argument on the door. Mom telling the musharis to you know, to go, not to come back, get lost, et cetera. My mom was very colorful with the language and get us stuck into them. And the missionary was quite feisty, was pushing back. And this was a mistake on his part because Paul or David, I can't remember which one, actually moved my mom out to the left and just smacked this missionary out cold. The missionary, yeah, no, missionary fell back, landed in the front yard. Out cold for a few seconds until he came to. It was absolute— and again, that neighborhood, that's what we did. We fought. We didn't use knives or guns, nothing like that. We had, you know, people use their fists. That's how we— that's how people fought, right? And so that's what happened. This mishy was knocked out cold, and he was laying there quite dazed, and his mishy companion picked him up And he came to and he just had his head down and he just walked off a little bit of a limp and we never saw them again for a while. And so that was the first— I was looking through the window, you know, wondering what the heck was going on.

And that was the first— You don't see experiences like that in the motivational videos that they show you.

We don't. We never got that on those, you know, those white Tapes that you get the, uh, the, the tape, you know, you put in your tape recorder, you know, how to feel the spirit or how to ask questions, I think it was, or, or how to resolve, resolve concerns. There was, I've got them in my Resolve Concerns. Remember the Resolve Concerns? This was in the '80s there. And, and they, they, I don't know if they existed in the, uh, in the '80s when I was joining the church at that time. This is before our missions there, but If they did, they should have listened to them, resolve the concerns, because that—

that's right. Well, they should have focused on the effort, what to do when you've been knocked unconscious at a doorstep.

They should have done one of those types of experiences on the tape.

Yes, absolutely.

Absolutely.

And the sound effects alone would have been, would have been just lovely.

Just doing the sound effects would have been fun, wouldn't it?

I actually had a friend who, who wrote some of those tapes. That's a whole other—

Oh, right, right. But I used to listen to those tapes a lot, you know, on the mission. But, and then we went to the, when we were in MTC there before the missions, there was a lot of so-called training, but it wasn't really, for me, it wasn't. My training relied on the fact that the Scots culture, Scottish culture was very similar to the north of England. So for me, it was going back home, you know, going to Scotland was like going to the north of England. The accent was different. There are some differences in culture, absolutely. But the Scots, many of them will tell you they can relate to the Northern England folk 'cause we're Northerners, right? We're tough people and that's who we are. And the Scots are the same. And so for me, I knew what was ahead of me in terms of the reaction to the church, but my companions in the MTC were not. They'd come from the States or come from parts of Europe and they weren't really as prepared as I was going on.

Did you go to Provo for the MTC?

No, I went to London. So London had an MTC. Yeah, MTC. And they came out, they came up from Europe. There were no Americans, actually. There were no Americans. They were mostly from Europe and UK. And, um, and then, yeah, but if you're going abroad, you go to Provo. You go to Provo. If you're going anywhere abroad, you go to Provo and onto wherever you, wherever your mission was. But UK, they, at that time, they kept the, uh, the MTC was in, in the UK.

Well, I'll back you up if I can, because I'm still trying to figure out how you get from knocking a missionary unconscious on your doorstep to becoming a missionary yourself.

Absolutely. Okay, so the missionaries— and thanks for keeping me on track— so the missionaries didn't come by for, I don't know, it must have been a full year.

Geez, I wonder why.

Yeah, I wonder why. I think they went back to the apartment and said, you know, let's write this down in the in the book here and underline it 3 times.

In the area record.

Absolutely. In the area record. That's what it says. Yeah. And so I think I was 15. So a good year or many months had passed. And keeping in mind as well, and I can't emphasize enough, family life was hell, frankly, highly dysfunctional. It was just an awful, awful experience. And I might get into some of that at some point. But it was— I was desperate for anything that, you know, I could do that would get me out of that family situation and that community that I was in. It was very, very destructive for me, and not just me, many others as well. Anyway, a year on, maybe 9 months later, there was a— I should mention, by the way, there was an important point this I should have mentioned earlier, but there was a member an active member who lived on our street. Okay. She kept herself to herself. She had two daughters, much younger than me. And we knew her. She's quite friendly. We heard she was part of the church, but she didn't talk about it, I think through fear of how the community might react, to be fair to her.

But she—

we knew she was connected because we also saw the missionaries would call on them quite frequently. And I learned later that they were members of the church. Anyway, a few months after that doorstep missionary challenge, resolving concern challenge.

Yes. That's a delicate way to put it.

That's a delicate way to put it for sure. Yeah. This sister, lovely, lovely lady, was having a, what they called, I thought it was strange at the time, a family home evening. And, uh, they'd invited a girl. There's always a girl. It's always a girl. Yes, always a girl. They invited a girl who I fancied. There was a girl on, uh, the next street, uh, who had somehow made a connection with the missionaries, um, I think actually another part, not on those streets but further away. And this sister who lived down from where we lived was having this Palm of Evening event. She'd invited the missionaries, and this girl had invited me. Well, I like this girl very much. And so I went to my mom, my mother, and I said, look, there's this thing going on, and is this event happening? And this girl's going. And I was quite open with my family. You know, I didn't keep secrets. I think I was the only one that didn't keep secrets. And my mom was very, uh, no, no, you cannot, uh, you must not go there. She's a member. My mom had more knowledge about this, uh, lady than I did. You know, she's a member of that cult. You know, the missionaries go there from time to time, etc., etc. You, you shouldn't go there. And, um, and so I, I didn't say anything after that, but the girl and invited me. And my, the influence that the girl had over me was greater than my mother. It's a mathematical thing, Jim. It's a—

Yeah, funny how that works.

A power of the universe. Yeah. It had a greater pull over me than, you know, than my mother. Anyway, I said, okay, I won't go, but I did. And so I went and they had this, the missionaries were there. And by the way, as soon as they saw me, when I went into the house, we had to introduce ourselves. And I said, oh, I'm, you know, Ian Wilkes. And one of them said, are you part of the Wilkes family? And I said, yeah, yeah. And they went, up on Graham Drive? I said, yeah. And he went, 'Okay, uh, you okay being here?' And I said, 'Sure.' 'Uh, is your family know that you're here?' And I went, 'Yeah, of course.' 'And they're okay with that?' And I said, 'Yeah, no problem.' And so, um, they, they looked uncomfortable when this— when they learned I was part of the Wilkes family, this notorious family. And we weren't the worst.

Why?

I know we weren't the worst, we weren't the best, by the way. Um, and so, uh, So we had this video, and it wasn't a video actually, it was—

You talk about this on your mission.

I do.

They showed you, if I'm going to guess, they showed you the Families Are Forever, I'll Build You a Rainbow.

They did.

I'll build you a rainbow.

That's it. That's the one. Way up in the sky.

Sprinkle down. Sun Drop. We showed that so many times. I thought it was the dippiest, goofiest video. And I remember talking to you about it on our missions. And you said, that's why I joined the church.

I did. So what? Yeah, it was amazing. So what happened? I'm in this home with this sister who I didn't know. The girl's there. There's a couple of other members there. The missionaries are there. There's some food there. So, you know, food, that's great. You know, went for the food as well. You know, girl food, you don't get much better than that, right? And they played this, uh, Farmers Are Forever, and it wasn't a video, it was, um, film strip. I'll give my age. It was a film strip. And so they put the projector on the books there and they, and there was a tape recording and every few seconds it'd go beep and then they would turn the, uh, that's how old I am. That's how old I am, right? And so they would turn that and they showed this video and it got me. And by the time it finished, I was in tears. I was like, wow. And what happened was I had a very strained relationship with my mother. I wanted to have a close relationship with mom, tried desperately, failed. I thought it was me. It was never me.

Is your mother still with us?

No, she passed away. There's an interesting story what happened there, actually. A very powerful experience I had with it just before she passed away. I had a— something happened where I learned that she wasn't going to be with us, and the feelings wouldn't leave me. And I responded to the promptings or feelings, which were very strong and very consistent and very clear. And thank goodness I did. And that's it. That's another quite an extraordinary experience. And so back, I'm in this house, they're showing this video. You know, the girl has got my interest for the first few minutes, and then I get involved in the, in the video. And as you know, the story there depicts this relationship with his mom, and his mom's, his mom passes away, and there's tears and the sound. I mean, the, you know, we, this, this technique of of imagery and sound and the tactics and the skill and strategy for associating imagery with sound and emotions, which is a very, very smart way that different organizations do these days, including the church, by the way, not just the church, but other organizations. For me, I took it hook, line, and sinker. I watched this video was quite emotional, trying to hold the tears back, but eyes were watery. I didn't cry or bawl my eyes out, but I was quite emotional. Mishra could see this. The girl could see that she was in tears. She looked across and smiled at me, and I remember that. And it was quite an emotional experience for me. And I think for me, what resonated with me was the, you know, that's the first time I've been able to have the experience, um, with other people who I didn't really know that well. Any such experiences happened on a very personal level. I didn't share my emotions or any tears that I had shed or any emotions that I experienced. It was all done in private. You don't do such things in front of your family or friends, obviously, because that's a weakness. But there I was, quite emotional, um, you know, with this, uh, these people who I hardly knew. And, uh, the bishops then moved into, um, a discussion. They called it the Holy Ghost Dialogue.

Hmm.

And you might recall that because I think we had that in Scotland when you and I were serving in Scotland. There was a Holy Ghost Dialogue. It was a, a yellow card that you'd have taped into the missionary discussions before the first discussion there. It was called the Holy Ghost Dialogue. And essentially that's what they did, that they went into this this conversation about what we'd just seen. Very clever, actually, very smart and very genuine. It seemed very genuine, very sincere. That came through very strongly. You could tell that they believed, you know, what, you know, what they were going to teach me. And they said that, you know, what they taught us, what the video was about, the principles of eternal life, eternal family, being with people that love you and accept you. That value you. And keeping in mind what I said earlier, Jim Bennett, these words, these feelings really resonated with me. There I am as lost boy, lost guy, so much doubt, so much fear, low self-esteem. I can't begin to tell you how worthless I felt at times. And there I was in a group of— with a group of people I didn't know, talking about things that I'd never discussed or felt before. And they then said to me, that really struck me, they said that these feelings that I'd felt and that we'd all felt were in actual fact the Holy Ghost. And, uh, and that this was a message from God to, um, to come into his fold, that they'd been searching for me and, and, uh, others who were in that room at that time. I think there were 3 investigators that, that, um, they felt, they testified in the name of Jesus Christ that they had been sent to this part of the world at this time to seek those who were looking for truth and looking for meaning and purpose and looking for value and, and looking for acceptance. And I was listening and I'm like, that's me. That's everything they said is me. There wasn't one thing they didn't say that wasn't me. One thing that they didn't say that was me. And so it just resonated with me so strongly, and I felt for the first time that I'd found some sense of purpose. It was a hope. It was a hope that what they were saying was true and real, even though the whole experience, I didn't fully understand what was going on at the time. It was very emotional, but it was just a light, if you like, at the end of the tunnel. And boy, did I need that at that time. I I can't stress enough how lost I was. And so they said, this is the Holy Ghost, the Lord's been looking for you, you are invited to take up the discussions, etc., etc. And if you do and you follow these principles, your life will be transformed. All the things that you ever hoped and dreamed for can be yours. You can get yourself out of the situation that you're in, find solutions to your problems, find meaning and purpose and value. And my gosh, that just really, really hit me in a very significant way. And so, you know, we stayed a little bit longer. We had this discussion. They asked me about how I felt and I didn't answer. I just was, I think what I was feeling was written all over my face really. They knew I'd felt something and I did, but I didn't talk about it. I listened to what they were saying. I think when they asked me how did I feel, I said I felt I felt really good. I mean, that was the best I could do at that time in terms of sharing my emotions. But, you know, I left that meeting, that gathering, feeling very, very different. And actually, something happened there that I was trying to figure out what happened, trying to explain to myself what on earth just happened just then. And I walked back on like cloud nine back to that, you know, where I lived up the road there. That's not before I had a chat with a girl and arranged to have a date with a girl, by the way. I, um, you covered all your bases. I covered all my bases. Yeah, I ate some food.

Was she a member of the church or was she also—

no, no, she was investigating. Yeah, so the missionaries had found her through, through tractoring on another street, uh, maybe a few blocks away, um, and she'd come to this, this house, um, which is close to where I live. Um, I'm sure more details will come to light as I think about this experience, but it was a very profound experience for me personally. And I left, I walked home, I felt very different, I felt I'd found something and I was on cloud nine and I walked back and I went through the door at my home and I had forgotten in that moment the risks of sharing with my family or at least the warnings, I'd forgotten the warnings of my mother who told me very clearly not to attend this event. And so I went back into the house and she said, oh, where have you been? And I told her, she was absolutely furious, very angry, very colorful language, swearing, uh, struck me, um, physically, um, uh, which was common back then. If you got a slap across the face or the backside or you got hit, on your butt with a belt was common, even at school, by the way. That happened at school quite frequently and was quite normal back then. It's very different now, but back then, to get clipped around the ear, or as they say, or around the face or the butt with a belt or a ruler was not uncommon. And so it was a very sharp rebuke physically, verbally from my mom. I had to go to my room very angry. My mom then stormed off down the road to this, uh, this member and banged on the door. My mom was very feisty, just a real fighter. Banged on the door and just tore strips off this, this member and warned her that significant repercussions would, would happen to her and her family and her property should she try to, um, uh prostitutized me into the church. So that happened, you know, I went from this feeling of euphoria and on cloud nine to being brought down to earth very, very bluntly and very directly crashed onto the ground there and reminded actually that, you know, I think the contrast between the two experiences was even more difficult because You know, when you live in an environment, uh, you get— you can get numb to it, right? You can become desensitized. Things that aren't normal can become normal. You know, like the physical things back then that everybody thought was normal but weren't really, in terms of the physical. Um, I'm not sure if I put violence to it, but, you know, being smacked or being clipped, which is quite normal back then, and the shouting, the arguing, all the dysfunctionality which happened with lots of families at that time in that neighborhood that you come to accept as being normal, which isn't normal. And so going from that very profound experience to back to reality was, was quite a shock. Anyway, so just moving forward here. So basically what happened, I, as I thought about the experience on the nighttime, I couldn't get— I couldn't not think about how this experience made me feel. I thought about all the time. I couldn't stop thinking about it, and I longed, Jim, I longed to have that feeling of value again, which I didn't have anymore at the house. And so I sought it out. I went to knock on the neighbor's door. She said, Ian, you cannot be here. I've been warned by a family, you cannot be here. If you want to learn about the church, you must contact the missionaries directly. Here's where they live. And so that's what I did. I was so desperate to feel that sense of belonging that I'd felt before, that I, it's the thing that completely consumed me. And so I went to the spa, the flat above the spa store, the one whose window I'd put through months before perhaps, or a year before. And I knocked on the door and the missionaries came to the door and they're quite shocked. And I said, I'd like to learn more. I want to learn more. And they said, well, okay, you need to get permission from your mother because I was 15, 16 at the time. And I said, that's not going to happen. She says, well, we'll speak to our mission president. Anyway, they got permission to teach me, but I couldn't be taught anywhere near where I lived. I actually went, I don't know, maybe 3 miles away, and I was taught at a place called Ferry Freiston, probably 2 miles away. Quite a bit away from where I lived, uh, in this other members' home. And the missionaries would teach me secretly, um, the discussions, and they took me through all the 6 discussions all the way through.

So you're saying you were taught by the missionaries without the permission of your mother?

That's correct.

Missionaries told you you needed to get permission from your mother, and you said that's not going to happen, and they taught you anyway?

They did.

Very cool. I mean, or very scandalous depending on your point of view there.

And what that reminds me, Jim Bennett, you know, in life, right, we got all these rules and regulations in everything. You know, in my line of work, I do a lot of regulations and rules and they're all very, very important. But some things in life need to be bent. You know, if we follow every rule strictly, some of the, you know, more draconian rules if you like, And others will disagree with this, I'm sure. That's fine. But sometimes certain rules need stretching or bending. And I think in this case, and by the way, it's no exaggeration to say that the church, the missionaries, the gospel actually saved me. There were times I just didn't feel I could continue with my own life. There were 3 moments where I was right at the end of my tether, right at the end. And one particular moment that it was so desperate, so unhappy, so sad. And then the missionaries doing what they did, and they loved me, they cared for me, they were genuine, they were sincere. There's no exaggeration to say they saved me from what could have been a very, very awful state. Those very, very dark moments, very black, very dark moments which no one should go through. Especially a young kid should go through that, right? You know, questioning whether they, you know, wanna continue living anymore in a very serious way on one particular occasion. So being taught without permission, you know, is actually, which saved me, is a rule that I would gladly have them break again, frankly.

Well, there's a great deal more to this story, but one of the rules I don't wanna break is trying to keep these to around an hour. So this is part 1, and we will end up releasing further parts in further episodes. Until then, we will see you next time on Inside Out.