The Scotland Edinburgh Mission

Hello and welcome to another episode of Inside Out. My name is Jim Bennett and I'm here as always with Ian Wilkes. Ian, how are you, sir?

I'm doing well. How are you?

I am doing quite well myself. So, uh, you are back from your jaunt to the UK. You are firmly ensconced in Canada. And, uh, we had some good conversations while you were over there. But one of the things that you wanted to do that we weren't able to sort of arrange, uh, you actually spent some time in Scotland near the Scotland Edinburgh Mission home. It's now the Scotland Ireland Mission home, but it's the same mission home that was the headquarters for our missions 35 years ago. And you said, okay, it'd be really fun to, to talk about our missions while I'm sitting in the parking lot of the mission home. And I thought, okay, well, we weren't able to do that, but I'd still like to be able to discuss the kinds of things you wanted to discuss in the parking lot. Did you get to the parking lot of the mission home while you were over there?

Unfortunately, I didn't. I mean, I was, I was over there mostly for business, and there was some personal family friends, um, time that I spent. But I did get to Scotland, and I just couldn't get to the, uh, to the mission home because of my schedule. But I really was excited about the prospect of sharing some experiences and stories that you and I shared and some different experiences that we had separately about the time that we spent in the Scotland— what was the Scotland mission from 1987, I think, to 1989.

Yeah, now I was there from September of '87 to September of '89, and you, you went home I mean, you, you got there what, February of '87?

I got there February, yeah. And I, I think I extended and I came back in, I think, February or March, I think it was, '89. So I was out and I came out before you, and then you went home, I think, September '89.

Yep, yep, that sounds about right. I mean, we've talked about your mission experience, and I thought it might be kind of fun to just talk about You know, I grew up in the church, obviously, uh, and my background is quite different from yours, but it was always an expectation for me that I would go on a mission. I can remember in first grade I went to a show and tell. I don't know if they do show and tell in the UK, but I brought my little piggy bank, that had been given to me. And this had 3 slots in it. One slot was tithing, one slot was mission, and one slot was spending. And pretty much everything was supposed to go into mission to start saving for my mission. And I remember showing this piggy bank— it was made out of cardboard, really— but showing this in my show and tell, saying, this is a piggy bank that my church gave me. And I'm going to start saving money for my mission. You know, I'm what, 6 years old, 7 years old, and even baptized yet. And I remember having to explain to a first grade class in Calabasas, California, what a Mormon mission was. So that expectation was sort of baked into my life from a very, very early age. And as I got older, I became less and less excited about the possibility of going on a mission or the inevitability, if you will, of going on a mission. I mean, every discussion that I would have, it's like, well, I'll go to school for a year and then I go on a mission and then I come back. And as I got older and I wanted to be a world-famous actor, I was very frustrated with the idea of, okay, well, this is going to interrupt my career. I'm going to go on a mission and I'm not going to be able— all of my other friends are trying very hard to break into showbiz. And how do I do that if I go and leave for 2 years and I'm knocking doors for the Mormons? And I remember having discussions with people saying, look, I've got to do this. I've got 2 Mormon popes. In my ancestry. It's how I described them. I'm like, I mean, this is just this huge expectation. And as I got older, I just thought, I don't know that I want to do this. I don't know how much I believe this enough to be able to justify doing it. And I remember having a conversation with my father where I said, I don't know if I want to go on a mission. And it was a terrifying thing to admit to him. It was absolutely terrifying. Because I thought, what I'm essentially admitting is, I don't want to know if I want to be a part of this family. Or, you know, I mean, it was, it was that intrinsic to the experience. And he said, no, don't, don't go on a mission just because you feel obligated to. And that was this huge sort of weight off of my shoulders because I had said the un— you know, the unspeakable, and he hadn't flinched. And he said, well, if you, you know, if you, if you're just going out of obligation, that's not a good reason to go. Um, so I graduated from high school in 1986, and all of my friends from church went to BYU, and I didn't want to go to BYU. I wanted to be a world-famous actor, and I was accepted into a prestigious acting program at the University of Southern California. And so I stayed in Los Angeles, which is where I grew up, and went to USC. And I had this idea of going on a mission just kind of hanging over my head, and nobody I was going to school with understood it. Nobody had any idea how this works. And I didn't talk about it. There was one other guy in my freshman class who was a member of the church. He was a convert. And I remember at one point there was an area conference where President Benson came and spoke. He was the president of the church. And he came back to class and was so excited, was like, Wow, we heard the prophet. It was the greatest thing in the world. And everybody else in the class was like, what are you talking about? What, the prophet? What kind of cult do you guys belong to? And I felt very kind of embarrassed to be a member of church in that environment. It wasn't cool. So that year, I started dating a girl. Who was actually Catholic when I started dating her, and she kept asking questions about the church, and I didn't want to answer any questions about the church. I, I wasn't looking to convert her. Uh, I, I just— it was just, let's not talk about that. Let's— and so she ended up herself going and showing up at some Lord function in a church near here and said, is there anybody here who can tell me about this church? I mean, you can imagine, you know, she was swarmed by people who were very excited to, to have a golden contact to sort of wander into their, into their building. And in that experience, I sat with her for all of her missionary lessons. And I watched the process and I kept thinking to myself, okay, I can do this for one. And for two, it was okay, this is improving her life. This is a good thing. The missionaries are doing a good thing here. She was in a situation where she was having challenges at home. And, and like you, actually, she ended up getting kicked out of her house when she finally joined the church. That didn't last very long. She ended up going back and they ended up accepting her for it. But I fashioned for myself this kind of dramatic conversion story for me, right? I mean, I'd grown up in the church. I was introducing the church to my first grade class in show and tell. You know, I didn't have a dramatic conversion story, and I kind of wanted one because I thought that that would justify the idea of going on a mission. So when I finally— when I went on my mission and I got out into the mission field, I would tell this dramatic story of how I was struggling and I wasn't sure whether I should go. And then I was dating this girl and, you know, I saw the gospel change her life and it changed my life at the same time. And that's when I got my testimony. And, you know, and it was wonderful and dramatic and powerful and not true. You know, it never really sat well with me as I was talking that way out in Scotland. And trying to set myself up as this sort of, you know, dramatic conversion story hero. And I remember having— I had this sense of, you know, I'm very skeptical of people that talk about revelation and big dramatic revelations. And we've talked about that in this podcast. So I don't remember a huge revelatory event But the answers to prayer that I kept getting were, the more you tell this story, the more you frame it this way, the more you're discounting all of the wonderful experiences that I gave you throughout your life, throughout your history. And you should— you need to stop doing that. And I thought, you're right, I do need to stop doing that. I need to start, you know, my life isn't nearly as dramatic or colorful or wonderful as Ian Wilkes's life is, but my life is my life. My experience is my experience. And trying to turn it into something that it isn't, isn't doing anybody any favors. We have a mutual acquaintance by the name of Elder Spencer. Yes, he and his wife were a missionary couple in Scotland. And he used to stand up and talk about being on a submarine. He was a member of the Navy, he was in the Navy, and he was being mocked for being a member of the Church. And he knelt down by the side of his bunk on his submarine, and he prayed to know the Book of Mormon was true. And right there, Jesus told him that the Book of Mormon was true, and therefore he had a testimony. And he would always talk about that in a way that was really uncomfortable because he would, he would frame it the same way. He would juxtapose it with his wife's testimony, and his wife would stand up and she was this lovely, sweet lady. And she'd say, you know, I've been a member all my life and I've never really had that kind of a moment that I just always believed and I've always— and he was sometimes even cruel to her to some degree and say, well, no, you need that testimony, you need that dramatic moment. And, and I wanted that dramatic moment. And I realized I was more of a Sister Spencer than an Elder Spencer. I never had that kind of a big, huge dramatic moment. I've had a number of moments spiritually, wonderfully, that have, you know, that some of which I don't really want to share in a public podcast. But it's not that I haven't had a spiritual life. It's that that story that I was telling as a missionary wasn't necessarily the true story. It was the story I was telling for dramatic effect. And, you know, but you do that on your mission. You get out there And, you know, I just— you don't have a lot of confidence. You're going out there trying to tell people how they ought to live their lives. And you're 19 years old. You were older. You were what, 21 when you went on your mission?

Yes, 21.

I mean, that was ancient as far as I was concerned as a 19-year-old man. You were an elder statesman. Out there, out there in Scotland. But you gain confidence, maybe more confidence than you should, but you get out there and it's not at all what I'd kind of envisioned in that first grade show and tell. It wasn't. It was hard. It was difficult. It was a long slog punctuated by moments of brilliance and punctuated by funny and exciting moments. But, but for the most part, it was knocking on a lot of doors out in the rain. It rains in Scotland every stinking day, sometimes for 5 minutes, sometimes all day, but you're always out in the rain. And the only thing that mitigated that was Did you get yourself a barber wax jacket when you were on your ship?

Always had to have one of those. Yeah. You had to wax it and keep it rainproof.

I couldn't afford one. I mean, I didn't— I guess if I called my parents and said, I really want the expensive, nice ones. So I got sort of the knockoff cheapos, but they were the only things that kept the water out. The only thing you had to have that wax jacket. And when I got married, my wife and I backpacked through Europe and we started in London and I said, for a wedding gift, I want to give you a barber wax jacket. And we bought— there wasn't one that fit her, but we bought me a full-on barber wax jacket that I still have. I haven't waxed it for a very long time, though. I need to get it out and get it moving. But, you know, I look back on my mission with fondness. I appreciate the time and I have a lot, but you know, a lot of people who say, okay, well, this was the greatest 2 years of my life. And that was the standard mantra everybody would give when they came home. And I'd say it was the hardest 2 years of my life, certainly up to that point. Was it the greatest 2 years of my life? Was it the greatest 2 years of your life? Your mission experience?

Some of them, yes.

Why is that? I mean, why would you frame it that way? Why would you call it the greatest 2 years of your life?

Listening to your experience is in sharp contrast to mine. Everyone goes on a mission, especially you being, you know, so having such royal Mormon blood with your ancestors.

You don't have any Mormon popes?

No, not at all. No, no, nothing like that at all. We grew up as Church of England. So I think Henry VIII is, uh, you know, is our— well, we're not related to him, but, um, no, we have nothing like yours. I mean, your, your life, your life story, your experience growing up is in complete, completely different— like, completely opposite to mine in, in every way. Different country, different culture, different religion, um, you know, different family dynamics. It couldn't be more different. The contrast is extremely sharp.. And so, you know, my, my experience with missionary work was when the missionaries came tracting on the doors that in a, in an area they weren't supposed to tract and the persecution, like my friends and I, my mates and I would inflict upon the missionaries, which we've talked about in an earlier podcast, that the treatment that we gave the missionaries and the the jeering and the throwing the stones and the rocks at them. It was the most bizarre thing, first encounter with mission work. And the notion of me putting myself through that, you know, being on the receiving end of what we delivered to the missionaries was something that I was never interested in. I could never see myself going through, you know, that experience that they, that they went through for lots of reasons, you know, physical and just the sheer weirdness of it and the sheer cultic of it. It's just so odd and so different and so alien, uh, to see those two more missionaries walking through a rough council neighborhood, you know, where I grew up. And then, um, seeing that mission work from that part of time in my life from that angle was completely, totally different to yours in every way. And so, you know, when I joined the church and, you know, we started going to the programs, the UNMENS, etc., and getting involved in the church experience, the church system, and then learning about fairly quickly about the importance of serving a full-time mission. I still struggled with that because I didn't want to go through the experience that the missionaries went through when, you know, when they were teaching me. I just couldn't see myself either having the confidence or having the ability or having the financial means, having the emotional strength or psychological strength to put up with all of the, um, the thing I struggled on my own mission was people looking at me like I was an alien. I mean, a real cult figure, like I was the most strangest thing on the planet. I remember being on the back of a double-decker bus within a few days of arriving in Scotland, and then everyone just staring at me and then looking away like I was the most strangest, cultish, weirdest individual. I just, I hated it, absolutely hated it. And I saw that prior to going in. I used to look at the missions like that, and I didn't want to have that same kind of experience. However, you know, joining the church and then getting involved in that, my lifestyle completely changing and having a completely different experience, and then being taught about the importance of going on a mission and how great shall be your joy if you shall bring one soul to me. And then, Ian, you were saved. Your testimony is extraordinary, and you were saved, and you your experience will— and I was told this so often, Jim Bennett, that my experience would have a profound or could have a profound impact on so many people because I'm a convert to the church and people could resonate with my experience and join and I could help bring their souls and that it was my duty and obligation to serve full-time mission because I could share my experience that would help people join the church and I would be I will be a savior on Mount Zion, in quotes, to, you know, if I decided to serve a mission. And by the way, just something you said earlier, which I think was interesting, you were looking for this profound experience, this revelation, this unique and very powerful conversion experience, it being unique and eventful, something that you could, you know, make you sound, make you look very distinct, very unique and very significant and very powerful, like Ella Spencer. Um, and you could use that and share that, and it wouldn't be an ordinary experience like so many people have. Me, on the other hand, I didn't want the events, um, things that you wanted. I didn't want to have— like, yeah, I, I wanted to have what you had, frankly, growing up in a normal, regular you know, as I got to know the church members and the family, families are in the church, I wished I'd grown up in a regular, normal, boring, whatever you wanna call it, traditional Mormon family without events, without anything profound, without anything revelatory or, you know, I didn't want that. I didn't want the, the, the, the, um, uh, extraordinary events that happened to me. I, I wanted what you had. I, you know, I saw the opposite to what you saw. Yeah, my life was, was probably what you saw in some, some aspects of it in terms of the profoundness and the experiences that I had. But again, realizing and feeling the spirit at the time that my destiny did include serving a full-time mission to save souls, save lives, my experience could that help people join the church. I felt somewhat spiritually compelled to do that. And so I did a lot of preparation actually to serve a mission. I took it seriously. I went— excuse me— when I graduated after my— after I went to college, I wasn't ready at 19 financially, emotionally, spiritually, wasn't ready. I knew that. I was mature enough to know that. I knew that. And I was ready at 21, and I was really ready. I was prepared financially, in a good place. It was my decision. I felt pressured from the members to go sooner. I went when I was ready on my terms, if you like. And I prepared. And by the way, I served a mini mission before I went on my mission in the Huddersfield Stake in England. I served a mini mission for 6 weeks. There was a guy that got sent home. And the bishop said, is anyone in the ward that would like to— there's a gap of 6 weeks. And a missionary in the ward. His name was Elder Condie, Scott Condie, a great guy. Him and I are in, in touch, we're on Facebook, and we speak from time to time. And he was a wonderful guy, and his companion got sent home. And I was serving for 6 weeks in my ward with Elder Condie, who was a very dedicated, very kind, very loving, and a very faithful missionary. And I knocked on doors in my local area, which I I actually enjoyed, um, most of it. I still— I was uncomfortable with how people looked at me and still looked at me very strangely. I did not like that. The, the blessing was that I was gonna— I was only there for 6 weeks, I could go back, and that was something that I looked forward to. It's a very tough mini-mission, and I didn't enjoy aspects of it, but I— there was parts of it that I did. But going to your question about, you know, why, you know, was the 2 years— I'd say my mission was two of the most significant, profound, positive years in my entire life. And I say, I say that for good reason because I was prepared in every way. I went at the right time. Financially, everything was great. There were 7 of us that went out from the ward. I was one of the few that went into, I think there's 3 of us that stayed in the UK. I got sent to Scotland, which is only— the border is only 100 miles away from where I was living. People thought I drew the short straw, but I was okay with it. I felt like when I opened the letter and I read the letter from the Prophet that I'd been called to Scotland, I was filled with excitement and nervousness as well. And so, you know, when I went out in the MTC, you talked about the lessons growing up, and the different messages or experiences that you heard about how missionaries prepare and what missions were going to be like. In the MTC in London, this is going back to, you know, early '89 here— sorry, '87. They did these role plays in the MTC in London. It was to try to reenact what it would look like teaching somebody and knocking on the door in Scotland.. And we would have these role plays, and we'd listen to those tapes, those white tapes, um, that Church prepared— finding a referral, I think it was, teach repentance, all those white audio tapes that we had serving a mission. We listen to those. But in the MTC, they did these role plays, and they had some missionaries come in, former missionaries, and we would have to role play knocking on the doors in Scotland. And one of the missionaries had a Scottish accent, which I thought helped. Actually, that was very good. But we'd knock on these doors. And in this roleplay, and the person would come to the door, and they would introduce themselves as missionaries, and they would say, oh, that's fascinating. Would you like to come in? And then we would go in and we would sit down. But again, this is in the roleplay in the NTC.. And we would then start the Holy Ghost dialogue, which is the intro to the first discussion. And then we would then lead into the first discussion with all the different principles. And again, this was being trained in the MTC. And those conversations with the— in the roleplay were very easy. There was very few objections. Almost every roleplay, people opened the door. Almost every roleplay, people were interested. And even if they weren't, could you explain a little bit more of that? So, so the roleplay experience, the MDC, I thought I was taught that this was realistic. And that the mission, if you committed and you're obedient, and you're spiritual, and you're completely faithful, live with exactness, you would have an immense experience and incredible success by helping hundreds of people join the church in the 2 years that you're in Scotland. If we follow the training that we've been taught in the MTC. Fast forward to first few days in Scotland, it could not have been more different. I, I, I, I, I think I went for the first few weeks, very few people, if any, that were, uh, interested in the church. That the whole first few weeks, physical, the rain, the companionship that was difficult at the time. I was with a missionary that had had some problems, some issues. The apartment that we stayed in was an absolute dive. There was no heating. There was tinfoil on the roof to reflect the heat down on, on his side of the bed, nothing on mine. My, my bed was on bricks. It was, it was absolutely freezing. It was the winter of '87 in Scotland. It was an old sandstone building in Dumfries on Nith Place. It's still there. I saw it, I drove past it a few weeks ago. It's still there. The sash window never came down. There was a stuffed towel because the window never came down to stop the wind coming through the place. There was a, just a middle element on the gas fire worked and we used to huddle around that. It was freezing. The shower didn't work. It was the most dreadful apartment flat. I had ever experienced. It was awful to come back to, and it was, it was easier to, to be out there knocking on doors. Uh, there was nothing to look forward to come back to. And so the first few weeks of the mission, it was very different to the MTC experience, completely opposite. No one was interested. Being English in Scotland didn't help. They told— Scots told me to get back to England. I was a sassenach. That, that no one prepared me for that. I didn't even know what sassenach Bent—

Sassenach.

Sassenach. Uh, I, I, I think it means, uh, you know, enemy, or enemy of Scotland, I think it means. But there's some of the Scots were— well, most of the Scots were friendly, to be fair, amazing people. But there were some Scottish folks that, um, thought it was quite, uh, insulting for an English guy to come up and preach religion, especially preach at a religion that's cultish. It was just— it didn't go down well. And I was told in very colorful language to get lost. So the first few weeks was completely different to the MTC experience. And I thought and felt I'd made the biggest mistake of my life. I'd given up a job, a great job. I had a girlfriend at the time that I was serious about. I made this decision, I've prepared, etc. Went to the MTC, thought this was amazing, came to Scotland, and it was, it was one of the most depressing first few weeks of my entire life. I thought I'd made the biggest mistake of my entire life. And it was at least 2 or 3 months before I actually could see any positive aspects of the mission or any light at the end of the tunnel. And then after that, it changed, excuse me, it changed quite dramatically for the better. And it became, you know, the two, the best two years of, or some of the best two years of my life.

Well, I, I fell in love with Scotland, uh, right from the outset. Uh, all of my ancestors are from Scotland, uh, and my father served his mission in Scotland. And I would meet people, you know, the bishop of the ward in Drumchapel had been baptized by my father when he was 8 years old, when my father was a missionary. And so I felt this huge kinship with Scotland. And when I got there, you know, when they drove us What's the name of the street that they drive when they pick up the missionaries at the airport? They drive them to the mission home, but they always go on this weird funky cobblestone street.

They do. Yeah. Yeah. Matt Holland was the AP then, and when he picked me up and I think, oh, when we picked up some of the missionaries, Matt and I went to the airport. You come from the airport, you go through Princess Street, and then you go up the Royal Mile, which is the cobble, the windy cobble streets, the Royal Mile, which is very, very historical, very old, like 800 years old. And you go through— it took us, it took the new missionaries through those old historical cobblestone streets on the way to the, um, to the mission home. And, and the missionaries, uh, were fascinated by that. They just come off the plane and, you know, come from Arizona or Salt Lake, etc., and this is a whole different world. And, and I remember Elder Holland We'd be driving up these cobblestone streets that I, you know, I've been to Edinburgh before the mission, so I knew them a little bit. It wasn't new to me, but to the missionaries, it was a completely different experience, completely different world, all this history. And they were just in awe. They had jet lag and they were looking out the window, looking at all this history, this castle. You could see Edinburgh Castle at the top of the Royal Mile. And you drive down the back way through the streets, all these historical buildings. It's very different to Salt Lake or anything like it, Arizona or California. And you drive the back way to College Road, and it must have blown them away. It was a completely, you know, it was a young kid from America who with jet lag, never traveled outside of the US before, going through the streets of all streets of Scotland. That must have been amazing.

It was amazing. It felt like Mary Poppins. Which was filmed entirely in Burbank, California, but is really sort of my mental image of what the UK was like. And that, you know, you saw Edinburgh Castle and you saw just all this history and all that. I fell in love with it. And then I got my first area and it was Livingston, Livingston, Scotland. They called it a new town. And it was really, I mean, it was about 30 years old. It was just, it was a council flat development about 30 miles outside of Edinburgh. And it was a dump. It was just nothing but council housing for as far as the eye could see. And my first apartment, flat, if you will, is the Scottish term. Was kind of a dump. And I shared it with the zone leaders. My trainer was Elder Hansen, the zone leaders were Elder Brush and Elder Minor. And we shared this apartment. And I thought, oh gosh, really, this is how I'm going to live for the next 2 years? And I feel so sorry for Elder Hansen because I was such a pain in the butt as a greenie. Uh, you know, I had all this weird baggage. I, I wanted this dramatic story. I didn't want to be just sort of the run-of-the-mill guy, and I saw Elder Hansen as being the embodiment of everything I didn't want to be. And I was arrogant, I was obnoxious, and he could not have been more patient with me. And when he ended up being your companion as a zone leader in— wasn't he your companion?

In Venice, yes.

Zone leader. Venice, yeah. I was so grateful to see him in that context after I'd sort of outgrown my greeny issues, because I just can't imagine how difficult it must have been to have me sort of second-guessing him, to have me complaining. You know, it was just a hard thing to do. And one of the hardest things was that for the first— you had to certify when you got out there. Do you remember that process? You had to memorize the number of scriptures I think it was all the scriptures that were in all the discussions, and you had to have memorized word for word the first discussion. And I think— I'm not sure what else— oh, the, the SEM title of success.

I think you had to get about 530, you had to know the Holy Ghost dialogue, you had to memorize all the discussions, and you had to remember the, um, the SEM, uh, motto for success.

Yeah, which one? Which was really obnoxious. We, we— can you remember the SEM title of success?

Uh, no, no, I can't.

We, the missionaries, the Scotland Edinburgh Mission, are proud to belong.

That's it, that's it.

Uh, something something. Uh, there's a line about, you know, we yearn for people to find, teach, and baptize. They are all we think and talk about.

Memory is amazing.

We visualize success. And it was just all this jargon, really. I really hated the sentence about they're all we think and talk about because I was like, it made me feel guilty because they weren't all I thought and talked about. I would think and talk about other things. Sometimes I would think and talk about what I wanted for dinner.

You were so unrighteous.

But that's so unrighteous. That's so terrible according to the SEM title of success. But I broke a record because I hated getting up at 5:30 and I, I certified within 6 days and I was told that that was a record. And the APs came to certify me. That was the longest amount of time I ever spent one-on-one with Matt Holland. Who was the AP, and he certified me. And I remember him sitting on Elder Hansen's bed. I sat on my bed. We were in our— in my bedroom, and, and I rattled it all off, and he was very impressed because I had done this so quickly. And I thought, I just did this as a survival mode because I don't want to get up at 5:30. I want to sleep in until 6:30, which isn't sleeping in at all, of But, you know, I was sort of, I was there, I was kind of gung-ho. But one of the most memorable experiences in my greeny area from that first area, we were tracting, and I can even remember this guy's name. We got into this guy's house, his name was Mike Mason. And I remember that for a number of reasons, one being that my home teacher for years and years was named Mike Mason, and he was the father of Patrick Mason, who was a very prominent Mormon scholar. But, but we got into Mike Mason's house, and Mike Mason was about 25, newly married. Handsome, charming, just kind of— and I thought, wow, yeah, this is exactly the kind of guy that we want to help build the church. And he was an evangelical Christian, and he was very kind to us in our first meeting. He was never not kind to us, but he said— we bore testimony of the Book of Mormon and handed him a copy of the Book of Mormon. And, and I left that first discussion thinking, great, this is going to be our first convert. Because clearly, the Lord wants him in the church. Clearly, he's cool. And the church should have cool people in it. And Elder Hansen was a whole lot less. It's like, yeah, he's an evangelical. He's not going to go anywhere. Like, what are you talking about? He said he'd read and pray about the Book of Mormon. Of course he is. He's going to join the church. So we went back and he said, yes, I've read the parts you've asked me to read. He hadn't read the entire Book of Mormon. We would ask people to read 3 Nephi 11, I think was the scripture.

Yes, it was.

Yes. And I've read this. I prayed about it and it's not true. I've received an answer that it's not true. And, and I sat there going, I'm sure I can imagine what was going through Al Pantheon's brain, because I was like, oh wow, it's not? Oh, well, I don't know what to do. I mean, I, I felt like it's true, but if you received an answer that's not true, maybe it's not true. And Al Pantheon is just pulling his hair out like, what? What are you doing, you idiot? Don't say that. I don't— I don't— And Mike Mason looked at me and he said, you need to realize that this book that you've given me is getting in the way of your relationship with Jesus Christ. And if you were to abandon this book, you would open up a whole world of a relationship with Jesus Christ that you really want. And I sat there going, oh, crap. Well, Mike Mason's really cool. I should probably do that. I mean, I was practically on a plane home in my mind. I'm like, the church isn't true. This guy's proven it to me. And as we're walking home and Elder Hansen is in full damage control. Trying to figure out how to pick up the mess, clean up the mess from this. He told me this experience of, he's like, no, no, the church is true because I baptized somebody and then when I came out of the baptism, my garments were dry or something. And I'm like, what? What does that even mean? It's like the miracle of the dry garments. I can't remember the details of the story, but I just remember completely dismissing it. And I was just beside myself going, I can't go on. And I went home and I called President Banks. And President Banks said, I'll be there in 2 hours. You know, he was in Edinburgh. I'll be there. Can you wait for 2 hours? And I went, yeah, yeah. He was so responsive. And he showed up and we had a wonderful conversation. And he gave me a blessing. And I remember what that did for me was it said, look, I can't base my testimony or my faith on the coolest person who believes like I do, right? I thought, oh well, President Banks, clearly he's pretty cool. And he— but You know, so I mean, I'm not going to leave the church because Mike Mason is a cool guy who doesn't believe it's true. And so I realized in that instance that basing your testimony on anybody else is really kind of a stupid thing to do. And so I stayed in the field and I stayed and, you know, had long-term, I think, had a really positive experience. But I think short term, I'd say for the first 6 months of my mission, I was in a clinical depression. I mean, it wasn't a religious experience. I met my family, has dealt with depression. I have dealt with depression throughout my life. And now missions are sort of, you know, aware of that and deal with it. And people come home to be treated for depression. A number of people in my ward have come home and they thought there have been any worthiness issues. It's that they are depressed, they are mentally ill. And I think I was mentally ill. I'm confident of it. I mean, I had— I can remember the first baptism I went to. I was just so depressed and I was so down on myself. I was so— I'm not worthy to be here. I, what kind of person do I think I am? Who do I think I am that I should be telling this guy that he should be joining the Church? I'm a fraud. I'm an embarrassment. Uh, you know, I'm, that just was the constant mantra through my brain, uh, at least for the first 6 months of my mission. Uh, my, my second companion, Elder McMichael, I got along with him just fine, but, but, and he was really funny. And a lot of fun, but that depression was there. And I think it made it difficult for him. I just think I was a real problem for my senior companions. And I think the time it finally broke was, it was about, I was out about 7 months and I was assigned to Elder Romney, who you know quite well, Scott Romney. And he pointed out, because you talked about you had a companion, Elder Payah.

Yes.

And I said that Elder Romney's companion was Elder Payah, and he had never left the flat for the first 6 weeks of Elder Romney's mission. And Scott Romney has since— I'm correcting the record here. His companion was not Elder Payah. It was Elder Westerland. Westerland, yes. Who was also from New Zealand. So that's where I got him confused. But suddenly I was a senior companion and essentially a trainer because Elder Romney had never left the flat. And suddenly with that new degree of responsibility, it sort of snapped me out of the depression because suddenly I didn't have time to be depressed. I didn't have time to sort of be worried about myself. I was worried about Elder Romney. I was worried about, okay, I'm in charge of what we do as a companionship. And that, that really kind of dragged me out, I think, of the depression to some degree. I struggled with it for the rest of my mission. I was also pining for this girl for a good chunk of my mission, who ended up marrying somebody else from our mission. That's a big, long, messy story in and of itself., that I don't know that I want to get into the details of, but, uh, we should. Oh, we should.

Well, I'm joking.

There we go. I think I might get seen because I, because the things that I have to say probably aren't all that— I don't think she would like me saying them. But, uh, that's, that's another story altogether. But yeah, so the first 5 months of my mission are in Livingston, Scotland, in what I considered in my rich American mind to be just kind of a dump. And I was depressed. I, you know, cool people aren't joining the church. You know, I really struggled with that. And I left Livingston. I went to Dundee. I was with Chris Hiscock in Dundee. And then went down and was training Elder Romney. So, you know, my mission got off to sort of, I think, an inauspicious start. But as I sort of plowed through it, I learned a lot about myself that has very little to do with the Church, if that makes any sense. You know, I learning to live on your own, do your own laundry, cook your own meals, just plan your own day was something that I hadn't really done up to that point. I'd gone to school for a year, but I was in the dormitories where you go and you have a meal plan and they feed you and your class schedule is all laid out for you and everything else. And I look at missions really as a great opportunity for dumb kids to grow up. And I did a lot of growing up on my mission that I am grateful for. I think I could have done that in a whole bunch of different other circumstances. I don't think you necessarily have to do that in a mission environment. But I often look at kids who are 19, 20 years old and wonder how they grow up without that mission experience. So I consider that to be exceptionally valuable. But the thing that I carry with me more than anything else from that mission experience 35 years ago are the relationships. You know, I've been able to stay in touch with you, but I've been able to stay in touch with a lot of other fellow missionaries. Yeah. But the wonderful thing about Facebook and social media, when that sort of arrived on the scene, suddenly I found myself Facebook friends with people I never thought I'd have any contact with ever again, with people in Scotland that I hadn't seen or even thought about to a large degree. And now they're in my Facebook feed on a daily basis. And I think that's wonderful. It's really marvelous. I consider Scotland to be a huge part of my life, even though I haven't been there for 35 years. But I have such an affinity for, for that country, for that land, for that culture. You know, I follow it religiously in the news. When Scotland was, you know, going through the whole process of, um, the independence referendum I was following that more closely than I was following the presidential election. Scotland just means so much to me, and I can thank my mission experience for that. But I consider myself sort of a displaced Scotsman in America to some degree. I just feel such an affinity for it. And, and, and, you know, The mission experience really gives people that kind of an opportunity to embrace a culture that is not their own. And I don't know if you had that same kind of experience, because I think your culture in England wasn't necessarily all that different from your culture in Scotland.

Yeah, there's a lot of similarities. You know, the UK is a mixture of, you know, Scots and Irish and Northern Irish and English and Welsh, you know, mixed, you know, families. You know, my, my, on my family side, we Scottish and Welsh and Yorkshire. Um, on my wife's side, it's Welsh and Scottish. Uh, my son is born in Scotland. Um, so you have, you have those, um, interrelationships between, you know, Scots and, and the rest of the UK. That said, Scotland is distinct and unique in many, many ways in terms of its culture and its history compared to England. A lot of very significant differences politically, historically, and culturally, and the traditions are quite unique and quite distinct. People think Scotland's similar to England. It's not. It's very different in many, many ways. The people are different in many ways, certainly. And when I, you know, before I landed in the, in the mission home there, you know, I'd been in the MTC for 3 weeks. I'd had all this training, I was prepared. I think I mentioned I served in many missions. I was prepared in every way in terms of maturity spiritually. When I flew from London to Edinburgh after the MTC experience, I felt this is going to be a fantastic experience. It's going to be successful. I'm ready. I'm ready to serve in Scotland. And I, when I landed, I was excited. I was ready. I was on the same minibus as the 8, 9 other missionaries that had flown in from the United States. I was the only Brit that had come in. I had no jet lag. The other guys were experiencing some jet lag, etc. And there we were in the mission home the first day. President Joel J. Dunn was the mission president. A very sergeant major type character. And we all sat around that big table, uh, near the, near the kitchen there that Sister Banks used to prepare food. And we're all around the table, and President Dunn came in with a very big, you know, bellowing military regimental style, um, approach, and, uh, talked to us and said, you're here, and we you know, welcome, etc. It was, you know, very positive message, but very— I felt a few minutes in, I joined the army, felt I joined the military. And he said, he said a few things that I thought were interesting. He said, you, if you think you have a testimony, you don't have a testimony. You think you do, but you don't. I looked around all the missionaries, there may be 10 of us in the room. I think they were half asleep. I'm not sure if they were listening. But I put my hand up and said, President, I do have a testimony. And he went, what's your name? I said, Elder Wilkes. He went, Elder Wilkes, you do not have a testimony. You think you do, but you do not have a testimony. You will at the end of the 2 years. And I was pretty taken aback by that and actually quite shocked and thought privately— I won't share what I thought privately here, but his message didn't go down so well. I'm thinking, well, I'm not— you don't even know my story. You don't even know what I've, what I've experienced. You know, I've had, I've had some experiences. I think I do have a testimony, but whatever. And so it, you know, the first encounter with President Donald wasn't positive for me. I found him, um, he's a good man, great leader, but I found him very impersonal and very, uh, regimental. Bit too regimental for me. But I thought Okay, we've, you know, we've talked about the rules and being, being living with exactness, talked about certification, 530, didn't tolerate any slackers, I think he called it. If there was any major breaches, we get sent home. He also talked about some missions that he had sent on previously. It was more of a fear approach. I felt, you know, that The missionaries in the room there felt quite afraid, and I felt a little bit of that. My goodness me, this guy's, you know, there's zero tolerance for any, any mistakes. I thought, okay, I'm okay because I'm gonna live with exactness, so I'm all right. But if you live with exactness— and he went through, you know, each day you had to, uh, tick off— there was a very strict program of commitments that you had to do each day, and you had you had to tick them off. It was a, there was a spreadsheet, um, that with, with getting up on time, saying your prayers together as a companionship, saying your prayers personally, getting the shower, getting out the shower by a certain time, doing your companion inventory, doing your personal study, preparing for the day. Each day had structure, which I needed, by the way. I thought that was— I was okay with that. But you had to tick off and sign each day all the things that you you did. And then when you were out, you had to tick off, you know, you had a half an hour lunch. When you came back, you had to go through another set of checks and balances that you had to tick off. And, and you had to send them in, you had to give them in and send them in by, by post, I think, at the time. So this was very structured, very regimental, and there was a lot of written reporting that, that had to be done. And he talked to us about that on the first day. We were, we were in the empty— we're in the mission home for maybe, I think, one night. The missionaries who had the jet lag managed to catch up. And then the next day, what happens is, you know, all the, the other room that you, um, the mission president sits in, and you, um, meet all together with the new missionaries, the trainers. They come in and you don't know who you're going to be with. He talks about the training structure and the regiment around that. And you don't know where you're gonna go, you don't know which mission you're gonna be assigned to. And the president down there was going through all the names and, um, Eldon Mitchell, who came out with me, El Achini came out with me, you know these guys, and they, they were called to the front. And El Achini was gonna be called to so-and-so with, in this area with so-and-so. And then my name was called and I was gonna go to serve in Dumfries. With, uh, Elder, um, um, Elder Rockwell. Rockwell. And he had a reputation for working his mistress to death. He worked P-days. He worked— he got up earlier, went out earlier, got back to the apartment later. He was an absolute killer in terms of work ethic. And I was assigned to him. And I got a few looks in the room from the other trainers, and, uh, like they were feeling sorry for me. This missionary, great Elder Rock, was a great missionary, but the physical, uh, intensity had taken a toll on his mental health, and he had to take a month off, I think, during his mission to deal with some mental health-related issues. But Then he was back towards the last month of his mission, and President Dunn felt it appropriate to put him into a trainer situation. And, uh, it was, um, it was a difficult experience, I think, for him serving with me, for different reasons to probably your reasons, and a difficult experience, uh, for me. For example, we would be knocking on doors when we would certifying, by the way. So after you get up at 5:30, he suggested that I get up at 5 as a more— as an incentive. I said, okay, I'll do it. And opposite the apartment in Dumfries, Smith Place, there was a shop there, a bike shop, motorcycle shop, called, uh, I think it was Nif Speed, I think they called it. Um, sorry, Scott Speed. It was on this place, was called Scott Speed. And every day, every morning, early hours, 1 o'clock, the alarm would go off at Scott Speed motorcycle shop right opposite the flat. And it would wake me up, and I was so tired after contracting all day for 10 hours in the rain, being told to get lost by, um, you know, uh, by the folks there. And I would long to sleep, just get a few hours, and it would wake us up. And I remember 1, 2 o'clock in the morning, the phone, 'cause I slept on the floor with the mattress and he was on the bed. He had all the luxury side in his side of the flat, and I was the Judy company with bed on the bricks and no tinfoil on the roof to reflect the heat. And next to the window actually with all the draft coming in. And so I was so tired and so cold. I asked for extra blankets and finally got those. But in the middle of the night when the alarm went off, I remember picking up the phone and I was half asleep and I called the police and I said, please, please turn off the alarm. We keeps waking us up every night. I beg you to turn off the alarm. And they said, who is this? And said, oh, you know, Elder Wilkes, Mormon Mystery, opposite the Scottsby. It was like, What? I said, just turn off the freaking alarm, please. I actually swore in Elder Rockwood.

Did you use the F-bomb on your mission? Did I what? Did you use the F-bomb on your mission?

Yes, I did. So at 1 o'clock in the morning, remember, I'm a convert to the church. I'm not righteous like you, right? You have to understand, I'm not you. I'm not. I'm not, I'm not righteous.

I mean, there's no question.

I grew up in a neighborhood that swore a lot. My mom swore a lot. We all swore a lot. I'm not, I'm a convert.

I'm a very different, um, I, I used an F-bomb on my mission too, just so you know. And, but, but the difference may be that I felt unbelievably guilty about it for a very long time.

Anyway, my, we used to, I, I, that's okay. I grew up in a, a home and a neighborhood that swore. Everybody swore, right? And so I'm up after— look at the context. I'm half asleep. This is the 4th, 5th night in. It'd been going off every night. I was exhausted. I hated my mission. No one was interested. It rained all the time. I'd packed in a job. I had no job. I'd left a girl, left my job thinking, what the frick am I doing here, right? No one's interested. No one was interested in the church whatsoever. Uh, it was— there was zero interest. And the lad kept going off, and half asleep, I defaulted to how I was originally, and I told the police officer, um, to turn off the effing alarm. And I think I've made— made 2, 3 calls that week. Uh, eventually I think police went around and told Scott Speed to adjust the alarm, and they did. But it went off now and again, and it was an absolute source of frustration, and I absolutely hated it because it used to disrupt my sleep. We then get up at 5, you know, go through the discussions, pass them off pretty quickly— not 6 days like you, but within, within a couple of weeks. But I'll get a quick story with Elder Rockwood— not Rockwell, Rockwood. Um, he used to test me, and so we'd go out tracting all day. It would be 9:15, We'd have one of those Vauxhall Chevette cars, those old Vauxhall Chevette. Uh, it was a nickname called George. It would've been on the mission. It was a car that was falling to pieces. It was a 1985 Vauxhall Chevette and we used to drive. And then when we'd gone through our miles, we'd have to walk everywhere. But I remember one time we're knocking on these doors in Dumfries and it was cold, it was winter, it was raining. It had been just an absolutely awful day. This is in the first few days, first week or so. And he said, 'Elder Wilkes, should we track these next couple of doors or do you want to go back?' And I was like, 'Elder Rockwood, let's go back.' And he said, 'No.' He said, 'I was testing you for your faith and you failed. We'll do these extra two doors.' I said, 'Okay.' So we tracked the doors and then we would then run back 'cause we had to get back by 9:30. Enola Rockwood was an absolute stickler for exactness, right to the minute. We were in that apartment at 9:30, 9:29, back in the apartment. So we had to run, sprint back. And that sprint time would allow us to knock on 2 or 3 more doors. It'd do that a couple of times and I'd always fail. And I'd say, okay, let's go back. And he'd say no again. And then at one time I'm thinking, I'm young, I'm very fit. I'm at the beginning of a mission. I was very fit. He's exhausted, physically, mentally exhausted. And then I think a week in, I would say, well, Elder Rockwood, it's 9:10, 9:15. And some, some days he was absolutely exhausted. And he wanted to get back to the farm, and I could see that. And on those days, a few of those days, I, I regret doing this, but I did it. I said, look, you know, should we, uh, track these next 2, 3 doors? He said, no, we'll go back because we have some stuff to prepare. And I said, um, nope. I said, we'll track these 2, 3 doors and then we'll sprint back. In fact, let's do 4 doors and we'll sprint back as fast as we can and back to the apartment. I said, that's— I said, if you do that, then I will respect your faithfulness. Your obedience. And so I made him track those 3 or 4 doors. Again, I look back, I thought it was a very stupid thing to do on my part. And we ran back, I sprinted back, he couldn't keep up. And I said, come on, Rockwood, you got to keep up, we're going to be late. We're never late, we can't tell the president that we're late. And I absolutely burned the guy out back to the, uh, back to the apartment. We got back just in time. He never asked me again to, uh, track to the next few doors. But I, I did push him physically, and I did push him, I think, mentally. And, and sometimes I did it, uh, because I had so many questions. Other times I, I just thought we— like working on a P-day. President Dunn allowed the missionaries to work on a P-day, and Kelsey Acey, remember him, learned. I think Elder— one of the missionaries that you and I were over, well, his dad was a mission president. I think he wrote to his dad told him we were working on a P-day. I told him that the mission— the missionaries were working on a P-day. Carl CAC got wind and, and I think had a conversation with President Dunn about missionaries not working on a P-day because we were exhausted and we needed to slacken the bow. We needed that day off just to survive, to write home, to do a laundry, to relax, even to sleep for an hour. It was— and we didn't have that. And Rockwood was a stickler for working on the PD. So that month I was with him was brutal. It wasn't the best experience. He was a good man, was old Rockwood, but he was physically exhausted. But the mission— the first month was absolute hell for me. There was no success. I didn't know why I was out there. No one was interested. It's completely opposite to the MTC experience. I felt deceived and lied to, actually, at the MTC. There was not one experience that I had in the first month that was anything remotely like what we'd gone through in the MTC. And had a mission that was struggling physically and mentally. Uh, there was a mission present that was brutal in terms of regiment and structure. Having a meeting with President Dunn one-to-one was, was very different to an experience that I had with President Banks. It was a very different relationship. Again, it was like night and day. Dunn wanted to know that I was just living with exactness, ticking all the boxes, and following all the rules, which they're important, but there's no attempt to develop a relationship with me, which is really, really important, you know, in terms of mishrahs. And fast forward, by the way, I, I find it difficult to— when, when we go to the reunions there at Highland Drive in Salt Lake and President Dunn's there, President Banks there, it's, it's easier. I can put it this way, easier, far easier to go into the room with President because I just don't— I just didn't have that relationship with President Dunn. Um, I remember the first— real quick with Elder Hiscock— Elder Hiscock came out with me, Chris Hiscock, and he was losing his hair at the time. We've lost Chris, as you know, and it was— he had a profound impact on your life, in my life. It was the most amazing guy we ever met. And I remember you have a photograph taken with your mission president, as you know, at the front of the, uh, the mission there, you remember that. And Elder Hiscock was wearing a cap, and he— I remember very clearly President Dunn just grabbing this, this, um, this hat, this cap, and said, you know, I remember the, the words, you know, take that off your head, what are you wearing that for? And I remember Elder Hiscock's face looked so embarrassed, so uncomfortable, because he was conscious of his, you know, um, he was going through hair loss And being so young and experiencing that so young, he wanted to keep the hat on to keep some dignity. And the elder President Dunn just ripped the hat off and, um, you know, take that stupid hat off, you know, have you photographed. And I remember that very, very distinctly. I remember his look in his face, and I thought that was, um, that was a bit harsh. I think President Dunn was a great leader, uh, you know, a guy that needed to clean up You know, the stock debit mission, which he did, you know, execute all the rules, et cetera. But in terms of personal relationships, I think that was difficult for some missionaries, certainly for me. And then Banks came along and it was a completely different experience. In fact, thank goodness President Banks came in July '87. So yeah, there's a few of my, you know, thoughts, experiences on the first few weeks, if you like, which was You know, very difficult and just wondering what the heck have I, uh, heck have I done? But it did change. It, it, it got better after that.

Well, we're coming up on an hour, so I think that's a good place to stop.

Two part. Let's do this in two parts because you've got, there's probably two or three parts to this cuz you've got some amazing experiences, companions and different funny stories and sad stories.

All right. Yeah. Let's make this two or three episodes. There are many more stories to tell. We'll see you next time on Inside Out. Thank you very much, Ian.

Thank you, Jim Bennett.